By Linda Tate, July 25, 2019, Tillamook County Pioneer
Linda Tate, Communications Director, Northwest Osteopathic Foundation
This week, we are going to examine the concept of trauma. What it is, what causes it, and how it informs our behaviors.
This week, we are going to examine the concept of trauma. What it is, what causes it, and how it informs our behaviors.
The year was 1990. The last sound I heard was what I perceived to be an explosion (it was actually a semi truck hitting the car behind me). The next five years were filled with all the things that go along with a traumatic brain injury. My job was to recover. Nothing more. The day I called social security and informed them that I had a job and would no longer be needing their services was the day my life began again.
It’s been almost 30 years, and I still startle when I hear an unexpected loud noise. Two box cars banging together on a train track can send me to the floor of my car, “waking up” two hours later, unaware of what just happened. Fireworks after the 4th of July, on a hot August night, can cause me to sit up in bed, heart racing, sleep out of the question for hours, my brain unable to untangle the idea that fireworks don’t just happen on the 4th.
So if I recovered from my brain injury, and have resumed a good life, why do these things keep happening? One word. Trauma.
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