OCT Bradley Owen Southwell
Picture a single domino wobbling in a sea of dominoes inside my mind. A traumatic event triggers an emotional reaction that knocks it over, crashing into two more dominoes. They each create two thoughts that trigger two more emotions that knock down two more. One hundred milliseconds later, the area of my mammalian brain responsible for habits and emotions known as the amygdala detects fear and signals my nervous system to initiate fight-or-flight, unleashing a tsunami of ruminating thoughts, feelings, stories, beliefs, and behaviours. Survival patterns that may have helped my ancestors avoid becoming a T-Rex’s snack but that wipe out any chance of living a happy or healthy life in the digital age. That subconscious process is known as the trauma response, and trauma-informed professionals believe we spend up to seventy percent of our lives suffering from the stress it can cause. I was caught in a similar loop for decades that caused three chronic illnesses. I’ll combine my story with emerging theories and current science to teach the reader about trauma and how to use self-awareness and emotional regulation to manage it. I’ll explore the science of meditation, the neuroscience of addictive substances, the teenage warning signs that I was slipping, the lesser-known tools and techniques I found that eased depression and anxiety, and the little steps I used to change my habits and systems that turned my life around.
