Dr. Don Wood explains trauma as a movie that keeps playing in your subconscious after the event ends. Your brain gets stuck replaying it, which causes sleep problems and other symptoms. Recovery means turning that movie off.
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This is the simplest explanation of trauma you'll hear today. Have you ever watched a TV show or watched a movie and then had trouble falling asleep? Why? It's over. The TV show's over. The movie's over. Why do you have trouble falling asleep? It's because your mind is still processing what you just experienced and learned. Your mind is continuing to run that data. So that's what trauma really is. It's information like a movie that keeps running. It never turns off. So as long as that movie or that TV show is running constantly in your background, in your subconscious, that's what trauma is. You have to reset it. You have to turn it off, and that's the only way you don't forget it. But you're not going to constantly have it running in the background.