When people hear the word “trauma,” they often think of it as a mental or emotional issue — something psychological, something you should be able to “get over.” But that’s not how the brain works. Trauma doesn’t just live in your thoughts. The emotion of a traumatic event is stored in your body, and it shows up in your reactions.

To really understand what trauma does – and how therapies like ketamine, plant medicine, and somatic approaches can help – we have to look at two parts of the brain: the amygdala and the hippocampus. These two regions play key roles in how trauma is experienced, stored, and remembered – not just mentally, but physically.

Your Brain’s Emotional Center: The Amygdala

The amygdala is like your internal alarm system. It’s small, almond-shaped, and part of the limbic system – the emotional center of the brain. One of its key jobs is to detect danger and activate survival responses.

When you encounter something threatening – whether it’s real or simply feels that way – the amygdala kicks in immediately. It doesn’t pause to fact-check; it just reacts.

It scans for threats by surveilling the world around you, and when something feels off, it sets off the alarm. But the amygdala isn’t rational. It’s reactive. A tone of voice, a smell, or even a facial expression can trigger a response. These cues bypass logic and go straight to your body’s defense system.

That alarm sets off a cascade: heart racing, muscles tightening, shallow breathing. Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are released, preparing you to fight, flee, or freeze. This is your body’s built-in survival mechanism.

When someone has experienced trauma, this system can become hypersensitive. The amygdala starts responding to old triggers – stored energy from past trauma — even when the danger is no longer there. The body doesn’t recognize the threat is in the past. That’s why trauma survivors often say, “I know I’m safe, but it doesn’t feel that way.”

The Hippocampus: Your Brain’s Context Center

Next to the amygdala is the hippocampus – the brain’s timekeeper and organizer. Its role is to help you make sense of what’s happening. It says, “This was yesterday,” or “That was just a dream,” or “This isn’t happening anymore.”

It’s like a filing system for memory. The hippocampus stores events with context: when they happened, what they meant, and how they relate to other things. It turns experiences into coherent memories.

But under high stress – like during trauma – the hippocampus can get overwhelmed. High levels of cortisol interfere with its ability to do its job. As a result, the brain may store trauma in bits and pieces: sounds, sensations, smells. The full narrative often doesn’t make it into memory. You might not remember the event clearly, but your body will.

When the hippocampus can’t organize the memory, it also can’t tell the amygdala to stand down. So the emotional brain keeps firing while the rational brain can’t make sense of it. That’s how trauma keeps living in the body – disconnected from time, logic, and story.

Why Trauma Feels Physical — Because It Is

This is what we call somatic memory – the physical imprint of trauma. It doesn’t mean the body has memories in the same way the brain does, but the nervous system remembers. It holds on to patterns.

You might startle easily, shut down during conflict, avoid eye contact, or experience chronic symptoms like headaches, anxiety, stomach issues, or muscle pain. These aren’t random. They’re echoes. The body holds this energy until it’s processed. The reaction is your body’s way of saying: “Something needs attention.”

Your body doesn’t want to carry this weight. These signals are invitations – not symptoms to suppress but messages to listen to. Until trauma is integrated, the body continues reacting to threats that are no longer there.

This is why trauma can contribute to mental health struggles like PTSD, anxiety, and depression – because unresolved survival energy is still stuck in the system, looping silently beneath awareness.

What Helps the Body and Brain Heal

This is why trauma recovery can’t rely on talk therapy alone. Talking can be powerful, especially when it brings insight and understanding. But trauma lives deeper than words – in parts of the brain that don’t use language.

That’s where bottom-up approaches help. These are therapies that work through the body and nervous system, not just the mind. This is one reason ketamine-assisted therapy is effective. It opens access to subconscious patterns and stored emotion – creating a bridge between body-based experience and conscious awareness.

Trauma isn’t just a memory. It’s biology. And healing is not just about changing how you think – it’s about calming the alarm, reworking the filing system, and giving the body what it’s been asking for: safety, integration, and release.

It is possible. And it begins with understanding what your brain and body have been doing all along: trying to keep you alive.

To learn how Ketamine Therapy can help you, please contact us at (603) 404-8705 today, for your Confidential Consultation.