Does Trauma Cause Memory Loss?

Can Traumatic Events Lead to Memory-Loss Related Issues?

Trauma can cause chemical imbalances in the brain and affect its structure and functionality. One of the various ways trauma impacts the nervous system is through memory loss. It is the brain’s defense mechanism to protect against remembering or re-experiencing the traumatic event. The hippocampus, the memory center responsible for creating and recalling memories, triggers this memory loss.

Highly stressful events can leave psychological trauma scars that take time to heal. This trauma manifests in various physical and psychological symptoms. Apart from memory loss, trauma can also induce stress that eventually leads to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Trauma-induced memory loss is often accompanied by severe anxiety.

Trauma-focused therapy can reverse these effects in some instances. The Icarus Recovery Center has highly qualified medical and mental health professionals who tailor care to address your specific memory loss issues. They pay close attention to distressing experiences that may have contributed to your memory loss. Read on to find out how a traumatic event can affect memory and the answer to the question: does trauma cause memory loss?

The Connection Between Trauma and Memory Loss

Trauma is your body’s emotional response to a disturbing or stressful event. These traumas can range from something as minor as a relationship problem, money problems, job-related stress, or moving to a new neighborhood, to something as significant as experiencing natural disasters, sudden loss, assault or violence, major accidents, war or combat, or a fatal illness.

The psychological effects of trauma vary from person to person. However, most disrupt cognitive functions, such as memory.

Ways Trauma Impacts Memory in the Brain

There are various theories about how memory is processed. A 2017 literature review divides implicit and explicit memory into three main categories:

• Sensory memory
• Short-term memory
• Long-term memory

Each of these categories is further divided into more specific subcategories of memory, which include:

• Procedural memory: Knowing how to do things, like riding a bike or tying shoelaces, without thinking about it.
• Emotional memory: Recalling how you felt during an event
• Semantic memory: Knowing facts and general information
• Episodic memory: Remembering specific events and experiences

Traumatic stress can impact different types of memory in the following ways:

• Semantic memory: Trouble connecting ideas or words
• Episodic memory: Disjointed memories of events
• Emotional memory: Overreacting with fear to unrelated things
• Procedural memory: Changes in habits due to fear

Types of Memory Loss Caused by Trauma

What’s painful for you might not be as significant for someone else. As a result, the distressing events that lead to memory loss can vary greatly from person to person. However, not all traumas result in memory loss. Several factors determine how a stressful experience affects your brain, including:

• How were you feeling mentally when the event happened
• The support you got right after the event
• How well you could handle emotions when the event happened
• How intense and long-lasting the event was

Here are different forms of memory loss caused by trauma:

Dissociative Amnesia

Dissociative amnesia causes you to experience gaps in memory related to a traumatic event. Although this memory loss is a coping mechanism the brain develops in response to a distressing event, it can also lead to memory difficulties that affect your ability to perform normal day-to-day functions.

The earlier you recognize the signs of trauma related memory loss, the easier it is to treat and manage the symptoms. If you or a loved one is experiencing memory loss, consult a professional for help. They can provide a proper diagnosis and guidance. This diagnosis typically involves neuropsychological testing and a clinical interview to confirm the condition.

The duration of dissociative amnesia symptoms can vary from person to person. Symptoms may last anywhere from a few hours to several years. Ongoing or more severe childhood trauma is often associated with long-term memory loss and an increased risk of developing related disorders.

Types of Dissociative Amnesia

Dissociative amnesia occurs in two ways:

• Retrograde amnesia: In this condition, you can’t access memories that you already have. It’s as if your brain can’t locate a specific memory, even though it’s stored there.
• Anterograde amnesia: This is a condition where you’re unable to form new memories. It’s like your brain can’t record new information, so you can’t recall things that just happened.

Dissociative amnesia affects around 1.8% of people each year worldwide, and it can also be a symptom associated with posttraumatic stress disorder.

Memory Loss and PTSD

When discussing past trauma and memory loss, PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder is the term that usually comes to mind. It is a trauma-induced mental condition linked to symptoms like nightmares and flashbacks.

Although PTSD may lead to memory loss, it is worth noting that not every traumatic stressor causes PTSD. Also, you can’t link every trauma-induced memory loss to the disorder. It is a complex symptom that can be caused by several mental health issues.

Pattern Separation

Pattern separation is your brain’s ability to differentiate between similar experiences. For example, you may have visited your grandparents’ house multiple times during holidays, but you can still recall each visit distinctly, even though they shared many similar moments and traditions.

Sometimes, traumatic stress affects your brain’s ability to distinguish between patterns. As a result, trauma-induced anxiety can cause you to develop an overgeneralized stress response to things that remind you of a traumatic memory.

Although it’s not complete memory loss, it can feel like one, especially when combined with intrusive memories from the past. That’s because your response to similar stimuli becomes vague rather than specific.

Repression

Your brain sometimes represses your traumatic memories to shield you from emotional turmoil. This concept is a highly disputed one in psychology. According to the original psychoanalytic theory, Traumatic experiences can cause people to forget what happened completely.

This theory caused early psychoanalytic experts to focus on recovering patients’ lost memories. However, in many cases, it led them to recall the childhood trauma that never happened. Most of these memories were rather formed by therapy-guided suggestions.

The complete memory repression theory has now been disregarded. Research has shown that people still remember some part of the traumatic event even though they may not recall every detail due to impaired memory.

Trauma Denial

Sometimes, your brain uses denial as a defense mechanism against traumatic memories. According to 2018 research, this powerful response to trauma can block distressing and undesirable memories. In this case, your memories aren’t completely gone. Instead, the victim’s denial undermines the reliability of the traumatic memory. This form of defense mechanism is also known as “denial-induced forgetting.”

This means the working memory is still there, but your brain doesn’t deem it important, or you’re unsure how it happened.

Is Traumatic Memory Loss Treatable?

The right treatment approach can help you overcome trauma, which can eventually treat trauma-induced memory loss and mitigate its negative impact. If you feel that your or a loved one’s working memory has been affected by a traumatic event, seeking professional mental health support is important.

Icarus Recovery Center in New Mexico provides comprehensive care, assessing and treating underlying causes of issues like memory loss, stress disorder and psychological trauma, with accredited detox and outpatient services.

Therapies that can aid in healing from traumatic memory loss and related symptoms include:

• Prolonged Exposure (PE) therapy
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

Heal from Trauma and Improve Memory Processing with Icarus Recovery Center

Therapy may sometimes cause painful memories to resurface, but working with a mental health expert allows you to process them safely.

Your mental healthcare provider at Icarus Recovery Center in New Mexico will discuss several treatment options with you. They will assess your condition through clinical interviews and neuropsychological testing to determine if recalling details of the event is the best approach. In some cases, focusing on healing emotional pain may be the most effective way forward.

Contact Icarus Recovery Center today to improve memory processing and functioning.