Tribulation [h.s]

03

"The world we knew
Won't come back
The time we've lost
I can't get back
The life we had
Won't be ours again"

-

"Get the hell out of here."

"Well, that's no way to treat your customers, Rosaline."  I cringe at the name. I hate it. I hate it; I hate it, I hate it. Especially when it's coming from his lips. Mason offers me a hesitant, thin-lipped smile from the tiny both he sits in. It's been a while since I've seen him — a little under a year, give or take. "In my defense, I didn't know you still worked here."

I cross my arms over my chest and shift my weight on my feet. Yes, he did. He even specifically asked for me. He just never stops lying, even after all of this time.  "Well, if you're not going to order anything, then I'm leaving-"

"Oh, no, I'll uh," he looks down quickly at the menu. "I'll take the chicken parm."

I stare at him for a long second before I reluctantly pull out my notepad and pen. I write down his order. "Anything else?" His blue eyes light up. I scoff. Just because I'm acting civil, I don't want him thinking that I actually want to be near him, that I actually want to sit down, have coffee, and what? Catch up?

Please.

"No. No, that should be good." He assures me.

"Good," I nod. "I'll be back later with your food-"

"Wait, wait, wait." He grabs my arm and stands suddenly, his legs hitting the small table. A piercing sound of silverware crashing together makes my body freeze.

It feels like a cold tide washes over me.

Sensation begins as signals generated by touch receptors in the skin. It travels along sensory nerves, which are essentially bundled up fibers connected to the spinal cord through neurons.

But what happens when touch is associated with fear?

The fear response begins specifically in the amygdala. The amygdala is a small set of nuclei located in the temporal lobe of the brain. The amygdala is responsible for detecting and gathering information. If something dangerous is detected and we feel fear, it activates the nervous system and jumpstarts our fight or flight response if necessary.

There's also a part of the brain called the hippocampus. It's responsible for learning, memory, and differentiating past and present events or experiences. Then, there's the prefrontal lobe. It's responsible for thinking, reasoning, and language. I guess you could say it helps regulate human emotion.

It gets a hell of a lot more complex than that, but essentially, the parts of the human brain that are responsible for fear and learning from past events can be controlled or reassured by another part of the brain that is responsible for thinking and reasoning.

But what happens to the brain with trauma?

In PTSD patients, the amygdala becomes overactive. The survivor can experience chronic stress disorders, heightened and more frequent fear, and irritability with an overactive amygdala.

The hippocampus can become physically damaged; less effective. Some memories become blurred while others become so vivid that survivors might start to relive traumatic events repeatedly. That's why triggers that remind survivors of their past trauma can cause fear, panic attacks, and stress. In severe cases, the survivor will no longer tell the difference between past trauma and current situations. In the prefrontal cortex, rationality is oftentimes overridden. It struggles to process emotions and to make decisions with clarity.