#Close off second front door how to

They still think about it a lot, they have some anxiety. But our studies show that even among women who’ve experienced sexual violence, less than a third have PTSD. When it becomes a problem is if it interferes with your life, which is what happens when you have PTSD. It’s totally normal to have some fear and anxiety and all kinds of trauma-related symptoms after something bad happens, and to some extent, that’s a healthy response.

#Close off second front door how to

Of course we have to remember things, good and bad, so we can learn how to get more good things, and avoid bad things. I was just lecturing some of my students about this yesterday. I think a lot of times we think of those sorts of behaviors as paranoid or irrational, but it sounds like you’re saying they’re an example of successful evolutionary adaptation. Memories are made for us so we can survive in the future. I just feel safer that way, because I had that experience. I had an experience when I was younger, in my 20s - I wasn’t assaulted, but someone broke into my house. So in general, when you encode something bad that happens, you take that memory with you in your brain into the future so you can avoid things like that. I think some people have these idealistic, romantic ideas of memory - it’s to help me remember my grandmother baking cookies or something, which is fine, but the value of memories is that we use them to prepare ourselves for similar things that could happen in the future. It’s important to understand that memories are made for us so we can survive in the future. But there are some commonalities in how people, men and women, respond to trauma, or stressful life events. There are a lot of individual differences in how people respond, and the events themselves, of course, differ tremendously. Tracey Shors, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at Rutgers University who specializes in the study of stress, memory, and the lasting impact of teenage sexual assault, explained the evolutionary logic behind that second door, and other measures women take to assert some sense of control in the wake of trauma.Ĭan you explain the psychological reasoning behind something like the second door, or whatever form of habitual self-protection method a survivor might practice after a traumatic event?Įveryone’s different. Ford insisted on installing a second front door, wanting a second escape route in the event of an emergency. Christine Blasey Ford testified against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, giving her recollections in heartbreaking detail of how he sexually assaulted her as a teenager, she relayed a detail that spoke to the lasting impact of her trauma: as an adult, while renovating the house she shared with her husband, Dr.