The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma and Adversity—A Transformative Guide to Understanding Childhood Trauma and Health

by Nadine Burke Harris

the stress response can do its job a little too well sometimes. This happens when the response to stimuli goes from adaptive and lifesaving to maladaptive and health-damaging. For example, almost everyone knows that soldiers sometimes come back from the front lines with posttraumatic stress disorder. This condition is an extreme example of the body remembering too much. With PTSD, the stress response repeatedly confuses current stimuli with the past in such a dramatic way that it becomes hard for these vets to live in the present. Whether it’s a B-52 bomber in the sky or a commercial airliner overhead taking tourists to Hawaii, their bodies feel the same—in mortal danger. The problem with PTSD is that it becomes entrenched; the stress response is caught in the past, stuck on repeat.