The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture

by Gabor Maté

it isn’t true that we don’t remember. Our memories show up every day in our relationship to ourselves and others, if we only know how to recognize them. Every time we are triggered—which is to say, caught up suddenly in an unwanted, puzzlingly overwrought emotional reaction—that is the past showing up: an echo of our childhood as we actually experienced it, if not how we consciously recall it. There are ways to retrieve such encoded memories by using present-moment emotions and body experiences to find their origins.[*] The word “trigger” is itself a major clue. It has become something of a rhetorical cannonball, hurled back and forth by opposite sides in many a debate or confrontation, rarely deepening conversations and often ending them. Yet, on closer examination, it has much to teach us about ourselves. Consider: How big a part of a weapon is the trigger? Minuscule, really; perhaps the smallest visible component. The weapon also bears ammunition, explosive material, often a guidance system, and mechanisms for delivering the payload to its target with the desired force. If, when triggered, we focus our ire only on the external stimuli that set us off, we miss a golden opportunity to examine what ammunition and explosive charges we ourselves have been packing since childhood.