Why can't I just "get over it?"

 

This is about as easy as willing yourself to not blink when something gets too close to your eyes. Traumatic memory is stored differently than ordinary memory, and your rational, thinking brain parts would probably rather be in charge. But they're not the parts where the distressful stuff is stored--that's deeper in the brain and outside of conscious awareness, tucked away where your rational mind can't override them. And for good reason: they help ensure your survival.

Your brain isn't letting you forget what happened, because it wants to ensure that you have a faster, more efficient response the next time you encounter something similar.
So it makes sure you remember it. What would happen if you "forgot" that a stove is hot? Or that cars sometimes run into each other? You could get hurt, right?
So the brain errs on the side of caution and activates your nervous system at the slightest sign of anything even remotely similar to the original trauma. "Better to be safe than sorry" could be its slogan. But to the person, it
can be intrusive and feel out of control.

It's pretty tough to will your reflexes not to get you all charged up over nothing. That's because reflexes precede thought. Now it is possible to use rational thought to settle yourself back down, and lots of good therapies teach exactly this. But to actually change a life-preserving reflex from firing like crazy to being able to discern between
present safety and past danger before getting all cranked up is going to require more than "mind over matter."
Until your nervous system can detect that the coast is clear, it will continue hijacking your thoughts, your feelings, and how your body works.

If you're traumatized, your body's natural ability to detect threat has gone into overdrive. And it can be
incredibly creative in coping with trauma. Unfortunately, these adaptive responses on overdrive are often experienced as "symptoms ."