By Mere Existence
Some people, by their mere existence, are pain to me.
They are fear.
I now know that the acts I once feared can no longer truly be done to me.
I have grown—mentally and physically—far beyond who I was then.
And yet, the fear and the pain remain.
Some people can hurt others without saying a single word.
Without committing any visible act of violence, their very existence becomes violence.
We do not store experiences only as thoughts.
We also store them as sensations, emotions, and reflexive reactions.
Traumatic experiences—shocks intense enough to threaten one’s life—are deeply imprinted in the implicit memory system.
According to Joseph LeDoux, the amygdala triggers fear responses faster than logic can intervene.
Even when I logically know that this person is not harming me now, my amygdala senses fear faster than reasoning can correct it.
Perhaps this is the evolutionary consequence of a system designed to ensure rapid escape and survival in threatening situations.
When Prediction Fails
Sometimes it happens because danger is unpredictable—or because it has become too predictable.
My brain knows that I am safe now.
But if past predictions once failed—if situations that were judged safe turned out to be dangerous—the brain may abandon the very act of predicting safety toward certain targets.
Remaining in a chronic state of vigilance is judged as “safer” than trusting again.
Conversely, if a person’s behavior has been consistently threatening and chronically violent, the person themselves becomes the object of fear.
This is the core of trauma: fear becomes conditioned to a person.
Their violent actions and words become synonymous with their very being.
Why Some People Become “That Kind of Existence”
Complex trauma arises from repeated, prolonged, relationship-based trauma.
When one individual remains, over a long period, both the source and the medium of trauma, their very existence becomes encoded in the brain as a traumatic stimulus.
According to Judith Herman (Trauma and Recovery), repeated trauma reshapes the internalized structures of the self and destabilizes the most basic sense of safety.
Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score) explains that relational trauma locks the brain and nervous system into a chronic state of hypervigilance—and that a person themselves can become the trigger.
In such cases, the traumatic object and the trigger are no longer distinguishable.
Simply encountering that person or sharing the same space can trigger retraumatization.
The Nervous System Remembers Without Context
Neurologically, traumatic memory is stored without contextualization.
It is recorded in sensory form, stripped of temporal and logical framing.
A person’s presence, tone of voice, movements, even their smell or their silence can stimulate the autonomic nervous system (ANS).
These reactions are not logical. They are automatic.
According to Polyvagal Theory (Stephen Porges), when threat is detected in social contexts, mere presence can paralyze or overexcite the parasympathetic nervous system.
Conflicted Attachments
From the perspective of attachment theory, that person can sometimes be one’s parent.
When a parent becomes a source of fear rather than a base of psychological safety, the attachment figure itself becomes the threat.
When a primary caregiver is inconsistent or threatening, children internalize contradictory signals:
“I must depend on this person” and “I must escape this person.”
This internal conflict forms what is known as disorganized attachment.
Because the trauma object is also the trigger, the individual may neither fully avoid nor safely approach them—especially when they are family.
This becomes the very core of trauma that obstructs recovery in PTSD and CPTSD.
Even By Mere Presence
Simply being in the same space can overwhelm the body with extreme stress.
In those moments, abdominal pain, diarrhea, or a sensation of indigestion may appear.
Fear and stress activate the fight-or-flight response, suppressing the parasympathetic nervous system and activating the sympathetic nervous system.
The sympathetic system halts non-essential survival functions such as digestion.
Blood flow to the stomach and intestines decreases, impairing digestion and causing cramps, diarrhea, or bloating.
Intestinal movement becomes irregular—either excessively rapid (diarrhea) or delayed (constipation).
The Gut–Brain Axis
The gut contains more neurons than any part of the body except the brain itself—the enteric nervous system.
It is extremely sensitive to stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline.
Emotional responses from the brain directly influence gut motility and secretion.
The gut–brain axis operates bidirectionally.
Stress disrupts gut function, and gut instability intensifies emotional distress—forming a vicious cycle.
From an evolutionary perspective, rapid expulsion of bodily contents during life-threatening situations is adaptive.
Trauma triggers can evoke the same life-threatening fear even in the absence of real danger.
The body attempts to lighten itself for escape, leading to diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting.
This is not unique to CPTSD.
When the Body Is Weaker Than the Mind
People often tell those with mental illness to “overcome it with willpower.”
But with moderate to severe symptoms, this is impossible.
I am already mentally strong.
But my body is weaker than my mind.
While my mind endures stress, my body collapses under it.
My body reacted first—without words.
A physiological rejection of existence itself.
Even now, when contact with that person occurs, my mind endures—but my body does not.
I move in and out of restrooms.
Everything I eat quickly becomes indigestion.
It is not the food.
It is emotion—undigested, unresolved—still remaining inside me.
Leave a Reply