Trauma Analogies, Part 1: Regular Memory vs. Traumatic Memory

This post was written by Life Psych therapist Mike Rodgers, as part of a four-part series he authored on trauma.

Michael Rogers, LPC

August 2025

This is the first in a series of posts about how I view trauma. I give these analogies to clients when we begin talking about the healing of trauma in their lives. And I encourage them to begin to believe that trauma can be healed, not simply processed.

This analogy is not my own, but I heard it when I was at a Human Trafficking Conference in Toledo, Ohio back in 2010. It is dealing with regular memory and traumatic memory. After the analogy I’ve added my thoughts of what happens. 

Regular memory is stored in a known, retrievable “file” in the brain. I would love to talk more of this type of memory but I will save that for a later time. Traumatic memory, however, is quite different.

Trauma can not be processed by the brain in the normal way. It is as if the brain becomes a brick wall and the trauma is a sheet of glass. The trauma “shatters” as it hits the “wall” and shards fly everywhere. The more trauma, the more shards. This creates a “broken” recall of events. Because the trauma isn’t processed and “filed”, it begins to cause serious problems which people tend to try to shove deeper. This only causes more problems. Let me explain why.

Let’s imagine you have a shard of glass buried in the palm of your hand. If that shard or sliver of glass begins to pop out, the natural, and right, reaction is to pull it out, clean out the wound, and bandage it up so it can heal. We wouldn’t think of pushing it back into the hand. And yet, that is the very thing many have become accustomed to when traumatized. Many people would rather push the trauma back down when it comes up in flashbacks, nightmares, or is triggered by some event. The problem with this approach is that the wound never gets cleaned out and infection sets in. Infection reveals itself in a number of ways. Bitterness, anger, rage, and fear are simply a few. 

In order to truly heal the trauma, it is important to let the trauma come up in a safe environment, process the trauma, heal the trauma, and set it aside until we have all the pieces of it put back together. Only then can we view the entire trauma and place it in a safe file that won’t be unexpectedly triggered. This is what I do in counseling the people who come to me carrying brokenness of a trauma filled life.

Look for the second analogy, titled Trauma and the ER Doctor.