We All Have PTSD

(Francisco Moreno/Unsplash.com)

By Jeffrey A. Tucker
12/4/2023
Updated:
12/4/2023
0:00
Commentary
Two years ago, reports started appearing that compared the effects of lockdowns with post-
traumatic stress disorder. As it turns out, one of the symptoms of PTSD is forgetting what
happened. It’s an evolved trait that helps the human mind cope with terrible things. Our brains
are good at blocking it out. I will explain the neuroscience behind this in a bit but first an
anecdote from this morning.

I was speaking to the director of a children’s ‘choir and he was speaking about an age gap in his
singers. The lead singer just graduated high school, and the next oldest singer is 14, which
creates huge problems for the choral competence. I hesitated to do it but I finally just observed
that this 3-year gap fits exactly with the lockdown period, child masking, and Zoom school.

He began to speak about what it was like to train a choir on Zoom and then conduct masked
singers outdoors on winter nights. He recalled the attacks and the difficulties, and then his voice
trailed off.

“Actually I’ve blocked out that whole period of life from my memory. I won’t think about it
anymore. Anyway, I need to circulate a bit here but good seeing you.”

That was that.

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It got me curious about the relationship between selective memory and trauma. For a long time
now I’ve noticed that when this subject comes up, the response is either to quickly change the
subject, which is common, or dig deeper into what seems like a bit of catharsis. Some people
have so much to share, so many painful memories, so much shock and abuse to report, that once
they start they cannot stop talking.

This one comment from this one choir director got me suspecting that vast numbers of people
might be trying to forget it all. This is how the political debates manage to pretend like this never
happened, how the major media gets away with never bringing it up, and how people like Fauci
still get high speaking fees, and so on. It’s not just that they are no-good liars; too often it’s
because people really do want to forget.

This is how the number one most shared trauma of our lives is fading so fast into the national
and global consciousness.

It’s a well-known feature of child or spousal abuse. The memories are so terrible and grim that
the human mind develops the capacity for pretending like it never happened if only so that life
functioning can continue. This is fine but actually the trauma is still there and feeds other forms
of pathologies like substance abuse and attachment disorders and so on. The point of therapy is
to come to terms with the reality itself in the process of healing.

Some years ago, a theory developed to explain this and it was tested on mice. I’m going to quote
directly:
“Two amino acids, glutamate and GABA, are the yin and yang of the brain, directing its
emotional tides and controlling whether nerve cells are excited or inhibited (calm). Under normal
conditions the system is balanced. But when we are hyper-aroused and vigilant, glutamate
surges. Glutamate is also the primary chemical that helps store memories in our neuronal
networks in a way that they are easy to remember.

“GABA, on the other hand, calms us and helps us sleep, blocking the action of the excitable
glutamate. The most commonly used tranquilizing drug, benzodiazepine, activates GABA
receptors in our brains. There are two kinds of GABA receptors. One kind, synaptic GABA
receptors, works in tandem with glutamate receptors to balance the excitation of the brain in
response to external events such as stress.

“The other population, extra-synaptic GABA receptors, are independent agents. They ignore the
peppy glutamate. Instead, their job is internally focused, adjusting brain waves and mental states
according to the levels of internal chemicals, such as GABA, sex hormones and micro RNAs.
Extra-synaptic GABA receptors change the brain’s state to make us aroused, sleepy, alert,
sedated, inebriated or even psychotic. However, Northwestern scientists discovered another
critical role; these receptors also help encode memories of a fear-inducing event and then store
them away, hidden from consciousness.”

To test the theory, researchers infused the hippocampus of mice with gaboxadol, a drug that
stimulates extra-synaptic GABA receptors. The mice were put in a box and given an electric
shock. When the mice were returned to the same box the next day, they played with no memory
of what happened the last time they were there. However, when scientists put the mice back on
the drug and returned them to the box, they froze, fearfully anticipating another shock.

The lesson here is that “in response to traumatic stress, some individuals, instead of activating
the glutamate system to store memories, activate the extra-synaptic GABA system and form
inaccessible traumatic memories.”

Is this what has happened to humanity on a global scale, some kind of activation of our extra-
synaptic GABA systems to permit the formation of huge barriers around our trauma to make our
memory inaccessible? Perhaps.

At the time of Fauci’s strange deposition, I suspect that there was some brilliant madness behind
the claim that he could not remember. He said it hundreds of times, again and again on every
subject. It was strange, almost like he was training the rest of us to do the same, like some mad
scientist modeling the correct way to think about what happened to us. In his view, we shouldn’t
think about it at all.

We know we’ve been made the subject of some insane medical and political experiments. It’s
perhaps also true that we’ve been made the subject of some malicious psychological
experiments, like mice injected with drugs, put in a box, and then shocked. It’s like perhaps the
ordering was different: we were put in a box, shocked, and then given drugs.
In any case, it all does indeed feel like PTSD, and it affected no population cohort as
traumatically as it did the children. They are owed the truth about the trauma, however, and now.
We must have honesty about this. The lies have to stop. We should not tolerate them at all. And
the professional liars all need to be removed from their jobs immediately.

In our own lives, we really do need therapy that comes in the form of friendships, community,
and physical fellowship with each other. Sadly, the people who need it the most are least likely
to get it. I’m thinking of the many people who are still walking around masked up, fearing
getting next to others, and otherwise hiding out in their homes in a sense of terror that something
bad from the microbial kingdom is going to attack at any time.

The only people who benefit from our mass amnesia are the people who did this to us. We must
remember. We must discuss. We must seek justice.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views
of The Epoch Times.
Comments
Write a comment...
Top Two Comments:
jeb
2023-12-04

Agree.
I have lost the ability to trust anyone.
I have lost the ability to believe anyone.
This is my PTSD.

Reply
Share
American Woman
2023-12-04

The important thing to remember is that crimes against humanity were conducted for a mass
transfer of wealth and global control through digital ID and loss of Nationalism.
We are still at war against very evil forces who refuse to acknowledge their crimes.
It will be hard for people to forget as truth pours out like a flood and those who have defended
their abusers and jailers for over 3 years now, finally wake up.
Their rage will be interesting as liberals tend to act out violently when wronged.

Reply
Share

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Jeffrey A. Tucker
Author

Jeffrey A. Tucker is the founder and president of the Brownstone Institute, and the author of
many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press, as well as 10 books in five
languages, most recently “Liberty or Lockdown.” He is also the editor of The Best of Mises. He
writes a daily column on economics for The Epoch Times and speaks widely on the topics of
economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

website
Author’s Selected Articles
The Economic Sufferings of the Young

Dec 01, 2023

The Incredible Contribution of the Charitable Impulse

Nov 30, 2023

The Censorship Began Earlier and Went Further Than We Thought

Nov 29, 2023

Related Topics
PTSD
post-traumatic stress disorder
trauma
selective memory
Comments
Write a comment...
Top Two Comments:
jeb
2023-12-04

Agree.
I have lost the ability to trust anyone.
I have lost the ability to believe anyone.
This is my PTSD.

Reply
Share
American Woman
2023-12-04

The important thing to remember is that crimes against humanity were conducted for a mass
transfer of wealth and global control through digital ID and loss of Nationalism.
We are still at war against very evil forces who refuse to acknowledge their crimes.
It will be hard for people to forget as truth pours out like a flood and those who have defended
their abusers and jailers for over 3 years now, finally wake up.
Their rage will be interesting as liberals tend to act out violently when wronged.

Reply
Share

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