Why Have I Been Writing More About Trauma Lately?

Anniversary Reactions, Healing, and the Bandwidth Perspective

Over the last couple of posts, you may have noticed that I’ve been writing more about trauma.

That’s probably not a coincidence.

I’ve realized I’m approaching the anniversary of a traumatic event that had a significant impact on my life. Even after doing a great deal of healing, I’ve noticed that this time of year naturally shifts where my attention goes.

Ironically, that’s exactly what trauma research would predict.

One of the biggest misconceptions about trauma recovery is the belief that once you’ve “processed” your trauma, you’ll never be triggered again. Many people worry that if an anniversary, smell, place, or memory brings up emotions years later, it means they’re back where they started.

Fortunately, that’s generally not how trauma recovery works.

What Are Anniversary Reactions?

Trauma researchers have long recognized what are often called anniversary reactions. These occur when reminders associated with a traumatic experience—including dates, seasons, holidays, locations, sounds, smells, or even subtle environmental cues—temporarily reactivate emotional, cognitive, and physiological responses connected to the original event (American Psychiatric Association, 2022; Herman, 2015).

Sometimes people recognize exactly why they’re feeling different.

Other times, they simply notice they’re more anxious, emotionally reactive, irritable, fatigued, distracted, or overwhelmed before realizing they’re approaching an anniversary connected to a significant event.

That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re moving backward.

It reflects how autobiographical memory, emotional learning, and the nervous system interact over time (Ehlers & Clark, 2000).

Our brains don’t simply store trauma as facts.

Emotionally significant experiences are encoded differently than ordinary memories. The body, emotions, and memory systems become linked in ways that can make reminders feel surprisingly immediate, even years later (van der Kolk, 2014).

Healing Doesn’t Mean Forgetting

One of the most hopeful things I’ve observed—both personally and professionally—is that healing changes our relationship with trauma.

For many people, anniversary reactions become less intense as healing progresses.

The memories may still exist.

The date may still matter.

You may even notice yourself thinking more about the event during that time of year.

But the emotional intensity often decreases.

Recovery tends to happen more quickly.

The nervous system becomes more flexible.

Healing isn’t necessarily about never being triggered again.

It’s about the trigger having less influence over your thoughts, emotions, physiology, and behavior than it once did.

That’s a very different goal.

Rather than trying to erase the past, healing allows the past to take its proper place in your story without continuously overwhelming the present.

Trauma Doesn’t Affect Everyone the Same Way

One observation I’ve increasingly made throughout my clinical career—and through my own lived experience—is that trauma rarely exists in isolation.

Two people can experience similar traumatic events and look very different afterward.

Likewise, the same person may respond differently to similar stressors at different points in life.

Why?

Because trauma interacts with everything else happening inside a person.

Research consistently demonstrates that chronic stress and trauma can influence executive functioning, attention, working memory, emotional regulation, sleep, physiological arousal, and decision-making (Arnsten, 2009; McEwen, 1998).

But people don’t all begin with the same neurological architecture or life circumstances.

Someone with ADHD may notice that executive functioning becomes less consistently accessible during periods of heightened stress.

An autistic individual may experience greater sensory overload, increased recovery needs, more persistent monotropic attention, communication difficulties, or autistic burnout.

Someone living with chronic illness may require significantly more recovery time.

Others may primarily notice changes in emotional regulation, memory, concentration, or sleep.

The underlying architecture differs.

The effects of trauma differ.

Yet trauma often increases the demands placed on the nervous system regardless of where someone starts.

The Bandwidth Perspective

One of the observations that eventually contributed to the development of my Bandwidth Model™ was recognizing that trauma is rarely the only variable affecting how someone functions.

From the perspective of the Bandwidth Model™, trauma is one of many interacting factors that can consume available bandwidth.

It interacts continuously with:

• neurodevelopmental architecture

• physical health

• sleep

• hormones

• sensory processing

• executive functioning

• environmental demands

• relationships

• cumulative stress

• opportunities for recovery

Rather than asking,

“What’s wrong with this person?”

I increasingly find myself asking,

“What is consuming this person’s bandwidth today?”

That question changes everything.

It shifts the conversation away from blame and toward understanding.

It acknowledges that capacity isn’t determined by a single diagnosis or life event.

Instead, it reflects the interaction of multiple systems occurring simultaneously.

Someone may have tremendous intellectual ability yet struggle to consistently access it when bandwidth is heavily taxed.

Someone else may appear calm externally while internally working extraordinarily hard simply to regulate their nervous system.

From this perspective, inconsistency isn’t necessarily evidence of laziness, lack of motivation, or poor character.

Sometimes it reflects fluctuations in available bandwidth.

Healing Is About Restoring Access

Another reason I find this perspective hopeful is that healing isn’t simply about reducing symptoms.

It’s also about restoring access.

As trauma heals, people often regain more consistent access to abilities that were always present but became harder to access under chronic stress.

Executive functioning becomes more reliable.

Emotional regulation becomes more flexible.

Recovery becomes faster.

Attention becomes easier to sustain.

Relationships often become less effortful.

Life begins requiring less energy simply to maintain equilibrium.

This doesn’t mean life becomes stress-free.

It means the nervous system develops greater flexibility.

And flexibility is one of the hallmarks of recovery.

Why I’m Sharing This

The reason I’ve been writing more about trauma lately isn’t because I’m struggling in ways I haven’t before.

It’s because I’ve recognized that I’m approaching the anniversary of a significant event in my own life.

Years ago, I probably wouldn’t have recognized why my thoughts were shifting.

Today, I do.

That awareness is, in many ways, evidence of healing.

The anniversary still matters.

The memories still exist.

But they no longer have the same influence they once did.

That understanding allows me to respond with curiosity instead of fear, compassion instead of shame, and awareness instead of self-judgment.

And I hope it offers encouragement to anyone who notices similar patterns in their own life.

Healing doesn’t necessarily mean your nervous system never remembers.

Sometimes it simply means that when it does, you understand what’s happening—and you know you’ll find your way back.

Darcy Stephens, LPCC

About the Bandwidth Model™

The Bandwidth Model™ is my original, evidence-informed conceptual framework for understanding how neurodevelopmental architecture, cumulative load, physiological state, processing demands, environmental fit, recovery, and executive access interact to influence day-to-day functioning. It synthesizes findings from multiple areas of research but has not yet been empirically evaluated as a standalone model. It is intended to complement—not replace—established diagnostic frameworks by offering an additional lens through which to understand fluctuations in human functioning.

References

American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.). American Psychiatric Association. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787

Arnsten, A. F. T. (2009). Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 410–422. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2648

Ehlers, A., & Clark, D. M. (2000). A cognitive model of posttraumatic stress disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 38(4), 319–345. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7967(99)00123-0

Herman, J. L. (2015). Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror (Rev. ed.). Basic Books.

McEwen, B. S. (1998). Protective and damaging effects of stress mediators. The New England Journal of Medicine, 338(3), 171–179. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM199801153380307

van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.

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