Memory Formation During Trauma

Most of our memory is explicit memory. Its a memory of how the mind thinks of the event. It has a time stamp associated with it.

But traumatic memories are not like this - they are implicit memory. When in a traumatic event, our hippocampus cannot make memories properly. It stores the memory as what the body feels - rather than what the brain thinks. These kinds of memories do not have a valid timestamp. So it might feel like we are reliving those memories when it get triggered

When triggered its helpful to think of this as not your 'real' emotion - but a emotional memory. IFS has a useful way of thinking of these as parts of yourself rather than your whole self.