The resurfacing phenomenon can manifest itself in various ways.
Acute post traumatic stress disorder: In this condition, a person suddenly re-experiences various recently or remotely buried traumatic memories, say, rape, and suffers serious recurrent stress symptoms. Invariably there is a clearly identified current triggering event.
The soda bottle is fizzing furiously and the balloon has popped. Flashbacks, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, extreme withdrawal, etc. are common. A 25 year old single woman became very sick after an older man pulled the strap of her bra at a party. A few years earlier she had been traumatized by an serious attempted rape by another man. She had buried emotions related to that event. The current bad event shook her soda bottle and buried emotions fizzed up. As a way of coping with the tremendous pressure in her balloon, she became mute, bedridden and non-responsive for several days.
Chronic post traumatic stress disorder: Resurfacing of emotions does not have to happen suddenly as noted in the above case. For example, one might chronically suffer from numerous stress symptoms as a result of resurfacing of one’s prolonged traumatic childhood memories and emotions merely by watching one’s own children grow up. I have known many a parent suffering multitude of low grade symptoms such as depression, anxiety, headaches, sleeplessness, and the like in this manner, perpetually wondering what is happening to him/her. As the child reaches a certain age, the parent would relive the trauma he/she suffered at that age.
Chronic post traumatic stress disorder is common in people with rough childhood as well as people who have suffered sustained periods of high level of stress such as serious combat. Soldiers required to bury their terror under fire often suffer from chronic post traumatic stress disorder upon their return to civilian life. Even the noise of a fire cracker, of a helicopter or gun shot is enough to bring on serious stress symptoms. In these people, the balloon inflates every time the fizz from the soda bottle comes up.
The fallout from chronic post traumatic stress disorder could be devastating to the family members living with the patient. A young man witnessed deaths of several friends in Viet Nam and was himself injured. Upon his return home, he suffered from chronic posttraumatic stress disorder. He became increasing hostile, violent, hateful, irritable and abusive of his wife and seven children. He refused to get help. Years later, due to the sustained nature of the stress of living with him, his wife and all seven children developed serious psychiatric disorders: major depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, panic disorder, bulimia, etc. Several of them attempted suicide.
Therapy-induced resurfacing: Many patients get much worse immediately after starting therapy with inexperienced therapists, and end up being hospitalized. This is because aggressive and indiscriminate probing by the therapist caused buried painful emotions to resurface suddenly. Asking a question in the very first session, ‘Tell me everything you remember about sexual molestation by your uncle when you were eight-year-old,’ could be devastating to some patients. In effect, the therapist shook up the soda bottle too vigorously and the patient’s balloon, already full, popped due to the surging fizz from the soda bottle.
Hypnosis: In hypnosis, the therapist puts the patient into a deep state of relaxation, opens the lid of his bottle, reaches deep into it, and brings out memories buried there long ago. Hypnotic suggestion is a process by which the hypnotist plants an idea or thought in the bottle which changes patient’s behavior accordingly. Quitting smoking by hypnosis is an example.
Resurfacing of emotions, good or bad, from remote past could be triggered by just a sound, a word, a smell, a touch, a sight, a gesture, a smile or frown, a look, a glance, a taste, a season, a cloud, a dog, a cat, a T. V. show, or for that matter any object that is even remotely connected to the past good or bad event. The person might not have a clue why old memories resurfaced. These people often make comments such as, ‘ I don’t know why, I felt sad all day yesterday.
Nothing happened to make me feel that way.’ Or, ‘All of a sudden I felt happy this morning. Nothing happened to make me feel so.’ A patient dropped out of treatment for three years after I made a casual remark to her in the course of therapy, ‘Trust me.’ This was what her uncle had told her repeatedly before molesting her when she was a child. It is the job of the counselor to teach patients to become increasingly aware of the connection between a current sensory input and appearance of a stress symptom.
Anniversary reaction: In the so-called anniversary reaction, one suffers from severe stress symptoms on the anniversary of a bad event, say, death of a child. Clearly, this is caused by resurfacing buried emotions. Holiday blues are often due to resurfacing emotions related to bad childhood memories around Christmas time.
Borderline personality disorder: In a serious psychiatric disorder known as borderline personality disorder, the patient experiences wild mood swings, frequent panic attacks, angry outbursts, inability to get along with others, seeking closeness and rejecting it, and many other highly uncomfortable symptoms. These people have been through serious stressful events and situations in their childhood in addition to emotional deprivation. In a person with this disorder, his balloon is always full and it gets continual blasts of fizz from the soda bottle triggered by even minor everyday events.
In other words, their capacity to hold down fizz in the bottle is almost nil due to the tremendous pressure in the bottle. A borderline patient called me shortly after she left my office threatening suicide by jumping off the bridge on the Mississippi. She was in a good mood when she left my office a few minutes earlier. When I asked her what happened between our meeting and her phone call, she was not able to explain. Suddenly it occurred to me that just as she was leaving my office, I had been distracted by a phone call, and had failed to shake hands with her before she left. This apparent ‘rejection’ triggered resurfacing of all past rejections resulting in her balloon going up instantly. When I apologized to her for not shaking hands with her before she left, she calmed down. I used this opportunity to give her some insight into this matter.