When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning It Was Friday Summary

When an individual undergoes trauma their brain is heavily impacted. Martha Stout presents this distinct connection in her essay “When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning It Was Friday,” by depicting different case studies, and the influence of the connection between physical trauma and the brain has on their personal character. Physical trauma being, sexual abuse and physical violence are depicted within Stout’s essay. The brain itself is connected to these examples of physical trauma, by allowing individuals to leave their reality and live life in a disconnected state. This disconnected state, Stout describes as “dissociation” (Stout 427). Stout explains her notion by, “Trauma can disrupt the memory in emotional ways” (Stout 426). In Oliver Sacks’

writing “The Mind’s Eye” the theme of trauma is also physical. However, it is depicted as sensory loss. Sack’s case studies, many left without their sense of sight, are forced to see the world in a different perspective. The discovery of this new perspective is achieved by the close connection of the brain trying to rewire itself after the traumatic event of losing sight. A traumatic event an individual faces will affect their brain, which will then entail a change in their overall character.
Individuals subconsciously find themselves in situations after physical traumatic events such as sexual assault and violent attacks.

Dissociation, a place many find themselves, is done subconsciously by an individual to escape from their current horrid reality. Stout explains, “In these ways the brain lays down the traumatic memories differently from the way it records its regular memories. Regular traumatic memories are formed through adequate hippocampal and cordial input” (Stout 421). The way a traumatic memory is recorded is vital for the individual. The hippocampus is responsible for the long term and short term memory consolidation, certain memories are allowed for modification and sealed from any outside control. Traumatic experiences are recorded as fragments in the brain whereas daily memories, or clear memories, are transcribed fully. After a traumatic experience, the brain allows the individual to suppress their emotions and move onward with life. The brain is able to undergo this process by dissociating. However, this suppression causes the painful memories to be fragmented, which leads to a change in the individual’s overall character. As Stout infers with her multiple case studies, this altering of character is expected. Julia, a summa cum laude from Stanford and

award winning producer of documentary films, can contest the suppression of traumatic events having an adverse effect on an individual’s personality. Julia was a bubbly female-adult. However, her personality was brought up as a concern after her multiple suicide attempts. Julia outgoing in nature was able to discuss most topics except the one of her childhood. She seemed to have difficulties remembering specifics about her youth, which led Stout to infer that Julia was abused as a child. Stout mentions, “Julia had lived in a house of horrors, with monsters jumping out at her…for no apparent reason…a sad little girl named Julia was helpless and could not escape; but psychologically, Julia’s self could go ‘somewhere else,’ could be psychologically absent for it” (Stout 426). Julia confined herself to being in this psychologically absent state, called the ‘somewhere else’. By placing herself here, her memories of the traumatic experiences she faced were fragmented and as she got older they became less and less vivid to her, causing her to have emotional pain but lose track of the source of her pain. When losing touch of the source of her pain, Julia released the grasp she held on her character causing her to recreate an alternative one. This recreation of character is how she became the little outgoing Julia to the suicidal one. The hiding of these painful emotions had implications. The emotions ate away at Julia and made her mentally unstable. The pain of Julia’s traumatic event acted like a parasite resting upon her like host, it fed off her emotional instability. Unfortunately, recording fragments is the way our brain perceives and records a traumatic memory. Inducing suppression of trauma does not allow for the pain to be dealt with immediately. However, the positive side suppression is that it does allow for the individual to take time to heal from the event that occurred. Although, the individual must acknowledge reality at some point, as well as their true character.
Sensory loss is something an individual usually has to face on their own. The traumatic event of sensory loss is not something many can sympathize with. The visual cortex is responsible for the sense of sight and with degeneration this sense can atrophy. Individuals who are involved with the traumatic experience of the loss of sight are forced to find other ways to go about their daily lives. Oliver Sacks calls this rewiring of the brain, “reallocation,” or the transforming of active parts of the brain to be put in use for a new purpose (330). Dennis Shulman, a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, gradually lost his sight during his teenage years and fully went blind during college. Shulman claims, “ I still live in a visual world after thirty-five years of blindness” (Sacks 336). He argues that he visualizes his wife and children using vivid imagery, although never actually seeing their faces through his own eyes. Proving that one does not have to be of sight to fall in love. That we as humans, rely on other senses to find attraction to others.A positive side of Shulman’s loss of sight is his ability to create mental images and memories with his wife and children by touch, smell, and hearing. Shulman does not feel his experience is anything like John Hull, a professor and religious educator in England. Hull claims his loss of sight left him in “deep blindness” (Sacks 329). This deep blindness has left Hull, who fully lost his sight at the age of forty-eight, from recalling the faces of his wife and children and even familiar landscapes he use to visit. Hull, however, on the brighter side, did feel a heightening in his other senses and accepted this along the traumatic rewiring of his brain. This experience of losing a major sense is difficult to endure. However, both men Sacks discusses see the lack of sight as an opportunity to enhance themselves as individuals. Both men’s character changes with their experience, Hull claims to be more of a “whole-body seer” where he looks at things with all of his senses, such as being one with nature and truly comprehending life rather than averting to judgment. Shulman visualizes what is occurring in the situation at hand rather than jumping to conclusions. Both men live happy and normal lives even though they were affected by sensory loss.
Individuals who have been affected by a traumatic event cannot choose how they want it to affect them personally.

However, they could notice changes in their character and desire to make changes within their inner self. With Julia for an example, she was blind to the abuse that happened to her as a little girl because her brain allowed her to subconsciously dissociate. Stout claims, “All human minds have the capacity to dissociate psychologically, though most of us unaware” (Stout 426). Julia was not aware of her dissociation at first. She was unaware that the horrors of her past were masked by her subconscious, so when she decides to undergo therapy for this she finds the news difficult. Julia could be considered blind to her dissociation. One of our five senses is touch. Unfortunately, Julia loses emotional touch with her true character due to the horrors she faced during her childhood. Placing Julia, Hull, and Shulman in a sensory loss category. Although, Shulman and Hull experience a typical sense of visual sensory loss, Julia’s experiences a loss of emotional touch with herself. Each case study had to re-learn how to become who they once were. Shulman and Hull decide to make the experience they undergo positive by learning all that being blind has to offer. The heightening of other senses, the rewiring of the brain, and being able to vividly visualize a person you have not encountered are a few things these men undergo. Julia however, is so out of touch with herself

because of dissociating from her abusive childhood, that she needed to seek therapeutic help to get her back to her old self. Her therapist, who is Stout, suggests hypnosis to allow her to regain her modified memories from her childhood and to get her out of this dissociative state, giving her a chance to reclaim who she once was. Undergoing a traumatic event is extremely difficult to handle, but the psychological aftermath that accompanies the experience can also be hard to maintain. Individuals who undergo difficult experiences often feel apart of a “grey fog” that causes them to feel alone (Sacks 333). This feeling of no longer being themselves after such a horrible experience, is like having everything and getting it stripped away in a matter of moments. This stripping can either leave individuals with a feeling of grayness, or it can be of enlightenment while embarking on a newly found perspective on life.
Trauma can occur and affect an individual in multiple ways. The feeling of being detached from one’s self because of an experience they endured is something he or she has to accept and discuss with an open mind. The conceptual idea that sexual abuse, physical violence, and sensory loss all can be categorized as traumatic experiences as well as having an effect on an individual’s character can be explained in both essays. Going through one of these events cannot only make life more challenging, but can make an individual clinically depressed. Forgetting your childhood, one of your major five sense, and/or losing touch with your emotions can cause an individual to spiral down a dangerous path. However, this downward spiral can be stopped by therapy and or self exploration to handle these events event. It is crucial to note that the brain has multiple occupations, and when it is forced to record certain events that has caused major alterations to one’s overall character, every individual handles trauma differently.