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Two years ago, I had a scary experience with someone in a building. Afaik it didn't leave me with any lasting trauma, I can think directly about the experience and the person without flinching away... but I still flinch when thinking about the *building*. Why?

Aella

@Aella_Girl

When I imagine going to the building where it happened, I feel a bit tense and would really prefer not to do that. But when I run through the entire scary experience itself, my body feels pretty relaxed and fine. Does anybody have weird location-specific aversion at all?

10:43 PM · Mar 21, 2021

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Yep! The amygdala is very responsive to context.

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Memories are weirdly tied to location. Can imagine all sorts of plausible evolutionary reasons. Not an aversion but sometimes when I go to specific locations I remember the exact part of a podcast I was listening to last time I was there.

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I did. A decade ago I was assaulted in the city,then later on that same night ran into the guy who assaulted me, but in my _town_. I ran into him & his friends that 2nd time on a very dark street. Barely managed to bike away while he ran after me. I avoided that street for years.

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Yep. I got beaten up in a bus interchange 35 years ago. Still feel a twinge of aversion and danger when I go there. Reflecting on this, what I should do is manufacture a new, positive experience in the same space

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Whoa yes. Post-breakup, I’m still good friends with my ex and see him socially. But I have an aversion to his apartment building: low-key dread and revulsion when I think about going inside.

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Maybe related cognitively, I've always been surprised at the strength of the positive feelings I get looking at my lit-up home from outside in the dark. Similarly to looking down from a particular perspective into a cozy valley.

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PTSD isn't logical. Your trauma is probably associated with the location and the possibility of a future occurrence, not the memory of the previous experience you survived.

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I cut my thumb on a table saw... the click as the blade hit my bone. it took me a few years before I could turn on the saw and use it... but that clicking noise still has me.

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I got in a car accident a few years ago. Thinking about it is fine. But walking past that corner can be very difficult and can still feel like a hangover. I wish this wasn't so, but it seems to still be the case.

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Because we're all just animals that connect stimulus to response at random, neurons that fire together link together. Also every time you notice the connection you're strengthening it.