Rewired for Fear: An Introspective Questioning on Trauma, Technology, and the Nervous System

“When people say, "it takes two to tango", what they often miss is that it is not just two minds or two personalities. It is, in fact, two entire nervous systems, each shaped by personal traumas, cultural conditioning, media exposure, childhood stories, and unspoken fears. Add social media, collective grief, algorithmic reactivity, and intergenerational trauma into the mix, and suddenly, you're not just speaking with a person. You're speaking through a fog of inherited, unexamined conditioning.”

Question: How do I survive in a non-trauma informed world? How am I to interact with other humans when one of us always seems to mess up? I used to get overly attached to the potentiality of someone in my life, and when they eventually no longer wanted me around, I would be crushed. I gave of myself more to them than I did to me. The value of the worth of myself became dependent on their acceptance of me. If they liked me, I liked me; If they did not like me, I did not like me. Everyone seems to expect perfection out of my words and actions, yet I do not know what is perfect. I do not know what is normal. Everyone is doing everything differently. So now, I have detached myself from my heart. I speak, but I do not feel. I keep everyone at an arm’s length distance. I am surrounded by humans, but I have never felt lonelier.

Answer: True and total acceptance of yourself is what is needed to survive in a world that doesn’t know the magnitude of your experiences. We are all shells of experiences walking around, interacting with other shells of experiences, acting out of what is normal for our shell. We have no idea what another shell has been through. We don’t know their likes, their dislikes, their triggers, their beauty, their flaws.

When less presence is put onto another shell and said presence is shifted onto the shell of one's own self, the host human will come to understand that navigating the world is not about other unknown perceptions. It is solely about what the host human, being you in this regard, thinks of their world.

Does someone bring you peace and joy to be around? Continue to be around them. 

Does someone bring you confusion on whether they want you to be around? Do not continue to be around them.

Does an environment spark an internal flame when you are there? Continue to be in it.

Does an environment bring disease when you are there? Do not continue to be in it.

Does a topic bring you joy to learn about? Continue to learn about it.

Does a topic bring about a sense of force and displeasure upon learning about it? Do not continue to learn about it.

When you are directly leaving a world of trauma behind, it becomes crucial to get very introspective about your “why”.

Why do I want to do this project?

Why do I want this job?

Why do I want to learn about this topic?

Why do I want to speak with this person?

Why do I want to {insert action}?

Trauma trains a person to live inside a nervous system trained on danger. 

There are comparisons that can be made here that link a trauma-survivor's internal compass to that of an artificial intelligence reinforcement learning algorithm.

The weights and biases become hardcoded with little room for singular interpretations to give more importance to fear-aligned outputs for even neutral inputs.

The reward function becomes focused on avoiding pain and survival rather than achieving well-being.

The exploitation vs exploration mechanism leans towards exploiting the familiar dysfunctional behaviors that kept them alive before, such as overextending and distrusting oneself; any exploration into unknown territory, such as healthy boundaries and internal trust, feels dangerous.

Conversations and interpersonal relationships are a nuanced subject. We all come from different places, have lived different lives, and have different experiences that shape who we are today and how we perceive the words and actions of others. 

There is a concept within neuroscience known as perceptual maps. Perceptual maps aim to visualize and understand how individuals perceive different sensory stimuli and information, such as visual, auditory, or somatosensory input. These maps tell us how the central nervous system (CNS), composed of the brain and spinal cord, processes and interprets this information, allowing the brain to detect patterns, localize stimuli, and assess threats with high precision. This leads to subjective experiences, influencing how individuals perceive safety and danger. It is here where the nervous system is able to begin to predict future experiences based on past ones, helping one to prepare for potential emotional harm. 

Oftentimes, we individuals speak and act from our "fight-or-flight" response. 

Allow me to walk you through it.

The amygdala and prefrontal cortex analyze input from these perceptual maps. The amygdala quickly evaluates emotional salience - salience being the quality of something being particularly noticeable or important. Fear and threats are especially relevant here. The prefrontal cortex adds higher-order reasoning and context, such as "Is this loud bang dangerous or just fireworks?" or "Is this man walking behind me dangerous or just trying to get home?".

If a stimulus is deemed threatening, the amygdala signals the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus acts as the command center for activating the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), which is the exact system that is responsible for the fight-or-flight response. The SNS, composed of a network of nerves, prepares the body for physical activity and stressful situations. It does this in several ways, such as by increasing heart rate, dilating pupils, constricting blood vessels in non-essential areas, and releasing glucose for immediate energy. 

However, the most significant flight-or-flight response initiator would be when the adrenal medulla releases two neurotransmitters: epinephrine, also known as adrenaline, and norepinephrine, also known as noradrenaline. Neurotransmitters are often referred to as the body's chemical messengers, as they each will cause a specific response in your body, depending on the neuron that receives them. 

A neurotransmitter can influence a neuron in one of three ways: excitatory, inhibitory, or modulatory. An excitatory transmitter will promote the generation of an electrical signal, called an action potential, while an inhibitory transmitter will prevent it. While the influence of a neurotransmitter depends on the receptor it binds to, since the context we are speaking of is the SNS, these two neurotransmitters will most often activate receptors that lead to excitatory outcomes. If action potentials are firing too frequently, it can lead to high emotional reactivity and difficulty pausing before speaking, texting, or posting on social media.

Over time, chronic patterns of action potential firing, especially those shaped by fear, trauma, or toxic media exposure, can cause two things that quite literally reshape how a person perceives, processes, and responds to the world and others. The first change is known as synaptic strengthening, or the Hebbian Rule. Synaptic strengthening and the Hebbian Rule are concepts that tell how the brain learns and forms associations. Over time, when cell A repeatedly or persistently excites cell B, the connection, or synapse, between them becomes stronger. Essentially, in future contexts, cell A will require less effort to excite cell B. This is the brain's way of learning and becoming more efficient, however, efficiency does not always mean health.

Let's break away from the definitions for a moment and go into an example.

Let's say you see a viral video titled, "Watch this man get humiliated for simping after one text". 

You laugh. You feel a little shame. Maybe you relate.

Unbeknownst to you, the following synaptic links are being formed in your brain:

1. Social vulnerability == Emotional risk == Danger cue

2. Male affection == Perceived weakness == Threat to status

3. Expressing need == Punishment/shame == Must suppress it

Now, every time a similar situation arises in real life, something as simple as someone being emotionally open, kind, or vulnerable, your brain may fire the same patterns. Quick discomfort. Eye roll. Emotional withdrawal. Sarcastic tone. Avoidance.

You don't get to decide if you want to act this way. Your neural circuitry has been trained to respond this way. Hebbian learning made it automatic.

Social media's short, emotional, high-repetition content structure is perfect for Hebbian encoding. When you watch fifteen videos mocking dating, scroll past ten memes about betrayal, and see five news clips of public fights or humiliation, you are no longer just "consuming". You have reached the point of forming and strengthening circuits, making autonomous associations between certain identities, emotions, and outcomes.

Now, I propose a question to you: What’s on your social media timeline today?

Gender-bashing jokes? Now you assume the worst when talking to that gender.

Cynical dating discourse? Now you flinch when someone expresses genuine care.

Viral "callout" culture? Now you become hyperjudgmental or self-conscious.

News about violence? Now you interpret neutral faces or gestures as threats.

Content mocking softness? Now you clamp down on tenderness in your voice or body.

You are not overreacting. Your brain is, as simply as it can, replaying a trained pattern that is being reinforced to you through your previous life experience that you gained in acting through trauma-informed patterns, and your now social media algorithm that is purposefully designed to show you content that you either deeply resonate with or deeply detest.

Your perceptual map is now warped, trained, and ready to expect harm or betrayal. Your expectations and assumptions in communication are now rewired for criticism, pessimism, and negativity. You now become defensive and hyper self-protective in otherwise safe conversations.

You become hypervigilant in relationships, being platonic or romantic. You scan interactions with others for tiny hints of hidden meaning or threat. You speak with preemptive cynicism or emotional detachment. 

Your speech becomes shallow and performative. The need for constant external validations, such as likes and retweets, conditions you to speak for performance rather than for connection. Vulnerability is seen as weakness, not courage, causing you to mirror SNS-style sarcasm, irony, or detachment.

You become desensitized to empathy. The overexposure to negative or dramatized speech patterns has built up emotional calluses within you. You start to speak in ways that lack gentleness, context sensitivity, or attunement to another's nervous system.

At the end of it all, our brains are being trained to speak differently. When the CNS perceives a chronic threat, and the SNS is overused, we lose access to presence-based communication. Our ability to act safely, with regulation, curiosity, and actual human connection, is lost. Instead, many interactions, especially those shaped by media, become self-protective rituals rather than true dialogue.

In the heat of emotional stimulation (anger, insecurity, humiliation, desire), the amygdala dominates. The *prefrontal cortex*, which normally helps you pause, evaluate consequences, and regulate emotion, is overridden; quite easily now, due to Hebbian's Rule. The "fight" response is now triggered in the body:

"I must defend myself!"

"They need to hear this now!"

"If I don't respond, I'm weak!"

The action potential fires, neurotransmitters flood, the message is sent, and only after comes the,

"Shit, why did I say that?"

Communication through technological devices removes the natural, human feedback loop that we require to sustain healthy communication with one another. During real-time, in-person conversation, your brain regulates speech through the inputs of another's facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, and nervous system mirroring. Online, however, this feedback loop is gone - totally and completely. There is no inhibition provided by a furrowed brow or a softened eye. There are no somatic cues saying "you're going too far". The inhibitory "brakes" are off, so the action potential fires unregulated; often fast, sharp, and frankly, regretted.

Social platforms are intentionally designed to trigger *dopamine*, another neurotransmitter, surges through likes, novelty, outrage, and validation. Within your body, dopamine lowers the threshold for action potentials, making neurons fire more readily. This creates an environment where people are more impulsive, less reflective, and more emotionally reactive. Communication becomes more about posting, less about intent, and more akin to being a negatively trained reflex.

One of the most striking demonstrations of how secondhand digital exposure can generate real psychological trauma, even exceeding that of firsthand witnesses, comes from a 2014 study completed by the University of California, Irvine. This study found that people who consumed six or more hours of media coverage per day about the Boston Marathon bombing experienced more acute stress than those who were actually at the event.

The brain processes media as lived experience. The amygdala and the *visual cortex*, which is the brain's region that receives and processes visual information from the eyes, cannot always distinguish between imagined versus real, virtual versus embodied. When consuming media, your brain and nervous system react as though you are there, as though these events are your own lived experiences, as though this perceived threat is something you have experienced again and again.

Every time you consume the same negative vantage point formatted from different creators, from different angles, in different content forms, with commentary, speculation, and emotional charge, your brain is firing the same circuits. It is strengthening synapses. It is overconsolidating the fear memory. 

This is Hebbian's Rule on steroids.

Due to consuming this information in your immobilized, watchful state, you are actually at a disadvantage to those who have experienced the real life traumatic events that have shaped their perception. In real life, the body engages. You run; you shield, you grab your loved ones. Survivors often get communal support and rituals of healing. However, in your media-trauma based mind, you are frozen. The *dorsal vagal state* is activated, which is when your brain perceives your body to be in a threatening-situation, however, it cannot fight nor can it flight. Individuals end up internalizing these feelings of numbness, dissociation, or helplessness. You are now there, scrolling alone, consuming algorithm-boosted outrage, violence, and grief. The trauma you have now experienced has been isolated within your body and mind without a healing container.

This research parallels how negative social media discourse, news violence, shaming culture, and repetitive conflict content are actively training the nervous system to remain within a chronic state of threat. For those who have lived through the trauma, you are reinforcing what you believe to be true: that the world is a scary place to be.

This is not weakness. This is not your fault. The amygdala is doing its job. Hebbian learning is successfully reinforcing associations. The SNS has been activated with no physical outlet. Unfortunately, you currently reside in a society with no rituals for digital grief. Digital grief is here, and it is very real.

For systems and platforms designed to bring communities closer together, it has done a grand job at making us farther apart than historically ever. 

Our speech is impulsive.

Our tones are defensive.

We find difficulty in listening fully and intently.

We jump to conclusions and catastrophes.

Our hyperawareness towards micro-expressions and tone shifts has increased, causing us to question the hidden narrative in the communications with our loved ones.

We overexplain ourselves and ruminate far longer than need be.

Our speech has become more about controlling perception rather than expressing truth.

We become easily irritable and intense in our tones.

We are emotionally flat.

We fatigue and withdraw from conversations easily.

We have unhealthy attachment patterns.

Our capacity for empathy and trust-building language has diminished.

We interrupt and finish each other's sentences, with a sense of urgency to "survive" the conversation.

We automatically assume the worst-case scenario, reacting emotionally to neutral cues.

We defend ourselves with dominating, powerful language and manipulative tones.

Our speech lacks nuances and introspection, leaving no pause for reflection.

We shut down and stonewall others, publicly presenting ourselves as cold and disinterested.

We speak *at* each other rather than *with* each other.

We withdraw from relationships out of fear.

We speak in tones and words that push away instead of invite.

We feel disconnected in a room full of humans.

Technology has literally reshaped how we perceive, process, and respond to the world and others. 

That instinct, like I said before, is not weakness. It's wiring.

It's the amygdala scanning for threat.

It's the action potentials firing before thought.

It's the neurotransmitters flooding the body with urgency.

It's a lifetime of Hebbian-formed associations linking emotion to danger, words to wounds, people to past pain. 

We each carry maps of pain. When they collide in conversation, it can feel like war, even when no one meant harm.

When people say, "it takes two to tango", what they often miss is that it is not just two minds or two personalities. It is, in fact, two entire nervous systems, each shaped by personal traumas, cultural conditioning, media exposure, childhood stories, and unspoken fears. Add social media, collective grief, algorithmic reactivity, and intergenerational trauma into the mix, and suddenly, you're not just speaking with a person. You're speaking through a fog of inherited, unexamined conditioning.

So no, it's not just two.

Rather, it's thousands of neurons, decades of synaptic pathways, and centuries of power structures speaking through us.

The "bad guy" isn't always a person. I would reckon that it is the conditioning that makes empathy hard and nuance feel unsafe.

As a collective, there is a deep need and sense of urgency to recognize the systems, honor the wounds, and still choose to see the humanity in others. Even when wrong was done, even when you were harmed, it is still vitally necessary to see the bigger picture.

Blame is easy, but the truth is layered.

The most radical thing you can do is to slow down, speak with presence, and meet others in a space beyond performance and algorithmic programming. 

I ask you to see people not as villains, but as vessels who sometimes are carrying way more than they themselves know.