Early Invasive Medical Procedures or Medical Trauma at any Age

Medical interventions, whether in infancy or adulthood, can leave more than just physical marks—they can alter how the brain and body respond to stress for years to come. Early procedures, especially those involving separation from a caregiver, can imprint fear and loss into the nervous system before language or conscious memory exists. Even necessary, life-saving surgeries later in life can be processed by the brain’s lower regions as a threat, triggering lingering stress responses and visceral memories that surface in unexpected ways. Understanding these effects allows us to move beyond simply addressing symptoms, toward approaches that help integrate these experiences and restore a sense of safety and regulation.

Brain

Early invasive medical procedures and/or medical trauma at any age may cause a stress response in the limbic regions. This can result in the cortex going offline more easily.
For early medical trauma, stressors connected with separation from a parent/caregiver, or other socially/emotionally/physically painful experiences, the limbic region responsible for activating the fear center can become enlarged and the cortex can become smaller. This results in an inability to self-regulate.

Medical procedures later in life can also cause this type of disruption because the lower regions of the brain cannot “reason” like the cortex and therefore the pain and invasiveness of the procedures is processed as a life threatening stressor even when the procedure is life saving.

Body

In early medical trauma, since the brain is not recording memory yet in pictures, sequentially, or with language, the memories are going in and are being stored as sensory experiences.

This is known as visceral (body) memory. These memories are implicit (from the subcortical regions of the brain, which is sometimes called the “subconscious or unconscious”), they are felt in the body and not connected with pictures or stories.

They can show up as nightmares or extreme irritation “for no reason” with sounds, smells, tastes, or types of touch. At times a person being flooded with these experiences can even mistake visceral memory connected with sound as “Hearing voices.”

  The above explanations also relate to medical procedures that happen later in life. An important difference is that one will have the advantage of some picture of sequential memory as long as your cortex was online for the procedure. The point of anesthesia is to take the pain sensors in the cortex offline, so the same nightmares and other “unseen” triggers can result from surgeries or intrusive medical procedures at any point in life if someone is under anesthesia during their procedure.

  Related stressors with later in life medical procedures:  When the cortex is offline a person will not have a conscious or rational understanding of the risks and possible loss of life from a major procedure. It is also possible that the procedure addressed a symptom but there might be a lack of attention to the underlying causes of the procedure.
This produces a stress response that can destabilize all parts of the brain and body.

Behavioral Patterns

Like other forms of repeated stress, (which is how this is recorded by the fear center even though the surgeries are necessary), it will enlarge the fear center and can cause the person to overread threat.

For early invasive surgeries where there is no language based memory, the cortex, whose role is to make sense of things, will place meaning (or blame) on whatever or whomever is present in the moment for the uncomfortable feelings. This can look like aggression “out of nowhere,” walking away from people, fear of people they usually trust, or accusing people of hurting or disliking them. No matter what the age of the person, any feelings experienced under anesthetic can result in the same response. “Blaming the messenger” is related to this.

When someone experiences an invasive surgery early in their life, oftentimes the parent is separated from the child in order for to the procedure to take place. This experience can leave an imprint of ‘loss and abandonment’ on the person’s nervous system.

This body memory of loss can be triggered or activated when, in later years, a parent leaves even for a simple trip to the store or when the child enters school age where they are routinely leaving the parent. The child might appear ‘fine’ when in proximity to the parent but may experience intense “school phobia” that the adults around them do not understand.

Because of the quick shift in mood related to triggers no one else is seeing (and the person may not even be aware of themselves) they often are labeled as “impulsive or with a dysregulated mood disorder.” When what appears like a dysregulated mood is paired with visceral memories related to sounds like “voices in my head,” youth are often mislabeled “Schizoaffective.” Exploring early preverbal trauma or toxic levels of stress can be exceedingly helpful and enlightening when working with anyone labeled “Schizoaffective.” 

Schizoaffective Disorder is known for the pairing of “hallucinations and delusions” with rapid unpredictable shifts in mood. Visceral (body) memories can set someone up to have what appear to be hallucinations or strange beliefs (this is the cortex trying to make sense of memory without a story) as well as rapid, unpredictable mood swings.

Giving the feelings driving the behaviors a shape, size, color, and location can be of much assistance to helping the brain have what it needs to integrate and work with and through these visceral memories instead of just trying to “stop the symptoms.”

Supports

Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing work is designed for visceral memories and is an excellent therapeutic approach for invasive medical procedures at any age, and especially early ones.

As a support person use strategies that you do not need to be a therapist to use that can be of assistance include using a Person In a Mandala to have the person represent with color and shape where they feel the feeling.

Giving the feeling a shape, size, color, and location grounds it and allows the lower regions of the brain to engage and work to defuse it. After the feeling is given shape, size, and location, begin to explore what would help it feel better, even just a little better at first. Have the person represent what would help it feel better with a shape, size, color, and location as well. Then explore what gives them the (name the shape, size, color, & location feeling.

For example, one youth had a red burning feeling that started in her chest and worked its way out or exploded out when she smelled disinfectant.  What helped her feel better was picturing  cooling, blue water all around her. She said running her hands under cold water, putting it on her face, and being around people who did not “yell at her” when she started fidgeting helped. It really helped her get the “cooling blue water feeling” when people would go for a walk with her when she had the “red, burning chest feeling”.

***If these intrusive feelings are related to early sexual trauma DO NOT engage in this activity unless you are a trauma responsive therapist.

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