PTSD, Navigation by haze!!!

Published: April 7, 2025

Recalculating: The PTSD Navigation Loop

PTSD isn’t just reliving trauma—it’s the brain stuck in a loop, trying to triangulate a memory with broken satellites.

Like a GPS in the mountains, the mind hits “recalculating” over and over. It’s picked up on one or two signals—maybe the smell of diesel fuel, a flash of red, the sound of shouting—but the third signal never quite locks in. The map can’t load. The route never updates.

And so, the brain stays alert. Always looking. Always trying to reconnect. Not because it wants to, but because that’s what it’s wired to do: complete the story. Finish the map.

That’s why something simple—a song, a smell, a sideways glance—can launch you back to a place you’d give anything to forget. Your brain thinks it’s finally found the last piece of the triangulation.

It hasn’t.

And that’s where the pain lives—in the silence between what you remember and what you can’t.

This may also explain why substances like alcohol or opiates appear to temporarily relieve symptoms—not because they solve the trauma, but because they dull the senses enough to mask the signals. They mimic “I don’t know where I am,” and for once, the brain stops trying to fix it.

The irony? Feeling lost becomes a kind of peace.

Scientific support: Brewin et al. (2017) observed that traumatic memories poorly integrated into autobiographical context are central to PTSD flashbacks. Read more here.

– Common Joe