Trauma / PTSD
It's a common misconception, mostly derived from movies, that people suppress traumatic events, but anyone suffering from trauma or PTSD (or even server phobia) knows that the opposite is true.
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Far from not remembering they suffer from flashbacks, nightmares and the event(s) doesn't seem to distance in time like ordinary memories, it still feels recent and 'live'.
Reliving Past Trauma
Anything that reminds them of the original event, which could be a sound, a smell, a scene from a movie, can act as a trigger and catapult them back there in an instant. The reason the traumatic event remains 'live' is because the memory has not been processed properly like normal memories, it gets stuck in the emotional part of the brain, (the limbic system in the amygdala) responsible for survival including your fight / flight response.
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The triggers have been tagged by the brain as dangerous even though the person is safe now the emotional response doesn't feel that. The sound of the car backfiring can make a war veteran with PTSD run for cover, or the sight of a spider for someone with a severe spider phobia will make them flee for their lives.
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So many therapeutic interventions by well-meaning therapists which involve the sufferer talking about the incident and recalling the memory make the symptoms worse not better and in some cases literally re-traumatise them. Talking about the traumatic event will almost instantly send the sufferer into a highly emotional state and extreme agitation, for this reason is to be avoided. I do not do this. Medication is ineffective, simply numbing people.
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I am somewhat of a specialist in this area and use powerful and effective techniques to lift trauma fast, often in a single session for a one-off event. The beauty of the techniques I use mean that you do not have to tell me about the event at all, or only as much as you want to, in fact I do not want you to go into detail it's really not helpful for you.
Sub Trauma
Not all traumas are so obvious or full-blown, some may even seem too trivial to cause trauma, like the man who got trapped in the back of a van for 5 mins who as a result of them felt anxious and could no longer get in a car without becoming extremely agitated, or the man who had spent his life working at heights who experienced a slight misstep, and although he was fine could not return to work. Neither of the men could understand their extreme reactions, but both after a single session were back to themselves and to work.
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I often use the experience of embarrassment to explain trauma, odd though this may sound. When you do something embarrassing, and you tell a friend after, initially you may still feel some of that embarrassment - the event has not been processed yet and is still emotionally active. - it could be an hour, a day, or even weeks later, depending on the individual and how embarrassing the event was, you can generally retell the story, and you no longer feel any of that embarrassment, often it just becomes a funny story because it has now been processed properly, it's no longer seated in the emotional part of the brain it has moved into long term memory (in the hippocampus) where it no longer has any power over you and the memory although not forgotten distances in time. This natural transition to long term memory does not occur for some people after traumatic events, but it is this same sort of transition that the techniques I use facilitate, neutralising the emotion and allowing the memories to fade and distance in time like memories should.
"Kites rise the highest against the wind not with it."
Sir Winston Churchill
(1874 - 1965)