comments on Pillemer

Pillemer brought up several things which i found very interesting and that have come up in my own thoughts. One of these is the idea of traumatic experiences causes startling memories to spring up on even seemingly minor cue's. What interests me in this case specifically is the ability to suffer through life threatening scenario's and then have very significant cues not summon up painful memories [but still be able to remember the events]. In the reading, it mentions that the more traumatized someone is, the more significant this is, and it states that trauma is often a factor of suddenness or speed of the event. There is however a reference to trauma being active in situations that are not only dangerous and fast, but in which the person feels profoundly helpless to alter the events in the moment. In this case, having someones memory be significantly amplified or not based on their perceived helplessness is extremely interesting to me. It would imply that life threatening situations in which one has perceived agency are not as significant in terms of inducing trauma, and not as significant with coding precise memories. In later stages of the reading it is stated that imprecise memories are more adaptive to dangerous situations [like the cave man example], and therefore rote memory is less adaptive. Yet, we see this example of more rote memory in a situation in which not having a recurrence of the event is obviously more important [helpless to danger]. The reading also gives the example that the more rote someones memory is, the more they tend to have 'flashbacks' of the events when prompted in similar and inappropriate situations alike [giving credit to their theory of it being maladaptive].
This issue made me wonder on people's ability to not be traumatized. That is, how is a persons memory and how they remember the event affecting how noticeably traumatized they are, and in fact, how generally traumatized they are. Because a person may not be 'traumatized' by the one event, but having to continually relive the event at even the most moderate cues, and then to remember it so vividly could cause them to be traumatized where they would not have otherwise [especially in the long term, ie. 15-20 years later].
As one might imagine, i thought of some of my own brushes with danger, and my ability to remember them in depth vs. how often they are cued and how much do i perceive them haunting me. My personal findings did not concur with the theory here, but thats just me, and i would like to talk in class or read peoples blog about their personal feelings on memory and its connection to trauma or distress or pain.
On a smaller note, i was wondering how people who are blind remember momentous events, which are apparently heavily visual memories.