Aug 19, 2026 · 25 min · 10 segments
Maybe you barely remember your childhood. Maybe you've done years of trauma work, you're finally feeling better, and now you're wondering, was it really that bad? Did I make it all up? This episode…
Sarah HerstichHost
So to start, let's do a really quick refresher about memory, because I know that on some other episodes I've talked about memory before, but it feels important to go there real quick.
Memory, it isn't like an old VHS tape, right? Like, it's not a VHS tape where it's just kind of sitting in the drawer, you pop it in, and it pulls back everything exactly as it was.
Memory is actually reconstructive, which means that every time you remember something, you're kind of rebuilding it in the moment, not hitting the play button on that fixed copy of the VHS tape.
That's part of the reason why memory, it doesn't feel the same for every experience.
They feel like they're still happening, especially when something right now, like a tone of voice, a room, a feeling inside of your body, triggers the same sensations or emotional responses that showed up the very first time around, and onward even.
It's that a handful of very real things shape how a memory ends up feeling later.
How much stress you were under, where your attention was, whether you were dissociating, what stage of development you were actually at, and whether anyone helped you make sense of what happened afterwards.
All of that affects what actually gets locked in as memory and how easy it is to access later.
So you might not remember the exact moment you learned that being angry wasn't safe in the house growing up.
You might notice that at 40 years old, the very second someone seems disappointed in you, your whole body wants to apologize, explain, kind of disappear, or even fix it.
That doesn't really prove that one specific event happened, right? What it tells you is that your system learned something.
That distinction, memory versus learning, is really gonna matter by the end of this episode, so try to hang on to that.
So to start, let's do a really quick refresher about memory, because I know that on some other episodes I've talked about memory before, but it feels important to go there real quick.
Memory, it isn't like an old VHS tape, right? Like, it's not a VHS tape where it's just kind of sitting in the drawer, you pop it in, and it pulls back everything exactly as it was.
Memory is actually reconstructive, which means that every time you remember something, you're kind of rebuilding it in the moment, not hitting the play button on that fixed copy of the VHS tape.
That's part of the reason why memory, it doesn't feel the same for every experience.
They feel like they're still happening, especially when something right now, like a tone of voice, a room, a feeling inside of your body, triggers the same sensations or emotional responses that showed up the very first time around, and onward even.
It's that a handful of very real things shape how a memory ends up feeling later.
How much stress you were under, where your attention was, whether you were dissociating, what stage of development you were actually at, and whether anyone helped you make sense of what happened afterwards.
All of that affects what actually gets locked in as memory and how easy it is to access later.
So you might not remember the exact moment you learned that being angry wasn't safe in the house growing up.
You might notice that at 40 years old, the very second someone seems disappointed in you, your whole body wants to apologize, explain, kind of disappear, or even fix it.
That doesn't really prove that one specific event happened, right? What it tells you is that your system learned something.
That distinction, memory versus learning, is really gonna matter by the end of this episode, so try to hang on to that.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
