QUOTE : Biologists marvel at the elegant efficiency with which the brain stores fear-laden memories, which provide a superb defense system against external attacks and an amazingly fast and effective system for physical self-preservation. But they warn that these same kind of powerful memories turn out to be extremely difficult for the brain to process when life is no longer in danger and the person desperately needs to extinguish the memory and break the cycle. The hippocampus, a small part of the brain that would ordinarily help integrate information, has a very difficult time processing the fear-imprinted memories because of the high degree of physiological stress those memories trigger. People suffering from PTSD, including some cutters, are in a sense trapped—hardwired. Their terror-bound memories can return or be reactivated by other stimuli, but they are never able to effectively process the original emotional memory for reasons that are physiological. When the door opens with a loud bang, to continue the analogy, what is replayed in their minds is a startingly real experience of a ferocious tiger charging at them.