Why trauma doesn't follow the timeline we expect

The work of forensic psychology

Muzamil introduces Ali and notes immediately that forensic psychology is not the dramatic version on Netflix. “I wish it was that cool,” Ali says, “but there’s a lot more numbers.”

Forensic psychology is the application of behavioral science research to the judiciary, policing, prisons, and criminal systems. Ali has been reading in the field for years and recently started research. In his therapy practice, he deals with trauma constantly. “I deal with all sorts of trauma,” he says. “Big T traumas like sexual assault, if you’ve lost your house, natural disasters. And then there’s small T traumas.”

The motorway case and social media response

On the day after the motorway rape case broke in Pakistan, Muzamil was on social media expecting a conversation. Instead he found 99 out of 100 people with a clear stance. “I was a little disappointed that maybe we’re looking at a different direction,” he says.

By the second day, the tone split. Some people were saying the state had failed, talking about the police. Others attacked those calling for capital punishment. And by Sunday, Muzamil saw something that shook him. The counter-conversation was happening in Urdu, among people from lower-middle and peri-urban communities. “I don’t see how there is how the classification of that incident with particular type of people is warranted,” he says.

Ali and Muzamil agree that both sides want the same thing: justice. The disagreement is only about how to get it. “It’s very difficult to see,” Ali says, “because we all want the same thing.”

The gap between anger and policy

Death penalty is a separate issue, but it revealed something about how Pakistanis debate violence. Those for capital punishment and those against were actually attacking each other, even though both wanted to prevent assault. “I mean I saw some people who are as far as saying hang the people who don’t want to hang the rapists,” Muzamil says.

Ali acknowledges the pain behind the anger. “I see it in my clinic,” he says. “I’ve worked with that. I’ve seen a very painful thing about this.” A woman in the motorway case reportedly told the ambulance, “Just kill me and don’t tell anyone.” The statement illustrates something deeper than anger. She did not want her life disrupted further by reporting. She did not want to become the subject of public scrutiny in a country where admitting sexual assault carries shame.

“Imagine for a second that in this country, generally, a large section of society, if a person knows that a woman has been raped, he doesn’t get a positive response,” Ali says. Support is very difficult to access.

Myth and memory: why victims don’t report

During research for the episode, Ali found a statistic that alarmed him. A 2015 study showed that 60% of people who reported rape were unable to identify at the time that they were raped. “Now imagine for a second, so they don’t understand the definition of rape,” Muzamil says.

The reason is cultural. A large majority of people, even in developed regions until very recently, believed the myth that rape is the victim’s fault. “That’s a myth that we perpetrate,” Ali says. He sees this constantly in therapy. “I have seen many times if someone even knows that they have been raped and they think it’s their fault.”

The thought process inside a victim’s mind is something like: “Maybe I said something or did something that was an invitation. Even if I didn’t consent and I said verbally I said no.” This self-blame is internalized early. Therapy often begins by helping the victim identify that “it wasn’t your fault,” Ali explains. “That’s not easy.”

How trauma reshapes memory

Another myth is more subtle: that delay in reporting means the claim is false. When someone says they were assaulted years ago, people ask: why didn’t they come forward then. Ali has a research-backed answer.

“When you have a very severe trauma, your brain is a fear circuitry,” he says. “When you are fighting a fight or flight or a very dramatic experience, fear circuitry takes over and your memory shifts.” The brain stops recording when things happened and in what sequence. Instead, sensory memory increases. “You have a very hard time recalling what happened when was happened, but you understand exactly how it felt,” Ali says.

This is not memory failure. This is how the brain protects itself under extreme threat. And when a trauma response is triggered later, “you go straight back into that trauma response.”

Class, reporting, and the justice system

Muzamil notices something else in the data. Sexual assault exists in every class, but reporting is concentrated in lower-middle and lower-class cases. When perpetrators come from lower-class backgrounds, the educated class tailors the solution to private schools and parenting. But the solution assumes the perpetrator is educated and will see a banner warning against assault. “He belongs in the social class, he has 10,000 problems,” Muzamil says, “and within that, the justice system is so weak, that he doesn’t feel like that.”

Ali counters that upper-class perpetrators might actually get away more easily. They are well-connected and can control the narrative. “Narrative has a lot to do with it,” Ali says. “You can intimidate many people into letting you off the hook for any sort of crime that you do, depending on your position socially and the culture that we live in.”

Death penalty and the real problem

Eighty-eight percent of scientists believe that death penalty does not work as a deterrent. That’s approximately the same consensus as on climate change. Ali is not in support of capital punishment, but not because of abstract principle. “I think that when you talk about death penalty, that death penalty is… I’m also not in support of the death penalty,” he says. “And I’ll explain.”

The problem is not whether to execute people. The problem is that prisons are overcrowded at nearly double capacity. Perpetrators of sexual violence are sometimes released before trial or serve short sentences. And there is no rehabilitation. “When you’re in prison system, what actions are you taking to make sure that they’re able to become functioning members of society again?” Ali asks.

A 2018 article noted that “prisoners go to prison to become professional criminals.” The prison becomes a network where the person learns new crimes. Meanwhile, a person convicted of shoplifting cannot get a job after release, making it nearly impossible to reestablish himself in society. The cycle repeats.

What policy actually requires

Policy requires research. Ali and Muzamil agree on that. Pakistan has no institutions running legitimate forensic psychology programs. But the research from Nordic regions and North America is very strong. “We can use that hypothesis and sort of research in Pakistan what’s going on,” Ali says.

The real conversation is not whether to hang someone. The real conversation is the one nobody is having. Fix the prosecution. Remove corruption. Train police. Reduce prison overcrowding. Rehabilitate offenders so they don’t re-offend. Teach children what consent is. Train bystanders to interrupt harassment before it becomes assault.

“I’m going to say we need so much more research,” Ali says. “If someone hears this and they’re interested in this area of research and end up doing it, because God knows we need it.”