"Trauma, by definition, is the result of exposure to an inescapably stressful event that overwhelms a person's coping mechanisms." She points out that an important aspect of an event (or pattern of events) is that it exceeds the victim's ability to cope and is therefore overwhelming. A child should not have to cope with abuse, and when abuse occurs, a child is not equipped psychologically to process it. The adults in their lives are meant to be role models on how to regulate emotions and provide a safe environment. -Carolyn Knight
This page contains a few professional explanations, and research, about some of the long term effects of some of the events, and dynamics I've been writing about. They speak for themselves. I can tell you I've experienced most, if not all of the difficulties they allude to, and I've experienced them my entire life. For years, I was ashamed of their existence in me.
If I've been in relationship with you, and I hurt you, I'm sorry. There is a wake of pain behind me that I regret. The 'what's wrong with me that keeps everything I want out of reach ' is addressed, superficially, here. I WANT a partner. I WANT community. I WANT respect. I WANT to be good.
But I don't know how. I never saw an example of it, and before I could I was re-wired in a way that makes the things I want a dream. THAT'S what was dfone to me. Not a bruise. Not being used. Not being thrown away. I could tolerate all of those if I could just create them for myself. Sometimes I think the only love I'll know is the love I bargain for....
Effects of Complex Trauma
National Child Traumatic Stress Network
website: NCTSN
Complex trauma can affect children in a multitude of ways. Here are some common effects:
- More vulnerable to stress
- Trouble controlling and expressing emotions
- Problems in romantic relationships, in friendships, and with authority figures, such as teachers or police officers.
- difficulty identifying, expressing, and managing emotions, and may have limited language for feeling states.
- often internalize and/or externalize stress reactions and as a result may experience significant depression, anxiety, or anger..
- even mildly stressful interactions with others may serve as trauma reminders and trigger intense emotional responses.
- learned that the world is a dangerous place where even loved ones can’t be trusted to protect you, children are often vigilant and guarded in their interactions with others and are more likely to perceive situations as stressful or dangerous.
- may lack impulse control or the ability to think through consequences before acting.
- more likely to engage in high-risk behaviors
- child feel worthless and despondent.
- Shame, guilt, low self-esteem, and a poor self-image are common among children with complex trauma histories.
- To plan for the future with a sense of hope and purpose, a child needs to value him- or herself. To plan for the future requires a sense of hope, control, and the ability to see one’s own actions as having meaning and value. Children surrounded by violence in their homes and communities learn from an early age that they cannot trust, the world is not safe, and that they are powerless to change their circumstances.
- They have trouble feeling hopeful. Having learned to operate in “survival mode,” the child lives from moment-to-moment without pausing to think about, plan for, or even dream about a future.
- For children that have suffered from abuse, it can be complex getting to the root of childhood trauma in order to alleviate later symptoms as adults.
(*Items in red relate to myself/family & events described in blog)
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Psychological Effects of Abuse
Link: The Boston Globe
How child abuse and neglect damage the brain
- new neurobiological findings show that trauma - physical abuse, sexual abuse and neglect - dramatically affects both the structure and chemistry of the developing brain,
- Clinical Neurosciences in 1993, Teicher linked abuse to brain wave abnormalities.
- abuse damages key brain structures such as the cortex, which is associated with rational thinking, and the hippocampus, which helps process memories and emotions. Both brain regions are critical for learning.
- Overwhelming stress early in life also alters the production of both the stress-regulating hormone cortisol and key neurotransmitters such as epinephrine, dopamine and serotonin, the chemical messengers in the brain that affect mood and behavior.
- 'The brains of adult survivors are fragmented and resemble a hard drive on a computer that has crashed,''
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From : The Importance of Fathers in the Healthy Development of Children,
https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/usermanuals/fatherhood/chapterthree.cfm
3. Fathers and Their Impact on Child Maltreatment: “This chapter first looks at the definition and impact of child maltreatment...commonly classified into four categories”:
- “*Physical abuse includes punching, beating, kicking, biting or shaking a child.
- Sexual abuse refers to any sexual contact with a child, the simulation of such conduct
- with a child, exposing a child to sexually explicit material or conduct.
- *Child neglect is a failure to provide for a child's basic needs for health care, food, clothing, adult supervision, education, and nurturing.
- *Psychological maltreatment refers to behavior such as ridiculing, terrorizing, corrupting, or denying affection to a child.”
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What is emotional and psychological trauma?
Source website (Helpguide.org): Help Guide
- Emotional and psychological trauma is the result of extraordinarily stressful events that shatter your sense of security, making you feel helpless and vulnerable in a dangerous world.
- Traumatic experiences often involve a threat to life or safety, but any situation that leaves you feeling overwhelmed and alone can be traumatic, even if it doesn’t involve physical harm. It’s not the objective facts that determine whether an event is traumatic, but your subjective emotional experience of the event*. The more frightened and helpless you feel, the more likely you are to be traumatized.
Causes of emotional or psychological trauma
An event will most likely lead to emotional or psychological trauma if:
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- Emotional and psychological trauma can be caused by single-blow, one-time events,* such as a horrible accident, a natural disaster, or a violent attack. Trauma can also stem from ongoing, relentless stress, such as living in a crime-ridden neighborhood or struggling with cancer.
- A number of risk factors make people susceptible to emotional and psychological trauma. People are more likely to be traumatized by a stressful experience if they’re already under a heavy stress load or have recently suffered a series of losses.
- People are also more likely to be traumatized by a new situation if they’ve been traumatized before – especially if the earlier trauma occurred in childhood*
Childhood trauma increases the risk of future trauma
- Experiencing trauma in childhood can have a severe and long-lasting effect. Children who have been traumatized see the world as a frightening and dangerous place. When childhood trauma is not resolved, this fundamental sense of fear and helplessness carries over into adulthood, setting the stage for further trauma.*
Childhood trauma results from anything that
disrupts a child’s sense of safety and security,
including:
disrupts a child’s sense of safety and security,
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Symptoms of emotional and psychological trauma
Following a traumatic event, or repeated trauma, people react in different ways, experiencing a wide range of physical and emotional reactions. There is no “right” or “wrong” way to think, feel, or respond to trauma, so don’t judge your own reactions or those of other people. Your responses are NORMAL reactions to ABNORMAL events.
Emotional and psychological symptoms of trauma:
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Physical symptoms of trauma:
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Source website: ASCA
Types of Child Abuse
In abusive homes, children are rarely subject to one form of abuse. They often endure multiple forms of abuse at once. The most severe effects of child abuse often do not become apparent until the abused child grows to adulthood, at which point the adult may experience a range of psychological, emotional and social problems related to childhood abuse*.Emotional abuse (signs in adulthood):
-Adults emotionally abused as children are more likely to experience mental health problems and difficulties in personal relationships*.
-Significant early relationships in childhood shape our response to new social situations in adulthood.
-Adults with emotionally abusive parents are at a disadvantage as they try to form personal, professional and romantic relationships,* since they may easily misinterpret other people's behaviours and social cues, or misapply the rules that governed their abusive relationship with their parent to everyday social situations (Berenson and Anderson 2006).
Physical abuse (signs in adulthood):
- Adults physically abused in childhood are at increased risk of either aggressive and violent behaviour, or shy and avoidant behaviour leading to rejection or re-victimisation*. This polarised behaviour is often driven by hyper-vigilance and the anticipation of threat and violence even in everyday situations. Men with a history of physical abuse in childhood are particularly prone to violent behaviour, and physically abused men are over-represented amongst violent and sexual offenders (Malinosky-Rummell and Hansen 1993).
Family violence (signs in adulthood):
- Adults exposed to domestic violence as children can carry with them a legacy of trauma-related symptoms and developmental delays*. Women who grew up in an environment of family violence are more likely to be victimised in adulthood, whilst men who grew up in a violent environment are more likely to commit violent offences in adulthood (Edleson 1999).
Effects of Maltreatment on Brain Development
Source:Child Welfare Information Gateway website Maltreatment
Abuse—Physical, Sexual, and Emotional
- One way that early maltreatment experiences may alter a child's ability to interact positively with others is by altering brain neurochemical balance*. Research on children who suffered early emotional abuse or severe deprivation indicates that such maltreatment may permanently alter the brain's ability to use serotonin, which helps produce feelings of well-being and emotional stability* (Healy, 2004).
- Altered brain development in children who have been maltreated may be the result of their brains adapting to their negative environment.* If a child lives in a threatening, chaotic world, the child's brain may be hyperalert for danger because survival may depend on it. But if this environment persists, and the child's brain is focused on developing and strengthening its strategies for survival, other strategies may not develop as fully. The result may be a child who has difficulty functioning when presented with a world of kindness, nurturing, and stimulation*.
- Chronic stress or repeated traumas can result in a number of biological reactions, including a persistent fear state (Perry, 2006). Neurochemical systems are affected, which can cause a cascade of changes in attention, impulse control, sleep, and fine motor control* (Perry, 2000a; 2000b).
- When children are exposed to chronic, traumatic stress, their brains sensitize the pathways for the fear response and create memories that automatically trigger that response without conscious thought. This is called hyperarousal. These children have an altered baseline for arousal, and they tend to overreact to triggers that other children find nonthreatening (Child Trauma Academy, n.d.). These children may be highly sensitive to nonverbal cues, such as eye contact or a touch on the arm, and they may read these actions as threats. Consumed with a need to monitor nonverbal cues for threats, their brains are less able to interpret and respond to verbal cues, even when they are in a supposedly nonthreatening environment, like a classroom. While these children are often labeled as learning disabled, the reality is that their brains have developed so that they are constantly alert and are unable to achieve the relative calm necessary for learning* (Child Trauma Academy, n.d.).
- Maltreatment during infancy and early childhood can have enduring repercussions into adolescence and adulthood. As mentioned earlier, the experiences of infancy and early childhood provide the organizing framework for the expression of children's intelligence, emotions, and personalities. When those experiences are primarily negative, children may develop emotional, behavioral, and learning problems that persist throughout their lifetime, especially in the absence of targeted interventions*. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study is a large-scale, long-term study that has documented the link between childhood abuse and neglect and later adverse experiences, such as physical and mental illness and high-risk behaviors (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, n.d.).
The power of story
Stacy Notaras Murphy
Write what you know.
- This classic adage from creative writing class has launched many a novel. According to those who practice narrative therapy, it also can launch a counseling client into a transformative and healing process of self-reflection.
- The approach emphasizes a person’s life stories and considers problems to be created out of different contexts, not as the result of who the person is.
- ..maxim associated with narrative therapy is that “the person is not the problem, the problem is the problem.” Narrative therapy emphasizes clients’ strengths, helping them to tell the alternative personal stories that often get overshadowed by the more dominant stories about their problems.
- ...came to counseling work after a career as a high school English teacher. She acknowledges that this background likely predisposed her to an appreciation of narrative therapy. “Using story as a gateway to greater meaning in life — a key component of this approach — is a given in any English classroom. A way I’d create relevancy for my English students was to talk about all literature as a kind of ongoing conversation that people have been having since the first word was spoken,” she notes.
- “Finding a therapeutic approach that says the most defining story of all is each person’s own unique story felt like a natural progression for me clinically.”
Narrative Medicine: Healing Through Storytelling
Source website: Narrative
- Emerging evidence suggests that storytelling, or narrative communication, may offer a unique opportunity to promote evidence-based choices in a culturally appropriate context. Stories can help listeners make meaning of their lives, and listeners may be influenced if they actively engage in a story, identify themselves with the storyteller, and picture themselves taking part in the action.
