The Psychology of your 20s - 51. Overcoming childhood trauma

Episode Date: October 29, 2022

This week we discuss trauma in childhood, the way it effects our brain and chemistry, our behaviours and our relationships in adulthood.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hello and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our 20s. and what they mean for our psychology. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the show. New listeners, old listeners. It is so great to have you here,

and I'm so glad that you have tuned into this new episode that we're doing today. We are obviously talking about trauma. If you clicked on this episode, we are going to take a specific, we're going to make a specific focus on childhood trauma, traumatic events that may have occurred. when we were children. This has been a topic that has been requested by a lot of people,

and I think for many good reasons, a lot of us will find throughout our lives that we do go through traumatic events, and especially when those events occur when we're children and our minds are really, really sensitive to our environment and different forms of distress or emotional events. It can have long-lasting impacts on our lives. So I'm really excited for this episode.

I've done a lot of research. We will be taking a more clinical perspective than I think some of my usual episodes do tend to take. But before we do jump into the content, I just want to give a little bit of a disclaimer. Given the content of this episode, we will be mentioning instances of physical and sexual abuse, violence, substance abuse, self-harm and suicide. So if those are topics that impact you or that you find particularly triggering, just make sure that you are in, you know, a safe space and in a good, you know, a good place in your life to be able to listen to some of this content. And if it is triggering, make sure you reach out for support and assistance,

either from friends and family or from a local mental health professional or a crisis line. I do also just want to state, I'm not clinical professional. professional and you should seek clinical assistance or help if you require immediate support or assistance. I will leave some numbers in the description of this episode. I know that we have listeners from all over the world. So I'll try and make sure that there's a resource available for you in your country or state. Just to make sure that everyone, you know, some of the stuff we'll talk about can be triggering for some people. So making sure that you have the available supports. So today we're talking about trauma. Trauma is a massive topic to cover, which is why I really do want to take a focus on trauma that occurs when we're children. I think it's a really difficult thing to talk about. And most of us will experience some kind of event that creates shock and is emotionally overwhelming in our lives, but especially when we are children and everything around us is so new.

and we are already in a state of needing extra support and feeling quite insecure, I think, because children often are dependent on others for support. Traumatic events can be particularly impactful. But the perspective that I really want to take in this episode is not a doom and gloom episode of, you know, there's no hope for the future, everyone's going to end up with some form of mental health condition. No, I really don't believe that. and the research doesn't support that either.

I really want to reinforce a sense of optimism and resilience in the face of these events, especially if the trauma that you've experienced was in childhood. And I saw this incredible quote that I hope summarizes what this episode will be focusing on today. As we know, trauma is the result of an overwhelming sense of danger, a sense of powerlessness, a sense of fear. But healing is a result of feeling safe and in. empowered and supported. So that is the direction that we are moving towards today, a sense of empowerment, a sense of safety, and a sense of understanding if this is something that you have

gone through, sometimes one of the best kind of assistance that you can be provided, or one of the best things for you is to really understand how that trauma has influenced you and to be able to recognize the impacts that it may have on your life to this date. So childhood trauma occurs when a child experiences or even observes negative events during childhood. And due to the impressions or shock of this event, the individual who witnesses or experiences this develops some type of psychological trauma or a response to the event and the impacts of that can be long-lasting. So today we are going to unpack childhood trauma in all of its forms, even those we often overlook, and that psychology as a discipline can often overlook, as well as some of the subtle ways that traumatic experiences in childhood

continue to influence our mental health, our physical health, relationships, our values, self-esteem in unexpected ways. But I also want to stress before we begin, although we're going to cover quite a few theories and ideas about trauma, we do have less than an hour. we could speak about this topic for days on end. There are hours and hours worth of content on this topic because the research is so expansive and at times conflicting and controversial, which is kind of the psychology of trauma. So we are going to cover quite a bit and I'm hoping that you will learn something new. But there will be more resources in the description and I would encourage you to do more of your own research.

if you're listening to this episode from personal experience. I also think trauma is a term that in this day and age is thrown around quite casually. And although it's just a word, I think that it has become a lot more colloquial and part of our general speech. And I kind of want to dispel some of the misconceptions and generalizations that we collectively have about trauma and what it actually is. A lot of events can be perceived as traumatic for that individual. And trauma is absolutely a subjective experience. But sometimes we can use the term trauma and say that something traumatized us without actually knowing what that really means. And I think it's important that we kind of dispel some of the colloquial uses of the term trauma

and have an understanding of what a traumatic event might actually do to you. there is also not a single truth when it comes to the different types of trauma and defining trauma, like many complex psychological experiences, especially those in childhood, where it's a lot harder to do research, you know, especially if it's with infants, they can't really talk or communicate. It's harder to get kids to participate in clinical studies. It can be really tricky to put our finger on exactly what the timeline for trauma is and how it might impact us depending on the age that we were when the event experiences, what was experienced, sorry,

but there are quite a few really great guides for this in the field of psychology. And one of them is the DSM, which is essentially the international Bible on mental health conditions and disorders that psychologists and psychiatrists use to understand people's behaviors. and the other one is this guide and this long-term study called the Adverse Childhood Experience Study. So those are the two kind of resources that I would send you towards if you were looking for a more concrete idea of trauma. So the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. So that is called the DSM. It's basically like a manual, a guidebook that clinicians use to consider and diagnose.

different mental health disorders it offers them some guidance so the DSM doesn't actually have a specific definition for trauma and that is a really important thing to kind of point out to people because this is the manual that allows clinicians all across the world to understand what people are experiencing give them a diagnosis and allow treatment to occur so the fact that the DSM doesn't actually have a definition of trauma and an idea of the different types of trauma is a little bit concerning. Instead, it tends to refer to the emotional and mental, physical and social reactions and impacts of trauma as PTSD.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, I'm sure that we have all heard this phrase before. And it's kind of an all-encompassing definition or diagnosis that covers and incorporates all types of trauma from different sources due to different events. And when we think about PTSD, we often think of veterans or people who have experienced war or, you know, traumatic accidents or violence, you know, a car accident, gun violence. And whilst these events and experiences can have a very significant and detrimental impact on us, the idea that trauma can only come from major events is one of the misconceptions that comes along with PTSD when in reality I think trauma can also emerge from things like childhood neglect and bullying and intergenerational trauma, built up events and so forth.

In fact, in the DSM, to receive a diagnosis of PTSD, you must have experienced a traumatic event singular. This is called a stressor in the manual. And some of the options or guidelines they give are things like a natural disaster, an incident of violence, a life-threatening accident or a physically life-threatening situation. And then from there, they understand that your symptoms will fall into four main categories. So these are called intrusion, avoidance, cognition and mood, and physical reactivity. And we're going to discuss this later. But one of the caveats they give is that you must be experiencing these symptoms for at least a month. And they also must interfere with multiple areas of your life. You know, your work, you're still at school, your relationships, your home

life. And as we learn more about the complex nature of trauma, there have been a lot of discussions about whether that definition of trauma, that definition of PTSD is actually too specific and embodies an outdated kind of notion or idea of trauma, one that is based on physical events and physically traumatic experiences. And as psychologists have begun revising the DSM and their ideas of trauma, there have been some other disagreements or controversies as we kind of look further into it and we get a better understanding of how people might be impacted. And as well as that, the impact of childhood trauma compared to trauma that's experienced when you're a fully grown adult. You know, as they have started to revise it, one thing that they

have noticed that the DSM doesn't actually have a good description of the different types of trauma. We know now that depending on the environment that you experience an event, the characteristics or origins of an event, that will really determine the impacts on you. And they're in a very similar vein, and we've kind of just spoken about this as well, but if you experience trauma in early childhood or even infancy, which we now know is quite common. the impact of that for you is going to be very, very different to someone who is 67, 68 and older who's experienced a car accident. And there's also that kind of line between trauma that is caused by accidents and trauma that is caused by those closest to you. We can kind of divide trauma

into those that are external and separate from you or external and close to you and then internal. We're going to go into that more a little bit later, but in terms of those discussions around whether PTSD is actually a good definition of trauma, there is hope and as a new language for describing trauma emerges, there have been better descriptions or definitions that have come about and also new categories of trauma, which is important for identifying certain symptoms and learn behaviors and reactions. And one of those new ways of describing trauma is the use of the term adverse childhood experiences. And this is where I really want to focus the episode on today, because we are talking about trauma that emerges during childhood. So adverse childhood experiences, these are

potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood. And there have been new. studies into the impacts and origins of adverse childhood experiences through the very acutely and smartly named ACE study that has been running in the US for a number of years. And it's focused on examining what exactly trauma can do to our lives and our psychology, not just in one period of our life, but from childhood to adulthood. So according to this study, there are 10 different types of childhood trauma across two categories. So personal and environmental. Trauma of the personal type includes emotional neglect, physical abuse, physical neglect, sexual abuse and verbal abuse, often from someone that we know or someone that we have a personal connection with.

Environmental trauma relates to other family members or things in our environment or our external environment. So this might include, you know, witnessing your parent really struggling with alcohol or living with a mentally ill family member witnessing domestic abuse or the absence of a parent following abandonment, death or divorce, and children, as we know, can also experience trauma in the form of a singular or major event, a long-term illness, the death of a loved one, witnessing a violent incident, a major accident or a natural disaster. So these types of traumas, those that we just listed, are called a major trauma. So I feel like that's kind of self-explanatory, major being large, being huge, being one-off.

And in contrast to major traumas, we can also experience accumulating trauma, including chronic illness, being bullied, facing setbacks and poverty, housing or food insecurity. And importantly, these minor traumas, although they might not. not be really, you know, incredibly distressing in the moment the way that a car accident might be. They're just as important because they can accumulate and actually become major traumas over time. And often those minor traumas, I don't really like that name, but we'll continue to use it. Those minor traumas are overlooked. So many people experience, you know, bullying. So many people have experienced housing or food insecurity.

And, you know, it's not as, you know, interesting, I guess. It's not as novel as someone who has witnessed a natural disaster. It's so much more ubiquitous, which is kind of the terrible thing, because although it's overlooked, because it is so almost normalized and so common, it kind of raises the fact that there are so many people out there who will have experienced these minor traumas that will eventually accumulate and can become more adverse and severe than a major incident might actually. be. Trauma, as we know, can also occur across the lifespan. And the type of trauma that we might experience across the lifespan might differ. So it can include things like massive life transitions,

vicarious trauma, which is a really significant one if you're a child. So vicarious trauma might, for example, include being repeatedly told stories or experiences of others who have gone through trauma witnessing someone else repeatedly go through trauma. For example, a parent who might be experiencing abuse or might be experiencing problems with addiction. And another huge one that has really emerged recently and I think deserves a lot more insight and a lot more research is intergenerational trauma. So intergenerational trauma refers to trauma that is passed down from a trauma survivor

to their descendants. And it can also be referred to as multi-generational trauma. I think a good example of this. If you are in Australia, we have an amazing indigenous population, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. And for many, many years, they suffered at the hands of white British colonizers who came in and separated children from their families,

in what's known as the Stolen Generation, murdered them, massacred them, and created destruction across their lives. And although the people today, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia today, might not still be experiencing such extreme forms of racism and such extreme forms of violence, you know, many of their ancestors and their family members did experience that. And that trauma is passed down because it is so significant to, you know, their history. people experiencing intergenerational trauma experience trauma a little bit differently and their reactions and patterns or emotional and psychological effects

from the trauma experienced previous generations is likely going to be a little bit different to if they experience that event themselves but different doesn't mean less, doesn't mean less significant, doesn't mean less important, doesn't mean less impactful. And in a very similar vein, a lot of research has now been done into this idea of collective trauma. So we have intergenerational trauma. That's trauma that is passed down. But collective trauma refers to a traumatic event that is shared by a group of people.

It may involve a small group like a family or it might involve an entire society. And traumatic events that can impact groups might include things like a plane crash or a natural disaster, a mass shooting. famine, war or a pandemic, which we all have been through. There are now discussions that the pandemic in itself could actually be classified as a form of collective trauma. So any situation, even a peaceful event that leaves you feeling overwhelmed and isolated and unsafe, can stress the mind and body. And if those feelings aren't resolved over time, they can become really debilitating and lead to poor decision making, addiction, depression, depression, low self-esteem and many other things.

It's not just that traumatic events result in PTSD. And that's kind of the misconception I'd love to dispel, you know, if you have experienced a traumatic event, it's not just like you get a PTSD diagnosis, and that's going to explain everything. Okay, that was a fairly big list of different types of trauma. I'm sorry if that was very overwhelming. And sadly, we don't have time to talk about each of them

with the care and attention they need. But I think the main thing to take away from this is that trauma is highly nuanced and can occur as a result of many events, experiences, lifetime stresses, anything that you subjectively experience as deeply distressing or disturbing can result in trauma. And that's something that I really wanted to kind of involve you in, is that you are the kind of the best, you are the person who, who's in the best position to determine whether something that's happened to was traumatic or not. And in psychology, in this kind of field, we are not so great at identifying different types of trauma.

And sometimes that can mean that, you know, minor traumas can be dismissed or traumas that don't fit into a very distinct box can be dismissed. But that's something we want to dispel anything that causes you distress can be a traumatic event. But what I do want to focus on is childhood trauma, especially trauma that is associated. with emotional neglect that occurs within some of our most precious environments, and that is our family units and our relationships with our caregivers. Children need stable, sensitive, loving, stimulating relationships and environments in order to reach their potential.

That is why experiences of neglect and abuse at the hands of those who are meant to care for us, who we expect to look after us, can be, particularly distressing and harmful for infants, for children, for teenagers. And given that our primary drive when we are babies and when we are children is towards attachment, often what will happen is we will accommodate the environments that we are in and we will accommodate the things that our parents do to us because at the end of the day, what we need as children is attachment. We need to feel connected to someone for a sense of safety.

And obviously as a child, you don't really have much choice given our age and vulnerability and in more chronic and extreme circumstances. Because we are driven towards that attachment, especially with our caregivers, and if we are experiencing neglect and abuse in those situations, we can end up forming and showing a really complex trauma response. And eventually, if you are a child who has experienced one of those personal traumas that we were talking about, you know, seeing a parent who's struggling with addiction, seeing divorce, seeing, you know, experiencing the death of a parent, we might eventually make meaning of that circumstance by

believing that it's our fault and that we are inherently bad and, you know, blaming ourselves. You know, as children, our brains are really, really malleable. We are, we don't have much experience as to what is normal. So we will adapt to frightening and overwhelming circumstances through the body's survival response whereby our autonomic nervous system takes control. So this is the part of our nervous system that kind of just switches on immediately. We don't really have a say. And this will become activated and switch on to freeze flight or flight response.

We've talked about this before. Basically, when our brains and our bodies are sensing danger, are sensing something traumatic, a sensing, a sensing something that could put us at risk. Our body is flooded with all of these chemicals, including adrenaline and cortisol, that in a normal situation, if the danger is one that is incredibly life-threatening, will allow us to, you know, fight back

or allow us to run faster and run away from that event. But if you're a child and you don't really have that capacity and, you know, you're reliant on your, you know, your parental environment and your home environment for safety and shelter, instead of having the opportunity to flee or to fight back, we end up feeling quite agitated and hypervigilant and powerless. Infants might also show a really different response. If they are experiencing some form of neglect or if they're experiencing a traumatic event,

they might show a frozen watchfulness and can almost appear to be zoned out. And children and young people also have that experience of dissociating. You know, if your parents are going through a divorce or you've sadly lost a parent, it's really difficult to be exposed to that situation and not have some kind of safety mechanism to get you through. And sometimes those mechanisms or coping mechanisms that our body uses to get us through those really, really hard events are ones that aren't in our control. And that can include completely dissociating and tapping out of a, of a very, of a very hard event. an event that's happening as a way of protecting ourselves. And prolonged exposure to events or a situation where trauma is occurring can actually lead to toxic stress. And that really

changes the development and the brain development of a child. It sensitizes the child to further stress. It leads to heightened activity levels and affects future learning and concentration. And most importantly, it can really impair a child's ability to trust and relate to others as they grow up. when a child is traumatized, they might find it really hard to regulate their behaviors. And like I said, trust people and as they grow up and they develop into adults, other areas of their lives might be acutely impacted. And in really important areas, things that are really crucial to our well-being, like our ability to be vulnerable, our ability to connect,

our ability to monitor our emotions and, you know, feel the right level of arousal, feel the right level of excitement and happiness versus sadness and distress. So what are some of the lasting impacts on our bodies, on our brains and of our lives if we do experience a traumatic event in childhood? So there is a lot of research about this. We are going to talk about some of the kind of negative side effects, but take it with a grain of salt. We're going to talk a little bit later about how this won't be the case for everyone, but research has suggested that the type of trauma that occurs during childhood in particular can leave pretty deep marks, giving rise to issues like depression, anxiety and substance abuse.

As we know, particularly with substance abuse, it doesn't discriminate people from all walks of life have struggled with addiction. However, those who have experienced trauma are far more likely to abuse drugs like alcohol, like opioids, like painkillers, anything of the sort, because they may be using them to self-medicate and to escape the pain they may be feeling. We talked about this before, but children don't have as much agency in traumatic situations.

And so one of the ways that they avoid experiencing the full shock of an event is by disassociating, is by compartmentalizing the emotions that they would like to feel. And their brain kind of says, you know, we don't have the capacity to feel this right now. Let's put it in a box and we'll think about it later. But if that later never comes, what ends up happening is those emotions that have been stored away kind of bubble to the surface.

And that's where things like substance abuse might occur because it's a really great kind of soother for our brain. Of course, the long-term impacts of that might actually end up making our trauma worse. And alongside, you know, a greater likelihood of developing depression and anxiety, there's also a very strong link between trauma and disassociation. Ongoing trauma, especially childhood, physical, sexual or emotional abuse or neglect, is a very significant risk factor for the development of dissociative disorders. And it's actually thought that about 90% of people who end up being diagnosed with some form of dissociative disorder

did have trauma in their childhood that is related to this diagnosis. So dissociation like we've talked about, it's basically a natural mechanism your body uses to help you survive trauma. So it's an escape. It's an involuntary detachment from reality, often experienced as a disconnect from your sense of self, your thoughts, and your memory. So when human beings are psychologically overwhelmed, we seek safety. Sometimes that safety that we crave cannot be met at that time by our external world. So instead, we seek safety internally. The outside world isn't within our control, but our inner world is.

So we detach from our emotions, we push them aside. But sometimes that dissociation, which is a coping mechanism, which allows us to survive, it's important. Our brain does it naturally for a reason. It can keep going long after that traumatic event might actually be occurring. And the result of that can be things like memory loss, an amnesia of certain, periods of our life, certain personal information, we can have a prolonged sense of being detached from ourselves and detached from our emotions, a blurred sense of identity and significant stress or problems in your relationships and your work life, and an inability to cope. And that makes sense.

You know, you've had something really terrible happen to you, something that is almost split your brain and caused your brain to undergo significant stress. So if that isn't resolved, if that isn't something that you get help for, you know, in the immediate aftermath of an event, it can cause long-term problems. There's also problems with self-esteem. You know, if you've experienced trauma in childhood of all types, you know, you've had a chronic illness, your parents have gotten divorced, you've experienced a death or a traumatic event, an accident. Sometimes the only way that our young minds can justify that,

and the only explanation we can give is that it had something to do with, you. You know, if you've experienced abuse, I think something that therapists often hear is like, how is it my fault? It's really hard to explain things like that. It's really, really difficult, especially if you are a child or you're an infant. And as a result, as we get older, we might see it as a consequence of who we are and our self-esteem can really plummet. It also impacts our relationship, especially traumatic events that occur in that beautiful space and that beautiful precious environment between a child and a caregiver, if something isn't quite right there, if you've experienced abuse or neglect or even a feeling of being ignored or abandoned, that's going to impact

your attachment styles in the future. We did a whole episode on this. But things like anxious attachment style or avoidant attachment styles are really common after people have gone through a traumatic childhood event. And it's really difficult to connect with others. especially in an intimate way if you've been taught by your past experiences that those who are meant to love you will inevitably harm you or abandon you. Another thing that I really want to discuss that I think isn't talked about often is the impact to our brain structures and our behavior. So there is heaps of evidence that social and emotional information is processed really differently among children that have experienced abuse or some kind of trauma versus those who have not.

So the amygdala, this is an area of our brain that's responsible for processing fear and emotional information, has been shown to be really over-responsive to emotional stimuli, things like angry faces, loud noises in children who have experienced neglect or abuse. So traumatized children, they're often able to identify angry faces a lot more. quicker than non-traumatized children. They're a lot more responsive to loud noises. They're a lot more responsive to, you know, indicators that someone might be abandoning them or indicators of something being wrong in their environment compared to children who are non-traumatized. And that kind of suggests that their brain has now primed them to detect a threat. If your early learning experiences

are based on a sense of fear, you know, you've been taught that the world is a dangerous place, that you might be harmed. Our brains adapt to that. We want to be able to take that information in and learn from it. And there's also been studies showing that our memory gets impaired in some ways that our brain can actually develop in abnormal ways or develop in ways that, yeah, that can be really detrimental to our memory and to how we process emotions. So people who have undergone abuse as children,

you know, it might seem that they have it worse off. That's something that I want to dispel in this next kind of segment of the episode. And look, you know, I've talked about a lot of the negative side effects. And I did think maybe we could talk about the benefits, the benefits of trauma. I think that is a terrible way of putting it. And you can do your own research into that because I really, really hate that sense of, you know, your trauma made you stronger or you had to go through that to be the person you are today. You know, everything in life is a learning experience and changes how we

interpret our environment. You don't need to experience trauma to become resilient and an emotionally intelligent human being, nor should you have to. You know, I don't think that we should have this discussion around trauma being something that's positive or something that's like a blessing, like, oh, you know, if you hadn't gone through that, you wouldn't be where you are today. You wouldn't be so resilient. You know, you could have been just as resilient. without going through that. So I do really kind of resent this idea that trauma is in some ways or, you know, abuse or neglect is in some ways a good thing. So you do want to look into some of those benefits. I really don't like saying that. But, you know, some of the upsides of trauma,

if you would like to look into that, I do ask that you do your own research. I just don't think it's a positive thing to talk about here. But we do know anecdotally and clinically that many people can overcome childhood trauma and not experience some of those impacts that we've talked about. There are so many people who have experienced neglect or abuse or divorced or death or an accident who don't go on to experience addiction, who live really amazing lives. And after experiencing trauma, we do know that some people tend to have better outcomes in adulthood compared to others. And psychologists have done a lot of work in attempting to understand what exactly it is

about that individual that might make someone more primed or likely to be able to overcome an event versus people who, you know, might actually experience some of those long-term impacts that can be associated with childhood trauma. None of these, as we said, are always going to occur. You know, if you've experienced, you know, your parents getting divorced, if you had a chronic illness when you were a child, if you happen to experience sexual or physical abuse, you know, abuse, it's not, you know, it's not determined that you're going to end up, you know, with severe depression. And understanding what kind of protective factors there are is really crucial. So what are some of these determinants for more positive outcomes in the wake and in the face of

traumatic or complex trauma from childhood? Okay, trauma is going to impact people differently based on a number of factors. children, even at birth, are not blank slates. They are born with a certain neurological makeup and a temperament. And as these children get older, these differences become greater as they're impacted by the experiences and their environment. But there are some children and some people who have greater resilience, have a temperament that is more passive or more active

and might be overcome experiences that they, witness or that they're privy to. Cultural groups as well really impact our development and they impact on our experiences and our opportunities. Cultural groups are likely to have particular values and priorities and practices and child rearing that's going to impact how a child might respond following a traumatic event. And these factors all interact to make individuals more susceptible to the long-term impacts of trauma. And this is obviously a really complicated interaction. but some researchers put together a number of factors that they identified might determine whether someone who's experienced trauma as a child is going to have more adverse versus more

positive experiences. And there are also kind of a list of factors that clinical psychologists and even the average person can use to measure the impact of their trauma, although I think subjective experiences and your experience of trauma is probably the best indicator. So number one is how serious was the event. I just want to say really quickly, severity is subjective, but it really matters how serious the event was objectively. You know, were you seriously physically hurt?

Was your life in danger? Did you lose a loved one? Depending on your developmental stage and the traumatic events impact on your daily life, the effects could really vary. But for some people, something that might be minor to others, could be really serious. So that's important to keep in mind. how close was that trauma to you?

Trauma can impact people who aren't even close to us. You know, we might experience, you know, the death of someone at our school when we were a child. You might not have been close to that person. It's still going to be really traumatic, but often the closer you are, the more significant the impact the trauma has. Whether you were a victim or a witness

or it's something that you learned about determines how severe an effect the trauma has on you. you know, trauma with caregivers is going to be a lot more impactful than a trauma in your community. You know, your caregiver, your parent, that person is, you know, directly responsible for your safety and your well-being. So if they pass away or if you, you know, unfortunately experience abuse from that person, that's going to impact you a lot differently. how did your caregiver or your community react to the trauma? So feeling understood by your parents or your caregivers provides feelings of trust and attunement. And attunement can really help you feel accepted and loved and better prepared to cope with your trauma.

You know, if you've got a parent who is there for you and who loves you and who gives you unconditional love and support and, you know, a sense of trust and that you can feel vulnerable, I think you're going to be a lot more protected than if you didn't have that support structure in place. Were there previous traumas, people experience many types of trauma throughout their lives. We summarised a whole list earlier. Suppose you already have a history of traumatic events occurring in your home life, or you've had a buildup of those minor traumas we talked about, experiencing food insecurity or housing insecurity or poverty. In that case, it could actually impact or amplify what, you know,

it can actually amplify the impact that the trauma has on you. So if you are an individual who grew up in a really loving home and who had everything provided for them and who never had to worry and then you've had this one singular event versus someone who has experienced poverty, experienced abuse, experienced neglect, experienced bullying, and then a really traumatic event happens, it's a really complex interaction about which of those two individuals, the outcomes are going to be worse for.

And in some situations, people might say that the person has experienced a lot of trauma in the past and a lot of minor built-up accumulated traumas might actually be better placed because they have coping mechanisms, maybe not positive ones, maybe they experienced association, but they do have something that can get them through, whereas someone who has never experienced anything like that is going to be completely shocked and unsure about where to go from there. Another factor is if there were support or backlash from your community. Our community and our social identities impact us in so many ways.

It is the building block of our self-concept. So whether that is your local community or your religious group that you might be a part of or people in the same school as you or people who are of the same. race or ethnicity of you as you, those around you can respond differently to traumatic events. And having a supportive community can positively impact a child and reduce the long-term risks of childhood trauma. There's also other factors like resilience. People who are more resilient are able to overcome these experiences by applying a helpful understanding of the event rather than a negative perspective that can centre on shame and self-blame. And resilience really does refer to

your ability to bounce back. So it makes sense why people who are high in the characteristic of resilience might find it easier. And following a traumatic event, research is also revealed two other really crucial factors. And they kind of tend to separate those who might now suffer a disorder as a result of their experience versus those who never developed things like anxiety or depression or PTSD or those who have recovered from those experiences. These factors are mastery and social support. Mastery refers to the degree to which individuals perceive themselves of having control and influence over their life circumstances. This is not the same as optimism. You know, optimism being like, oh, everything's going to turn out, you know, outright for me.

I'm optimistic about the future. No, no, it's about whether you believe that you actually can change things in your life, whether you actually are in control of what you experience. So if you are someone who has experienced childhood trauma, but you are so certain and you have that high level of mastery that things are in my control, I can leave this situation, I can pursue a better life, I can make something better for myself, I can raise my children in a different way to how I was raised versus someone who thinks, you know, everything is determined for me, I can never escape, I can never leave, I have no control. We can kind of see how the impacts and the result of a traumatic event might differ. And the second factor which we talked about

a little bit earlier, but I do want to stress again is social support. It is just one of the biggest, biggest protective factors. You know, if you have supportive social ties, if you're friends, if you have friends and family who love you, maybe you have a mentor or extended family who looks after you who make sure you're okay, you are a lot less likely to develop some of those disorders and more likely to recover from an event than if you didn't have them. And in contrast, unsupportive and unreceptive and critical responses from your family, from your community, from your friends, that puts you at risk of PTSD and of things like dissociative disorders or depression and anxiety. And I think the research is something they really stated and they wanted

to explain why this might be the case. And it's because it likely a risk. rises from attempts to discourage open communication and attempts from your community or to not listen to you, to not be responsive to what you're saying. And that increases cognitive avoidance within you and suppression of trauma-related memories and social withdrawal and self-blame. If you don't feel like you have an environment or a place where you can openly and freely talk about what you've been through in a way that you're allowed to process your trauma, but also you're allowed to share, what's going to happen is you're going to kind of suppress that. And you're going to push it down and, you know, kind of learn that no one wants, no one cares. No one wants to

know about this. And that can really create a lot of adverse experiences and maybe put you at more at risk of, you know, substance abuse and depression like we've talked about. We've talked so much in this episode about the origins of trauma. We've talked so much about what might protect you, so much about where trauma can come from and why it is so impactful if you are a child and especially if trauma occurs in close family environment or within your family unit. But there's hope. There's always so much hope if you are someone who has experienced this and you're looking to this episode for encouragement and healing like we talked about at the beginning, I really want to talk about some of the options for treatment or the options for

getting help. And the ones that I think are recommended by professionals. But as always, if this is something that you are considering, I do suggest going, getting a mental health care plan if you're in Australia or going to your doctor or a psychologist anywhere you are in the world and talking to them about it. Some of the things they might recommend are things like cognitive behavioral therapy. So this focuses on the relationship between your feelings and your thoughts and your behaviours and it kind of targets problems and symptoms and focuses on changing your patterns of behaviour that could lead to difficulties in functioning so maybe if we think about the drug addiction or substance use challenge here

if you are someone who when you experience a flashback or when you experience you know you're triggered because of a traumatic event you went through in childhood you might immediately go to suppress that using alcohol and cogger. behavioral therapy tries to make us understand that we can actually choose a different behavior. And that might lead to better outcomes for us. There's also prolonged exposure. So this is actually a typical, it's kind of a, not a typical, but a very specific, maybe niche type of cognitive behavioral therapy. And it teaches us to gradually approach trauma-related memories and feelings and situations.

And whilst we're approaching them to also apply. meditative or mindful practices so we can lower our sense of anxiousness and arousal. Often when we are triggered by something, we're put straight back into that experience. So our bodies and our brains are flooded with those same kind of neurochemicals and feelings and emotions that we originally felt during that first event. So what prolonged exposure wants to teach us to do is to instead of avoid that because we're worried that we're going to be, you know, overwhelmed and we're worried we're going to panic or be distressed. It teaches us that when we are exposed to a triggering memory or a triggering

thought, that those cues are not dangerous and you're not in any danger anymore. You don't need to avoid those situations. It teaches us to have a positive experience or a positive mental reaction to those triggers. It's been really effective for a lot of people. It's not offered by many places, but there is so much evidence suggesting it's a really great way to move on from trauma. There's also medication. I'm not going to talk about that so much, but things like SSRIs, it's not so much for treating PTSD, but more for treating some of those other conditions that might arise from a traumatic event, like depression and anxiety. And finally, creating a safe environment, creating an environment where you feel like you are able to process your trauma and

you are able to feel safe in a way that maybe you didn't get to feel. I think that's one of the most amazing things that I see happening is people who have understood how their parents and their grandparents and their family have been impacted by events in the past and this trauma has been passed down and these reactions and these responses and these behaviours have been passed down and they're breaking that cycle of intergenerational trauma by healing their inner child by creating spaces where they feel seen and heard by having room for creativity and exploration and love. Trauma is really, really hard. It's really difficult, especially when we are children.

You know, we are so receptive to everything in our environment. You know, as kids, we're just trying to learn. And if those learning experiences we're presented with are ones that are really difficult and ones that are based in violence or abuse or loss or abandonment, It can really impact who we become as adults, but I want to say that in no way means that your destiny is secure and that your destiny is kind of solidified. You have the option to change that path and so many people anecdotally and clinically who have experienced really immense trauma go on to lead incredible, incredible lives. And most people will experience a traumatic event in their life, but the brain is so flexible. and great at bouncing back.

And when you are able to surround yourself with supportive people, when you are able to pursue wellness and happiness for yourself, receive support from a psychologist or someone who can help you process your triggers and process your thoughts around what has happened to you, there is no reason why you cannot live a life just as wonderful and lovely and full of love as someone who may not have gone through that. So I do really hope that with all that we've talked about today, we are able to collectively recognize that there is hope for the future.

And then if you are someone who has experienced trauma as a child, first of all, I'm so proud of you for listening to this episode. And I'm proud of you for getting through that. And I just can see amazing things in your future. You're going to do amazing things. You're on the right track. You know, you're listening to this episode. So, yeah, proud of you.

And thank you for listening. Thank you for, yeah, tuning into this new episode. It was a long episode, so I appreciate it if you've made it this far. But I also think it was such an important one and one that I've wanted to do for a while. Like I said, we could not cover everything. It's such a vast, vast topic. But I hope that we covered the basics and that you learn something. And if you did like this episode, please feel free to subscribe to the show wherever you're listening right now.

And leave a five-star review on Spotify, Apple, Apple, podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps the show to grow. And you know, it's just me doing this. So it really makes my day when I see that people really like what I'm doing or send me lovely messages. It's just so heartwarming. And thank you, as always, for listening. We will be back next week with a new episode. Have a lovely day. On the Look Back at a podcast. 1979, that was a big moment for me. Eighty-four is big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode,

we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it, with our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hard Way with your favorite therapist and host, Kier Games. This space is about black men's experiences having honest conversations that's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor.

It signals to the world that you're not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to, listen to learn the hard way on the AHA radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Owens, correct? I doctored the test ones.

It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Gillespie and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.

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