As someone who has had early trauma it never leaves.
The worst part is knowing no one will ever understand what it feels like to have no right answers.
The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]
31–40 of 203 posts
Re: The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]
#32Are children more traumatized now than in the past? Seems like the past was harder on children.
I have read Gabor Mate's works on the subject. I think he would say that more children are traumatized today. Whether they are traumatized more deeply is another matter.
The earlier trauma happens, the more amplified the effect is. Sometime in the 1950s it became a common parenting approach in the US at least to "not coddle children". That creates trauma for a sensitive child to not have their emotional needs met (an insensitive child may be just fine). There are different degrees of trauma- others that fight wars may experience a much deeper trauma later in life. The trauma to the ignored baby is not as traumatic of an event, but the baby does not have any abilities to cope and the effects are amplified in early developmental stages.
There is less community today to help with the coping process and emotionally distant parenting styles also make coping harder. And there is less religion today- religion both provided community and sometimes specifically helps people deal with trauma.
Trauma can be generational- someone that suffers trauma is much more likely to have difficulties raising their children. Consider someone that survived war but lost their home and witnessed horrors. They may turn to drugs to cope with the psychological pain. Being drug dependent, they have difficulty raising their own children. Those children don't have their emotional needs met, and a cycle of trauma can continue.
From Mate's point of view addiction rates would probably be one way to measure the trauma of society. Drug addiction is a way of coping with severe psychological pain. Drug overdosing is becoming a leading killer in some age groups.
Re: The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]
#33Often, traumatized individuals traumatize their children. So it’s at least a somewhat self perpetuating phenomenon that may not decay away over generations. As a result, it seems reasonable to assume that different groups could have different prevalences of traumatized individuals.
How does the prevalence of traumatized individuals characterize a society as a whole? For example, it seems that a society where the majority are traumatized should be fundamentally different from a society where a minority are traumatized.
Re: The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]
#34Are children more traumatized now than in the past? Seems like the past was harder on children.
My hunch around childhood is we’re doing better with young kids (due to awareness around this stuff). But we don’t give teenagers the independence they need to develop.
Re: The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]
#35A relevant good book, which I recently read, is "Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class."
https://www.amazon.com/Troubled-Memoir-Foster-Family-Social/...
Re: The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]
#36Attachment Theory is an interesting subject on the matter.
A few useful books which helped me with both understanding and healing (there're still problems, but it gets better):
1. Love Sense, Sue Johnson.
2. The Power of Attachment, Diane Pooler Heller.
3. Understanding Disorganized Attachment: Theory and Practice for Working with Children and Adults, David, Shemmings and Yvonne Shemmings.
4. The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk.
5. Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love, Sue Johnson.
6. "Focusing" practice, Eugene Gendlin.
7. How to survive the most critical 5 seconds of your life, Tim Larkin.
The first four lay down foundations, explaining the mechanics, possible solutions, will help in navigating, filtering and planning the healing.
The 5th and 6th are actual healing, former for couples, the latter mostly for individuals.
The last one is about a wisdom of violence embedded into the body of affected individuals which is likely suppressed by the rational part of the mind.
Re: The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]
#37There are many types of early relational trauma, but I strongly recommend the (audio)book: "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents" by Lindsay Gibson, to anyone who thinks they might benefit from reading a book with that title.
I get that's a weird judge-a-book-by-its-cover metric, but it is excellent for working through and understanding those relationships.
Re: The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]
#38In the microplastics thread, so many were ready to assign blame for so many pervasive ills to the prevalence of microplastics. Meanwhile we have known about the devastating effect of interpersonal trauma in childhood and just shrug or worse, say “well that’s how my parents did it and I’m fine.” Foundationally there is no problem more urgent than eliminating interpersonal alienation at every possible interaction and e…
I love that "and I'm fine" line. I see it a lot in contexts where someone is defending something that seems barbaric to me, which I would consider a very clear sign that they are not fine. It leads to a lot of, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means," at least in my internal dialogue.
An additional anecdote: I see it in responsibility rejection and/or attempted erasure:
- I'm fine, therefore you are also fine (it's not my fault you can't deal with this)
- I'm fine, therefore you are also fine (you exist only as an extension of me, and I'm fine)
Re: The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
This stuff is almost too scary for me to read. My childhood was awful and only around age 30 did my life start to get "better".
First 20 years of my life was me waiting to get out of the environment I was in. The next 5 trying to stay alive. The past 5 improving myself, my mental health, the way I view life and relate to others. It's all good in the end. For 25 years of my life I thought everyone faked being happy. I now know that it actually is possible to be happy :).
I was sexually abused by a family member at young age. It certainly affected me in negative ways, and should be stopped, but it is also important to emphasize to current victims that being abused doesn't make you uniquely and shamefully damaged. Some large percentage of humans have been traumatized as children, and many of us find our way to a fulfilling and good life. Lots of therapy, maybe a few sharp corners that won't go away, but still healing is possible, and not even algorithmically difficult, just a lot of hard work and awareness and willingness to question deeply behind the surface of things.
I might sometimes get triggered by certain textures while I am eating, but I am able to trust people and tolerate being hurt without totally shutting down and enjoy my family and work and leisure.
Some people are tremendously evil, but most people are surprisingly resilient. We didn't get thru human history without being able to overcome a lot.
Re: The Effects of Early Relational Trauma (2001) [pdf]
#40Are children more traumatized now than in the past? Seems like the past was harder on children.
Most of the research on child sexual abuse in the US shows that rates have dropped by about 50% since the 1970s.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK201120/ search for "Evidence for a Decline in Physical and Sexual Abuse"
(searched for that to post this, and they cite %60 since the 1990s).
Freud himself discovered a tremendous amount of horrible abuse in his patients; depending on the culture, most people just turn a blind eye. People that haven't experienced it and recovered from it a bit are really good at not believing how common it is.