51. Overcoming childhood trauma

This week we discuss trauma in childhood, the way it effects our brain and chemistry, our behaviours and our relationships in adulthood.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology. Hello, everyone, welcome back to the show.
A new listeners, old listeners. It is so great to

(00:27):
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

(00:49):
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 trauma 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,

(01:14):
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.

(01:34):
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 a safe space and in a good,

(01:55):
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, and you should seek

(02:16):
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

(02:36):
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

(02:58):
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, as children

(03:19):
often are, we're 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 dooming
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. Now I really don't believe that, and the

(03:40):
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

(04:03):
sense of danger, a sense of powerlessness, a sense of fear,
but healing is a result of feeling safe and 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

(04:25):
of assistance that you can be provided, or the best
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

(04:47):
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

(05:09):
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 and self esteem in unexpected ways, but I also
want to stress before we begin, although we're going to

(05:30):
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

(05:53):
going to cover quite a bit and I'm hoping that
you will learn something new, but there will be more
sources 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

(06:13):
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,

(06:37):
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.

(07:00):
There's 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 there is
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.

(07:22):
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 where it was experienced. Sorry, but
there are quite a few really great guides for this
in the field of psychology, and one of them is

(07:44):
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
to study, so those are the two kind of resources

(08:06):
that I would send you to wards if you were
looking for a more concrete idea of trauma. So the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, so that it's
called the DSM. It's basically like a manual a guide
book that clinicians use to consider and diagnose different mental

(08:27):
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,

(08:47):
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.

(09:12):
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,

(09:32):
or 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,

(09:54):
I think trauma can also emerge from things like childhood neglect, 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

(10:18):
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.

(10:40):
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,

(11:02):
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

(11:23):
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

(11:46):
started to revise it, one thing that they've noticed is
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 in a very similar vein and

(12:08):
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 sixty seven sixty eight and older

(12:29):
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

(12:53):
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 emergers, 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 learned behaviors and reactions.

(13:15):
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

(13:36):
occur in childhood and there have been numerous studies into
the impacts and origins of adverse childhood experiences through the
very acutely and smartly named ac 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

(13:59):
of our life, but from childhood to adulthood. So according
to the study, there are ten 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

(14:23):
know or someone that we have a personal connection with.
Environmental trauma relates to other family members or things in
the environment in our environment or our external environment. So
this might include witnessing your parent really struggling with alcohol
or living with a mentally ill family member, witnessing domestic abuse,

(14:46):
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

(15:08):
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,

(15:28):
housing or food insecurity. And importantly, these minor traumas, although
they might not be really 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

(15:49):
really like that name, but would continue to use it.
Those minor traumas are overlooked. So many people experience, you know, bullying,
so many people have experienced housing or food and security,
and you know, it's not as interesting, I guess, it's
not as novel as someone who has witnessed a natural disaster.

(16:10):
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

(16:33):
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 different, might differ,
so it can include things like massive life transitions, vicarious trauma,
which is a really significant one if you're a child.

(16:54):
So vicarious trauma might, for example, include being repeatedly hold
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

(17:18):
emerged recently and I think deserves a lot more insight
and a lot more researchers intergenerational trauma. So intergenerational trauma
refers to trauma that has passed down from a trauma
survivor to their descendants, and it can also be referred
to as multigenerational trauma. I think a good example of

(17:38):
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,

(18:02):
and created destruction across their lives. And although the people today,
the abridging on Torres Strait Island of 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,

(18:24):
and that trauma has passed down because it is so
significant to you know, their history. People experiencing intergenerational trauma
experienced trauma a little bit differently, and their reactions and
patterns or emotional and psychological effects from the trauma experienced
from previous generations is likely going to be a little

(18:47):
bit different too if they experienced 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 has passed down, but collective trauma refers

(19:09):
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

(19:33):
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

(19:53):
really debilitating and lead to poor decision making, addiction, 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,

(20:17):
that was a fairly pig whist 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

(20:41):
is 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 is in the best position
to determine whether something that's happened too was traumatic or not.
And in psychology, in this kind of field, we are

(21:04):
not so great at identifying different types of trauma, and
sometimes that can mean that 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,

(21:24):
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

(21:48):
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 and we

(22:09):
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

(22:32):
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,

(22:54):
if you are a child who has experienced one of
those personal traumas that we were talking about, 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.

(23:18):
You know, as children, our brains are really really malleable,
and 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

(23:39):
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, are
sensing something that could put us at risk. Our body

(23:59):
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
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

(24:20):
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 hyper vigilant and powerless. Infants might
also show a really different response if they are experiencing

(24:42):
some form of neglect or if they're experiencing a traumatic event,
they might show a frozen watchfulness and can almost appear
to be zorned 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

(25:05):
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 an event that's

(25:25):
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
a child to further stress, it leads to heightened activity levels,
and affects future learning and concentration. And most importantly, it

(25:49):
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,

(26:11):
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 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

(26:34):
our lives if we do experience a traumatic event in childhood.
So there is a lot of research about this, and
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

(26:55):
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

(27:16):
abuse drugs like alcohol, opioids like pain killers, 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

(27:36):
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

(27:58):
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 a greater likelihood of
developing depression and anxiety. There's also a very strong link

(28:18):
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 ninety percent of people who end up
being diagnosed with some form of dissociative disorder did have

(28:41):
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,

(29:06):
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 about our inner world is, so we detach
from our emotions. We push them aside. But sometimes that dissociation,

(29:28):
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

(29:49):
sense of being detached from ourself and detach from our emotions,
a blurred sense of identity, and significant stress or problems
and your relationships and your work life, and an inability
to cope. And that makes sense. You know, you've had
something really terrible happened to you, something that is almost
split your brain and caused your brain to undergo significant stress.

(30:10):
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 traumatic event and accident. Sometimes the only

(30:35):
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 here 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,

(30:58):
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

(31:19):
even the 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,

(31:43):
if you've been taught by your past experiences that those
who are meant to love you will inevitably harm you
or abandon you. And 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

(32:04):
is processed really differently among children that have experienced abuse
or some kind of trauma versus those who have not.
So the amygdalat this is an area of our brain
that's responsible for processing fear and emotional information, has been
shown to be really overresponsive to emotional stimuli things like
angry faces loud noises in children who have experienced neglect

(32:31):
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 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

(32:53):
of suggests that their brain has now primed them to
detect a threat. If you're early learning experiences 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

(33:17):
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.

(33:39):
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,

(34:00):
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

(34:25):
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 if you do want to look into some of

(34:45):
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,

(35:10):
or divorce 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

(35:33):
make someone more primed or likely to be able to
overcome an event versus people who 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,

(35:55):
your parents getting divorced, if you had a chronic illness
when you're a child, if you have and to experience
sexual or physical 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 as really crucial. So what are some of these
determinants for more positive outcomes in the wake and in

(36:17):
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,

(36:41):
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 you know,
have greater resilience, have a temperament that is more passive
or more active and might be overcome experiences that they

(37:01):
witness or that they're privy too. 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.

(37:22):
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

(37:42):
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 indicators. So
number one is how serious was the event? I just

(38:03):
want to say really quickly, severity is subjective, but it
really matters how serious the event was objectively, you know
what 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

(38:25):
that might be minor t 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 the
death of someone at our school when we were a child.
You might not have been close to that person. It's

(38:46):
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 and affect
the trauma has on you. You know, trauma with caregivers
is going to be a lot more impactful than a

(39:08):
trauma and your community. You know that 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 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

(39:32):
understood by your parents or your caregivers provides feelings of
trust and attiunement and achievement 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

(39:53):
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 play. Were their previous
traumas People experience many types of trauma throughout their lives.
You know, we summarized the whole list earlier. Suppose you
already have a history of traumatic events occurring in your
home life. All you've had a build up of those

(40:15):
minor traumas we talked about experiencing food insecurity or housing insecurity,
or poverty. In that case, it could actually impact or
amplify what you can actually amplify the impact that the
trauma has on you. So if you're an individual who
grew up in a really loving home and who had
everything proprided for them and who never had to worry,

(40:37):
and then you've had this one singular event versus someone
who has experienced poverty, experienced abuse, experience neglect, experience 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,

(40:58):
people might say that the person is experienced a lot
of trauma in the past and a lot of mind
are 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

(41:19):
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

(41:40):
that you might be a part of, or people in
the same school as you, or people who are either
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

(42:01):
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
center 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

(42:21):
resilience might find it easier and following a traumatic event.
Research has also revealed to 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

(42:44):
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 optimism being like, oh, I'm everything's going to turn
out from you outright. For me, I'm optimistic about the future. No. No,

(43:07):
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

(43:27):
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

(43:48):
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 short ties, if your friends, if you have
friends and family who love you, maybe you have a
mentor or extended family who looks after you, who make

(44:10):
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 your risk
of PTSD and of things like dissociative disorders or depression

(44:30):
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 arises 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

(44:51):
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

(45:13):
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 more at risk of
substance abuse and depression. Like we've talked about, we've talked
so much in this episode about the origins of trauma.

(45:35):
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 traumakers 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 experiences and you're looking to this

(45:56):
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 forgetting 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 healthcare plan if
you're in Australia, or going to your doctor or a

(46:18):
psychologist anywhere you are in the world and talking to
them about it. Some of the things they might recommend
to things like cognitive behavioral therapy. So this focuses on
the relationship between your feelings and your thoughts and your behaviors,
and it kind of targets problems and symptoms and focuses
on changing your patterns of behavior that could lead to

(46:38):
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 cognitive behavioral therapy tries to

(47:01):
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 typical as
kind of a lot of typical that are very specific,
maybe niche type of cognitive behavioral therapy, and it teaches
us to gradually approach trauma related memories and feelings and situations,

(47:25):
and whilst we're approaching them, to also apply meditative or
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

(47:46):
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 overwhelmed, we're going
to panic or be distressed. It teaches us that when
we are exposed to a triggering memory or a triggering thought,

(48:08):
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

(48:28):
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

(48:51):
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,
as people who have understood how their parents and their
grandparents and their family have been impacted by events in

(49:12):
the past, and this trauma has been passed down, and
these reactions and these responses and these behaviors have been
passed down, and they're breaking that cycle of intergenerational trauma
by healing there in a 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

(49:36):
really difficult, especially when we are children. You know, we
are so receptive to everything in our environment. You know,
as kids were just trying to learn, and if those
learning experiences were 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

(49:56):
become as adults. But I want to say that in
no way, 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

(50:19):
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're able to pursue wellness and happiness for yourself, receive
support from a psychologist or someone who can help you
process your triggers and process and your thoughts around what

(50:41):
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 drama as a child,

(51:03):
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

(51:24):
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'll learn something.
And if you do like this episode, please feel free
to subscribe to the show wherever you're listening right now

(51:47):
and leave a five star review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts,
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 of 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.

(52:09):
Have a lovely day.