July 6, 2025 • 41 mins
Ever wondered why you are the way you are?
And why you do things the way you do?
In another awesome chat with Clinical Psychologist Heather Irvine-Rundle from The Read Clinic, we talk about how childhood experiences, including trauma and adverse events, can shape the adults we become and, most importantly, what can be done about it.
Heather takes us through how the brain develops in those crucial first four years, why it’s not what happens to you but the meaning you make of it that matters, and how healing is possible at any stage of life.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Heather Irvine Randall from the Reed clinic is Anne.
We just want to do a bit of a warning on the start of this
one. Great idea 'cause we're going to
talk about, well, PTSD. Yep, trauma.
Childhood issues, yeah. Childhood difficulties, adverse
childhood events, things that can be really distressing.
And triggering it could be triggering or something.
(00:20):
So yeah, if you're not in the right headspace for this one,
then you can skip this one and maybe come back to it at a time
when there'll be helpful things in.
Yeah, and. That's weigh it up everyone, you
know, like it's, you know, as you said it.
So if you're going to be able tolisten to this and maybe have
some time with friends, walk on the beach afterwards.
(00:41):
There might be some things in here that are triggering enough
to get you to think I can do something about that.
But I've got support, but it I would certainly not want to
listen last thing before you go to bed and then be on your own
ruminating about it overnight. So, so please take care of
yourselves and always you can press stop if it gets too much
and you can come back another time.
(01:02):
But yes, there is helpful thingsin there if you can't get
through it. Podcast with Robbie I'm Rabbit.
I record this podcast inside a cute little retro caravan from
1967 that I've tore around all over the place.
Podcast with Robbie Heather Irvine Randall from the Reed
(01:23):
clinic is back in. It's been a while.
It's. Been a while, it's great to be
here. People ask for you all the time.
It's Heather jumping back in again.
Oh, that's so nice. Oh.
Yeah. Oh, you are?
I asked once in the Facebook group, do people follow along,
like episode at a time? Or if you've just found the
podcast, do you go back to episode 1?
And most people do that. They'll find the podcast, go
(01:44):
back to the start. But then they all say.
But then when I see one of Heather's episodes, I jump
straight to that. Isn't that lovely?
Lovely. It's it's really nice.
I had actually, someone approached me.
I did the menopause day. It was at Mingara and it was a
woman that was there. And she said just thanks.
She said, I just so appreciate the podcast that you did with
(02:05):
Rabs. Oh, wow.
And I said, oh, was that the oneI did on, you know, menopause?
And she said, oh, no, no, no, itwas for my husband.
She said it was we, we did the anxiety with them managing that
and she said it just saved his life and he went and got some
help and I had started his journey into being well.
And so she wasn't thanking me orshe kind of thanked me because
(02:27):
obviously she wanted her husbandto be well and that helped her
Wellness. But it was really on his behalf.
So Yep. So you are making a difference
out there. Perhaps you are making a
difference. Well, you are with, with
everything you do. But I, I love the, the time when
you said to me that when you come on the podcast, you can
reach more people. Yep, help more people than just
that one person. And also because we know from an
economic point of view that coming to see a psychologist is
(02:50):
expensive. And if there is some way of I
can support people and help people that would otherwise be
unable to access that, then I'm,I'm all for it, You know,
that's, that's, that's community.
And and that's why we're all doing this right 'cause we can
work make the world a better place just to just one person at
a time. I was just trying to figure out
on the way over here when you did your first episode.
(03:12):
It'd be about a year ago, I guess.
I reckon it's a year. Yeah, 'cause it was.
We always cold, it was rainy andthat kind of painted us back at
last winter, yes. I know how it happened.
Julie came in when her book cameout.
The time starts now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We did 2 episodes on that. But it was after that chat and
through reading the book that I went.
(03:33):
Do you reckon hear the word jumpin for a chat?
Uh huh. That was where it started.
Yeah. From from reading the book.
So I became an instant fan of yours from reading that.
Oh, you kidding? It was the bus stuff that really
got me. The Who's driving the bus?
Who's driving the bus? It's when I find an expert on
something that can convert what they do into something where I
can understand this. That's what I'm like.
(03:55):
Oh wow, yeah. Yeah, no, that's great.
I mean, I'm hopefully in this, this episode, we have a chance
to unpack that for some of your listeners a bit more as well,
'cause that's exactly what we'retalking about when we're talking
about adverse childhood experience or child child abuse,
childhood trauma and its impact on adulthood.
So you know, that's exactly whatwe're talking about.
(04:15):
His drive on the bus. So how did that work?
I guess we can't go into your session with session with Julie,
but I'm just trying to think at what point do you figure out
that who you are as an adult canreally be impacted or is
impacted or has been come about because of what happened as a as
(04:36):
a child? Yeah, well, that's but that's
true for all of us. You know, who we are as adults
is greatly impacted by childhoodexperiences.
So if we have experiences that by and large are loving and good
for self esteem and good for sort of sense of self and, you
know, wanting us to sort of great courage to explore the
world, but also now we've got a great set of hands or a great
(04:58):
sort of support network to come back to.
You know, all of those things will shape our confidence and
our ability to feel loved and cared for as we're grown-ups.
But not everyone gets that. I mean, you can't choose your
parents from Coles. You know, you get given
whoever's made you biologically and then perhaps if they haven't
(05:19):
made you biologically, then you might be raised by carers,
foster carers, you know, potential family members.
But but by and large, the the caregivers that are there in
those first few years of life have a huge impact on how we
navigate relationships for the rest of our lives.
Yeah, relationships, like romantic relationships, work
(05:41):
relationships. I like all of that.
How you interact with other people.
Yeah, I was shocked. I remember though, we're sitting
down at Wamberal Lagoon in the morning when you said to me
about how the first four years of your life when your neural
pathways are being generated. Generated that's right.
So we're born with, you know, billions of neural neurons, but
(06:02):
they're not in networks until really there's the really the
networking starts once we're born because we're meant to
adapt. I mean that, you know, that's a
hadaptal tie kind of principles of, of, of how human species and
most species have developed. So what we're looking at is once
we're born, the, the brain is trying to make sense of the
(06:24):
world because everyone's born into different circumstances and
it's developing those neural networks based on what the
timing, what the impact, what the, the experiences we get of
working with others. Because there's no such thing as
a a baby. There's only a baby end.
Baby doesn't survive on their own.
So her baby is in relation to another for all those, all those
(06:47):
years. But they're making sense of what
the world is, what other humans do in that world and what their
role is in all of that. And that that's a survival
component to adapt quickly to the environment that we're born
in. So that's why those neural
networks start to form very quickly in terms of what to
expect from others, what to expect from the world.
(07:08):
And that shapes our neural networks, our sympathetic versus
our parasympathetic nervous systems, our body systems are
are all really being shaped by what happens in those first four
years. Just find that so amazing.
And can it be rewired? Yes.
And that's what's anyone who's listening, who's thinking, oh
(07:28):
gosh, well, my first four years were really, really tough
through no fault on my own. I was born into that.
Absolutely. You can change that.
So an example of that would could be something like, you
know, Dad walked out when you were one year old.
Yeah. Can that actually affect?
Maybe not one. OK.
No, no, that 100 percent, 100%, really. 100% you can go through
(07:50):
your life with abandonment issues.
Right. Well, if that was your main
attachment figure, if your senseof being safe was that face
because we have a grammar of ourbeing before we have words.
And if my, if your face made me feel relaxed because you smiled
at me, you held me, you I cried and you, you, you were there for
(08:10):
me and then you were nowhere to be found.
Where's my sense of safety now? Who provides that for me now?
So it's if Dad walks out at 1 and he was my only sense of
safety, that has a huge impact If Dad walks out at 1:00.
But I've got mom and I've got auntie and I've got big sis and
(08:31):
I've got grandma. It still might impact, but that
sense of loss is not going to beanywhere near as much.
So when we're looking at loss inthe in the context of any human,
we're looking at in the context of what else was there when that
loss occurred? And that can shape you as well.
Absolutely. You could have a real if mum and
(08:52):
the aunties were all around that, then that could actually
shape the kind of person you arethat well.
Yeah, I mean if you. Close to mum and.
Let's see what What you, you. You grow up in that first kind
of years of life. Just go.
I'm important, I matter, I'm loved.
Everyone's here for me. Life's good, Life's cruisy.
Nothing to worry about. I just wait for something goes
(09:12):
wrong. Someone's there for me.
Well, I don't have to develop those.
The anxieties that come with. If I'm sad, no one's there.
If I hurt myself. No one comes to me.
If I experience joy, people tellme to be quiet.
A very different experience depending on how our caregivers
respond to us in those first fewyears of life, before we've
really even started to form language.
(09:35):
And do you get people coming in that don't even know about like
what happened in the first four years?
Well, yeah. And that's, and the reality is,
is that we can't always get whatwe call that sort of a conscious
memory. That's not always possible,
particularly for things that have happened pre pre 2.
(09:57):
And if you've got a, a memory like mine, which isn't
particularly great for images. I remember feelings.
I remember what how people make me feel, but I'm not great with
images. My sister on the other hand can
have is extraordinary for remembering things and I'm sure
she retells them in her favour. Oh yeah, because she knows you
can't batch and fake. I'm like, oh, I don't think it
(10:20):
went down like that, but I can't, oh, you're a different
version. So yeah.
So some people will just have a better memory.
They're just better with images.She's just better with that.
So you may not have a an image of it, but you will have a sense
of your body not being safe or, or, or feeling safe.
You will have a sense of being scared but not understanding
why. And that's why it's really
(10:42):
important to work with a trainedtherapist who can take you back
to not necessarily a conscious memory, but certainly what's
conscious for you is a sense of fear.
MMM, yeah. But do you get ones where they,
I don't know, maybe someone's got massive trust issues or
something like that. And then you go, you know, tell
us about your early childhood and they don't know.
And then they've gone away and asked mum or something like
(11:04):
that, and then come back and gone, Oh yes, so turns out.
Turns out that. Happened back.
There it turns out that mum and dad went away on a a trip.
They said I was only six months old and they thought they were
going to have six weeks away. Nana said she was happy to have
me fortunate. Fortunately that was great for
mum and dad because they needed it because their marriage was in
a bit of a crisis. Unfortunately for me, I didn't
(11:26):
know Nan. Wow.
So there we so. You're not going to remember.
It's that at that age, you're not going to remember that that
thing happened. And Mum and dad thought that was
a really lovely thing to have Nan come and stay with me for
six weeks. But I didn't know Nancy.
She's she's got no sense of being a safe person for me.
My autonomic nervous system doesnot regulate around her.
(11:47):
I've got no sense of her being my safe person.
All I know is the safe people are not there, their smell is
not there, their face is not there.
That their way of comfort me is not there.
They're gone. And when you're a baby, you,
your sense of time is not like it is as an adult.
Of course, you have no idea how what day is a long time a week
(12:09):
is a really long time. So again, you know that is
parents are not wouldn't you wouldn't call them abusive and
and may they had no idea of the impact on their babies.
So we need to be mindful. We're not trying to create a
parents as being these awful humans.
I know they, they didn't know and they, they didn't know the
attachment research. And probably some will meaning
(12:31):
AGP or neighbor or someone said,oh, the baby will be fine.
You know, she's only a year old.Like many bag donors, she'll
never remember. Yeah.
And so the parents go OK then. And she may not ever remember,
but. Correct.
Good impacts. I almost feel like now that I
know this, it's like, ah, yeah, as they say sometimes that there
should be you gotta get a license to become a parent.
(12:53):
May part of that whole thing should be like, I don't know how
many people becoming parents andknow just how critical those
first four years are. Yeah, I agree.
Shaping that person for the future.
I think it's sometimes I think it's almost the opposite and
that, you know, there isn't thatappreciation that you are really
(13:16):
moulding the brain of this youngperson.
What's? A lot of pressure on what
though, when you think about. That I know and I don't wanna do
that. I don't wanna do that, you know,
and and I think it's really important to say to your
listeners that the brain is alsoresilient at the same time.
I mean, when we look at what we require from parents, we're
looking at good enough parentingthat's come across time and time
(13:37):
and time again. Good enough parenting is good
enough, right? That's right.
A principle of attachment theoryand a particular program which
some of your listeners might be interested in called Circle of
Security, which is a beautiful program.
It took attachment theory and make it made it very practical
and basically said, look, these are the key principles that any
(13:58):
person needs across the lifespan.
But particularly in those early years when the brain is
developing, this is what they need.
And it spells it out really nicely for parents, caregivers
to be able to attend to pretty easily.
Yeah. So going back to the title of
the episode, how your childhood trauma affects your adulthood
trauma, what are the different ways that it can?
(14:22):
Yeah, look, that's a really so many in so many ways.
And and and that's to, you know,as again, no disrespect to any
parents, current or parents, youknow, that are listening to this
going Oh, so they've. Got little kids and go oh great,
yeah, yeah, respect. This one's got no chance after
what happened last week. Or yeah, I think disrespect at
all times. We're doing the best we can.
So let's just let put that in, in, in the context of what I'm
(14:44):
about to say, which is, you know, I was to work, working
with a client this week. And, and her sense of being, you
know, somehow unimportant, somehow being bad.
And she was able to trace it back to many memories, actually.
But she, she was a very successful woman and she
(15:05):
couldn't understand, you know, why she didn't have more
confidence and why she didn't feel more trusting in
relationships. And she she she took it back to
a memory when she'd been quite small and, and again, these sort
of episodic memories where she didn't have a lot of memories,
but she remembers this one and this kind of sense of being left
(15:25):
alone with an unknown aunt and her parents were in a sort of
domestic violence, very difficult situation.
And mum had left and, and said, oh, I can't do it, You're too
hard, but took the baby daughter.
Oh, so she was too hard to took the baby daughter.
And the dad said, you've caused all of this, this is your fault.
(15:47):
And he left as well. Oh geez.
Right now. But wait, did she remember?
Yeah, yeah. OK, she remembered that so.
She was. All right, so she knows that
that happened. She remembers that that
happened. Probably doesn't think about it
all the time, but that has shaped her.
What I'd asked her was to because she often had a sense as
(16:10):
an adulthood of not being safe or not being out of trust.
The another important other which that, you know, she's
working with her relationship trust with her partner now
who's. But she said he's a such a great
guy, why don't I trust him? And so I said, well, let's let's
just track that back to, you know, all your earlier memories
of being able to trust adults and, and feeling safe with
(16:31):
adults. And I said, is it, you know, any
memories of not being able to trust adults or not being
feeling safe? And yeah.
So she came back and she how? Quickly, did she get there?
That was very quickly, she was quite psychologically minded and
she'd done a bit of work with another therapist on cognitive
(16:52):
behaviour therapy, which done init's, I guess it's sort of
simple form really only looks atthe here and now, which is fine
for some people. That's kind of looking at how
your thoughts impact your emotions, impact your body
sensations impact your behaviour.
And you sometimes you can just do a, an intervention at that
point which deals with the here and now and you're like, oh, OK,
I get it. You know, I can ship that,
(17:12):
right. But for some people that get
stuck and it's like, why? Why can't I get past this, this,
this sense when I remember I'm with this partner of mine that I
can't, I can't trust him. Yeah.
And you've done lovely little bits of, oh, what's the evidence
for that? And it does it sound like that
Would, you know, is that what you tell a friend?
You know, does it seem like? Oh, yeah.
So it's nice light, sort of a CBT light kind of version.
(17:35):
But it doesn't work because there's got neural networks back
in the first four years of life where, you know, she remembered
that incident. She remembered a range of others
as she was older. But you could imagine if that
was happening to her when she was four and she remembers it,
there would have been many more incidents like that when she was
younger than that. Then she wouldn't have had an
(17:55):
episodic memory of that. But just.
She's remembering that one moment where that happened.
That doesn't just happen out of the blue.
No, no, you would you would imagine that would be a a
pattern of some sort where she'sgetting blamed for the marital
crisis, where she sees that the the the mother is looking like
she prefers the the younger daughter.
The younger daughter deserves tobe looked after, but not her.
(18:17):
And you can imagine that that would then create a cascade of
unloaded portent. I'm I'm not safe, I'm not
worthwhile. There's there's a whole lot of
what we call core beliefs that come from those early
experiences that once they're formed, then go on to other
relationships. So peers or even teachers,
(18:40):
friendships and then, you know, coaches all the rest of it.
And it's been to romantic partners, Yeah.
What are other ways that it can can manifest really?
Because I think of like abandonment trust issues.
Are there a whole bunch of otherthings?
Like so, so it's so important that you're saying it's OK.
(19:02):
So what's if we if we understandit from the perspective that,
OK, let's take that a little 4 year old, we'll talk about a
girl because that's where we started.
A four year old girl feels a sense of helpless, a sense of
hopelessness, a sense of I, I'm,I'm, I I'm not worthwhile.
It is quite AI guess a sort of a, a position where there isn't
(19:23):
much control over the situation.OK, so that's so then she gets
older and she realises I don't like this feeling of not being
in control and feeling like other people kind of can just
walk all over me and I'll start taking control.
(19:44):
OK, All right, so let's go with the first romantic partner she
has. OK, let's go with that.
So she's 14 now. You have to be at my house by 8.
OK. OK Oh, I'm not fortunate.
If you don't get there by 8, youdon't love me so.
So there's that. And then if, you know, he does
get there by 8:00, but then he he has to do this and then he
(20:05):
has to do that. And then if he doesn't, she gets
very angry at him. And then she's always trying to
just check in. Do you love me enough?
Am I important enough to you? Am I worthwhile enough?
But you can see it's gone from avulnerable position to one that
seems quite aggressive. So that flick occurs often when
people with neglect, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual
(20:27):
abuse get to an age where they can take control that they
couldn't when they were younger.And you'll see this flick, which
is why a lot of in a lot of highschools are are really difficult
places for teachers because here's a an adult that they're
now trying to work out what their relationship with is with
(20:48):
that teacher. And suddenly they'll be much
more aggressive than perhaps they would want to be, but
they're just really trying out the, you know, this sense of,
you know, but often it can be a teacher that they really like.
And that causes them severe anxiety because their sense is
that, well, if you really like me, you're probably not going to
like me for long. You're probably going to find
something, some reason to leave me or I'm not going to have you
(21:09):
next year. So I'm going to wreck this
relationship before you have to leave me.
And it can. But is this a conscious thing?
No. Right.
No. So it's not when you say I'm not
going to let people walk all over me anymore.
I'm going to be strong. I'm going to be.
Part of that might be part of that, part of that might be, but
it won't be a sense of I have tomake up for how vulnerable I
felt when I was four and six andeight.
(21:31):
And now I'm like, well, you know, for boys in particular,
now I'm not, you know, 3 foot, 4foot.
I'm now 6 foot. And you can't tell me to leave.
You can't tell me what to do. I'll be telling you what to do
and I'm going to try and play out that power that I didn't
have and I need to feel powerful.
I need to get this out. But unfortunately I'm taking it
(21:51):
out on that really beautiful, lovely, reliable teacher who has
never done anything but said I'mhere for you mate.
Jeez, I mean, there's already enough going on.
You're a team. Yeah, that's right.
And that's why you'll see this flick in in people with with
these were developmental trauma histories, which if people have
(22:13):
an interest in looking at what the diagnostic criteria is for
these complex PTSD as opposed tosingle episode PTSD.
In complex PTSD, there's so manymore ramifications for
interpersonal relationships thatyou don't get in a single
episode PTSD. Because by and large, it's if I
(22:36):
have a single episode that's a acar accident, or I might have a
single episode that's actually a, a fire or a burglary, let's
say something like that, that awful things happened, but
there's all these lovely people who were there to help me.
OK, yeah. So my relationships with people
may even be strengthened by thisawful thing that's happened to
(22:59):
me. Oh.
A car accident where suddenly people come out of everywhere,
they come running out of everyone's stopping the traffic,
looking after you on the road. Right.
So once I get past, I'm not safeon the road, I'm not safe in a
car. I I don't have to work with them
on, Am I important, am I loved, do I matter?
It's like, Oh yeah, that was allreinforced.
But that situation over there could be dangerous for me.
(23:22):
You've just given me a whole other episode that I'm gonna do
with you. You're right.
You actually just said it a bunch of times in.
Yeah, right. You're talking about PTSD
episode. Let's do an episode on PTSD.
Yeah, at some point as well. Because I've recently just had a
couple of guys in here, X firefighter, X ambo, both out
with PTSD. Yeah, right.
And I couldn't fully get Billy Mack is going to be back in
(23:45):
again at some point, the firefighter and we're going to
get more into the PTSD because Istill didn't understand it by
the end of it. And he was like, oh, it can.
It covers so much. It does, yeah.
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(24:07):
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(24:51):
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And we opened it up and saw thatshe just needed new batteries.
And then she told me that her husband had recently passed
away, so he was the one that didall that stuff for her and she
didn't have anybody around to dothat, so she needed us.
So we took batteries out of the packet and put them in the
(25:14):
remote and we helped her out andmade her day.
That's what she got. And the mighty helpful King
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sort from something? Right now, here's where you're
going to get all the health professionals, the registered
health professionals, the psychologist, psychologist
(25:34):
jumping up and down and go OK, it's over diagnosed.
PTSD requires a very strict diagnostic criteria.
Oh. OK, so then remember PTSD sends
post traumatic stress disorder, OK?
This is like people saying I'm so OCD.
Yep. Yeah, that's actually, they may
have obsessive compulsive symptoms, yes, that's for sure.
(25:57):
When they have a disorder it, itrequires a lot of working
through with a with a trained mental health professional.
So you can have definitely trauma, you can, no question
about that. Does it meet criteria for PTSD
is a question. Does it meet criteria for
complex PTSD is another question.
And why does it need to? What we're saying if it meets
(26:19):
criteria is that it's, it's, it's it meets a number of
symptoms which make it sort of in the clinical range.
So that's to do. With the treatment you're able
to get then. No, not necessarily, although
sometimes in in the way that ourMedicare system works, you have
to have a diagnosis in order to access it.
But what we're saying is this, this these set of symptoms have
(26:41):
a clinically significant impact on that person's friendships, on
their capacity to work, on theircapacity to to do daily living
tasks. So we've all got a little bit of
something. Yeah, but it doesn't have a
significant impact on my life. Then it's not enough to really
be called a disorder. So.
(27:01):
So we're saying it all matters. We'll come back to that in the
other episode. Yeah.
I guess that's really, really interesting.
Yeah. So as far as your your childhood
trauma, do you get ones where reckon you would you get a lot
of people coming in and going? Why am I like this?
Yep, yeah. I say it all the time.
Well, a lot of the time people say I don't understand it.
(27:22):
Like some as we know, we've talked about the, you know, the
impact of, of ADHD, we've talkedabout, we haven't talked so much
about autism, but we've talked about anxiety, we've talked
about depression. So a lot of, there's many, many
reasons why people can present acertain way.
You know, there might be vitamindeficient.
They, you know, there's a whole range of different reasons why
people feel a certain way. And you know my stance on that.
(27:45):
We check people out biologicallyand we make sure there's nothing
going on for them biologically before we'll do a psychological
intervention. Because meds you're talking
about. Yeah.
So we'll do the. Sorry for those that's there.
It's it's MMED. How many times have we gone
through there? So.
Oh yeah, yeah. That's what I got, Pins.
I got pins. You got this.
(28:07):
Meds. I was watching it just the other
night. I actually reposted it just the
other night. Yeah, as well as ones I thought
really help people. Yeah, but I don't remember all
the meds ones. OK.
So make sure you see your GP or other health specialists
depending on who you're seeing for all biological based things
like you know we're doing the work that I'm going to do is not
(28:27):
going to help you if you've got a certain range of conditions.
So let's just be clear about that.
Once we know that it's, it's either not a medical condition
or there's part medical, part psychologically, that's when you
see a psychologist or mental health professional.
So at that point there we look at our meds and lifestyle.
(28:47):
Medicine is, is so important in this main society because
there's a so much chronic disease, there's so many stress
related disorders that when we look at lifestyle, they can have
a huge impact. Before you start cognitive
therapy, before you start AMDR, for a lot of people, it's making
sure that they have more balanceand structure in their life.
(29:08):
And then you want to go for the the meditation because
meditation and mindfulness is the ability to be in the present
on purpose, non judge mentally. You can't change your past and
you can't affect your future. I can't exactly say what's going
to happen for me tomorrow, but Ican make this moment the best I
(29:28):
can. There's nothing wrong.
Usually if I say to people, OK, I know you've had a horrific
past and you're really worried about your future, but just
right now is anything wrong? They look at me like that's a
weird thing to think about because they haven't given
themselves an opportunity to ever do that.
That does not take away their past and it does not mean there
isn't stressful things potentially in their future, but
(29:51):
it can give the option of just being OK just now.
Now that's really powerful, isn't it?
It is, and that's why I say mind.
For me, mindfulness is really important because so many people
have spent their whole lives notin the present.
So many people spend their livesin the past with trauma.
It's just fair or worrying aboutthings happening to them again.
(30:11):
But if you can give people the opportunity to to spend some of
their day in the present, it's so powerful for their cognitions
and for their bodies to be able to just calm.
So that's the M. The E is exercise, the D is diet
and nutrition. The S is sleep.
(30:32):
Because there's so many problemsthat are actually caused just by
sleep deprivation and then the SSo it's MEDSS.
And the last one is structure. We need structure in some way in
order to get these things into our lives.
Because otherwise we're living in in chaos.
And people actually will just scroll a lot of the time or stay
up till 4 after 11, there's no structure.
(30:54):
And really, to have our best live, there has to be some
structure. It doesn't matter.
You can have a different structure from other people.
There's gotta be some structure there.
Did you come up with meds like you came up with Bims?
Yeah, Yeah. I don't know.
I like Bims, but meds, I 'cause I 'cause I'm on meds.
And every time you say meds, I think of meds.
Well, that's. My it's like my version of meds.
(31:16):
It's kind of like, I want peopleto see this is almost like a
prescription, like, you know what I mean?
Like it's. It's cleverer than I gave it
credit for still. Yeah, yeah, tricky.
Now it makes sense and once again that was the problem.
No. No, it is.
It is, yeah. It's meds that you can actually
take for yourself. That's right.
(31:37):
And in lifestyle medicine, I think most people know that I'm
an accredited lifestyle medicinepractitioner, which is something
that can only give to registeredhealth professionals who are
willing to take an exam. That's the one I took, was an
international exam, but I think that they're doing it more in
Australasia and America's gone their own merry way.
Do you want to? Do another episode.
(32:00):
So anyway, yeah, so and so that was about saying, look, we've
got a united idea about what actually is the foundations of
health for most people. And that was when we started
looking at, well they use the term prescription based
nutrition, prescription based exercise, prescription based
sleep, prescription based mindfulness, although not a few
(32:22):
of them don't use that as as much as I do.
But it was really looking at that idea that we know should we
prescribing lifestyle interventions before we
prescribe a lot of the medication that we're doing.
Yeah, right. That makes sense.
Yeah. I mean, if a doctor is asking
you about how much sleep you're getting in your off, generally I
get about four, four to five hours, then yeah, that is
something they would prescribe to you.
(32:43):
They would prescribe medication often, not always.
I mean, there's a, you know, like psychologist.
There's a whole different range of styles and, and I guess skill
and the same with GPS, you know,the, the, the ones that have
actually really thought about what makes a difference to this
person won't just prescribe a medication.
They'll be looking at who we need to look at what else is
going on here Sunshine because you can't take long term sleep
(33:06):
medication. It's not addressing the problem
anyway. Yeah, you know, so a good
verdict, commas. GP will have a look at yeah,
maybe you need this just to change the the pattern you're
into and then but let's look at the bigger stuff that goes on.
So prescribing on both levels. So someone that's listening to
this and when I go back to when I the thing of why am I like
(33:27):
this? If there's something about you
that bugs you and you wonder whythere's why I always speak like
that. Why do I do this?
How can? How can they find out?
Yeah, so, so sometimes people are like none of my clients,
I'll say, you know, how about wejust look at the top ten worst
(33:47):
memories. So sometimes we can that.
Sounds fun. Yeah.
So to to, to, to counterbalance that, I'll often say give me
your 10 best. And and that, you know, we just
need to make sure that they're awhole person.
They're not just their bad memories, you know?
Yeah, some people can't do that on their own.
It's it's too much. 'Cause I couldn't do that, I I
don't think because whether I block stuff or whether I just
(34:09):
don't remember, maybe I don't remember 'cause I am blocking
it, I don't know. But I would struggle to give you
my 10 worst. Yeah.
And so that's when you could, there's a couple of different
things about that. Firstly is that sometimes when
we think about what is a bad memory, we kind of used that the
idea of a trauma that if we justsort of quickly touch back on
(34:30):
PTFD, what we used to PTFD only came about because we started to
see what happened with war veterans that were returning
home. Yeah.
And so we were mapping what trauma looked like in adult
males. And then what we weren't picking
up at that time was a lot of theimpact of childhood trauma,
(34:52):
sexual abuse on girls that was just kind of not thought about.
It was not really being researched.
It certainly wasn't making any particular journals.
And they were just called neurotic.
I mean, when you think about what some of those women would
have gone through as little girls, I think neurotic is, you
know, they deserve to be, you know, quite frankly.
But so we weren't looking at that.
(35:12):
And in fact, when we look at thesynopsis of psychiatry, which is
the is by Kaplan and static, whoare great people, they've done a
lot of research and then and they're still updating their,
their text all the time. But in 1975, they were still
writing that, you know, there was a very small percentage of,
of girls who were abused within family and that I won't get the
(35:32):
direct quote, but something likethis, they were none the worse
for that. And in fact, it could be
protective factor against psychosis.
So again, we had so, so, so wrong, So, so wrong because we
weren't really looking at those little puppets.
We were just looking at adults returning from war.
And and so, you know, I think that's where we a
misunderstanding of trauma and and what what we've given, I
(35:57):
guess some credit for what is trauma basically started around
what men experienced at war. And so when we look at what is
trauma for a young person, for alittle person, that can be that
kind of moment where they no one's there to pick them up from
school. Yeah.
And sometimes we'll downplay theimportance of that, but you have
(36:23):
any little person who has no adult around them, Mum's not
there, they're not safe, they'renot safe.
And their mind is quite right togo there.
I'm not safe here. You're not knows.
As I said, there's no such thingas a baby, There's no such thing
as a child. There's only a baby and child.
And the only way of being safe is to be in an end, in a
relationship. So those moments where we've got
(36:45):
those neglect or abandonment, itmay not stand out in in people's
minds as being bad, but they have a significant impact on
that person's sense of safety and that person's sense of self,
their importance, all the rest of it.
And that's so that's important. So when we look at your worst
memories, sometimes I have to really support people and going,
(37:08):
hey, it's not necessarily what you thought was like
catastrophic in terms of someonecoming at you with a chainsaw
and which is some of the people I work with Now again, I've been
I meant to say in this one, I. Don't know a second.
Trigger, trigger warning. Some of the stories that I, I
have are, you know, incredibly traumatic.
Obviously, I won't share them here, but if, if I, if there's
(37:28):
anything I've said, please, please make sure you get some
support and some help with that.Don't if it is triggering for
you in this episode, that suggests there's some unresolved
trauma for you and for, for yourlisteners.
And yeah, please get, reach out and get some help.
So I would, I don't mean to trigger anyone, but this is a
story, this is a episode on trauma.
(37:49):
So yeah, that's likely people may, may be impacted.
So it doesn't always have to be something massive that happened
to them when they were little, OK.
Here's the words that you need, OK?
And I will hope that every single one of your listeners is
going to listen to this. It's not what happens to you.
It's the meaning you make of it that matters.
(38:10):
So let's just say that you and Iare siblings and we've got this
dad who picks on us, is mean to us, verbally abuses us,
emotionally abuses us, occasionally physically abuses
us. We both get to adulthood and,
you know, I'm all over the placeand and you're actually, you
know, reasonably well adjusted. I know, I don't know.
(38:32):
In this scenario, OK. You are you are That was me and
me. Sorry you.
Oh, I love it. Oh, you are That's one and so
and So what we what what would you be like?
Why? Why?
They had the same they. Had the same thing.
OK, but whatever reason, and we talk about, I mean, this is
about temperance and biology at the same time, is that for
whatever reason, those experiences with with with dad,
(38:54):
I mean, I felt that I was useless, worthless, unlovable,
unimportant, unsafe. OK, that was my experience of my
childhood. And I say to you, yo, didn't you
do the same ribs? You're like Nah, I just knew
that dad was a dickhead. So how, how, why?
Why? Don't know.
(39:16):
We honestly know that there is certain, it's like, why does
someone get cancer when they've been smoking and someone hasn't
smoked any at all and get, and you know what I mean?
That's that there is a biology that sits underneath our
resilience for trauma. And that's really important to
understand that two people can have the same experience and not
necessarily have the same result.
I mean, obviously the example I gave was unlikely for you to be
(39:38):
completely well adjusted, but ifthe meaning you made of it was I
was a good kid, it was dad who had serious issues.
I wasn't. The problem wasn't me, the
problem was him. I'm good.
He was a moron. Whereas I grew up thinking, Oh
no, it couldn't possibly I must be doing something bad.
If I only. If only I'm better.
If only I'd be more good. If only I'd be more pleasant.
If only be more kind. If only I get a better grades at
(40:00):
school. If only I don't cause him so
much stress. If only I'm nicer to mom.
If only I do my housework. But maybe dad will stop this and
you're like, well, doesn't matter what I do, I'm OK.
He's the, he's the moron. So we, we have a different sense
of ourselves and that could makethe difference for how we view
that. So it's not what happens to us.
It's the meaning we make of it. And another important one is
(40:23):
it's not necessarily what happens to us, but who is there
or who isn't when it does. When What does?
When it makes sense. It's not necessarily what
happens to us, but who is there or who isn't when it does.
So we'll go back to you and me being siblings.
Dad's being mean to us. Mum has a really good
(40:45):
relationship with you and she's always there to pick you up and
say you're all around sunshine. You know, when your dad's a
doofus, whereas mum's a little bit jealous of me and things.
I get too much of Dad's attention and she doesn't get
any. So she's not going to pick me up
quite as much as she picks you up.
She'll say to me you probably deserve that.
(41:06):
So again, it's not about what happens to you, but who is there
or who isn't when it does. Yeah.
OK, cool. Let me think about that one a
lot later. And and that, yeah, so people,
I'll talk about that a bit more in our next episode because
that's going to be important when we talk about PCSD, complex
PTSD, and we've got some pretty another really cool thing that
(41:29):
we can do about biology, sort ofgetting in touch with some of
our early trauma through biology.
Oh, wow. OK, we'll do that in the next
one. Thanks so much for jumping in.
Yeah. It's always good.
Heather Irvine Randall from the Reed clinic is Anne.
We just want to do a bit of a warning on the start of this
one. Great idea 'cause we're going to
talk about, well, PTSD. Yep, trauma.
Childhood issues, yeah. Childhood difficulties, adverse
childhood events, things that can be really distressing.
And triggering it could be triggering or something.
(00:20):
So yeah, if you're not in the right headspace for this one,
then you can skip this one and maybe come back to it at a time
when there'll be helpful things in.
Yeah, and. That's weigh it up everyone, you
know, like it's, you know, as you said it.
So if you're going to be able tolisten to this and maybe have
some time with friends, walk on the beach afterwards.
(00:41):
There might be some things in here that are triggering enough
to get you to think I can do something about that.
But I've got support, but it I would certainly not want to
listen last thing before you go to bed and then be on your own
ruminating about it overnight. So, so please take care of
yourselves and always you can press stop if it gets too much
and you can come back another time.
(01:02):
But yes, there is helpful thingsin there if you can't get
through it. Podcast with Robbie I'm Rabbit.
I record this podcast inside a cute little retro caravan from
1967 that I've tore around all over the place.
Podcast with Robbie Heather Irvine Randall from the Reed
(01:23):
clinic is back in. It's been a while.
It's. Been a while, it's great to be
here. People ask for you all the time.
It's Heather jumping back in again.
Oh, that's so nice. Oh.
Yeah. Oh, you are?
I asked once in the Facebook group, do people follow along,
like episode at a time? Or if you've just found the
podcast, do you go back to episode 1?
And most people do that. They'll find the podcast, go
(01:44):
back to the start. But then they all say.
But then when I see one of Heather's episodes, I jump
straight to that. Isn't that lovely?
Lovely. It's it's really nice.
I had actually, someone approached me.
I did the menopause day. It was at Mingara and it was a
woman that was there. And she said just thanks.
She said, I just so appreciate the podcast that you did with
(02:05):
Rabs. Oh, wow.
And I said, oh, was that the oneI did on, you know, menopause?
And she said, oh, no, no, no, itwas for my husband.
She said it was we, we did the anxiety with them managing that
and she said it just saved his life and he went and got some
help and I had started his journey into being well.
And so she wasn't thanking me orshe kind of thanked me because
(02:27):
obviously she wanted her husbandto be well and that helped her
Wellness. But it was really on his behalf.
So Yep. So you are making a difference
out there. Perhaps you are making a
difference. Well, you are with, with
everything you do. But I, I love the, the time when
you said to me that when you come on the podcast, you can
reach more people. Yep, help more people than just
that one person. And also because we know from an
economic point of view that coming to see a psychologist is
(02:50):
expensive. And if there is some way of I
can support people and help people that would otherwise be
unable to access that, then I'm,I'm all for it, You know,
that's, that's, that's community.
And and that's why we're all doing this right 'cause we can
work make the world a better place just to just one person at
a time. I was just trying to figure out
on the way over here when you did your first episode.
(03:12):
It'd be about a year ago, I guess.
I reckon it's a year. Yeah, 'cause it was.
We always cold, it was rainy andthat kind of painted us back at
last winter, yes. I know how it happened.
Julie came in when her book cameout.
The time starts now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We did 2 episodes on that. But it was after that chat and
through reading the book that I went.
(03:33):
Do you reckon hear the word jumpin for a chat?
Uh huh. That was where it started.
Yeah. From from reading the book.
So I became an instant fan of yours from reading that.
Oh, you kidding? It was the bus stuff that really
got me. The Who's driving the bus?
Who's driving the bus? It's when I find an expert on
something that can convert what they do into something where I
can understand this. That's what I'm like.
(03:55):
Oh wow, yeah. Yeah, no, that's great.
I mean, I'm hopefully in this, this episode, we have a chance
to unpack that for some of your listeners a bit more as well,
'cause that's exactly what we'retalking about when we're talking
about adverse childhood experience or child child abuse,
childhood trauma and its impact on adulthood.
So you know, that's exactly whatwe're talking about.
(04:15):
His drive on the bus. So how did that work?
I guess we can't go into your session with session with Julie,
but I'm just trying to think at what point do you figure out
that who you are as an adult canreally be impacted or is
impacted or has been come about because of what happened as a as
(04:36):
a child? Yeah, well, that's but that's
true for all of us. You know, who we are as adults
is greatly impacted by childhoodexperiences.
So if we have experiences that by and large are loving and good
for self esteem and good for sort of sense of self and, you
know, wanting us to sort of great courage to explore the
world, but also now we've got a great set of hands or a great
(04:58):
sort of support network to come back to.
You know, all of those things will shape our confidence and
our ability to feel loved and cared for as we're grown-ups.
But not everyone gets that. I mean, you can't choose your
parents from Coles. You know, you get given
whoever's made you biologically and then perhaps if they haven't
(05:19):
made you biologically, then you might be raised by carers,
foster carers, you know, potential family members.
But but by and large, the the caregivers that are there in
those first few years of life have a huge impact on how we
navigate relationships for the rest of our lives.
Yeah, relationships, like romantic relationships, work
(05:41):
relationships. I like all of that.
How you interact with other people.
Yeah, I was shocked. I remember though, we're sitting
down at Wamberal Lagoon in the morning when you said to me
about how the first four years of your life when your neural
pathways are being generated. Generated that's right.
So we're born with, you know, billions of neural neurons, but
(06:02):
they're not in networks until really there's the really the
networking starts once we're born because we're meant to
adapt. I mean that, you know, that's a
hadaptal tie kind of principles of, of, of how human species and
most species have developed. So what we're looking at is once
we're born, the, the brain is trying to make sense of the
(06:24):
world because everyone's born into different circumstances and
it's developing those neural networks based on what the
timing, what the impact, what the, the experiences we get of
working with others. Because there's no such thing as
a a baby. There's only a baby end.
Baby doesn't survive on their own.
So her baby is in relation to another for all those, all those
(06:47):
years. But they're making sense of what
the world is, what other humans do in that world and what their
role is in all of that. And that that's a survival
component to adapt quickly to the environment that we're born
in. So that's why those neural
networks start to form very quickly in terms of what to
expect from others, what to expect from the world.
(07:08):
And that shapes our neural networks, our sympathetic versus
our parasympathetic nervous systems, our body systems are
are all really being shaped by what happens in those first four
years. Just find that so amazing.
And can it be rewired? Yes.
And that's what's anyone who's listening, who's thinking, oh
(07:28):
gosh, well, my first four years were really, really tough
through no fault on my own. I was born into that.
Absolutely. You can change that.
So an example of that would could be something like, you
know, Dad walked out when you were one year old.
Yeah. Can that actually affect?
Maybe not one. OK.
No, no, that 100 percent, 100%, really. 100% you can go through
(07:50):
your life with abandonment issues.
Right. Well, if that was your main
attachment figure, if your senseof being safe was that face
because we have a grammar of ourbeing before we have words.
And if my, if your face made me feel relaxed because you smiled
at me, you held me, you I cried and you, you, you were there for
(08:10):
me and then you were nowhere to be found.
Where's my sense of safety now? Who provides that for me now?
So it's if Dad walks out at 1 and he was my only sense of
safety, that has a huge impact If Dad walks out at 1:00.
But I've got mom and I've got auntie and I've got big sis and
(08:31):
I've got grandma. It still might impact, but that
sense of loss is not going to beanywhere near as much.
So when we're looking at loss inthe in the context of any human,
we're looking at in the context of what else was there when that
loss occurred? And that can shape you as well.
Absolutely. You could have a real if mum and
(08:52):
the aunties were all around that, then that could actually
shape the kind of person you arethat well.
Yeah, I mean if you. Close to mum and.
Let's see what What you, you. You grow up in that first kind
of years of life. Just go.
I'm important, I matter, I'm loved.
Everyone's here for me. Life's good, Life's cruisy.
Nothing to worry about. I just wait for something goes
(09:12):
wrong. Someone's there for me.
Well, I don't have to develop those.
The anxieties that come with. If I'm sad, no one's there.
If I hurt myself. No one comes to me.
If I experience joy, people tellme to be quiet.
A very different experience depending on how our caregivers
respond to us in those first fewyears of life, before we've
really even started to form language.
(09:35):
And do you get people coming in that don't even know about like
what happened in the first four years?
Well, yeah. And that's, and the reality is,
is that we can't always get whatwe call that sort of a conscious
memory. That's not always possible,
particularly for things that have happened pre pre 2.
(09:57):
And if you've got a, a memory like mine, which isn't
particularly great for images. I remember feelings.
I remember what how people make me feel, but I'm not great with
images. My sister on the other hand can
have is extraordinary for remembering things and I'm sure
she retells them in her favour. Oh yeah, because she knows you
can't batch and fake. I'm like, oh, I don't think it
(10:20):
went down like that, but I can't, oh, you're a different
version. So yeah.
So some people will just have a better memory.
They're just better with images.She's just better with that.
So you may not have a an image of it, but you will have a sense
of your body not being safe or, or, or feeling safe.
You will have a sense of being scared but not understanding
why. And that's why it's really
(10:42):
important to work with a trainedtherapist who can take you back
to not necessarily a conscious memory, but certainly what's
conscious for you is a sense of fear.
MMM, yeah. But do you get ones where they,
I don't know, maybe someone's got massive trust issues or
something like that. And then you go, you know, tell
us about your early childhood and they don't know.
And then they've gone away and asked mum or something like
(11:04):
that, and then come back and gone, Oh yes, so turns out.
Turns out that. Happened back.
There it turns out that mum and dad went away on a a trip.
They said I was only six months old and they thought they were
going to have six weeks away. Nana said she was happy to have
me fortunate. Fortunately that was great for
mum and dad because they needed it because their marriage was in
a bit of a crisis. Unfortunately for me, I didn't
(11:26):
know Nan. Wow.
So there we so. You're not going to remember.
It's that at that age, you're not going to remember that that
thing happened. And Mum and dad thought that was
a really lovely thing to have Nan come and stay with me for
six weeks. But I didn't know Nancy.
She's she's got no sense of being a safe person for me.
My autonomic nervous system doesnot regulate around her.
(11:47):
I've got no sense of her being my safe person.
All I know is the safe people are not there, their smell is
not there, their face is not there.
That their way of comfort me is not there.
They're gone. And when you're a baby, you,
your sense of time is not like it is as an adult.
Of course, you have no idea how what day is a long time a week
(12:09):
is a really long time. So again, you know that is
parents are not wouldn't you wouldn't call them abusive and
and may they had no idea of the impact on their babies.
So we need to be mindful. We're not trying to create a
parents as being these awful humans.
I know they, they didn't know and they, they didn't know the
attachment research. And probably some will meaning
(12:31):
AGP or neighbor or someone said,oh, the baby will be fine.
You know, she's only a year old.Like many bag donors, she'll
never remember. Yeah.
And so the parents go OK then. And she may not ever remember,
but. Correct.
Good impacts. I almost feel like now that I
know this, it's like, ah, yeah, as they say sometimes that there
should be you gotta get a license to become a parent.
(12:53):
May part of that whole thing should be like, I don't know how
many people becoming parents andknow just how critical those
first four years are. Yeah, I agree.
Shaping that person for the future.
I think it's sometimes I think it's almost the opposite and
that, you know, there isn't thatappreciation that you are really
(13:16):
moulding the brain of this youngperson.
What's? A lot of pressure on what
though, when you think about. That I know and I don't wanna do
that. I don't wanna do that, you know,
and and I think it's really important to say to your
listeners that the brain is alsoresilient at the same time.
I mean, when we look at what we require from parents, we're
looking at good enough parentingthat's come across time and time
(13:37):
and time again. Good enough parenting is good
enough, right? That's right.
A principle of attachment theoryand a particular program which
some of your listeners might be interested in called Circle of
Security, which is a beautiful program.
It took attachment theory and make it made it very practical
and basically said, look, these are the key principles that any
(13:58):
person needs across the lifespan.
But particularly in those early years when the brain is
developing, this is what they need.
And it spells it out really nicely for parents, caregivers
to be able to attend to pretty easily.
Yeah. So going back to the title of
the episode, how your childhood trauma affects your adulthood
trauma, what are the different ways that it can?
(14:22):
Yeah, look, that's a really so many in so many ways.
And and and that's to, you know,as again, no disrespect to any
parents, current or parents, youknow, that are listening to this
going Oh, so they've. Got little kids and go oh great,
yeah, yeah, respect. This one's got no chance after
what happened last week. Or yeah, I think disrespect at
all times. We're doing the best we can.
So let's just let put that in, in, in the context of what I'm
(14:44):
about to say, which is, you know, I was to work, working
with a client this week. And, and her sense of being, you
know, somehow unimportant, somehow being bad.
And she was able to trace it back to many memories, actually.
But she, she was a very successful woman and she
(15:05):
couldn't understand, you know, why she didn't have more
confidence and why she didn't feel more trusting in
relationships. And she she she took it back to
a memory when she'd been quite small and, and again, these sort
of episodic memories where she didn't have a lot of memories,
but she remembers this one and this kind of sense of being left
(15:25):
alone with an unknown aunt and her parents were in a sort of
domestic violence, very difficult situation.
And mum had left and, and said, oh, I can't do it, You're too
hard, but took the baby daughter.
Oh, so she was too hard to took the baby daughter.
And the dad said, you've caused all of this, this is your fault.
(15:47):
And he left as well. Oh geez.
Right now. But wait, did she remember?
Yeah, yeah. OK, she remembered that so.
She was. All right, so she knows that
that happened. She remembers that that
happened. Probably doesn't think about it
all the time, but that has shaped her.
What I'd asked her was to because she often had a sense as
(16:10):
an adulthood of not being safe or not being out of trust.
The another important other which that, you know, she's
working with her relationship trust with her partner now
who's. But she said he's a such a great
guy, why don't I trust him? And so I said, well, let's let's
just track that back to, you know, all your earlier memories
of being able to trust adults and, and feeling safe with
(16:31):
adults. And I said, is it, you know, any
memories of not being able to trust adults or not being
feeling safe? And yeah.
So she came back and she how? Quickly, did she get there?
That was very quickly, she was quite psychologically minded and
she'd done a bit of work with another therapist on cognitive
(16:52):
behaviour therapy, which done init's, I guess it's sort of
simple form really only looks atthe here and now, which is fine
for some people. That's kind of looking at how
your thoughts impact your emotions, impact your body
sensations impact your behaviour.
And you sometimes you can just do a, an intervention at that
point which deals with the here and now and you're like, oh, OK,
I get it. You know, I can ship that,
(17:12):
right. But for some people that get
stuck and it's like, why? Why can't I get past this, this,
this sense when I remember I'm with this partner of mine that I
can't, I can't trust him. Yeah.
And you've done lovely little bits of, oh, what's the evidence
for that? And it does it sound like that
Would, you know, is that what you tell a friend?
You know, does it seem like? Oh, yeah.
So it's nice light, sort of a CBT light kind of version.
(17:35):
But it doesn't work because there's got neural networks back
in the first four years of life where, you know, she remembered
that incident. She remembered a range of others
as she was older. But you could imagine if that
was happening to her when she was four and she remembers it,
there would have been many more incidents like that when she was
younger than that. Then she wouldn't have had an
(17:55):
episodic memory of that. But just.
She's remembering that one moment where that happened.
That doesn't just happen out of the blue.
No, no, you would you would imagine that would be a a
pattern of some sort where she'sgetting blamed for the marital
crisis, where she sees that the the the mother is looking like
she prefers the the younger daughter.
The younger daughter deserves tobe looked after, but not her.
(18:17):
And you can imagine that that would then create a cascade of
unloaded portent. I'm I'm not safe, I'm not
worthwhile. There's there's a whole lot of
what we call core beliefs that come from those early
experiences that once they're formed, then go on to other
relationships. So peers or even teachers,
(18:40):
friendships and then, you know, coaches all the rest of it.
And it's been to romantic partners, Yeah.
What are other ways that it can can manifest really?
Because I think of like abandonment trust issues.
Are there a whole bunch of otherthings?
Like so, so it's so important that you're saying it's OK.
(19:02):
So what's if we if we understandit from the perspective that,
OK, let's take that a little 4 year old, we'll talk about a
girl because that's where we started.
A four year old girl feels a sense of helpless, a sense of
hopelessness, a sense of I, I'm,I'm, I I'm not worthwhile.
It is quite AI guess a sort of a, a position where there isn't
(19:23):
much control over the situation.OK, so that's so then she gets
older and she realises I don't like this feeling of not being
in control and feeling like other people kind of can just
walk all over me and I'll start taking control.
(19:44):
OK, All right, so let's go with the first romantic partner she
has. OK, let's go with that.
So she's 14 now. You have to be at my house by 8.
OK. OK Oh, I'm not fortunate.
If you don't get there by 8, youdon't love me so.
So there's that. And then if, you know, he does
get there by 8:00, but then he he has to do this and then he
(20:05):
has to do that. And then if he doesn't, she gets
very angry at him. And then she's always trying to
just check in. Do you love me enough?
Am I important enough to you? Am I worthwhile enough?
But you can see it's gone from avulnerable position to one that
seems quite aggressive. So that flick occurs often when
people with neglect, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual
(20:27):
abuse get to an age where they can take control that they
couldn't when they were younger.And you'll see this flick, which
is why a lot of in a lot of highschools are are really difficult
places for teachers because here's a an adult that they're
now trying to work out what their relationship with is with
(20:48):
that teacher. And suddenly they'll be much
more aggressive than perhaps they would want to be, but
they're just really trying out the, you know, this sense of,
you know, but often it can be a teacher that they really like.
And that causes them severe anxiety because their sense is
that, well, if you really like me, you're probably not going to
like me for long. You're probably going to find
something, some reason to leave me or I'm not going to have you
(21:09):
next year. So I'm going to wreck this
relationship before you have to leave me.
And it can. But is this a conscious thing?
No. Right.
No. So it's not when you say I'm not
going to let people walk all over me anymore.
I'm going to be strong. I'm going to be.
Part of that might be part of that, part of that might be, but
it won't be a sense of I have tomake up for how vulnerable I
felt when I was four and six andeight.
(21:31):
And now I'm like, well, you know, for boys in particular,
now I'm not, you know, 3 foot, 4foot.
I'm now 6 foot. And you can't tell me to leave.
You can't tell me what to do. I'll be telling you what to do
and I'm going to try and play out that power that I didn't
have and I need to feel powerful.
I need to get this out. But unfortunately I'm taking it
(21:51):
out on that really beautiful, lovely, reliable teacher who has
never done anything but said I'mhere for you mate.
Jeez, I mean, there's already enough going on.
You're a team. Yeah, that's right.
And that's why you'll see this flick in in people with with
these were developmental trauma histories, which if people have
(22:13):
an interest in looking at what the diagnostic criteria is for
these complex PTSD as opposed tosingle episode PTSD.
In complex PTSD, there's so manymore ramifications for
interpersonal relationships thatyou don't get in a single
episode PTSD. Because by and large, it's if I
(22:36):
have a single episode that's a acar accident, or I might have a
single episode that's actually a, a fire or a burglary, let's
say something like that, that awful things happened, but
there's all these lovely people who were there to help me.
OK, yeah. So my relationships with people
may even be strengthened by thisawful thing that's happened to
(22:59):
me. Oh.
A car accident where suddenly people come out of everywhere,
they come running out of everyone's stopping the traffic,
looking after you on the road. Right.
So once I get past, I'm not safeon the road, I'm not safe in a
car. I I don't have to work with them
on, Am I important, am I loved, do I matter?
It's like, Oh yeah, that was allreinforced.
But that situation over there could be dangerous for me.
(23:22):
You've just given me a whole other episode that I'm gonna do
with you. You're right.
You actually just said it a bunch of times in.
Yeah, right. You're talking about PTSD
episode. Let's do an episode on PTSD.
Yeah, at some point as well. Because I've recently just had a
couple of guys in here, X firefighter, X ambo, both out
with PTSD. Yeah, right.
And I couldn't fully get Billy Mack is going to be back in
(23:45):
again at some point, the firefighter and we're going to
get more into the PTSD because Istill didn't understand it by
the end of it. And he was like, oh, it can.
It covers so much. It does, yeah.
Have you been to Guandalan Bowling Club?
They're right there on the shores of Lake Macquarie.
They do delicious meals upstairsin the Four Shore Bistro and
(24:07):
Cafe which is run by the Dish Catering Group.
So you know it's good stuff and you can dine out on the balcony
looking out over the lake. It is beautiful.
They got the cute little 4 shorekiosk for a coffee and snacks
right by the jetty. The entertainment's top notch.
They got Friday night seafood raffles and Sunday sessions with
live music in the beer garden. You want to find out what's
(24:29):
happening at the club? Check out their Facebook page or
visit gwadalanbowlingclub.com. dot AU King, Kumper Mitre Chan
have been big supporters of the Pod Dan podcast right from the
start, and you get all the stufffrom them that you'd expect to.
You get plans, you get all the Weber stuff, you get all the
steel gear, the amazing principal kitchens, but it's the
stuff that you don't expect. Like we had an elderly lady come
(24:51):
into the store and she brought her remote control from her
television and she didn't know how to get it to work.
And we opened it up and saw thatshe just needed new batteries.
And then she told me that her husband had recently passed
away, so he was the one that didall that stuff for her and she
didn't have anybody around to dothat, so she needed us.
So we took batteries out of the packet and put them in the
(25:14):
remote and we helped her out andmade her day.
That's what she got. And the mighty helpful King
Cumber Minor Gen. How many of us have PTSD of some
sort from something? Right now, here's where you're
going to get all the health professionals, the registered
health professionals, the psychologist, psychologist
(25:34):
jumping up and down and go OK, it's over diagnosed.
PTSD requires a very strict diagnostic criteria.
Oh. OK, so then remember PTSD sends
post traumatic stress disorder, OK?
This is like people saying I'm so OCD.
Yep. Yeah, that's actually, they may
have obsessive compulsive symptoms, yes, that's for sure.
(25:57):
When they have a disorder it, itrequires a lot of working
through with a with a trained mental health professional.
So you can have definitely trauma, you can, no question
about that. Does it meet criteria for PTSD
is a question. Does it meet criteria for
complex PTSD is another question.
And why does it need to? What we're saying if it meets
(26:19):
criteria is that it's, it's, it's it meets a number of
symptoms which make it sort of in the clinical range.
So that's to do. With the treatment you're able
to get then. No, not necessarily, although
sometimes in in the way that ourMedicare system works, you have
to have a diagnosis in order to access it.
But what we're saying is this, this these set of symptoms have
(26:41):
a clinically significant impact on that person's friendships, on
their capacity to work, on theircapacity to to do daily living
tasks. So we've all got a little bit of
something. Yeah, but it doesn't have a
significant impact on my life. Then it's not enough to really
be called a disorder. So.
(27:01):
So we're saying it all matters. We'll come back to that in the
other episode. Yeah.
I guess that's really, really interesting.
Yeah. So as far as your your childhood
trauma, do you get ones where reckon you would you get a lot
of people coming in and going? Why am I like this?
Yep, yeah. I say it all the time.
Well, a lot of the time people say I don't understand it.
(27:22):
Like some as we know, we've talked about the, you know, the
impact of, of ADHD, we've talkedabout, we haven't talked so much
about autism, but we've talked about anxiety, we've talked
about depression. So a lot of, there's many, many
reasons why people can present acertain way.
You know, there might be vitamindeficient.
They, you know, there's a whole range of different reasons why
people feel a certain way. And you know my stance on that.
(27:45):
We check people out biologicallyand we make sure there's nothing
going on for them biologically before we'll do a psychological
intervention. Because meds you're talking
about. Yeah.
So we'll do the. Sorry for those that's there.
It's it's MMED. How many times have we gone
through there? So.
Oh yeah, yeah. That's what I got, Pins.
I got pins. You got this.
(28:07):
Meds. I was watching it just the other
night. I actually reposted it just the
other night. Yeah, as well as ones I thought
really help people. Yeah, but I don't remember all
the meds ones. OK.
So make sure you see your GP or other health specialists
depending on who you're seeing for all biological based things
like you know we're doing the work that I'm going to do is not
(28:27):
going to help you if you've got a certain range of conditions.
So let's just be clear about that.
Once we know that it's, it's either not a medical condition
or there's part medical, part psychologically, that's when you
see a psychologist or mental health professional.
So at that point there we look at our meds and lifestyle.
(28:47):
Medicine is, is so important in this main society because
there's a so much chronic disease, there's so many stress
related disorders that when we look at lifestyle, they can have
a huge impact. Before you start cognitive
therapy, before you start AMDR, for a lot of people, it's making
sure that they have more balanceand structure in their life.
(29:08):
And then you want to go for the the meditation because
meditation and mindfulness is the ability to be in the present
on purpose, non judge mentally. You can't change your past and
you can't affect your future. I can't exactly say what's going
to happen for me tomorrow, but Ican make this moment the best I
(29:28):
can. There's nothing wrong.
Usually if I say to people, OK, I know you've had a horrific
past and you're really worried about your future, but just
right now is anything wrong? They look at me like that's a
weird thing to think about because they haven't given
themselves an opportunity to ever do that.
That does not take away their past and it does not mean there
isn't stressful things potentially in their future, but
(29:51):
it can give the option of just being OK just now.
Now that's really powerful, isn't it?
It is, and that's why I say mind.
For me, mindfulness is really important because so many people
have spent their whole lives notin the present.
So many people spend their livesin the past with trauma.
It's just fair or worrying aboutthings happening to them again.
(30:11):
But if you can give people the opportunity to to spend some of
their day in the present, it's so powerful for their cognitions
and for their bodies to be able to just calm.
So that's the M. The E is exercise, the D is diet
and nutrition. The S is sleep.
(30:32):
Because there's so many problemsthat are actually caused just by
sleep deprivation and then the SSo it's MEDSS.
And the last one is structure. We need structure in some way in
order to get these things into our lives.
Because otherwise we're living in in chaos.
And people actually will just scroll a lot of the time or stay
up till 4 after 11, there's no structure.
(30:54):
And really, to have our best live, there has to be some
structure. It doesn't matter.
You can have a different structure from other people.
There's gotta be some structure there.
Did you come up with meds like you came up with Bims?
Yeah, Yeah. I don't know.
I like Bims, but meds, I 'cause I 'cause I'm on meds.
And every time you say meds, I think of meds.
Well, that's. My it's like my version of meds.
(31:16):
It's kind of like, I want peopleto see this is almost like a
prescription, like, you know what I mean?
Like it's. It's cleverer than I gave it
credit for still. Yeah, yeah, tricky.
Now it makes sense and once again that was the problem.
No. No, it is.
It is, yeah. It's meds that you can actually
take for yourself. That's right.
(31:37):
And in lifestyle medicine, I think most people know that I'm
an accredited lifestyle medicinepractitioner, which is something
that can only give to registeredhealth professionals who are
willing to take an exam. That's the one I took, was an
international exam, but I think that they're doing it more in
Australasia and America's gone their own merry way.
Do you want to? Do another episode.
(32:00):
So anyway, yeah, so and so that was about saying, look, we've
got a united idea about what actually is the foundations of
health for most people. And that was when we started
looking at, well they use the term prescription based
nutrition, prescription based exercise, prescription based
sleep, prescription based mindfulness, although not a few
(32:22):
of them don't use that as as much as I do.
But it was really looking at that idea that we know should we
prescribing lifestyle interventions before we
prescribe a lot of the medication that we're doing.
Yeah, right. That makes sense.
Yeah. I mean, if a doctor is asking
you about how much sleep you're getting in your off, generally I
get about four, four to five hours, then yeah, that is
something they would prescribe to you.
(32:43):
They would prescribe medication often, not always.
I mean, there's a, you know, like psychologist.
There's a whole different range of styles and, and I guess skill
and the same with GPS, you know,the, the, the ones that have
actually really thought about what makes a difference to this
person won't just prescribe a medication.
They'll be looking at who we need to look at what else is
going on here Sunshine because you can't take long term sleep
(33:06):
medication. It's not addressing the problem
anyway. Yeah, you know, so a good
verdict, commas. GP will have a look at yeah,
maybe you need this just to change the the pattern you're
into and then but let's look at the bigger stuff that goes on.
So prescribing on both levels. So someone that's listening to
this and when I go back to when I the thing of why am I like
(33:27):
this? If there's something about you
that bugs you and you wonder whythere's why I always speak like
that. Why do I do this?
How can? How can they find out?
Yeah, so, so sometimes people are like none of my clients,
I'll say, you know, how about wejust look at the top ten worst
(33:47):
memories. So sometimes we can that.
Sounds fun. Yeah.
So to to, to, to counterbalance that, I'll often say give me
your 10 best. And and that, you know, we just
need to make sure that they're awhole person.
They're not just their bad memories, you know?
Yeah, some people can't do that on their own.
It's it's too much. 'Cause I couldn't do that, I I
don't think because whether I block stuff or whether I just
(34:09):
don't remember, maybe I don't remember 'cause I am blocking
it, I don't know. But I would struggle to give you
my 10 worst. Yeah.
And so that's when you could, there's a couple of different
things about that. Firstly is that sometimes when
we think about what is a bad memory, we kind of used that the
idea of a trauma that if we justsort of quickly touch back on
(34:30):
PTFD, what we used to PTFD only came about because we started to
see what happened with war veterans that were returning
home. Yeah.
And so we were mapping what trauma looked like in adult
males. And then what we weren't picking
up at that time was a lot of theimpact of childhood trauma,
(34:52):
sexual abuse on girls that was just kind of not thought about.
It was not really being researched.
It certainly wasn't making any particular journals.
And they were just called neurotic.
I mean, when you think about what some of those women would
have gone through as little girls, I think neurotic is, you
know, they deserve to be, you know, quite frankly.
But so we weren't looking at that.
(35:12):
And in fact, when we look at thesynopsis of psychiatry, which is
the is by Kaplan and static, whoare great people, they've done a
lot of research and then and they're still updating their,
their text all the time. But in 1975, they were still
writing that, you know, there was a very small percentage of,
of girls who were abused within family and that I won't get the
(35:32):
direct quote, but something likethis, they were none the worse
for that. And in fact, it could be
protective factor against psychosis.
So again, we had so, so, so wrong, So, so wrong because we
weren't really looking at those little puppets.
We were just looking at adults returning from war.
And and so, you know, I think that's where we a
misunderstanding of trauma and and what what we've given, I
(35:57):
guess some credit for what is trauma basically started around
what men experienced at war. And so when we look at what is
trauma for a young person, for alittle person, that can be that
kind of moment where they no one's there to pick them up from
school. Yeah.
And sometimes we'll downplay theimportance of that, but you have
(36:23):
any little person who has no adult around them, Mum's not
there, they're not safe, they'renot safe.
And their mind is quite right togo there.
I'm not safe here. You're not knows.
As I said, there's no such thingas a baby, There's no such thing
as a child. There's only a baby and child.
And the only way of being safe is to be in an end, in a
relationship. So those moments where we've got
(36:45):
those neglect or abandonment, itmay not stand out in in people's
minds as being bad, but they have a significant impact on
that person's sense of safety and that person's sense of self,
their importance, all the rest of it.
And that's so that's important. So when we look at your worst
memories, sometimes I have to really support people and going,
(37:08):
hey, it's not necessarily what you thought was like
catastrophic in terms of someonecoming at you with a chainsaw
and which is some of the people I work with Now again, I've been
I meant to say in this one, I. Don't know a second.
Trigger, trigger warning. Some of the stories that I, I
have are, you know, incredibly traumatic.
Obviously, I won't share them here, but if, if I, if there's
(37:28):
anything I've said, please, please make sure you get some
support and some help with that.Don't if it is triggering for
you in this episode, that suggests there's some unresolved
trauma for you and for, for yourlisteners.
And yeah, please get, reach out and get some help.
So I would, I don't mean to trigger anyone, but this is a
story, this is a episode on trauma.
(37:49):
So yeah, that's likely people may, may be impacted.
So it doesn't always have to be something massive that happened
to them when they were little, OK.
Here's the words that you need, OK?
And I will hope that every single one of your listeners is
going to listen to this. It's not what happens to you.
It's the meaning you make of it that matters.
(38:10):
So let's just say that you and Iare siblings and we've got this
dad who picks on us, is mean to us, verbally abuses us,
emotionally abuses us, occasionally physically abuses
us. We both get to adulthood and,
you know, I'm all over the placeand and you're actually, you
know, reasonably well adjusted. I know, I don't know.
(38:32):
In this scenario, OK. You are you are That was me and
me. Sorry you.
Oh, I love it. Oh, you are That's one and so
and So what we what what would you be like?
Why? Why?
They had the same they. Had the same thing.
OK, but whatever reason, and we talk about, I mean, this is
about temperance and biology at the same time, is that for
whatever reason, those experiences with with with dad,
(38:54):
I mean, I felt that I was useless, worthless, unlovable,
unimportant, unsafe. OK, that was my experience of my
childhood. And I say to you, yo, didn't you
do the same ribs? You're like Nah, I just knew
that dad was a dickhead. So how, how, why?
Why? Don't know.
(39:16):
We honestly know that there is certain, it's like, why does
someone get cancer when they've been smoking and someone hasn't
smoked any at all and get, and you know what I mean?
That's that there is a biology that sits underneath our
resilience for trauma. And that's really important to
understand that two people can have the same experience and not
necessarily have the same result.
I mean, obviously the example I gave was unlikely for you to be
(39:38):
completely well adjusted, but ifthe meaning you made of it was I
was a good kid, it was dad who had serious issues.
I wasn't. The problem wasn't me, the
problem was him. I'm good.
He was a moron. Whereas I grew up thinking, Oh
no, it couldn't possibly I must be doing something bad.
If I only. If only I'm better.
If only I'd be more good. If only I'd be more pleasant.
If only be more kind. If only I get a better grades at
(40:00):
school. If only I don't cause him so
much stress. If only I'm nicer to mom.
If only I do my housework. But maybe dad will stop this and
you're like, well, doesn't matter what I do, I'm OK.
He's the, he's the moron. So we, we have a different sense
of ourselves and that could makethe difference for how we view
that. So it's not what happens to us.
It's the meaning we make of it. And another important one is
(40:23):
it's not necessarily what happens to us, but who is there
or who isn't when it does. When What does?
When it makes sense. It's not necessarily what
happens to us, but who is there or who isn't when it does.
So we'll go back to you and me being siblings.
Dad's being mean to us. Mum has a really good
(40:45):
relationship with you and she's always there to pick you up and
say you're all around sunshine. You know, when your dad's a
doofus, whereas mum's a little bit jealous of me and things.
I get too much of Dad's attention and she doesn't get
any. So she's not going to pick me up
quite as much as she picks you up.
She'll say to me you probably deserve that.
(41:06):
So again, it's not about what happens to you, but who is there
or who isn't when it does. Yeah.
OK, cool. Let me think about that one a
lot later. And and that, yeah, so people,
I'll talk about that a bit more in our next episode because
that's going to be important when we talk about PCSD, complex
PTSD, and we've got some pretty another really cool thing that
(41:29):
we can do about biology, sort ofgetting in touch with some of
our early trauma through biology.
Oh, wow. OK, we'll do that in the next
one. Thanks so much for jumping in.
Yeah. It's always good.
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