Trauma. in Growth II

“I’m only a few years into this practice of staying present
This practice of not reacting to the distractions of the past and the future
The cravings and aversions that have been controlling my mind since I was a child
So I am fully aware you can still smell the bottom of the barrel in my family blood some days
And that the anger still leaks from the lines in my face.”
- Buddy Wakefield

Not too long ago, I came across something that really resonated with me:

”No one will know the violence it took to become this gentle.”

It’s something I’ve been sitting on since but I couldn’t exactly pin point my feelings about it.

Tonight, it hit me..

Trauma.

I grew angry. I began blaming myself, I became upset with my mom and dad (which is a big thing for me considering the confusion, conflict and unresolved feelings I had with my father when he passed - and still presently). I began playing out this story line in my head that if I had a healthy childhood, that just maybe I would have had much more positive relationships through the years.

Should I explain?

There was a TedTalk I discovered a few months ago that I was eager to share with my psychology students. While they didn’t share as much excitement or fascination over it as I did, it’s something I still learn from with each class I presented it to.

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris presented a TedTalk that discussed childhood trauma and the long-lasting effects it has on health throughout your development. Specifically, she mentions:

“So there are real neurologic reasons why folks are exposed to high doses of adversity are more likely to engage in high-risk behavior. And that’s important to know. But it turns out that even if you don’t engage in any high-risk behavior, you’re still more likely to develop heart disease or cancer. The reason for this has to do with the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, the brain’s and body’s stress response system that governs our fight-or-flight response. How does it work?

Well, imagine you’re walking in the forest, and you see a bear. Immediately, your hypothalamus sends a signal to your pituitary, which sends a signal to your adrenal gland that says, release stress hormones adrenaline, cortisol. And so your heart starts to pound. Your pupils dilate. Your airways open up. And you are ready to either fight that bear or run from the bear. And that is wonderful if you’re in a forest, and there’s a bear. But the problem is what happens when the bear comes home every night. And this system is activated over and over and over again.

And it goes from being adaptive or lifesaving to maladaptive or health-damaging. Children are especially sensitive to this repeated stress activation because their brains and bodies are just developing.”

Essentially, the moral of the story is that if you exist in chaos during your childhood, you carry this chaos with you throughout your lifespan. When we are continually activating our sympathetic nervous system at a young age (which is your fight or flight response), this becomes something that is easily activated, or even possibly becomes our “normal.”

At the age of 27, I realize that while my friendships can be maintained fairly easily, for approximately five years, I had rather unsteady romantic relationships. After years of therapy and some really great books, I previously chalked my unsteady relationships up to the theory that implies we tend to date people who share characteristics of our parents - especially if our parents did not properly nourish us (we seek individuals as partners who mimic our parents and these lack of nourishing characteristics so that in a way, we can prove ourselves and work for acceptance from our partner), which is something I still hold as true, but here is another piece of the puzzle..

Those who have experienced a traumatic childhood engage in unstable relationships as a way to continue filling the void of chaos if it doesn’t exist - we need to continue activating our sympathetic nervous system.

Currently, I find myself in a patient and loving relationship, but it’s difficult for me as I continually question why/how I allowed myself to engage in such chaos in my romantic relationships for that five years of my life. Well, I can most definitely say that the individuals identified with similar characteristics of my parents, but also because the constant drama (giving and receiving) continually fed my need for chaos. Break ups as a result of every argument, gas lighting, lack of communication, arguments lasting days long, nearly everything you can think of - these situations kept me on my toes. While I was trying to work through these things and constantly approaching a dead end, I was not only feeding my sympathetic system, in addition, I was essentially trying to prove my worthiness. I wanted to be understood, I wanted patience, because these were things I lacked during my development and I wanted to show that I was finally doing it right. But in reality, this was not the way to overcome my childhood traumas.

I have continued to exist in chaos nearly twenty years since I was forced to mature at a young age. I think if I have learned anything, it is to be patient with yourself. Sometimes we don’t always know why, sometimes we won’t ever receive answers to our questions, but I can tell you that investing in the self will bring you further than anything else. Be gentle.

My message to my future self:

Stop feeling sorry for yourself. End the compulsive habit of thinking and speaking insecurities. Choose patience under pressure. No knee-jerk reactions. Stop feeling guilty for your past challenges. Release all hope for a better past. Discontinue boasting past glories. Stay present. Stop putting so much on yourself. Appreciate your journey; you’ve accomplished a whole lot from a life that was not grounded in or cut out for you to be successful in. Make no decision based on panic. Speak with kindness and acceptance, even to yourself. Be held accountable. Stay away from telling lies, exaggerating truths, bragging, or manipulating people’s perceptions of me. Be quiet and let forthcoming answers reveal themselves without manipulation. Choose to be enough. Release your need to be right. Meditate. Be unapologetic for living. Smile. Be generous. Feed yourself joy over beating yourself up. Equanimity. Politely ask yourself to step aside if you’re in your own way.

• With assistance from Buddy Wakefield.

TedTalk by Nadine Burke Harris:

Last updated April 13, 2018