What's all this talk about trauma?

It’s hard when you start something new to differentiate if what you’re noticing is because it has come into focus for you and you’re more aware of it, or if it is genuinely gaining social traction. I’ve noticed that my social media feeds and podcast library are full of content about trauma (no doubt I’ve influenced the algorithm to a degree) and its impact on our lives.  For the longest time - given I hadn’t experienced one singular horrendous life changing event - or a childhood of adversity through abuse - it was clear in my head this trauma thing isn’t about me (with a side dish of “what’s wrong with me then?).  But as I have done my own therapy and my  Masters I’ve come to understand an expanded definition of trauma - not only as “things that happened to you” but also as the things that didn’t happen to you - the things you needed and didn’t receive.  If this is new for you read that sentence again and let it sink in.  

If you listen to this Hillary McBride podcast “Other People’s Problems” https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/186-other-peoples-problemsI  the example she gives in the episode linked here is of never receiving soft loving touch when you needed it, resulting in you now finding  affection uncomfortable and feeling as though wanting it is about weakness.  Or perhaps you lived in a house with a very volatile parent and you learnt you always had to read the feelings in the room and contain your own.

Even after reading extensively, studying trauma, and having my therapist repeatedly suggest there was an element of this in what was showing up for me -  it took me a few years to really be able to apply this to myself.  To understand that as a highly sensitive human I didn’t get the attunement I needed to feel seen, safe and understood.  That as an eldest daughter with an anxious and social isolated mum I took on a caring role from a very young age - and have embodied that role as an identify - an almost impenetrable one.  The hardest part of this equation for me and for many others is feeling you’re dismissing or criticising the often mammoth and incredible efforts of your genuinely loving parents or carers - who themselves were a product of their upbringing and generation.   Each time my therapist would ask - ‘when do you remember feeling alone like that in the past?’ Or ‘how old are you when you say to yourself what I need doesn’t matter?’  I would recount something from my childhood and then  immediately spring to the defence of my parents  - ‘But my parents are really great’ and she would gently remind me … ‘I’m not saying they aren’t- they can have done their best and your needs can also have remain unmet.’

I have spent a lot of time reading and listening to Gabor Mate (and given he’s almost sold out the ICC in Sydney for his visit this year I’m guessing that talking about trauma and it’s impact on our health isn’t just because of my algorithm).  Gabor Mate is a medical doctor from Canada who has dedicated the later part of his career to understanding the interplay of trauma with our physical and mental health - and advocating for the inextricable link between the two.  I think his work is profound and has lead us to question as many other leaders in this field have in recent times if the way we are living is hurting us.

I was shocked when I learnt about Vincent Felitti and Robert Anda seminal work in the ACE’s study - Adverse Childhood Experiences.  What shocked me most was that people hadn’t heard about this work so long after it had been published.  If you don’t know about this study - in summary Dr Felitti was employed by Kaiser Permanente hospital group in the US initially to work with people who had seeming intractable obesity.   Through a carefully orchestrated inpatient admission and calorie controlled diet regime he helped many of the patients to loose substantial amounts of weight and felt satisfied his approach had solved a problem others could not.  However he was soon to be shocked himself by the return of his patients who had quickly put the weight back on.  On further investigation he found many of these patients had significant trauma histories impacting their everyday lives.  The first patient to potently draw his attention to this was a woman who when asked if she knew why she had regained all of the weight she had lost - was able identify the moment she restarted binge eating, after being approached by a male in a bar.  She then painfully connected this to the sexual abuse she had suffered as a child and her resulting ongoing fear of male attention.  

Armed with this insight between 1995 and 1997 Felitti and Anda set out to review the medical records of all patients of the hospital group collecting data from over 17 000 patients through matching their medical records with a screening survey about their experience of childhood adversity.  This landmark body of work described “the relationship of health risk behavior and disease in adulthood to the breadth of exposure to childhood emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, and household dysfunction during childhood.” Furthermore it demonstrated a “strong graded relationship between the breadth of exposure to abuse or household dysfunction during childhood and multiple risk factors for several of the leading causes of death in adults.”(Felitti et.al, 1998).  It still stuns me how I can have worked in children’s hospitals for almost a quarter of a century and never heard of this study.

So I’m glad to be living in a time when Gabor Mate and Jane Fonda sell out the ICC, when Johann Hari is selling out auditoriums discussing his books on  addiction, our attention spans and Ozempic, when Brene Brown has a Netflix series, where therapists are sharing their knowledge and insights on social media alongside luminaries of the field like Bessel Van derKolk (who’s book you can buy at Big W) and when therapy is on podcasts.  There's a whole other discussion about are there some overusing these terms at the moment - watch this space - comment below what has helped you towards healing?