Discovery - the effects of childhood experiences

Listening recently to a talk from a paediatrician, I learned about the research into "Adverse Childhood Experiences" (A.C.E's) and the effects they have on our adult behaviour. I learned that children with traumatic childhoods are far more likely to develop heart disease, cancer, etc. and die at a younger age. Maybe our adulthood can be a persistent PTSD as we try to recover from and make sense of our initial experiences!

The paediatrician reported that the absence of just one caring person is highly damaging especially for a child living with an adult that has, for example, substance abuse, anger issues, or is neglectful. So why is something that happened so long ago, still affecting us, why do childhood issues make us ill?

Fortunately there is now a lot of research into the effects of previous trauma on present problems. It's obvious that trauma causes mental and emotional issues, sadly we see that with many of our soldiers, hospital workers, police etc. They are diagnosed with PTSD which is basically deemed to be a mental and emotional problem. But what if physical diseases are also a form of PTSD?

It is a quirk of history that has caused a rift in our beliefs that our minds do not affect our bodies, but to me, that's simply crazy. If I think of something sad, or see something sad, I might cry. If I see a picture of food, I might salivate. If I see a litter of puppies or kittens, I smile and feel a warmth, a rush of pleasure. What are you experiencing as you read?

All the feelings that you are experiencing are felt in your body, your mind is causing your body to produce various chemical and electrical signals which are produced in the body, by the body and which affect the body.

See something scary and your body goes into flight or fight mode and if you get habituated to being in this state because of work pressure or because of YOUR THOUGHTS you get stuck in fight or flight.

Our sympathetic nervous system is set up in order to ensure we survive. That is it's purpose and it takes priority over everything else. We move away from pain far faster than we move toward pleasure. We're hard wired to do this. I remember hearing that this response is 10 times stronger so in some respects, we're up against it.

But it's vital it's set up this way, it does save our lives. However, if we suffered persistent attacks on our physical, mental or emotional wellbeing as children, we will be on the lookout for it as adults. We can interpret the slightest negative comment or situation as extremely threatening to our wellbeing and so we remain in a constant state of stress, secreting adrenalin and cortisol because we are trying to escape.

But as children in persisting adverse situations, there was no escape. There was nowhere to go. Our caregivers were, maybe, the ones threatening us so we were in a bind. We were completely dependent on the one attacking us.

This gave us mixed messages. We felt that something was seriously wrong but we didn't have the resources to understand what. If we could't run away we were likely to go into the 3rd response of the ANS and that is to shut down or freeze.

If I was to liken my experiences to a computer programme, I would say I was running a malware programme, so I discovered I needed to upgrade my programming.

"It's never too late to have a happy childhood."

I remember performing an exercise when on a retreat that involved having an imaginary sack into which we put our traumas, issues, problems, as we walked around. After just a few minutes I couldn't move and just sat down by a chair on the floor feeling exhausted - sound familiar? I didn't even sit on the chair, just tried to hide behind it.

I was weighted down by the unresolved issues that I was carrying. Is M.E./C.F.S. another form of PTSD? Maybe.

Not all negative incidences will result in illness. There are many examples of people having the most horrendous experiences without lasting problems. They seem to have an innate resilience or is it a learned response? Maybe both.

According to the Meta-Health and Lifestyle Prescriptions paradigm there does seem to be certain characteristics of trauma that make it more likely to be damaging.

1. It is unexpected

2. It is dramatic

3. It is isolating

4. It is frequently contrary to our belief system

I am 9 years old I believe I am helping a friend out but our actions are disapproved of by a teacher who tells us to go and stand away from our friends and in front of the rest of the girls in the dining hall (about 80 pupils). This teacher had always treated me as a bit of a favourite as her brother was my father's boss.

She shouts at us from the other side of the hall, telling us we are sly and deceitful.

This episode fulfils all the above criteria!

I am experiencing fear, shame, and would like to disappear.

It felt overwhelming.

I am separated from my peers.

It was completely unexpected and contrary to my belief that, because she had treated me well in the past, she would treat me that way this time.

Much later, when I came round to releasing this episode, I discovered I was experiencing a whole lot more!

Later in my life I developed a fear of speaking in public, so bad that I couldn't even say my name without my pulse rocketing. I also became hyper vigilant for any criticism so I'm in the flight mode constantly. I also started to manipulate my life in order not to experience anything that might trigger shame BUT all this behaviour was completely unconscious. I'm not aware that I'm in this state at all but it is taking a toll on my physical body. I am secreting cortisol and adrenalin.

I think when I originally became ill, that I had run out of psychic energy and all my negative experiences, with all their accompanying feelings and emotions could no longer be repressed and so they all burst out and became my illness.

I discovered I had a lot of repressed anger though, because it was repressed, I didn't know it. I was experiencing fear instead. There is a lot of energy in anger and it takes an equal amount to repress it, energy I could have used for living wasn't available to me.

My father was an alcoholic and totally unpredictable so I never knew what would trigger his love or his anger and rejection. I was constantly on the alert for signals. Freezing was the best way my unconscious survival mechanism found to cope, if I didn't do anything, nothing bad could happen.

And I would like to shout this out - IT IS NOT MY/ YOUR FAULT THAT YOU ARE ILL - we/you are not deliberately creating our illness - I/you just didn't have the help, the resources to handle our experiences. But I can take responsibility and when I did that, I started to find ways to recover.

Recovery

There are many tools and techniques out now to help in rewriting our history. Here are some of the ones I used;

The Journey - Brandon Bays

The Work (app) - Byron Katie

Loving What Is - Byron Katie

Books by Peter Levine

Hypnotherapy

Meditation

Meta-Health

Meta-Kinetics

Lifestyle Prescriptions

Bio-energetics - Dr Sue Morter

EFT

As our programming is also stored in the body I include;

Massage especially MFR

Yoga

Tai Chi

Acupuncture

Alexander Technique

Sound therapy

EFT

With all these therapies it is important to be as focussed and aware of the process, of getting in touch with the feelings stored in the body, to relax, welcome and breathe into them. Incredibly difficult to start with! So many of these feelings just feel so horrible but if you can break them down into things such as "I'm feeling tension in my back" "there is a cold sensation on my leg" "the pain is red and shaped like a doughnut" it's easier.

You don't have to do this alone. In fact it may not be a good idea to start with. Some of the places I went to were extremely bleak and without support there was no way I could have done it.

Next - Our bodies want to heal.