Complex Trauma - Part 7/8 - The Brain

we're going to look at the brain tonight and how complex trauma affects the development of the brain and what I want you to understand affront is what we're learning through research and all of the brain imaging that we're now able to do is that our brain is the one of the most amazing organs around and it has a prymus potential to heal itself and so you're going to look at a lot of damage that gets done to the brain but I want you to know upfront that a lot of healing can happen as you begin to work on stuff so if you're visiting let me just again explain what we're about with this series complex trauma we tend to think of trauma as an event that's very scary very bad very terrible for a person to go through and just something that's horror story stuff that is what we would call simple trauma complex trauma can be a series of events that are just horror stories but complex trauma means ongoing trauma but it's not necessarily just bad stuff horror story stuff it is a child that feels unsafe and they may be in a home where their needs are met physically where they have tremendous opportunities but there's one or maybe two things where they just don't feel totally loved totally accepted respected and so they walk around on eggshells full of insecurities not able to fully relax that is what we refer to complex trauma and so it doesn't have to be abused it doesn't have to be severe neglect or abandonment it can just be a couple key emotional needs that were not consistently met that caused a child to feel on edge on guard that does damage in a child and we've been looking at understanding that there's a lot of research out there now that shows the damage in the brain which we're going to look at tonight and so I'm not going to go into tons of detail about it but there's not a lot of research about how it affects how you cope how it affects how you approach relationships how it affects how you think about yourself and so that's what we've been focusing on but tonight I do want to give some attention to how it affects the development of your brain and hopefully you'll find it interesting maybe even fascinating and some of you will just get discouraged one of the other things that I'm very conscious of when I teach about trauma is that traumatized people tend to traumatize others or abuse people tend to abuse others and so many of you as you've listened to me haven't just thought about your own complex trauma you've thought about how you've traumatized your kids and that creates tons of guilt and I just want to say again up front is that you if you're able to address it now are able to help your kids in a tremendous way deal with their trauma successfully so they don't necessarily go down the exact path you went down okay I want to start with just a little bit of pictures and stuff that will help you get a picture of what's going on in the brain so the first one on the left is a picture of a normal child in a fairly healthy home three years old the one on the right three year old neglect isn't that interesting you see the little black things in the middle there those are parts of the brain that produce cells and so in the case on the right of neglect where a child is neglected the Ringo's well I don't know what to do I'm bored they don't need to learn anything they don't need to deal with anything they're just sitting there thing to do and so their brain doesn't expand it doesn't grow like a normal child with normal stimulation and growth and so their brain remains small and the cell producing area is bigger because nothing is being produced so that just gives you upfront a little picture that we can look at brains and see the complex trauma does have a profound effect on the brain just the size and the health of the brain okay let me take you to the next picture there if you look at it starts at conception and then from about three four five so from conception up there of age four or five there's a really steep up and then it starts to level off that shows you that in the first three to four years is when your brain grows the most that's when the most activity is happening that's when the most expanding and learning is happening and so if a child is in a situation from conception up to five in that key growth time if they're in a situation where they're going through trauma that affects the growth and the development of the brain now let me just give you another thing that we're realizing within the last few years is your brain really doesn't stop growing until about twenty-five and then it kind of levels out at that point and we tend to go downhill from that point in our brain capacity and our brain expansion that doesn't mean the brain still can't develop and grow but the main gross stuff is finished around 25 okay the next picture you'll notice at the bottom you've got a brain stem now here's what I want you to kind of keep in your mind is that your brain develops from the bottom up and what I mean by that is this we all come in to the world born with a brain stem and that brain stem and the middle brain they influence your heartbeat so you don't have to sit there and think heart please beat it just does it you it controls your breathing it controls your blood pressure it controls your appetite all of that is controlled by the brain stem and the midbrain that you're born with but the top two your limbic or your emotional part of the brain and your cortex your thinking part of the brain you're not born with that developed okay so that develops and it doesn't just develop kind of like the same for everybody cookie cutter it develops based on your circumstances so what the brain does is given the experience that the child is going through it is saying what do I need to learn from this experience what do I need to learn so that doesn't happen again or so it does happen again so that I grow so that I change all of that it is based on your experiences so here's my point if you grow up in complex trauma guess what part grows fear looking for fear anticipating fear fight/flight instincts those get reinforced reinforced reinforced because that's the environment the brain is experiencing and that is developing that is important to understand just to know kind of why you can go from zero to a hundred in a nanosecond in a reaction and that that part is super super over developed in you and the other parts the thinking the emotional aren't as developed because you weren't in an environment for that that doesn't mean they can't develop now but that means they're probably undeveloped somewhat okay next let me just get you do understand and this has been around for a while but we have two parts of our brain and I want to point a couple things out so you got left brain and right brain and a lot of stuff gets made out that men are left rein women are right brain and honestly I don't buy into a lot of that I think it's a lot of stereotyping stuff but it's a really important understand in trauma okay so you're right brain it develops first and your right brain is your emotional memories the emotions you experience the things you sense in a memory is your emotions in general are all there it's your nonverbal world what you sense what you pick up all of that is tied in to your right brain your left brain is your thinking stuff but it's your explicit memory so right our right brain was implicit memory left brain is explicit and that means the details the time the date the event who what where when that's your left brain that keeps track of all of that your left brain is the thing that does your thinking and reasoning and evaluating stuff all of that there and then learns language okay in the middle between the two there's this bridge and you can see it underlined at the bottom called corpus callosum okay big word I'll forget it by tomorrow so you can too but here's the point I want you to get if you've experienced complex trauma two things have probably happened in you number one your right brain which is emotions fight flight protection has developed a lot your left brain has probably not developed a lot okay number one number two that bridge that connects the two if you've gone through complex trauma that bridge does not form at all or it doesn't form very well now let me give you an example of that a lot of people will say I can't remember certain events or years of my childhood that's left brain right details but what you'll find when you're in certain situations where you experience certain emotions you're triggered and you go what's that about guess what your implicit memory on the right side is remembering something but the bridge to connect it to the details has not been formed does that make sense to you so now you've got your brain partly remembering the emotions of an event but your other part of the brain doesn't remember the details because the bridge hasn't formed that's complex trauma stuff that can heal but again that's kind of what you're looking at okay now let me take you to those early years that's zero the five years I don't know if you've ever thought about it in any detail but what would it be like for a baby how much do they have to learn in order to survive and in order to go to school at age four or five if you begin to think about that it is really overwhelming and so I just want to kind of walk you through three areas but the point I want you to see upfront is in that early 0 to 5 development stage your brain is in overdrive because it is being bombarded with everything it experiences almost is new information and it doesn't have any framework to connect it to so it's kind of building a framework and it's building details so just think of a couple things I don't know if you've ever thought about the amount of brain that's involved in learning how to walk so you see a child and if you think about it just to hold your balance to take a step and not lose your balance your brain is developing fine tuning circuit after circuit to learn that skill and then you go to running and climbing and jumping basic skills that take tremendous skill and coordination and it takes a while to learn then if you go to language a child who comes in the world doesn't have a previous language to draw on so it's not like they're learning a second language they're coming into the world blank slate in their hearing bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla and that's all they hear and then somebody one day goes knows and they learn that's an old now they don't quite know what that person is pointing to because especially if they're touching their own nose because they can't quite see it but but they begin to learn a word and then what that word connects to you think of the the English language has about 10,000 words and usually by age five you know about 3000 that's a lot of learning then you gotta learn how to pronounce them then you got to learn verbs that don't have pictures with them all of those kind of things a child is doing and then they got to learn to button their shirt do up their zipper tie their shoes that is a ton of learning okay so that's only part one number two is they're coming into the world on Who am I and so where do I end and where does the rest of the world begin what abilities do I have what do personality do I have am i valuable am i lovable all of that stuff a child is beginning to sort out and so they go I'm not my brother I'm me and they get that sorted out and then you move into a world and a culture and a family and relationships and you have to learn body language so when Mum frowns that means this when mom's eyes get that look she's angry you learn that up that okay then you learn if I punch somebody they don't like me very much so I need a kind of rules that punching people isn't a good idea if I scratch somebody or bite them doesn't go over well so I get new rules okay so you go through that and then you go through relationships is it alright to cry is it alright to ask for help is it alright to get angry is it alright to be sad all of that stuff you've got to learn and that's a lot of stuff then you go out into society you go they operate differently than my family does they seem to have a different bunch of rules in certain areas oh my goodness I got to figure that out your eyes your brain is working working piecing together the world and life and developing skills busy busy busy complex trauma interferes with that development and that's what I want you to look think about now so if I take that natural development and just break it into parts okay so the brain is operating on a whole bunch of levels number one it is filtering out tons and tons of data and it's important to understand this it is saying this is so much information what should I hang on to and what can i discard okay so if you as a child begin to learn that when I get a certain sensation I got to go pee well that means I get that a lot so I should probably learn that and learn how to respond to that and it sees mom and dad want me to learn that and they reward me for that okay so you're sorting that okay but then if you just get kind of a an itch on your head you go yeah that's not so important I don't have to give that much attention so you begin to learn some stuff is really important other stuff you can get rid of okay go to complex trauma the brain is saying pay attention to fear pay attention to danger always be on alert that is really important look for signs of danger that needs to be your focus love kindness now if you're in a family where there's neglect and abuse haven't experienced it must not be important so you go into light with your brain zing that's not very important and that's what happens then the next thing which I refer to is you begin to detect threats it's doing that and then you begin to learn what makes life meaningful and so you get a hug for the first time and you go that feels so good I like that I want to be able to somehow reproduce that and then you go and you work hard and you get a paycheck or you get praise and you go wow that feels good hard work is worth it doesn't feel like it at the time but let's do it because it may it pays off in the end so you begin developing a value system then you see mountains or a sunset you know that is so beautiful and it has a profound impact on you and you all love beauty so you're building the brain is building that sense of what is valuable what makes life meaningful and then it's problem-solving how do you learn the button a shirt how do you learn to tie a shoe your thought about a baby learning to feed itself with a spoon it's trying to take pablum out of a bowl and get it to its mouth and by the time it gets there there's like just a drop of pablum left and all the rest is on the table or down there bib or down their pants whatever but that is a skill and they their brain is going okay how do I do that better not let me tell you what happens with complex trauma is this is too hard I quit I'm going to get hurt and you want to know what happens especially for people with complex trauma going into a new job situation their brain says if I don't learn this in one hour if this is difficult and this is frustrating to learn I quit and you never stick at it long enough to learn the skill because you're afraid of getting hurt okay next one your memory which I've talked about is happening in your brain and your brain is piecing together I don't know if you thought about what is the purpose of keeping memories it's the same thing I'm going to remember what was bad that hurt me so I don't go it there again so it's designed to protect you and I'm going to remember what was good so I go there again so I have a good life so your brain is trying to provide you the memories to guide you along the right way the problem with with this if you think of pain and the problem of complex trauma is this nothing good came out of pain pain always ended in more pain and so your brain gets the belief that pain never leads to anything good and that sets you up to make bad decisions later in life because much of life has an element of pain and hardship but it pays off it's worth it in the end we talked about implicit and explicit and then a working memory and a long-term memory so working memory is I need to remember that person's phone number and I'll remember it because I need to phone them tomorrow but after tomorrow I don't need to remember it anymore so it's gone okay but if you meet a hot chick you go I need to remember that phone number for a long time so it just went into long-term memory you got that or you say I need to learn that this sensation means I got to go pee and I need to go to the bathroom that's important that goes into long-term memory okay so those are the kind of things that are happening and then one final thing is that or two final things there's this shift in your brain and I talked about it you go from the right side to the left side you go from kind of the emotional piece to the left side where you're starting to think about life you're evaluating life you're analyzing decisions you're analyzing options you're weighing out pros and cons one thing that's important to understand that comes out of complex trauma is this you tend to be influenced more by your emotions than by your thinking your emotions are still the predominant force in making decisions now you might say I disagree with you and so let me give you an example I have had many many people who have come to Tamarack or finding freedom and talk to me and they have said I am a thinker and I go I agree you are a thinker and so they say teach me information I want to learn I want to learn I said I will be an information truck and I will back it up every time and I will fill you with information and then they finish Tamarack and they go I'm not going to relapse because I know all my warning signs I know what to do and I'm not going to get in a relationship because I know kind of where that goes I got it all in my head two months later they're in my office they've got in a relationship and they relapsed and I go I thought you were this controlled by your thinking they say I thought I was too I says what you have to understand is this if you don't deal with your trauma your emotions at times in your life will override your thinking and your emotions will still run the show and your thinking as much as you have it all sorted out in your head will not keep you sober and it will not keep you making right decisions and that's a complex trauma thing and then the final thing that happens in your brain is that this metacognition is the term but you're piecing together a bigger world than just you you're starting to see there's people there's nations there's there's a worldview a way of understanding life after life before life all of the morals and values my purpose in life that's all developing and then you're developing interest in more than just yourself and you're starting to have an interest in others and interacting with others that's developing complex trauma can interact with that and interfere with that and guess where you get stuck a little we world of just me it's all about me and you don't grow beyond that so you're starting to realize kind of how trauma affects a lot of the development of the brain now let me take it to kind of the big thing which is stress because complex trauma is really living in stress so normally here's what your brain does when you experience little bursts of stress and we all go through stress some stress is good stress so let's say your daughter's getting married you're stressed out but you're happy as can be okay so that's good stress or you just love your job and you're working hard and putting in lots of hours good stress but it takes out of you okay bad stress is stuff where you're feeling danger you're feeling overwhelmed so what normally happens in your brain is that limbic system on the right side your emotional side its alert distress and as soon as it feels stressed it senses threat I could get hurt I could get overwhelmed and this could result in problems and so it is on hyper alert status okay what then happens it releases two chemicals inside your brain number one is cortisol and number two is adrenaline and what both of them kind of work towards is they give you energy to fight flight or get through it okay so you're feeling stress and all of a sudden you get this burst of energy and away you go and you're good that's all happening there and part of what cortisol does is it creates also in you this less pain sensation so you're feeling pain you're going through tough stuff but it kind of numbs it out and it burns stuff into your Emory because what is it saying stress could lead to danger we need to remember this so let's put a little extra shot of cortisol so that you remember this detail so that's why I say to people how many remember 9/11 2001 and they their hand goes up as the two jets flew in the World Trade Centers and you go why I don't remember what I did the day before I don't remember what they did the day after cortisol burns it into your memory okay so that's normal we all go through that after the stress is over the cortisol levels and the adrenaline levels drop now let me just add one little footnote here if you grew up with complex trauma guess what you can get addicted to adrenaline your brain goes I like that feeling I like having that energy I like having less pain I like heightened senses and you can get addicted to that okay now let me take you to what happens if you grow up in trauma complex trauma what goes on in the brain we call this toxic stress okay so it's stress that doesn't go away stress that hangs around day after day so what is happening in your brain is it's constantly releasing cortisol and your brain was not made to handle constant release of cortisol and so that when it's being released constantly it begins to impair your cognitive performance so you have difficulty focusing learning and thinking in depth doesn't that sound like ADHD and a lot of stuff that's cortisol blocking the ability of your brain to learn normally and to think normally another way to put it is when you're got cortisol happening in your brain stress you go into survival mode and in survival mode you don't got time to think about lots of stuff you got to think about surviving and so that's what's happening then it affects your mental health sleep problems chemical imbalances in the brain we're now watching because of that Court is so overload that it can affect your serotonin levels later in life so you struggle with depression and anxiety that comes out of cortisol stuff the third thing we're starting to realize complex trauma and all of that cortisol stuff affects physical health later on and I put up their thyroid blood sugar imbalances are affected bone density muscle tissue high blood pressure heart disease goons excuse me your immune system is lower your ability to handle your body swelling or inflammatory is lower and you heal slower all because of complex trauma not quite done yet I don't think nope and then we talked about the trauma affects the bridge between your memories I've explained that and the final thing is that it affects that limbic system right side of your brain so it's over developed so that now you can be in a situation that you have no memory of any similarities in your past of previous situations but all of a sudden you are just panic you are on edge you are ready to run or blow up and you go where is that coming from and that's from the lack of the memory of the explicit memory but it's also that you have this over developed part so that's the slightest bit of stress that limbic part kicks in and it says I'm ready for fight or to flight because I have to survive and it takes a while to deal with that now here's what normally happens and this may have happened to you let's say you're 35 years old and you go over to your parents how and all of a sudden mama calls you a name that you don't remember since you were eight years old and she doesn't say it nicely what most of you would find is that all of a sudden you feel like you're eight years old you feel powerless to stand up to Mum to say that's not right to walk out of the house you just sit there frozen and then you go home and you're angry you're beating yourself up you're feeling guilty you just go through a whole bunch of emotions but in that moment when your trauma gets triggered you just feel like this powerless little child and so what you have to begin to do in dealing with trauma is to say okay back when I really was eight years old I had no place to go I had no other supports and I had no other tools for dealing with this but now I'm 35 and I'm learning some tools and I'm gaining some supports so I can walk away from that and say you know what if that happens again here's what I'm going to do next time and learn from it and as you do that the healing happens at a deep deep level and we're going to look at that in more detail next time but let me end with this again your brain though you through trauma and it wasn't your fault had a whole bunch of stuff not developed normally it can still develop today even if you're 50 or 60 it takes work it takes being in an environment where you can really learn new stuff but you can change and that brain of yours can get healthy so there is hope let's just pray father you have made us as very complex but amazing creatures and I just thank you have given us brains that can heal and I pray for each one here that just realizes the amount of damage and the amount of work that you would give them encouragement and strength amen

Channel: Tim Fletcher

Views: 43,327

Keywords: findingfreedom, online counseling, Relationships, ptsd, Narcissism, rehab, addiction, counselor, findingfreedommedia, mental health professional, mental health, Codependent Relationship Patterns, Codependency, addiction centre, addiction center, CPTSD, Complex Trauma

Id: Y7HGN5dhdU4

Length: 33min 14sec (1994 seconds)

Published: Thu May 18 2017