What Happened To You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing 1/7

a note from the authors this audiobook is for anyone with a mother father partner or child who may have experienced trauma and if you've ever had labels like people pleaser self-sabotager disruptive argumentative checked out can't hold a job or bad at relationships used to describe you or your loved ones this audio book is for you or if you simply want to better understand yourself and others this audiobook is for you too we know this listening experience will make you think and make you feel and at times the feelings may be hard and painful for some the intense and sometimes disturbing content will be a challenge for others the concepts about the brain may be unfamiliar and initially difficult to understand we ask for your patience and trust with us and with yourselves when you find the listening too challenging stop put the program aside for an hour or a week it will still be there when you feel able to return to it and when you're ready to continue exploring why what happened to you shapes how you think feel and act welcome you just may discover a path forward for listeners who would like to view the diagrams that explain effects of trauma on the brain please refer to the pdf that accompanies this audiobook stop your crying she would warn you better hush your mouth my face settled into stoic my heart stopped racing biting hard into my lower lip so no words would escape me i do this because i love you she'd repeat her defense in my ear as a young girl i was whipped regularly at the time it was accepted practice for caregivers to use corporal punishment to discipline a child my grandmother hattie may embraced it but even at three years old i knew that what i was experiencing was wrong one of the worst beatings i recall happened on a sunday morning going to church played a major role in our lives just before we were to leave for service i was sent to the well behind our house to pump water the farmhouse where i live with my grandparents did not have indoor plumbing from the window my grandmother caught a glimpse of me twirling my fingers in the water and became enraged though i was only daydreaming innocently as any child might she was angry because this was our drinking water and i had put my fingers in it she then asked me if i'd been playing in the water and i said no she bent me over and whipped me so violently my flesh welted afterward i managed to put on my white sunday best dress blood began to seep through and stain the crisp fabric a deep crimson livid at the site she chastised me for getting blood on my dress then sent me to sunday school in the rural south this is how black children were raised there wasn't anyone i knew who wasn't whipped i was beaten for the slightest reasons spilled water a broken glass the inability to keep quiet or still i heard a black comedian once say the longest walk is to get your own switch well i not only had to walk to get the switch but if there wasn't one available i had to go find one a thin young branch work best but if it was too thin i'd have to braid two or three together to make it stronger my grandmother often forced me to help her braid the switch sometimes the whippings would get saved up for saturday night when i was naked and freshly bathed afterwards when i could barely stand she would tell me to wipe that pout off your face and to start smiling bury it as though it never happened eventually i developed a keen sense of when trouble was brewing i recognized the shift in my grandmother's voice or the look that meant i had displeased her she was not a mean person i believe she cared for me and wanted me to be a good girl and i understood that hush in my mouth or silence was the only way to ensure a quick end to punishment and pain for the next 40 years that pattern of condition compliance the result of deeply rooted trauma would define every relationship interaction and decision in my life the long-term impact of being whooped then forced to hush and even smile about it turn me into a world-class people-pleaser for most of my life it would not have taken me half a lifetime to learn to set boundaries and say no with confidence had i been nurtured differently as an adult i'm grateful to enjoy long-term consistent loving relationships with many people yet the early beatings emotional fractures and splintered connections that i experienced with the central figures in my young life no doubt helped develop my solitary independence in the powerful words of the poem invictus i am the master of my fate i am the captain of my soul millions of people were treated just as i was as children and grew up believing their lives were of no value my conversations with dr bruce perry and the thousands of people who were brave enough to share their stories with me on the oprah winfrey show have taught me that the effects of my treatment by those who were supposed to care for me weren't strictly emotional there was also a biological response through my work with dr perry my eyes have been opened to the fact that although i experienced abuse and trauma as a child my brain found ways to adapt this is where hope lives for all of us in the unique adaptability of our miraculous brains as dr perry explains in this audiobook understanding how the brain reacts to stress or early trauma helps clarify how what has happened to us in the past shapes who we are how we behave and why we do the things we do through this lens we can build a renewed sense of personal self-worth and ultimately recalibrate our responses to circumstances situations and relationships it is in other words the key to reshaping our very lives oprah winfrey one morning in 1989 i was sitting in my lab the laboratory of developmental neurosciences at the university of chicago looking at the results of a recent experiment when my lab assistant poked his head into my office oprah's calling you yeah right take a message i'd been up all night writing the results of the experiment looked messed up i wasn't in the mood for a practical joke he smirked no really it's somebody from harpo there was no possible reason for oprah to call me i was a young academic child psychiatrist studying the impact of stress and trauma on development only a handful of people knew about my work most of my psychiatry peers didn't think much about the neurosciences or childhood trauma the role of trauma as a major factor in physical and mental health was unexplored i thought one of my friends was simply pranking me but i took the call ms winfrey is convening a meeting of national leaders in the area of child abuse in washington in two weeks we would like you to attend after more explanation it became clear that the meeting would be attended by many well-known and well-established people in organizations my work studying the impact of trauma on the developing brain would be lost among more politically accepted dominant perspectives i politely declined several weeks later i received another call oprah is inviting you to a day-long retreat on her farm in indiana there will be two other people you and oprah we want to brainstorm solutions to the issue of child abuse this time with a chance to meaningfully contribute i accepted the dominant voice that day was andrew vax an author and attorney specializing in representing children his pioneering work highlighted the need to track known child abusers at that point they could move from state to state and there was no way to keep tabs on where they were or if they were complying with restrictions to avoid children our 1989 meeting in indiana led to the 1991 drafting of the national child protection act to establish a national database of convicted child abusers on december 20 1993 after two years of advocacy that included testifying before the u.s senate judiciary committee the oprah bill was signed into law that day in 1989 led to many more conversations some took place on the oprah winfrey show to discuss specific children's stories and campaigns on the importance of early childhood and brain development most of our conversations however were in the context of the oprah winfrey leadership academy for girls owlegg which oprah founded in south africa in 2007. this remarkable institution was created to select support educate and enrich disadvantaged girls with high potential the explicit intention was to create a cadre of future leaders many of these girls had demonstrated resilience and high academic achievement despite a range of adversities including poverty traumatic loss and community or intra-family violence early on the school began to act on many of the concepts we discussed in this audiobook today owlegg is becoming a model of a trauma sensitive developmentally aware educational setting in 2018 i sat down with oprah for a 60 minutes story about trauma informed care though only two minutes of our conversation ended up in the final segment millions of people were watching and listening and the excitement created in the community of professionals working in trauma was remarkable but there is so much more to say the enthusiasm for our conversation was in part a reflection of oprah's own enthusiasm for the importance of this topic on cbs this morning oprah told gail king that she would dance on tabletops to get people to pay attention to the impact of trauma on the developing brains of children in a cbs news supplement to the 60-minute show oprah called it the most important story of her life oprah has been talking about abuse neglect and healing for her entire career her dedication to educating people about trauma related topics has been a hallmark of her shows millions of people have watched oprah listen to connect with console and learn from people with experience or expertise and trauma of all kinds she has explored the impacts of traumatic loss maltreatment sexual abuse racism misogyny domestic violence community violence gender and sexual identity issues false imprisonment and so much more and through this has helped us explore health healing post-traumatic growth and resilience for 25 years the oprah winfrey show took a deep and thoughtful look at developmental adversity challenge distress stress trauma and resilience she explored dissociative identity disorder in 1989 the importance of early childhood experiences on brain development in 1997 the rights of adopted children in 2005 the impact of severe neglect in 2009 and much more in many ways her show paved the way for a larger systemic awareness of these issues her final season included an episode featuring 200 men including tyler perry disclosing their histories of sexual abuse she has been and will continue to be a champion and guide for people impacted by adversity and trauma oprah and i have been talking about trauma the brain resilience and healing for more than 30 years and this audiobook is in many ways the culmination of those talks it uses conversation and human stories to illuminate the science that underlies it all there are far too many aspects of development the brain and trauma to cover in one book especially a book written through stories the language and concepts used in this audiobook translate the work of thousands of scientists clinicians and researchers in fields ranging from genetics to epidemiology to anthropology it is a book for anyone and everyone the title what happened to you signifies a shift in perspective that honors the power of the past to shape our current functioning the phrase originated in the pioneering work group of dr sandra bloom developer of the sanctuary model in dr bloom's words we the treatment team for sanctuary were in a team meeting sometime around 1991 on our inpatient unit trying to describe the change that had happened to us in recognizing and responding to the issue of trauma especially what has become known now as childhood adversity as a causal issue for the problems of most of the people we were treating and joe fotarero always good at pithy observations said it's that we've changed our fundamental question from what's wrong with you to what happened to you oprah and i are convinced that asking the fundamental question what happened to you can help each of us know a little more about how experiences both good and bad shape us our hope in sharing these stories in scientific concepts is that every listener will in their own way gain insights to help us all live better more fulfilling lives dr bruce perry chapter 1 making sense of the world more than 130 million babies are born in the world every year each arrives into their own unique set of social economic and cultural circumstances some are welcomed with gratitude and joy cradled in the arms of their ecstatic parents and family others are more like me experiencing rejection from a young mother who dreamed of a different life a couple crushed by the pressures of poverty an enraged father perpetuating a cycle of abuse yet whether or not they're loved every current and former newborn that's you and me shares one profoundly important trait despite the myriad circumstances into which we're born we come into the world with an innate sense of wholeness we don't begin our lives by asking am i enough am i worthy am i deserving or lovable not one baby in the earliest moments of awareness asks do i matter their world is a place of wonder but with their very first breaths these tiny human beings begin trying to make sense of their surroundings who will nurture and care for them what will bring comfort and for so many little ones life begins to take its toll with violent eruptions by the caregiver or simply the lack of a soothing voice or a gentle touch in our first encounters our human experiences diverge the most pervasive feeling i remember from my own childhood is loneliness my mother and father were together only once underneath an old oak tree not far from the house where my mother vernita was raised in kosciuszko mississippi my father vernon used to tell me i would never have been born if he hadn't been curious about what was underneath my mother's pink poodle skirt nine months after that singular encounter i arrived from the moment i could make sense of it i knew i was unwanted my father didn't even know about me until my mother sent him a birth announcement and asked for money to buy baby clothes my grandmother hattie bay's home was a place where children were seen and not heard i have distinct memories of my grandfather shooing me away with his cane yet no memory of him speaking directly to me after my grandmother passed away i was shuttled between my mother who had moved to milwaukee and my father in nashville because i didn't know either one i struggled to develop strong roots or connections with my my mother worked as a maid for fifty dollars a week in fox point on the north shore of milwaukee doing what she could to care for three young children there was no time for nurturing i was always trying not to bother her or worry her my mother felt distant cold to the needs of this little girl all of the energy went to keeping her head above water surviving i always felt like a burden an extra mouth to feed i rarely remember feeling loved from as early as i can remember i knew i was on my own what i've learned from talking to so many victims of traumatic events abuse or neglect is that after absorbing these painful experiences the child begins to ache a deep longing to feel needed validated and valued begins to take hold as these children grow they lack the ability to set a standard for what they deserve and if that lack is not addressed what often follows is a complicated frustrating pattern of self-sabotage violence promiscuity or addiction this is where the work begins the work to excavate the roots that were put down long before we had the words to articulate what was happening to us dr perry has helped open my eyes to the ways in which powerful frightening or isolating sensory experiences that last mere seconds or are endured for years can remain locked deep in the brain yet as our brains develop constantly absorbing new experiences while continuing to make sense of the world around us every moment builds upon all the moments that came before i've always felt the truth of the saying that the acorn contains the oak and through my work with dr perry i know this to be true too if we want to understand the oak it's back to the acorn we must go oprah early in our relationship i remember oprah saying you're the guy who sees everything through the lens of the brain do you think about the brain all the time the short answer is almost i think about the brain a lot i was trained as a neuroscientist and i've been studying the brain and stress response systems since i was in college i'm also a psychiatrist a field i pursued after my training in the neurosciences i found that a brain aware perspective helps me when i'm trying to understand people being a child psychiatrist i'm often asked about troubling behaviors why is that child acting like a baby can't he act his age how could a mother stand by and watch her boyfriend beat her child why would someone ever abuse a child what is wrong with that child that mother that boyfriend over the years i've found that seemingly senseless behavior makes sense once you look at what is behind it and since the brain is the part of us that allows us to think feel and act whenever i'm trying to understand someone i wonder about that person's brain why did they do that what would make them act that way something happened that influenced how their brain works the first time i was able to use this neuroscience lens to understand behavior i was a young psychiatrist still training i was working with an elderly man mike roseman a smart funny kind man mike was a veteran of the korean war and had seen lots of combat he had classic post-traumatic stress disorder which we'll talk about in a deeper way later he suffered with anxiety sleep difficulties depression and episodic flashbacks in which he literally felt as if he was in combat he had resorted to self-medicating with alcohol and struggled with binge drinking this of course contributed to work and family conflicts and ultimately led to divorce and forced retirement we'd been working together for about a year and mike had been doing pretty well managing his drinking but his other symptoms persisted one day he called very upset doc can i come in and see you today it's important and sally wants to come sally was a retired teacher mike had been dating he'd talked a lot in previous sessions about not wanting to blow this one sensing the urgency i agreed later that afternoon they came into my office and sat next to each other on the couch they were holding hands sally gently whispered in his ear mike looked shamed and it was clear she was trying to reassure him they looked like nervous teenagers he started can you explain ptsd to her you know why i'm all messed up he started to tear up what's wrong with me korea was over 30 years ago sally moved to hold him i felt myself floundering could i really explain ptsd so i stalled if i may ask why now mike did something happen we were going out last night had a nice dinner and we were walking downtown on our way to the movies and suddenly i was in the street between parked cars on my belly with my hands over my head terrified i thought we were being shot at i was pretty confused i guess at some point i realized that a motorcycle had backfired sounded like gunfire the knees in my suit were torn i was sweaty my heart was racing i was so embarrassed felt like i was jumping out of my skin i just wanted to go home and get drunk sally said one minute we were arm and arm the next is back in a foxhole in korea screaming i tried to get down and help him but he just pushed me away he hit me she paused it seemed like it lasted for 10 minutes but i think it was only a couple of minutes tell me how to help him she turned to look at mike i'm not giving up on you tell her what's wrong with me he pleaded this was 1985. research on ptsd was still very preliminary and i was a 29 year old inexperienced psychiatrist in training i didn't know squat listen i don't know if i have any answers here i said but i do know that mike was not trying to hurt you i know that sally looked at me like i was an idiot the idiot i actually was but while i didn't know much about clinical work i did know a lot about the brain memory and the stress response i thought about mike jumping for cover in the street not as a clinician but as a neuroscientist what was going on in his brain when that motorcycle backfired i started to look at a clinical problem through the lens of the brain i think part of the problem is that many years ago in korea mike's brain adapted to continuous threat his body and brain became oversensitive and overreactive to any threat-related signals from the world back then to stay alive his brain made a connection basically a specialized form of memory between the sounds of gunfire and shelling and the need to activate an extreme survival response i paused does that make sense sally nodded he is jumpy mike i've seen you flinch and startle in my office many times when the door slams or a cart rattles too loud in the hallway you're always scanning the room too any little shift in activity sound light draws your attention if you didn't keep your head down mike said you were dead if you weren't vigilant at night you were dead if you fell asleep you were dead he stared into space unblinking after a moment of silence he sighed i hate the fourth of july and new year's the fireworks make me jump out of my skin even if i know there will be fireworks i still jump my heart feels like it will burst out of my chest i hate it i can't sleep for a week after that right so that original adaptive and protective memory is still there it hasn't gone away but he doesn't need it anymore sally said it's actually making his life miserable can't he just unlearn it that is a great question i said the tricky part is that not all of these combat related memories are in parts of the brain mike can consciously control let me try to explain this a bit i pulled out a piece of paper and drew an upside down triangle and three lines dividing it into four parts it was the first time i'd represented the brain that way 35 years later we still use this basic model to help teach about the brain stress and trauma let's look at the basic organization of the brain it's like a four layered cake at the top is the cortex the most uniquely human part of our brain i started labeling my drawing with different brain mediated functions for listeners who'd like to see this diagram please refer to the pdf that accompanies this audio book as i did i explained the systems at the top are responsible for speech and language thinking planning our values and beliefs are stored there and very important for you this is the part of the brain that can tell time when the cortex is online and active we can think about the past and look forward to the future we know which things are in our past in which things are present yes mike and sally nodded okay now look at the bottom of the brain the brain stem this part of the brain controls less complex mostly regulatory functions like body temperature regulation breathing heart rate and so forth but there are no networks in the bottom part that think or tell time sometimes we refer to this part of the brain as a reptilian brain so think of what a lizard can do they don't plan much or think they mostly live in the moment and react but we humans thanks to the top part of our brain the cortex can invent create plan and tell time i looked at them to make sure they were tracking with me before continuing input from all our senses vision hearing touch smell first comes into our brain in the lower areas none of our sensory input goes directly to the cortex everything first connects to lower parts of the brain they nodded once the signal comes into the brainstem here i directed their attention to the bottom of the triangle it is processed basically the incoming signal is matched against previously stored experiences in this case the matching process connected the motorcycle backfire with gunfire remember that combat related memory and since your stem can't tell time or know that many years have passed it activates the stress response and you have a full-blown threat response you feel and act as if you're under attack your brainstem can't say hey don't get so stirred up korea was 30 years ago that sound was simply a motorcycle backfiring i watched this sink in now when the signal finally gets up to the cortex the cortex can figure out what's really going on but one of the first things that happens when you activate the stress response is that systems in the higher parts of the brain including our ability to tell time gets shut down so the information about the motorcycle backfire did ultimately get to the cortex but it took a while and until it did you were back in korea and then confused it took you all night to calm down right i didn't sleep at all mike looked exhausted but relieved so i'm not crazy no your brain is doing exactly what you would expect it to do considering what you lived through but what was once adaptive has become maladaptive what kept you alive in korea is killing you back home we have to figure out how to help your stress response systems to become less reactive and super sensitive that of course is not the end of mike's story but the understanding of what was underneath his confusing behavior was very comforting for him and sally for me it started a much more active process of integrating principles from the neurosciences into clinical practice it illuminated how evocative cues basically any sensory input like a sight sound smell taste or touch can activate a traumatic memory in mike's case the motorcycle backfire evoked the complex memory of combat and it was one of the first examples i shared with oprah when we began to discuss trauma so when i hear mr roseman's story the first thing i notice is that he felt flawed he even asks what is wrong with me but you focused on what happened to me rather than what's wrong with me which is exactly the shift we're trying to help others make his story also helped me really understand what you mean when you talk about the sequential organization of the brain right so all experience is processed from the bottom up meaning to get to the top smart part of our brain we have to go through the lower not so smart part this sequential processing means that the most primitive reactive part of our brain is the first part to interpret and act on the information coming in from our senses bottom line our brain is organized to act and feel before we think this is also how our brain develops sequentially from the bottom up the developing infant acts and feels and these actions and feelings help organize how they will begin to think for years you've been telling me that the earliest experiences have the biggest impact because that's when the brain is most rapidly growing so not only is what happened to you the key question if you want to understand someone it is the key question if you want to understand the brain in other words your personal history the people and places in your life influences your brain's development the result is that each of our brains is unique our life experiences shape the way key systems in our brain organize and function so each of us sees and understands the world in a unique way the example of mr roseman involves traumatic experiences that took place when he was 24 years old if these experiences changed the brain of a 24 year old imagine the impact of trauma on the brain of an infant or toddler how much more pervasive the effects would be starting in the womb the developing brain begins to store parts of our life experience fetal brain development can be influenced by a host of factors including mother's stress drug alcohol and nicotine intake diet and patterns of activity during the first nine months development is explosive at times reaching a rate of 20 000 new neurons born each second in comparison an adult may on a good day create 700 new neurons by birth the newborn has 86 billion neurons these will continue to grow and connect to create complex networks that allow the newborn to begin making sense of their world this is all extremely complex and not fully understood by researchers but there are a few basic principles that will be helpful throughout our conversations about how this relates to trauma our external senses sight sound smell taste and touch monitor what is going on outside of our body to do this they rely on the sensory organs eyes ears nose and skin when these are stimulated by light sound smell or touch specialized neurons send a signal into the brain we also have sensory systems that tell us what is going on inside our body this is called enteroception and it creates our sense of for instance being thirsty hungry or short of breath all the sensory inputs from the outside world and our inside world give continuous feedback to the brain so that the proper systems can be activated to keep us healthy and safe if we're thirsty we seek water if we're hungry we seek food if we sense danger we mobilize our stress response systems the brain categorizes every bit of sensory input and sends it up the triangle to other parts of the brain to integrate and process it further this creates an increasingly rich and detailed version of any experience as various inputs become linked based on how they're sorted for example the brain sends visual input to the same areas it sends sound touch and smell sensations that come in at exactly the same time these different sensations the sights sounds smells and movements of the same experience then become connected this is the beginning of making sense of the world as your brain starts to create the complex memories that store these connections your personal catalog of experiences is being created as we grow up we're all trying to make sense of what's happening around us what does that sound mean what does it mean when someone rubs my back what does that expression on his face mean what else happens when that scent is present for one child eye contact means i care for you i'm interested in you for another it may mean i'm about to yell at you moment by moment in early life our developing brain sorts and stores our personal experiences making our personal code book that helps us interpret the world each of us creates a unique world view shaped by our life's experiences imagine for a moment the dramatic changes in the sensory world of a newborn their world once warm rhythmic and dark becomes at the moment of birth an overwhelming sensory bath of images sounds temperature shifts and exposure to air the brain is bombarded by new patterns of sensory input and because so much the world is new when you're a baby that's when your brain is most rapidly and actively making these new connections the experiences in the first years of life are disproportionately powerful in shaping how your brain organizes one of the most important things i've learned from your research is that young children absorb so much more than we realize the younger you are the more sensitive you are to your emotional climate people feel like they can curse in front of young children they believe they can be violent in front of young children i've done hundreds of shows where a mother said well you know when he gets older i'll leave the abusive father thinking my child's too young to understand or remember when in fact it's exactly the opposite absolutely it's exactly the opposite the younger you are the more you depend upon your caregivers parents and other adults to help you interpret the world in some ways the young child experiences the world through the filters of these adults while a very young child may not understand the words used in language they do sense the nonverbal parts of communication like tone of voice they can feel the tension and hostility in angry speech and the exhaustion and despair of depressed language and because the brain is growing so rapidly in the first years of life and creating thousands upon thousands of associations about how the world works these early experiences have more impact on the infant and young child for example when children have abusive fathers their brains begin to connect men with threat anger and fear and this worldview gets built in men are dangerous threatening they will hurt you and the people you love if that is your ingrained view of the world imagine what happens when you have a male teacher or coach imagine how you will view a new healthy non-abusive man in your mother's life and when you haven't developed the words or ability to identify what you see or feel you're just operating on vibration and the vibration in the house is this is bad exactly that vibration as you describe it equates to the emotional tone of the environment and you know i believe that every environment has a tone if you were to walk into any home as a stranger not speaking the language you can absolutely feel whether this is a place where people are loved just as you can sense when something's off you may not know what it is but something feels off and in the same way you could walk into a preschool and say wow this is a great environment you can feel the climate the emotional tone and you could go to a different classroom in the same school and say whoa what's going on here it's so powerful there are parts of our brain that are very very sensitive to non-verbal relational cues and in our society this is an underappreciated aspect of the way human beings work we tend to be a very verbal society written and spoken words are important but the majority of communication is actually non-verbal you teach that when you experience trauma in the first years of life meaning from birth through age two before you develop the ability to explain the event it can have a deeper impact on your brain than when you actually do have the words to explain it i find that incredible and i think about children who are molested when they're so young that they don't have the language to process what has happened the experience then locks into the brain in a way that it wouldn't if the child could actually express with words what happened what you're describing here is a form of memory let's turn back to the upside down triangle i drew for mr roseman each biological system in our body has some way to change in response to experience in a sense then that change is a record of past experiences or basically memory neurons are exquisitely sensitive to experience and neural networks in every part of the brain can make memory remembering names phone numbers and where you left your keys is a function of the neural networks in the cortex but we also have emotional memories a song can elicit a feeling in association with an experience that took place years ago the smell of roasted turkey or freshly baked bread may elicit a warm sense of belonging or a melancholy sense of a lost past these feelings arise from associations stored in the neural networks of the limbic and other brain regions and there are motor vestibular memories curling up in the fetal position is essentially an act of remembering stored in even lower networks in the brain but traumatic experience can create complex memory traces that involve all regions of the brain as we've mentioned already the brain develops sequentially from the bottom up and the inside out from the basic functions of the brainstem to the complex achievements of the cortex each brain area has the capacity to create memory to change in response to experience and to store those changes in its particular neural networks in a young child the cortex is not yet fully developed in children younger than three the neural networks are not mature enough to create what's called linear narrative memory in other words a who what when and where memory however in lower areas of the brain other neural networks are processing and changing as a result of our earliest experiences associations or memories are being created in these lower networks and this has a huge impact on how trauma is stored in the brains of the very young if a child experiences abuse their brain may make an association between the features of the abuser or the circumstances of the abuse hair color tone of voice the music playing in the background and a sense of fear the complex and confusing associations can influence behaviors for years later in life for example being served in a restaurant by a brown-haired man who hovers over you while he takes your order may elicit a panic attack but because there is no firmly embedded cognitive recollection no linear narrative memory the panic is often experienced and interpreted as random independent of any previous experience a lifelong set of beliefs and behaviors can emerge when trauma is experienced at a young age in one of the most serious manifestations early sexual abuse can poison intimacy even if the person has no actual recollection of specific instances of abuse 217 episodes of the oprah winfrey show focused on this exact topic sexual abuse and i saw a profound through line for most victims including myself when you've been groomed to be compliant confrontation in any form is uncomfortable because you're never taught that you have the right to say no in fact you were taught that you can't say no the sense that you aren't deserving enough to set your own boundaries has been stolen from you and many people react by burying their feelings of no and becoming people pleasers and i fall into that category for years i would say yes to things i knew i really didn't want to do or avoid difficult conversations because i could not live with the discomfort of speaking up for myself i've known other victims of trauma who sabotage situations until someone else says no for them meaning their relationship ends a friendship becomes toxic or they lose their job this is what i hear you saying when you talk about people who poison intimacy but the extreme experiences we've talked about so far sexual molestation child abuse war aren't the only experiences that can cause trauma the term can actually apply to a vast spectrum of life events for me there's no better example of this than the story of chris daisy who first appeared on the oprah winfrey show in an episode about children of divorce at the time chris was seven years old and daisy's sister was 11 and not only had they endured the trauma of their parents divorce but it had been several years since they'd had any contact with their mother chris was only four as i said when he'd last seen her and his longing was heartbreaking he told rabbi and family therapist m gary newman he believed that if he could buy a ring for his mother but the money he'd saved she would come back to him what do you think about i thought i could buy or something because i usually take the laundry out and stuff so i used to get allowance for it then i got enough money to buy all a um a fake ring like a fatal finger and i like that can i buy this and dad said i'll think about it you thought maybe if you bought her the ring maybe she'd stay did you ever buy the ring yeah but she didn't want it and it didn't make her come back that broke me wide open daisy's heard on the other hand presented itself as anger she said you're not supposed to have a boyfriend when you're married she told me referring to her mother the woman who was supposed to love her unconditionally and be her greatest teacher had disappeared from her life daisy described it as unbearable on the show m gary newman told me that for most children divorce is really like a death because we've seen no matter what the situation of divorce is like a death the whole family you know your kids don't think i got a mother and a father separate people came together they see one big marital parent group so even if divorce is what's best for the family overall im gary newman explained that the children feel pieces of themselves being torn away and if one parent is no longer available or suddenly introduces a new relationship to the dynamic before the child can develop trust it impacts the areas of the brain involved in shaping self-worth the sense of self informs every relationship or decision we make as we move through life and when children don't feel respected by the decisions of their parents their beliefs about how they are valued get crushed chris and daisy were the first children i'd ever heard speak such truth about the trauma of their parents breaking up some people believe that the younger the child the easier a new relationship is to absorb chris and daisy's story confirmed for me that this is not true i know your research suggests the same so explain to me from a neurological perspective what happens to a child's brain in that situation well when a new relationship enters the picture two things happen first the child and this is true even of babies begins asking internally who is this person and what what is this second they feel the shift of their parents attention away from them and on to this other person so you can start to see how destabilizing this is even without any hostile aggressive or abusive stuff going on meaning even when relationships are relatively healthy right even if it's a really nice kind respectful person entering the child's life it takes a long time for the child to make sense of the shift and get back to a calm regulated state as we'll talk about later anything new will activate our stress response systems our default response to novelty is uh oh what is this and until the new thing is proven safe and positive it will be categorized as a potential threat for most people the unknown is one of the major causes of feeling anxious or overwhelmed and of course it's worse if there is conflict in the relationship let's say a young boy is yelled at by his mother's new boyfriend this experience is processed and stored in the cortex as a narrative who what when where memory on monday the boyfriend came to the house and yelled at me but it's also stored deeper in the brain when the boyfriend was yelling the boy's stress response was activated the key regulatory systems governed by the lower parts of his brain sped up his heart increased his muscle tone and sent signals to his body to prepare for fight or flight fear shuts down thinking and amps up feeling and the boy was afraid and as his brain is trying to make sense of the whole experience it's also making a trauma memory later on when this boy is exposed to a trigger or evocative cue that reminds his brain of that traumatic experience his heart rate will go up his body posture will change the cocktail of hormones in his body will shift the point is that our body's core regulatory systems can be altered by traumatic experiences a child exposed to unpredictable or extreme stress will become what we call dysregulated and living in a traumatizing environment causes the child to be continually dysregulated exactly for instance if a child sees repeated verbal or emotional or physical abuse of their parent or experiences abuse directly from a parent's partner their brain makes connections between all the attributes of the abuser and threat these associations can influence how the child experiences and interprets relationships as they grow up and that forms what you call a personal catalog or the code book that shapes the lens through which we perceive the world absolutely these early life associations are incredibly powerful and pervasive once i was working as a consultant to a residential treatment center where there were about 100 boys roughly 7 to 17 years old all of these children were state kids wards of the state following removal from their family due to abuse or neglect after struggling in foster care these boys have been placed in this residential program they lived in a dorm-like setting and most of them attended an on-site school one boy i worked with was a 14 year old named samuel when he was seven child protective services had removed him and his four younger siblings from their home they had all been neglected and samuel had been caring for and protecting the others when his father drank sam was the target of his most violent outbursts when the children were removed the younger ones went to a separate foster home sam was distraught he kept running away from foster homes to find them he'd been in 12 foster homes and 12 schools before being placed in the residential setting at age 11. one of the first things we did was reconnect him with his siblings setting up weekly calls and monthly visits knowing they were safe and loved settled him only then could the hard work of healing really start for the next three years sam made great progress his social skills improved he was developing better self-control when frustrated or disappointed he became more hopeful and focused on the future though the chaos in his life had left him three grades behind in school he was catching up to the point where he was moved up to a new classroom sam's new teacher was energetic well-liked experienced and male during the first week in the new classroom sam had three major outbursts two of them directed at the teacher were so aggressive and violent that sam had to be physically restrained this was an extreme intervention for this program and highly unusual behavior for sam unfortunately it kept happening the staff was confused and frustrated sam was sullen and ashamed i sat down with the teacher to review each event and neither he nor i could see any obvious trigger for the explosive outburst i observed sam's classroom and saw no inappropriate or potentially provocative behavior by the teacher yet sam was clearly agitated anytime the teacher talked with him or tried to give him any help with his work proximity was the only possible trigger i saw the closer the teacher was the worse sam's agitation over time the teacher began avoiding any interaction no eye contact no verbal encouragement no smiling he was disengaging emotionally as well as physically it was clear these two didn't like each other one day when i was talking with sam about this his only explanation was he hates me nothing i do is right our session was interrupted by a staff member who reminded sam that it was almost time for his visit with his father these visits had to be supervised and the caseworker had not arrived so i volunteered to go with sam we went to a conference room and i sat in the corner waiting for sam's father to show up sam sat in the conference room table stacking checkers waiting his father was late again finally the door opened and the father came in and sat down across from sam they exchanged awkward greetings and set up to play checkers for the next 10 minutes maybe 10 words were exchanged as they played neither looking at the other the tension was palpable my mind drifted as they played i found myself thinking about my own father fishing trips up in canada north of flindflan his waking me from a warm slumber at 5 00 am to get out among the walleye his putting on his red checked flannel hunting shirt that had his scent his special mix of cigar sweat and old spice such a warm and reassuring scent i was swept with an intense feeling of being safe and loved as i surfaced for my daydream the smell of old spice still hung in the room could it be i walked over the table and bent down between sam and his father how's the game going the father said he's waiting i could smell alcohol on his breath and the old spice he'd slathered on to hide it he was supposed to come to see sam sober after the visit ended i went to see the teacher he was in his classroom preparing for the next day this may seem a bit strange i said but what kind of deodorant do you use old spice why i took out a paper and pencil and drew the upside down triangle model of the brain and we talked for a minute or two about memory associations and triggers i told him that i thought the scent of old spice was an evocative cue for sam just like one of mr roseman's evocative cues was explosive sounds the teacher agreed to change to a scentless deodorant later that afternoon i asked sam to sit down with me and i explained what i thought was making him so uncomfortable and angry with the teacher i showed sam the same upside down triangle brain drawing and we talked about how our brain makes sense of the world by connecting sights and sounds and smells that co-occur he nodded it made sense to him he gave me other examples of things he knew pushed his buttons when someone yelled he wanted to run and hide when a bigger person bullied a smaller person he wanted to attack i asked if he would be willing to sit down with the teacher and see if we could have a redo on their relationship both sam and the teacher agreed to give each other another chance over the next year their relationship grew strong and sam ended up being a model student in that classroom sam's story illustrates so much about how the brain stores memory both sam and i had experiences earlier in life where our brains made memories connected to the smell of old spice my associations elicited positive feelings his elicited distress and fear as we make our way through the world countless sounds smells and images can tap into memories we created earlier in life these memories may be full-blown recollections of a specific event or they may be fragments a feeling a sense of deja vu an impression when we meet someone we form a first impression he seems like a really nice guy frequently with no apparent information on which to base it this is because attributes of the person evoke in us something we've previously categorized as familiar and positive the opposite can happen this guy is a complete jerk if some attribute taps into a previous negative experience our brain catalogs vast amounts of input from our family community and culture along with what is presented to us in the media as it makes sense of what it's stored it begins to form a world view if we later meet someone with characteristics unlike what we've cataloged our default response is to be wary defensive in turn if our brains are filled with associations based upon media driven biases about ideal body type or racial or cultural stereotypes for example we will exhibit implicit biases and maybe overt bias so many phenomena of everyday life are directly linked to this process of the brain making sense of the world by creating associations and making memories this is why asking what happened to you is so important in understanding what's going on with you now you

Channel: LIFErary ¦ Audiobooks and Ebooks

Views: 161,886

Keywords: What Happened to You, What Happened To You Conversations on Trauma Resilience and Healing, Audiobook Oprah Winfrey, Bruce D. Perry, Healing book, Self-help book, Inspirational book, Trauma, Psychology, Pyschiatry, Addiction, Resilience, Audiobook, Novel, Most popular book

Id: RTyhkYz0Tsg

Length: 63min 43sec (3823 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 11 2022