Childhood trauma affects life

Associate Professor Yang Xueling, Department of Psychology, Southern Medical University

Can time heal trauma? Many people may answer "yes", and they can also tell stories about how a certain acquaintance was sad because of the death of a loved one, or how painful it was because of a lost love, but they returned to normal as time went by. And my answer is: basically no. Those who say it can are confusing trauma with grief.

I had a female client who came for consultation with her husband. They are divorcing. According to her husband, she is very neurotic, loses control of her emotions from time to time, and often becomes hysterical over trivial matters. She also has obsessive-compulsive disorder and is suspicious all day long. She is extremely controlling and has to report every move her husband makes to her. Any free space. The female visitor did not deny that she had problems, but she did not know why she was like this.

After further inquiry, I learned about her growth situation: she was a left-behind child during her childhood, her parents were away from home all year round, and she and her cousin were raised by her grandparents. Her grandparents had a strong preference for boys over girls. She experienced all kinds of unfair treatment since she was a child. She was taught that she should "have to give up to her younger brother" in everything. If she did something wrong, she would be reprimanded, but her younger brother would not be punished if he caused trouble everywhere. Even though her academic performance was good, her grandfather did not approve of her. He intentionally or unintentionally revealed that his daughter would get married sooner or later. Even if she was admitted to college, she would not be able to honor her ancestors. It can be said that throughout her teenage years she was neglected by her parents and mentally abused by her ancestors. Later, when she got married and started a business, she had many conflicts with her husband after marriage. She reflected on it and tried hard, but it seemed difficult to change her personality.

From the perspective of a psychological counselor, this client’s extreme personality is closely related to the trauma she suffered in childhood. Childhood trauma has a professional name called "childhood adversity experiences", including physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, emotional or physical neglect, family members abusing violence, drugs or mental illness, parents' separation or divorce, etc. These injuries are not as simple as emotional sadness, which can be healed with a little adjustment or time, but serious childhood trauma will leave a mark on our bodies and minds, change our personality, and affect our lives.

This far-reaching influence has a material basis. There is a part of our brain called the amygdala, which is responsible for monitoring whether the information received is of life or death. For example, when you come home from get off work and find that the door is wide open, you will feel nervous, your heart will beat faster, and your palms will become sweaty. This is the amygdala at work, and it is like an alarm. But then you will further judge, is this a thief breaking into the door, or is the child going home early from school today? Am I going to get a stick to help with the fight? These rational thinking and judgments are not managed by the amygdala, but are completed by the "prefrontal lobe". We can simply understand that the amygdala belongs to the "emotional brain" and the prefrontal lobe belongs to the "rational brain". When facing external threats, the "emotional brain" will take over control of the body, prompting us to prepare to fight or flee; if we are out of danger, we will gradually return to reason, and the "rational brain" will play a leading role.

But when a person is exposed to stressful events for a long time and cannot resist, such asWhen you are trapped, subjected to violence, pressured, etc., the "emotional brain" will continue to be active, while the "rational brain" will be suppressed. This is the case for people who have experienced childhood trauma. They are helpless in the face of difficult situations, and day after day, their brains change. Some researchers conducted brain scans on people who had experienced traumatic experiences and found that their amygdala and prefrontal lobes had been damaged: the amygdala was overly sensitive and could no longer distinguish between "past" dangerous information and "present". Stress hormones will be continuously released and the nervous system will be activated, making you prone to anxiety and high levels of stress, and you will react greatly to the smallest things. Changes also occur in the prefrontal lobe, which is not fully activated and causes a loss of sense of time. Under normal conditions, the brain will judge the temporary crisis and know that the matter will end soon, so it will adjust the body's state to endure it. However, the damaged brain will have an endless and lasting feeling about the pain of the past. Feeling unable to rationally face external dangers.

Although people who have experienced trauma want to forget the past and start life again, the brain and body retain all the terrible memories of childhood, which will be awakened when encountering some similar things, and all traumatic experiences will continue Invading the present life in the form of flashbacks. For example, for this female visitor, every time she had a quarrel with her husband, her childhood memories of being scolded by her grandparents would be awakened. Injured people are often trapped in their experiences. Those traumatic memories have not disappeared, they are just buried, and are reflected bit by bit in the injured person's personality, words and deeds.

Healing severe trauma is difficult and requires wisdom, courage and patience from the injured person. At the level of psychotherapy, the foundation of treatment is to use some techniques to reshape the function of the "rational brain", establish new connections between traces of trauma and good experiences, and replace those traumatic experiences of powerlessness, anger, and collapse. Currently effective methods include drugs, talk therapy, yoga therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, drama therapy and neurofeedback therapy. Treatment methods vary from person to person, and there is no one method that is suitable for everyone.

Time can calm emotions, but it cannot automatically repair the deep mental damage sustained. Therefore, a warm and good growth environment, the ability to reflect on personality and experiences, and the skills to actively self-adjust and ask for help are all very important to reduce the impact of trauma.