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Childhood trauma as factor of social ills and chronic diseases

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/23/o...e-to-work.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

Thirty years ago, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Doris Lessing gave a series of lectures, later published in a book, “Prisons We Choose to Live Inside,” in which she reflected on the brutality in the world and asked how individuals and societies could evolve into something better.

It’s a sobering book, but Lessing is hopeful — and her main source of hope stems from the capacity of human beings to study themselves and learn from their own behavior. “I think when people look back at our time, they will be amazed at one thing more than any other,” she writes. “It is this — that we do know more about ourselves now than other people did in the past, but that very little of this knowledge has been put into effect.”

Last week, and the week before, I reported on efforts over the past two decades to put more of this kind of knowledge into effect. Specifically, I examined how community-based networks were sharing research with professionals and residents in numerous communities, about how the effects of childhood trauma — so-called adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs — substantially increase risks for a range of negative outcomes, including dropping out of school, abusing drugs, becoming depressed, committing suicide, and being a victim of, or a perpetrator, of violence or abuse. (For information about ACEs, including the landmark ACE study and “ACE scores,” see these infographics and resources.)

This research didn’t exist when Lessing gave her lectures in 1985, and it’s still largely unknown to Americans, much like cholesterol was before the 1980s. But social scientists now see it as a major factor behind an array of social ills and chronic diseases. And today, a growing network of health care professionals, educators, government officials, social service workers and community leaders are working to get knowledge about ACEs into public consciousness.

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“There are about 100 to 200 state, county and city ACEs initiatives around the country,” said Jane Stevens, editor of ACEs Too High, a news site that covers this issue. Most of these initiatives have sprouted up within the past eight years. Stevens has established a social network, ACEs Connection, to link them, map their spread, and share experiences. She reports that, to date, 32 states, and Washington, D.C., have conducted studies to evaluate levels of childhood adversity among their residents. The findings across states are remarkably consistent. ACEs are common. Close to one in four people has three or more of these experiences, and they are far more prevalent among people under age 55.

Perhaps the most important insight emerging from this work is simply the recognition that sharing this knowledge can be helpful in and of itself. As Chekhov put it: “Man will become better when you show him what he is like.”

“A lot of people who have high ACE scores don’t realize that things that they, or others, thought were normal had hurt them,” said Stevens, who has experienced seven different forms of ACEs herself. “They weren’t born bad. But children tend to think magically. If they suffered emotional or physical abuse, they think they must have deserved it or caused it. And later, in the absence of healthy options, the way they cope with the pain, anxiety or shame is often by self-medicating. Nicotine is a great anti-anxiety medication, and the first prescription antidepressants were methamphetamines.”
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“In my experience people who have experienced a lot of ACEs don’t put it all together for themselves,” adds Robert Anda, a co-investigator of the original ACE Study. But once they do, he said, “they have an opportunity to understand their own lives better and they can change.”

That has been the experience of a group called Minnesota Communities Caring for Children, which works to prevent child abuse. Since 2013, they have trained 130 presenters who have disseminated the ACE research in more than half of the counties across the state. “One thing we’ve found that’s surprising is how much impact comes just from awareness,” said Becky Dale, the organization’s chief operating officer.

Almost immediately, she said, trainers bring the insights into their own institutions, whether it’s public schools, university systems, or health care settings. They start thinking about the implications. And many participants want to talk about it with their parents and siblings.

Susan Beaulieu, who is piloting this work in tribal communities across Minnesota, says the spread of this knowledge has been transformative for many individuals. “There’s so much historic trauma in tribal communities,” she said. “Traditionally, children were seen as sacred beings and abuse was nonexistent.” But generations of displacement and discrimination, including the practice of removing tribal children from their families and placing them in boarding schools, where neglect and abuse were common, has contributed to persistently high rates of alcoholism, drug use and incarceration.

When Beaulieu presents the ACEs research, it elicits a powerful response. “The resounding message I get from people is, ‘Everybody should know about this,’ ” she said. “One mother told me, ‘I wish I would have known this before I became a parent.’ Another said, ‘I wish my younger self could have known about it so I could have understood why I was the way I was.’ ”

“Usually, we’re so focused on the symptom level — addiction, abuse, disease,” she added. “The ACEs knowledge is helping us step back and see what’s driving these things and what we can do about it. And it shifts the conversation from, ‘Are you a good or bad person?’ to ‘What happened to us when we were growing up and how has this translated to our own parenting?’ ”

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Beaulieu has experienced this firsthand; now she and her mother have greater understanding of their upbringings, she said, and this has changed the way Beaulieu interacts with her own children, and led to greater intimacy with her mother.

The original ACE Study was published in 1998. It’s taken almost 20 years for the understandings to begin to be integrated in larger systems. “There should be a national education program for the general public and for people who provide services in all the systems — mental health, substance abuse, education — like there was for heart disease, diabetes and cholesterol,” said Robert Anda. “The public should have a broad understanding of this so they will demand changes in policy and practice.”

One bright light is Oregon, where two of the state’s Coordinated Care Organizations, Jackson Care Connect and AllCare, have been integrating the ACEs framework into their services. Elsewhere, groups or networks have formed to spread the knowledge into other systems and communities: They include the National Council on Behavioral Health’s Trauma-Informed Care Learning Community, the Sanctuary Institute and the ACE Interface, a training firm co-founded by Anda and Laura Porter, former director of the Family Policy Council, which provided guidance to the groups in Minnesota and Oregon.

Another network, Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities, a learning collaborative coordinated by the Health Federation of Philadelphia, is working with 14 community networks across the country that are trying to prevent and mitigate ACEs.

One of the toughest systems to crack is corrections. But in Washington State, the deputy secretary of the Department of Corrections, Jody Becker-Green, served as the chair of the Family Policy Council for four years, so she is steeped in the ACEs science.

I haven't read all this, but it looks interesting. Coming back to read it tomorrow.
 

Siúil a Rúin

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Chronic pain is another issue associated with childhood trauma. This is especially true if there is pre-verbal abuse because the memories are stored in the body, rather than interpreted abstractly with language.

Interesting article. I'm still reading to get my head around it.
 

Tilt

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I had some ACEs ...it has had a profound effect on how I relate to others throughout my life but it can give you a completely different perspective than most around you (I haven't met many who've had the same set of circumstances as me). Because of my experiences, I see people in a fairly detached, analytical way through archetypes, comparisons, characterizations, patterns... in a VERY calculated way. Emotions are quite real but still seem foreign to me. It can be useful but can create anxiety issues.

I can see why many want to turn to pleasure-seeking, self-destructive coping mechanisms... It's so tempting to go seek ways to escape the pain/fill the void.
 

Mvika

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The problem with looking back too much is that everyone had imperfect childhoods and it is not possible to have made it through this far unscathed. Such is life.
So it becomes a question of degrees of trauma...

I was thinking of Joesef Fritzl, the evil scum who kept his daughter imprisoned in the basement for over two decades and forced her to have over seven of children with no medical help or social interaction.

He blames his childhood for his problems and indeed, Stalin's dad used to beat him up so badly that he would have blood in his pee due to internal bleeding. But these people went on to make others suffer and I have really begun to question the "my-abusive-childhood-ruined-my-life" theory. Look at Fritzl's abused daughter who turned out to be an angelic mother and put an end to the abuse cycle. Who could have blamed her if she had been unable to care for her children due to her own pain?
As sad as all this is, we should focus, I think, on the ability of the human spirit to rise above these negative starts to life and not allow ourselves to be defined by what we couldn't control. A lot can be done NOW, in the present and all we have left is the future.


You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could've, would've happened... or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on.”
― Tupac Shakur
 

Mole

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To understand the effects of child rearing a good place to start is The History of Childhood by Lloyd De Mause, and For Your Own Good by Alice Miller.

And then it is useful to get acquainted with the Irish Judicial Enquiry into Child Abuse, and the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Child Abuse.

For most of us though we repress any knowledge of our abuse as children, but which shows itself unconsciously in our character.
 

Mole

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You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could've, would've happened... or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on.”

― Tupac Shakur

Yes, moving on is the classic way of betraying children.
 

Mvika

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Yes, moving on is the classic way of betraying children.

What the fuck are you talking about?? And how dare you!

You slither out of your hole, do a hatchet job and slink back in and you know, you are nothing but a rabble rouser, a contrarian without a point and a general nuisance. I checked your past output, and it was fortunate that I did so for I could have actually given you the benefit of the doubt. Even taken you seriously!:dry:
Stay the hell away from me and my posts, I don't need your cynical poison!
 

Lia_kat

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The problem with looking back too much is that everyone had imperfect childhoods and it is not possible to have made it through this far unscathed. Such is life.
So it becomes a question of degrees of trauma...

I was thinking of Joesef Fritzl, the evil scum who kept his daughter imprisoned in the basement for over two decades and forced her to have over seven of children with no medical help or social interaction.

He blames his childhood for his problems and indeed, Stalin's dad used to beat him up so badly that he would have blood in his pee due to internal bleeding. But these people went on to make others suffer and I have really begun to question the "my-abusive-childhood-ruined-my-life" theory. Look at Fritzl's abused daughter who turned out to be an angelic mother and put an end to the abuse cycle. Who could have blamed her if she had been unable to care for her children due to her own pain?
As sad as all this is, we should focus, I think, on the ability of the human spirit to rise above these negative starts to life and not allow ourselves to be defined by what we couldn't control. A lot can be done NOW, in the present and all we have left is the future.


You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could've, would've happened... or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on.”
― Tupac Shakur

She's a remarkable exception though. Like you said, who would have blamed her if she had been unable to take care of her children due to her own pain? ... So there was always the possibility that she could have gone the other route -- either externally and hurt others or internally, hurting herself (this could already be happening for all we know), or both. I agree with you that we should focus on moving on and what we can do in the present but in many childhood-trauma cases it is imperative that we look back so we can start the process of healing. A lot of us internalize what we go through, some of us forget all together. If there's the slightest chance that what we are suffering with as adults is caused by our ACEs, then I think it is worth looking at.

Great article, [MENTION=21203]Grand Admiral Crunch[/MENTION]. Very interesting.
 

Tilt

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The problem with looking back too much is that everyone had imperfect childhoods and it is not possible to have made it through this far unscathed. Such is life.
So it becomes a question of degrees of trauma...

I was thinking of Joesef Fritzl, the evil scum who kept his daughter imprisoned in the basement for over two decades and forced her to have over seven of children with no medical help or social interaction.

He blames his childhood for his problems and indeed, Stalin's dad used to beat him up so badly that he would have blood in his pee due to internal bleeding. But these people went on to make others suffer and I have really begun to question the "my-abusive-childhood-ruined-my-life" theory. Look at Fritzl's abused daughter who turned out to be an angelic mother and put an end to the abuse cycle. Who could have blamed her if she had been unable to care for her children due to her own pain?
As sad as all this is, we should focus, I think, on the ability of the human spirit to rise above these negative starts to life and not allow ourselves to be defined by what we couldn't control. A lot can be done NOW, in the present and all we have left is the future.


You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could've, would've happened... or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on.”
― Tupac Shakur

I agree with the general sentiment that "everyone has imperfect childhoods" but this post also feels like the typical, albeit well-meaning "people have been through much worse" invalidation, positive motivation sort of response. In a way, it seems like a strawman especially with the extreme examples provided.

People, in general, have varying levels of resiliency (genetically predisposed, environmentally influenced, ability to bounce back), different ways to how they personally interact with support systems (or lack thereof). Without the right type of support, children can be especially vulnerable because their brains have not fully developed in order to necessarily deal with the magnitude of the situations. And they are DEPENDENT on others to care for them. For example, some people will get scarred for life just by being "sexually molested" one time while others don't seem all that superficially* affected. Some folks will develop full-blown PTSD while others see it as a negative blip in their life.

*Just because people may be presenting as "well-adjusted" and normal doesn't necessarily mean they are coping well. The inverse is also true - just because people have gone through a lot doesn't mean they are going to self-destruct/harm others.

This is not to say that we should become self-indulgent and blame all of life's ills on the past but moreso that we should not be quite so ready to dismiss how others' experiences have affected them. To some extent, we can't compare pain.

People are reticent to receive help because society often treats it like a pissing contest about who has overcome the worst of circumstances and survived. So, many people downplay how much certain events may have affected them.

Although rather alarmist, I do sort of agree with mole:

Yes, moving on is the classic way of betraying children.

Moving on can often act as a disservice to children because they, themselves, may not been able to process the traumas effectively.
 

Siúil a Rúin

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The problem with looking back too much is that everyone had imperfect childhoods and it is not possible to have made it through this far unscathed. Such is life.
So it becomes a question of degrees of trauma...

I was thinking of Joesef Fritzl, the evil scum who kept his daughter imprisoned in the basement for over two decades and forced her to have over seven of children with no medical help or social interaction.

He blames his childhood for his problems and indeed, Stalin's dad used to beat him up so badly that he would have blood in his pee due to internal bleeding. But these people went on to make others suffer and I have really begun to question the "my-abusive-childhood-ruined-my-life" theory. Look at Fritzl's abused daughter who turned out to be an angelic mother and put an end to the abuse cycle. Who could have blamed her if she had been unable to care for her children due to her own pain?
As sad as all this is, we should focus, I think, on the ability of the human spirit to rise above these negative starts to life and not allow ourselves to be defined by what we couldn't control. A lot can be done NOW, in the present and all we have left is the future.


You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could've, would've happened... or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on.”
― Tupac Shakur
Excellent post!
I think that the experience of trauma can show us two paths. One is an inward black hole of personal pain that can never be filled. This path causes ongoing misery and justifies doing harm to other people. It is easy to fall into this trap, but extremely painful to live a lifetime in this way.

The other path is an increased sense of empathy that opens the mind to the universe, to a sense of the pain everyone else feels. I noticed when I was younger that people who had lived charmed lives and who were indeed very nice people, would tend to avoid people in pain because it upset their sense of reality. It required they have an enormous paradigm shift in order to accommodate the reality of trauma in the lives of others. I'm working through some issues myself with a therapist, but am also considering a career change into counseling. My therapist strongly supports this idea and asked me once during a session, "If you were going to a new counselor would you rather have someone who never had mistakes or pain, but got all perfect grades, or would you rather talk to someone who had lived life, pain, mistakes, and all?". In this way pain is insight. If you actually feel the overwhelming experience of suffering, you become less judgmental of others feeling it. You don't get frustrated when they don't just let go and get with the program.

One other issue to consider. If there is a specific person who harmed us, but feels no regret, we can either become deeply angry at them and end up becoming another version of that person, or we can have the deepest rebellion possible and become their exact opposite. I want to be the inverse of the person who harmed me, and in that way use their cruelty as my teacher of what not to be.

Childhood pain can be the key to becoming deepiy compassionate, but it requires work to let go of the personal hold it has on us. It requires becoming less judgmental of oneself and others. Some of the Buddhist principles have helped me a lot in order to head in this direction, but I doubt it is a place of arrival for me, but an ongoing process that will have continued mistakes, but also continued increase in acceptance of others.
 

Mvika

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I agree with the general sentiment that "everyone has imperfect childhoods" but this post also feels like the typical, albeit well-meaning "people have been through much worse" invalidation, positive motivation sort of response. In a way, it seems like a strawman especially with the extreme examples provided.

People, in general, have varying levels of resiliency (genetically predisposed, environmentally influenced, ability to bounce back), different ways to how they personally interact with support systems (or lack thereof). Without the right type of support, children can be especially vulnerable because their brains have not fully developed in order to necessarily deal with the magnitude of the situations. And they are DEPENDENT on others to care for them. For example, some people will get scarred for life just by being "sexually molested" one time while others don't seem all that superficially* affected. Some folks will develop full-blown PTSD while others see it as a negative blip in their life.

*Just because people may be presenting as "well-adjusted" and normal doesn't necessarily mean they are coping well. The inverse is also true - just because people have gone through a lot doesn't mean they are going to self-destruct/harm others.

This is not to say that we should become self-indulgent and blame all of life's ills on the past but moreso that we should not be quite so ready to dismiss how others' experiences have affected them. To some extent, we can't compare pain.

People are reticent to receive help because society often treats it like a pissing contest about who has overcome the worst of circumstances and survived. So, many people downplay how much certain events may have affected them.

Although rather alarmist, I do sort of agree with mole:



Moving on can often act as a disservice to children because they, themselves, may not been able to process the traumas effectively.
I think there is some general misunderstanding about my post. If it was just [MENTION=3325]Mole[/MENTION], I wouldn't care to explain myself, but [MENTION=27014]florpoetis[/MENTION] and [MENTION=26163]FutureInProgress[/MENTION] have mentioned it too. So I have this clarification to make:

(A) I am not, first of all, talking about children who are suffering from abuse at all. That is an issue so close to my heart that I would be nothing short of Sling Blade Karl in that regard. Children need to protected and given the help they need. Period.
(B) when I talk about adults moving on, I am basically pushing for moving away from the pain. Not by avoiding it or invalidating it. No. What I meant by Elisabeth Fritzl's example is that at some point we have to make the decision to not let our past define who we will be. We can get to that point by using therapy like [MENTION=27014]florpoetis[/MENTION] and [MENTION=26163]FutureInProgress[/MENTION] suggested, or maybe through meditation or developing some creative outlet. When i see as a very big impediment to growth and moving on is the tendency encouraged to dwell on the past without that clear agreement that somethings can never be set right, and then blaming it for everything that follows. This happens a lot. Hence, the effectiveness and current popularity of CBT, which actually helps people deal with the issues themselves, rather than get hooked to the past, which is not here, if only we could let go.

This is not spiel against therapy or getting help. THIS IS NOT ABOUT CHILDREN CURRENTLY SUFFERING ABUSE. I am just championing the choice we will always have as human beings to take control of our lives, and that can only happen in the present--in this moment-- and then maybe, our future can be saved from becoming a casualty of our past. Now, that to me is the ultimate tragedy.
 
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Tilt

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[MENTION=29233]Mvika[/MENTION], the article was defining ACEs as sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse/neglect, domestic disturbance, parental separation/divorce and basically suggesting how to get better community support systems in place for children because ACEs can affect long-term health.

The article was talking about how to be more sensitive and knowledgeable of the effects of childhood trauma to help prevent struggles into adulthood.

So with that said, I don't think [MENTION=3325]Mole[/MENTION] was trying to be trolling.
 

Mvika

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A hope for healing not contingent on resolution of past injustices.

[MENTION=29233]Mvika[/MENTION], the article was defining ACEs as sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse/neglect, domestic disturbance, parental separation/divorce and basically suggesting how to get better community support systems in place for children because ACEs can affect long-term health.

The article was talking about how to be more sensitive and knowledgeable of the effects of childhood trauma to help prevent struggles into adulthood.

So with that said, I don't think [MENTION=3325]Mole[/MENTION] was trying to be trolling.

We will have to agree to disagree on Mole. :)

I was not refuting the article in its approach or its veracity. I attempted to add to it with with-that-being-said-now-what motive. The truth is that there is never much resolution in life, but our future wellbeing and self-actualization need not be held hostage to it. No matter how much help these children get to deal with the childhood abuse, healing will always start from the point where the now adult makes the choice to take control, in the present, of their life and safeguard their future from being defined by what was not a choice. To this triumph of human spirit, I attest and pay obeisance, which is the most important moment of reckoning in our lives.

I did not give extreme examples to belittle anybody's suffering. As a rule, role models and exemplars like Elisabeth Fritzl or Jaycee Duggard are a cut above the rest. They are by no means average people and we should never compare the resiliency of the victims of abuse anyway. The point was to see them as inspiration for all of us who, not being dead, have to survive and move on. How well we do that depends a lot on the attitude of the person, the kind of therapy they receive and the message they get from the environment.

There is a certain popular trend to take the power away from the survivor in the name of validating their pain by overanalyzing and overfocusing on the past to the point where it becomes the causa causum of everything that happens afterwards. This may feel good in the short run, but never helps in my experience.
I don't agree with that approach. Maybe that is what is registering here as not being politically correct or supportive enough of the victims?
I have no idea, how else to put though.
 

Tilt

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We will have to agree to disagree on Mole. :)

I was not refuting the article in its approach or its veracity. I attempted to add to it with with-that-being-said-now-what motive. The truth is that there is never much resolution in life, but our future wellbeing and self-actualization need not be held hostage to it. No matter how much help these children get to deal with the childhood abuse, healing will always start from the point where the now adult makes the choice to take control, in the present, of their life and safeguard their future from being defined by what was not a choice. To this triumph of human spirit, I attest and pay obeisance, which is the most important moment of reckoning in our lives.

I did not give extreme examples to belittle anybody's suffering. As a rule, role models and exemplars like Elisabeth Fritzl or Jaycee Duggard are a cut above the rest. They are by no means average people and we should never compare the resiliency of the victims of abuse anyway. The point was to see them as inspiration for all of us who, not being dead, have to survive and move on. How well we do that depends a lot on the attitude of the person, the kind of therapy they receive and the message they get from the environment.

There is a certain popular trend to take the power away from the survivor in the name of validating their pain by overanalyzing and overfocusing on the past to the point where it becomes the causa causum of everything that happens afterwards. This may feel good in the short run, but never helps in my experience.
I don't agree with that approach. Maybe that is what is registering here as not being politically correct or supportive enough of the victims?
I have no idea, how else to put though.

At first, to me, it registered as "everyone has problems and look at what this person endured so you should be able to do it too". So however inspirational some of those stories can be, for some people it creates feelings of shame, guilt, weakness that they are really struggling with only the fraction of the amount of trauma. They will be less likely to open up and seek out treatment. The power of social comparison. So if they are in the pits of despair, you have to be conscious of whether or not the individual is susceptible to being overly self-critical and has social anxiety.
 

Mvika

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Excellent post!
I think that the experience of trauma can show us two paths. One is an inward black hole of personal pain that can never be filled. This path causes ongoing misery and justifies doing harm to other people. It is easy to fall into this trap, but extremely painful to live a lifetime in this way.

The other path is an increased sense of empathy that opens the mind to the universe, to a sense of the pain everyone else feels. I noticed when I was younger that people who had lived charmed lives and who were indeed very nice people, would tend to avoid people in pain because it upset their sense of reality. It required they have an enormous paradigm shift in order to accommodate the reality of trauma in the lives of others. I'm working through some issues myself with a therapist, but am also considering a career change into counseling. My therapist strongly supports this idea and asked me once during a session, "If you were going to a new counselor would you rather have someone who never had mistakes or pain, but got all perfect grades, or would you rather talk to someone who had lived life, pain, mistakes, and all?". In this way pain is insight. If you actually feel the overwhelming experience of suffering, you become less judgmental of others feeling it. You don't get frustrated when they don't just let go and get with the program.

One other issue to consider. If there is a specific person who harmed us, but feels no regret, we can either become deeply angry at them and end up becoming another version of that person, or we can have the deepest rebellion possible and become their exact opposite. I want to be the inverse of the person who harmed me, and in that way use their cruelty as my teacher of what not to be.

Childhood pain can be the key to becoming deepiy compassionate, but it requires work to let go of the personal hold it has on us. It requires becoming less judgmental of oneself and others. Some of the Buddhist principles have helped me a lot in order to head in this direction, but I doubt it is a place of arrival for me, but an ongoing process that will have continued mistakes, but also continued increase in acceptance of others.

I can't agree strongly enough with everything you so articulately put here. I am not very good with words, but that is exactly what I wanted to emphasize- the power of choice which is the scary door to liberation from the clutches of the past.
And yes, my sufferings, mistakes and misfortunes have connected me with my own authenticity and that of others in a way my successes and good fortunes never could. They could have isolated me as well, I can see that now, but mericifully, it went in the other direction. I can't be thankful enough for that.
 

Mole

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Excellent post!
I think that the experience of trauma can show us two paths. One is an inward black hole of personal pain that can never be filled. This path causes ongoing misery and justifies doing harm to other people. It is easy to fall into this trap, but extremely painful to live a lifetime in this way.

The other path is an increased sense of empathy that opens the mind to the universe, to a sense of the pain everyone else feels. I noticed when I was younger that people who had lived charmed lives and who were indeed very nice people, would tend to avoid people in pain because it upset their sense of reality. It required they have an enormous paradigm shift in order to accommodate the reality of trauma in the lives of others. I'm working through some issues myself with a therapist, but am also considering a career change into counseling. My therapist strongly supports this idea and asked me once during a session, "If you were going to a new counselor would you rather have someone who never had mistakes or pain, but got all perfect grades, or would you rather talk to someone who had lived life, pain, mistakes, and all?". In this way pain is insight. If you actually feel the overwhelming experience of suffering, you become less judgmental of others feeling it. You don't get frustrated when they don't just let go and get with the program.

One other issue to consider. If there is a specific person who harmed us, but feels no regret, we can either become deeply angry at them and end up becoming another version of that person, or we can have the deepest rebellion possible and become their exact opposite. I want to be the inverse of the person who harmed me, and in that way use their cruelty as my teacher of what not to be.

Childhood pain can be the key to becoming deepiy compassionate, but it requires work to let go of the personal hold it has on us. It requires becoming less judgmental of oneself and others. Some of the Buddhist principles have helped me a lot in order to head in this direction, but I doubt it is a place of arrival for me, but an ongoing process that will have continued mistakes, but also continued increase in acceptance of others.

The problem with childhood sexual abuse is that it interrupts the maturation process. This psycho-sexual process only operates through a particular window of time, usually round 12, 13, or 14. And once this window has passed there is no way of repeating it. So childhood sexual abuse does permanent psychological damage to the victim.
 

Blackout

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We all just want real love but women don't want it
(misogynistic INFP who does not get laid enough)

 

Mole

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We will have to agree to disagree on Mole. :)

I was not refuting the article in its approach or its veracity. I attempted to add to it with with-that-being-said-now-what motive. The truth is that there is never much resolution in life, but our future wellbeing and self-actualization need not be held hostage to it. No matter how much help these children get to deal with the childhood abuse, healing will always start from the point where the now adult makes the choice to take control, in the present, of their life and safeguard their future from being defined by what was not a choice. To this triumph of human spirit, I attest and pay obeisance, which is the most important moment of reckoning in our lives.

I did not give extreme examples to belittle anybody's suffering. As a rule, role models and exemplars like Elisabeth Fritzl or Jaycee Duggard are a cut above the rest. They are by no means average people and we should never compare the resiliency of the victims of abuse anyway. The point was to see them as inspiration for all of us who, not being dead, have to survive and move on. How well we do that depends a lot on the attitude of the person, the kind of therapy they receive and the message they get from the environment.

There is a certain popular trend to take the power away from the survivor in the name of validating their pain by overanalyzing and overfocusing on the past to the point where it becomes the causa causum of everything that happens afterwards. This may feel good in the short run, but never helps in my experience.
I don't agree with that approach. Maybe that is what is registering here as not being politically correct or supportive enough of the victims?
I have no idea, how else to put though.

The problem is that childhood abuse at the hands of our carers is often repressed. And in particular the psychological pain is often repressed. And repressed means removed from consciousness.

So the psychological pain is no longer available to the consciousness of the victim, so the victim continually asserts they feel no pain, and indeed the classic line is, it didn't do me any harm, when the victims has suffered permanent psychological damage.
 

Mole

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We all just want real love but women don't want it
(misogynistic INFP who does not get laid enough)

The problem is 'getting laid' will not allow us to access our psychological pain, will not allow us to analyse our psychological pain, will not enable us to evaluate our psychological pain, and will not enable us to integrate our psychological pain into our daily life.

Indeed the phrase 'getting laid' is pejorative and shows contempt for love making.

And this contempt is because 'getting laid' does not meet our deepest and most vulnerable needs. Indeed 'getting laid' denies our deepest needs. At the same time 'getting laid' is cool and enables us to present a false front to the world.
 
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