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I am certainly not a big fan of the concept of ‘complex trauma’ or of ‘complex PTSD’.  I believe that the entire field of so-called ‘mental health’ has to rethink every concept they have ever used ‘against us’ in the light of the new scientific evidence that clearly shows that severe early child abuse as it happens to a little one during its growth and developmental stages CHANGES the entire physiology of the survivor.

We are not ‘ordinary’ people with some sort of maladaptive, pathological ‘post trauma’ or ‘complex trauma’ ‘mentally ill’ ‘condition’!  We are extra-ordinary individuals whose bodies adapted in what are no doubt definable, physiologically sound, logical, adaptive, practical and understandable ways — to be known, understood and appreciated as the most state-of-the-art scientific research will demonstrate — as a direct consequence of having to develop a changed body-immune system-nervous system-brain-mind-self in order to survive in an extremely challenging, dangerous, traumatic and malevolent world.

Worn out, misinformed, misused, inaccurate and archaic terms, concepts, descriptions and thoughts about us based on ignorance of the true facts about adapting to early trauma and abuse, need to be put exactly where they belong — down the toilet — and not be applied to/against us.

Trying to squeeze early trauma survivors into ANY of the preexisting boxes created by ‘ordinary’ people to describe ‘ordinary’ people belong — exactly and specifically — TO THEM only, not to US!

What follows is an example of how difficult it is to translate ‘helpful’ and ‘factual’ information about the very subject we are interested in — the consequences of surviving trauma — into anything that either makes sense to or helps me as a survivor of extreme severe early and ongoing trauma of malevolent abuse from birth until age 18.

And I am FAR from alone!

Researchers and clinicians need to apply their newest research discoveries in an ongoing effort to help us all understand that every single change we were forced to make during our infant-child SURVIVORHOOD is, in fact, a super resiliency factor that kept us alive in the midst of — and in spite of — ongoing overwhelming traumas.

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Every single piece of so-called mental health information available on the wide array of difficulties humans can face in their efforts to achieve well-being and get along in the world need to be considered differently by survivors of severe maltreatment that happened to them during the early years of their childhood.

Early and severe maltreatment in a malevolent early caregiving environment changes the way our body-immune system-nervous system-brain-mind-self develops to allow us to adapt so we can survive in a traumatic, toxic and dangerous world.

I want to talk about Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) today.  I am referring to a book called Healing Trauma: Attachment, Mind, Body, and Brain – Hardcover (Jan 2003, W.W. Norton and Co.) by Daniel J. Siegel, Marion F. Solomon, and Marion Solomon, chapter 4 (pages 168-195) written by Bessel A. van der Kolk:  “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and The Nature of Trauma.”

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from page 171:

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(I am breaking up the following text from a single paragraph found in this book into segments so that I can comment on the author’s words.  What follows is taken from the above book, pages 171-172.)

The author is describing the ‘secondary effects of developing PTSD’:

“Once people develop PTSD, the recurrent, unbidden reliving of the trauma in visual images, emotional states, or in nightmares produces a constant re-exposure to the terror of the trauma.  In contrast to the actual trauma, which had a beginning a middle [sic], and an end, the symptoms of PTSD take on a timeless character.”

It is important for us to understand that when a tiny infant-child’s entire body-being has to form in a malevolent environment of trauma as it is fed ongoing information by its early caregivers about a dangerous world, all the factors having to do with surviving the trauma by adjusting growth and development to it, become built right into the growing body-brain.  Being alive in an early malevolent environment is itself, “a constant re-exposure to the terror of the trauma.”

I do not believe that survivors of severe early trauma ever have a chance to build an ‘ordinary’ ongoing experience of time into their body-brain-mind-self in the first place.  An infant has only the most basic, rudimentary, simple ability to identify a ‘beginning, middle, to any ‘actual trauma’.  Any processing of the experience of time within a tiny infant-child has to be built into the body-brain over TIME from the start.  Therefore these ‘symptoms of PTSD’ that ‘take on a timeless character’ become incorporated into the body-brain of the little one from the start.

From the time I was born, I did not have the luxury of having a ‘beginning, middle or end’ to the trauma I experienced through my mother’s abuse of me.  The best I had were temporary pauses in the abuse while my mother was either exhausted from her attacks or occupied (temporarily) elsewhere.  I could never predict when the monster would return.  My trauma-stress-response system, as it was being built into my body-brain, was ON all of the time within a pattern made up of these unpredictable pauses and attacks.

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Author:

“The traumatic intrusions are horrifying, they interfere with dealing with the past, while distracting from being able to attend to the present.  This unpredictable exposure to unbidden memories of the trauma usually leads to a variety of (usually maladaptive) avoidance maneuvers, ranging from avoidance of people or actions that remind them of the trauma, to drug and alcohol abuse, to emotional withdrawal from friends or activities that used to provide potential sources of solace.”

‘Used to provide potential sources of solace’?  Few of us had anyone THERE to care for us properly, to keep us safe and secure, to love and protect us from the start – or the abuse would not have happened in the first place.

The above statement alone gives we survivors very clear idea about how careful we have to be when trying to make our OWN use out of the professional information being provided AS IF it applies equally to people whose body-brain did NOT grow and develop within an early (unsafe and insecure attachment) malevolent world, and to survivors who DID grow and develop within a malevolent environment.

We have to be extremely care-full about applying any ‘professional’ concepts to ourselves.  We have to think through every word they say!!  We have to include our own reality of early experience into the ‘solution’ equations.  We have to know the truth about how our early trauma FORCED our body-brain-mind-self into adapting, adjusting and changing so that we could survive our child abuse traumas AT ALL!

We ARE NOT THE SAME.  Our body-brain is not the same.  True, our ‘traumatic intrusions’ were horrifying, but we were far too little to even have a PAST to be interfered with.  We had no ongoing experience of ourselves in the world that did not include horrifying trauma and threat of trauma.

Yes, we were prevented from ‘being able to attend to the present’ – any ordinary ‘present’ in any ‘ordinary’ way.  We certainly were forced to attend in the present to surviving the horrifying traumas being heaped upon tiny little us while at the same time our growing and developing tiny selves were trying to accomplish all the required NORMAL developmental milestones everyone has to pass through as they mature from infancy to adulthood.  ALL of our growth and developmental stages and processes were thus interfered with because of the trauma we experienced in our infant-childhoods.

And of course, I take major issue with the use of the term ‘maladaptive’ in reference to any consequence that happened to us because of our severe early abuse. I believe this kind of ‘professional’ thinking and the attitudes that go with it is used against early severe child abuse survivors as a bludgeoning weapon that further pounds the consequences of our abuse and trauma into our being!!

Applying the concept of ‘maladaptive’ to us is just plain GOOFY!  We are the most ADAPTIVE people alive!  We survived what was impossible to survive from the time we were born, from the time we were little tiny people!  And, while our entire beings were busy adapting, we still went right on through every required human growth and developmental stage — in spite of the horror and terrible trauma we experienced in our childhoods!!

This “…variety of (usually maladaptive) avoidance maneuvers, ranging from avoidance of people or actions that remind them of the trauma, to drug and alcohol abuse, to emotional withdrawal from friends or activities that used to provide potential sources of solace” becomes extremely difficult to accurately assess among populations of severe early child abuse survivors.   I believe this kind of ‘profession thinking’ becomes like a net of ignorance conveniently thrown over the large group of ‘maladapted’ people because the effort it would take to truly think about the truth of our development as survivors takes just too much effort on the part of those ‘ordinary’ others who seek to provide us ‘help’.

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Author’s paragraph continues:

“Problems with attention and concentration keep them from being engaged with their surroundings with zest and energy.  Uncomplicated activities like reading, conversing with others, and watching television require extra effort.  This loss of ability to focus, in turn, often leads to problems with taking one thing at a time and gets in the way of reorganizing one’s life to et it back on track.”

OK, readers!! Have at it!!

Understanding how to translate ‘professional’ lingo, theory, concept, and attempts to ‘repair’ us to make us into more ‘ordinary’ functioning people will nearly 100% of the time come from the above stated point of view.  THAT’S NOT US!  Not in the way ‘others’ think it is!

How many of us early severe abuse survivors can understand on ONE LEVEL exactly what the author is saying above?  Then, how many of us can NOW begin to understand that these ‘difficulties’ that we experience were directly built right into our growing and developing body-nervous system-brain-mind self in direct relationship to the degree and nature of the traumas present in the environment that FORMED US from the start?

Trauma changed how we developed!  We only continue to suffer from being told there is something ‘maladaptive’ or ‘pathological’ about us – BECAUSE WE SURVIVED?  That IS what we are being told.  There was no possible way we could have survived without the trauma changing us!  It’s a tough bottom line, but the way I see it, if there is any negative assessment given at all to anything about the way we ARE in the world because of how we had to change to survive our child abuse traumas, then we are yet again simply being re-victimized by others.

It does us no GOOD on any level to suck in anything negative NOW about who we had to become THEN in order to survive.

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Well, I barely got started on this chapter, but I will continue in another post because this information is so important for us to understand without having to think about ourselves through the filter of ignorance that we usually find as we try to achieve a greater well-being in the world having endured ‘horrifying traumas’ that we were strong enough, determined enough, and resilient enough to survive!!

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