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Trouble.  I have thousands of memories that involve this word.  All of these memories are stored in my body even if my brain cannot let me know what they all are consciously.  My mother, in her common verbal attacks on me, frequently used this word in versions of sentences such as these:  “Linda, you are nothing but trouble.  Trouble should be your middle name.  You have been nothing but trouble from the moment you were born.  You are more trouble than all the other children put together.  You are the cause of all the trouble in my marriage to Bill.  You are the cause of all of the trouble in this family.  Trouble, trouble, trouble, that’s all that you are.  You are more trouble than you are worth.  (Usually followed by some version of, “I hate you!  I wish you had never been born.”

But this word, trouble, as it applies to the developmental brain changes I suffered because of the abuse my mother did to me takes on a new meaning nearly beyond imagining when I discover information – again and again – about the truth of how child abuse changes, if not ruins, a person for a lifetime.  The only true weapon we have to fight in our own defense is to begin to read and understand how what happened to us changed us in ways that matter most.

I am in the process of writing a completely different and separate post at this moment, but I had to start this one so that I can include something I just found that is extremely important.  On the other post I am examining how my ability to remember was interfered with by my mother’s constant abuse.

Please take a look at what I just found on the effects of infant-child abuse and trauma on brain development on the web site of The Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence.

I found on this site an extremely impressive list of articles on the topic written by leading experts in the field of infant-child brain development and the consequences of child abuse.  There is a list of articles here with abstracts.  Finding them brings me mixed feelings.  At the same time I am thrilled that this work is being done, that the effects of trauma on brain development are being discovered, that the information is becoming increasingly available to the public – I also feel profoundly sad that I, along with so many others, experienced the kind of traumas during our early development that changed the development of our brain and hence changed our lives.

I will NEVER be able to repeat this fact enough:  What my mother did to me during any individual attack against me is NOT what matters to me now.  What matters is that those attacks changed my body-brain development in ways that these authors describe.

I present the following here as an example of the impact of abuse on development, and as a sample of the quality and range of information available on the web site of  The Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence.

Ito, Y., Teicher, M. H., Glod, C. A., and Ackerman, E. (1998). Preliminary evidence for aberrant cortical development in abused children: a quantitative EEG study. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neuroscience, 10(3), 298-307.

The objectives of this study were to investigate cortical development and hemispheric asymmetry in abused children. Fifteen hospitalized children (mean age 10.7 +/- 2.5 years) with severe physical or sexual abuse and 15 normal children (10.1 +/- 3.1 years) were studied with quantitative EEG. Abused children had higher levels of left hemisphere coherence and a reversed asymmetry, with left hemisphere coherence significantly exceeding right hemisphere coherence. Left hemisphere coherence decreased more rapidly across electrode distance in normal subjects, suggesting that increased left coherence in abused patients stemmed from a deficit in left cortical differentiation. These findings support the hypothesis that early severe abuse may have a deleterious effect on brain development.

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Perry, B. D. (1994). Neurobiological Sequelae of Childhood Trauma: Post traumatic Stress Disorders in Children. In Catecholamine Function in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Emerging Concepts (M Murburg, Ed.) American Psychiatric Press, Washington, DC, 253-276.

Abstract: The present chapter will review childhood PTSD with specific focus on neurobiological sequelae of childhood trauma and present some preliminary evidence of altered functioning of brainstem catecholamine systems in childhood PTSD. In specific, it is hypothesized that the abnormal patterns of catecholamine activity associated with prolonged ‘alarm reactions’ induced by traumatic events during infancy and childhood can result in altered development of the central nervous system (CNS). Furthermore, it is hypothesized that this altered development includes a ‘dysregulated’ brainstem which in turn results in a host of signs and symptoms related to abnormal brainstem functioning, including altered cardiovascular regulation, affective lability, behavioral impulsivity, increased anxiety, increased startle response and sleep abnormalities. Finally, early life experience is discussed, in context of childhood trauma, as an ‘expresser of genetic predispositions.

Perry, B. D. (1996). Neurodevelopmental Adaptations to Violence: How Children Survive the Intragenerational Vortex of Violence. In Violence and Childhood Trauma: Understanding and Responding to the Effects of Violence on Young Children. Cleveland, Ohio: Gund Foundation Publishers, pp.67-80.

Perry, B. D. (1997). Incubated in Terror: Neurodevelopmental Factors in the “Cycle of Violence.” In J. Osofsky (Ed.). Children, Youth and Violence: The Search for Solutions . (pp. 124-148). New York: Guilford Press.
How violence alters the brain and nervous system of the developing child.

NOTE:  Perry is the one whose new book I just ordered:  Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential–and Endangered

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Schore, A. N. (2001). The Effects of a Secure Attachment Relationship on Right Brain Development, Affect Regulation, and Infant Mental Health. Infant Journal of Mental Health, 22, 7-66.

Abstract: Over the last ten years the basic knowledge of brain structure and function has vastly expanded, and its incorporation into the developmental sciences is now allowing for more complex and heuristic models of human infancy. In a continuation of this effort, in this two part work I integrate current interdisciplinary data from attachment studies on dyadic affective communications, neuroscience on the early developing right brain, psychophysiology on stress systems, and psychiatry on psychopathogenesis in order to provide a deeper understanding of the psychoneurobiological mechanisms that underlie infant mental health.

In this paper I detail the neurobiology of a secure attachment, an exemplar of adaptive infant mental health, and focus upon the primary caregiver’s psychobiological regulation of the infant’s maturing limbic system, the brain areas specialized for adapting to a rapidly changing environment. The infant’s early developing right hemisphere has deep connections into the limbic and autonomic nervous systems and is dominant for the human stress response, and in this manner the attachment relationship facilitates the expansion of the child’s coping capacities. This model suggests that adaptive infant mental health can be fundamentally defined as the earliest expression of flexible strategies for coping with the novelty and stress that is inherent in human interactions. This efficient right brain function is a resilience factor for optimal development over the later stages of the life cycle.

Schore, A. N. (2001). The Effects of Early Relational Trauma on Right Brain Development, Affect Regulation, and Infant Mental Health. Infant Journal of Mental Health, 22, 201-269.

Abstract: A primary interest of the field of infant mental health is in the early conditions that place infants at risk for less than optimal development. The fundamental problem of what constitutes normal and abnormal development is now a focus of developmental psychology, infant psychiatry, and developmental neuroscience. In the second part of this sequential work, I present interdisciplinary data to more deeply forge the theoretical links between severe attachment failures, impairments of the early development of the right brain’s stress coping systems, and maladaptive infant mental health.

In the following I offer thoughts on the negative impact of traumatic attachments on brain development and infant mental health, the neurobiology of infant trauma, the neuropsychology of a disorganized / disoriented attachment pattern associated with abuse and neglect, trauma-induced impairments of a regulatory system in the orbitofrontal cortex, the links between orbitofrontal dysfunction and a predisposition to posttraumatic stress disorders, the neurobiology of the dissociative defense, the etiology of dissociation and body-mind psychopathology, the effects of early relational trauma on enduring right hemispheric function, and some implications for models of early intervention. These findings suggest direct connections between traumatic attachment, inefficient right brain regulatory functions, and both maladaptive infant and adult mental health.

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This information is shocking.  It cannot be denied and it cannot be ignored!  If you have any suspicion or factual knowledge (even as it exists solely as a body-based reaction to this topic) you NEED TO begin to read and understand what these researchers have discovered!  PLEASE!  Study this information for yourself, for your family, and for your global human community!  Click on this link:  The Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence.

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