++++++++++++++++++++++++
As many readers complain, the information infant-child abuse survivors most need to know is too scientific and complicated for us to understand! This is an excellent and important 2005 article on the subject:
The enduring effects of abuse and related adverse experiences in childhood by Robert F. Anda et. al. (with others….)
NOTE: for some reason CLICKING ON THE TITLE DOESN’T WORK! YOU HAVE TO COPY THE FOLLOWING INTO YOUR TOP ADDRESS BAR — I HAVE NO IDEA WHY THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO GET TO THIS ARTICLE – or click below:
http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/2009/6/anda_abuse.pdf
So, in the interests of all of us I am going to suggest that readers click on this title link and study the article. In the meantime, I am going to butcher it here as I try to highlight some facts that MIGHT make sense to us – and to see the researchers behind these words, check out the article itself (follow the copy-paste directions above)!! Buckle your seat belts, here goes!! I will try to clarify at least a small part of what this article contains:
“The organization and functional capacity of the human brain depends upon an extraordinary set and sequence of developmental and environmental experiences that influence the expression of the genome [our genes]…. Unfortunately, this elegant sequence is vulnerable to extreme, repetitive, or abnormal patterns of stress during critical…periods of childhood brain development that can impair, often permanently, the activity of major neuroregulatory systems, with profound and lasting neurobehavioral consequences.”
“Now, converging evidence from neurobiology and epidemiology suggests that early life stress such as abuse and related adverse experiences cause enduring brain dysfunction that, in turn, affects health and quality of life throughout the lifespan.”
“An expanding body of evidence…suggests that early stressors cause long term changes in multiple brain circuits and systems…. The amygdala mediates fear responses, and the prefrontal cortex is involved in mood as well as emotional and cognitive responses….”
“The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis plays a critical role in the stress response. There is an important interaction between development and stress….[in other words] young infants do not have a fully developed glucocorticoid (cortisol in humans) response to stress.”
“Substantial research has focused on the relationship between development, early stress, the HPA axis, and the hippocampus, a stress-sensitive brain region that plays a critical role in learning and memory…. The hippocampus has the capacity to grow new neurons in adulthood (neurogenesis), but stress inhibits neurogenesis…and memory function….”
“Early stressors cause long-term increases in glucocorticoid responses to stress [also related to development of autoimmune disorders!] as well as decreased genetic expression of cortisol receptors in the hippocampus and increased genetic expression of corticotrophin-releasing factor in the hypothalamus, both of which may contribute to dysregulation of the…(HPA) system [a huge factor in all anxiety ‘disorders’ from PTSD to depression and in autoimmune disorders].
“Early environmental deprivation [neglect] inhibits hippocampal neurogenesis; conversely, neurogenesis is enhanced by enriched environments… Alterations in serotonergic [serotonin]…receptors also contribute to deficits in social attachment and regulation of mood and affect following early stress.”
[I am leaving out a long list of research here – skim it in the article]
“Deprivation of developmentally appropriate experience may reduce neuronal activity, resulting in a generalized decrease in neurotrophin production, synaptic connectivity, and neuronal survival…resulting in profound abnormalities in brain organization and structure…. Thus, childhood abuse and exposure to domestic violence [including verbal abuse] can lead to numerous differences in the structure and physiology of the brain that expectedly would affect multiple human functions and behaviors….”
++
Skip down through the tables and the facts on this research study and read the findings at the end of this.
I am supposed to be responding to Question #6 for the book my daughter and I are writing – but I am having a very hard time getting past this kind of information because it is all that really matters. These kinds of changes are what created my mother’s terrible sickness in the first place that directly led to the terrible abuse she perpetrated against me — which in turn stole from me the best of my life by creating trauma-caused changes in MY development.
In the light of these kinds of facts NOTHING about my own personal story matters!! THIS is the information that matters to all infant-child abuse survivors!!
AGAIN – NOTE: for some reason CLICKING ON THE TITLE DOESN’T WORK! YOU HAVE TO COPY THE FOLLOWING INTO YOUR TOP ADDRESS BAR — I HAVE NO IDEA WHY THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO GET TO THIS ARTICLE or click below:
http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/2009/6/anda_abuse.pdf
The enduring effects of abuse and related adverse experiences in childhood
Before anyone takes a pill to ‘feel better’, READ THIS!!!!! This is the kind of information nobody tells us. I can’t chew this all up and spit it into my readers’ mouths. I am not a momma bird feeding a nest full of immature fledglings. We CAN read and understand these facts! No amount of therapy or doctoring in the universe is going to make a dent in ‘fixing us’ if we refuse to begin to understand what happened to change our development in the first place.
++
+AGE 5 – GETTING A TOXIC DOSE OF THIS (which of course ALSO connected to my Insecure Attachment Disorder)
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Stop the Storm 
oh yes…I agree with the reader about most addictions. And then its the bandaid that everyone seems to focus on instead of the underlying ooozing infection and bruise. A bandaid is only covers the surface.
so true! and all addictions use the same biochemicals that started out as a part of our attachment system – the same chemicals — when the need isn’t met RIGHT all goes so WRONG in the body, it changes, and with many there IS no going back to anything that was GOOD before – it’s like becoming an entirely new person, or trying to — we need to be told the connection to insecure attachment and early trauma —
Thank Goodness u have remained an “optimist” . I am slighty envious of that …because how I wish I was! I am always in awe of positive people with those outlooks…who see the cup half full.(instead of half empty). Is one born with these inate charateristics?
Or is it learned? And how come some who go thru terrible abuse can still be that way?! I guess that is in part of what may have helped them to survive. Convincing themselves that tomorrow will be better.
Sadly
I try to be miss happy go lucky smiley face. But inside I have a shakin in my boots. Oh . not literally…but kinda…the fear is always there. Always! It is always looking for the danger in any situation. Its always assuring that I have a quick and speedy acess to escape. So, Im never at ease.
Thats the price I had to pay for my borderline mother behavior. Thx.
Thx a bunch. Now, I am not saying this to play victim but it is the honest to goodness truth…For me and my reality I live in anxiety and fear all the time.
Hate it!
I know exactly what you mean! My guess is that in some ways those of us who were naturally on the ‘more sensitive’ end of the aggression-compassion spectrum end up with trauma-changed bodies that are more finely tuned to FEEL the anxiety — in some ways to be more connected to the messages our body is always sending us.
Those on the more aggressive end don’t feel it so much, I don’t think. I was thinking as I wrote today that my sibs (and our kids) probably got our sensitivity from my father. I think my mother (DUH, LINDA!) was always naturally an aggressive person – but if trauma had not changed her development the way that it did, maybe she would have kicked ass in sports, or in a career or something NOT harmful —
But, no, we can’t go backwards — and acceptance can be a tough old peace of rotten tree bark to try to swallow!! I HATE having my life narrowed down to my home and my yard, damn it! The ONLY place I feel a little more at ease — though NEVER comfortable — !!
I think in some ways the trauma of my first 18 years was so negative that I have never found any other way to go but up from that down!
I’ll know more as I write my way through my part of this book!! xoxoxox
Wow, what an article Linda! It is still hard for me to accept the damage all of my abuse caused me. However, knowledge is power, the power to change things.
I would hope we are still here because we are a light upon this earth, and that there is some reason that we do not understand , why we are here. I am so sick when I read the statistics. I urge people when they see a person suffering (like an addict/alcoholic/eating disorder, for instance) to not judge them by that, but to realize they are a wounded soul, doing the best they can to just make it though their day.It really puts the amount of trauma in our society out into the light , because the “addiction ” stuff is the mask that abuse survivors wear until they are strong enough to look at the truth.
Your book is going strong!!
Keep up the good work !! Blessings to you!
no…from the uneducated…people with no knowlege on the subject but like to give their opinions.
Oh I pray that we can do this book RIGHT!! The cycles of trauma to infants and children goes on and on with devastating consequences
I am forever a hopeful optimist, I guess — somehow thinking that once people hear and understand what the cost is in terms of changed body-brain development — and they really GET IT that ways will be found to prevent it — It is a CRIME!
Back to the book today – got wonderful monsoon rain yesterday right after I posted your comment – what a beautiful world — and what a terrible shame that my body NEVER lets me be truly OK, truly at peace, truly FREE of terror, fear and anxiety. It is ALWAYS there
I believe there are healing ‘treatments’ out there – but not accessible, not affordable, and even those special practioners (chiropractic, natruopath, homeopathic, acupuncture, massage, music-dance-art therapy) still ALL need to be educated about what happened to so many of us and what is REALLY being treated
++
I am including some of my mother’s writings in this book – I want people to understand as they read my words and read my mother’s words how hidden her madness was to the untrained eye – which included EVERYONE
I am also thinking about mates of these abusive parents – educate THEM, touch them somehow and maybe they will no longer be so willing NOT to help their children!!
That my father BOUGHT everything my mother said and did is – well, I don’t have words for it
I understand why she had no conscience — but my father????
Yes, even when I didnt know a alot of this info….people would judge my brother and expect him to be an independent responsible human being. They would say” he is just lazy or he is making excuses.”. That would get me so mad…But i had no info to prove that his abuse CAUSED this state he finds himself in.
And even with me,I struggle with anxiety and can’t manage a lot of stress and I have heard it said to me ” that I am just making excuses”
Very upsetting to me because once again we are getting the NON VALIDATING response AGAIN!!!!!!!!
Not in this article, though??
Both the two articles posted lately talk about how the constant ANXIETY in abusive homes — well, to me it’s CAUSTIC and toxic like BATTERY ACID to little people’s developing brains, nervous system, immune system, mind, self — Infant-child abuse HAS TO STOP!!
no, now that u just reprinted the link…all u have to do is press on the link.
thx!
Good – but still something is haywire ’cause I can’t get to it that way on my computer! I can’t locate another link to this entire article – can get to the abstract, but then everyone would have to order it from their local library for $30+ — we need to have access to this info!!
oweeeee good stuff! I havent yet read the article but like what u wrote above!
So very true!!!!!
Linda,
When I clicked on the above article cuz I wanted to forward it to my home email address it doesnt open. Can u recheck that for us please. Looks like an article I wanna read! thx.
SORRY ABOUT THAT!
This is the first time I’ve had this happen — and no idea why!
You have to copy the following and paste it into one of your windows top address bar
Click to access anda_abuse.pdf
Thanks so much for letting me know — I am so sorry! Too important an article to pass up — and YES, even though it’s hard to read a person can get THE PICTURE of what ALL EARLY abuse does to infants and children – this is directly tied to the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) studies
Makes me think, if we were in pain, went to doctor and told them
and they just said, “So sorry. You have multiple broken bones. Take this pain pill. You’ll be OK.”
No mention of which bones or broken, and no way for us to tell. No idea how it happened or why. No appropriate treatment.
With infant-child abuse survivors it’s the same thing unless the information in this article is included in the public mind on all levels so that we can understand how what happened to us PROFOUNDLY changed our development — and the body-nervous system-brain -immune system we live with for the rest of our lives.
Oh, and I forgot to mention on the broken bones scenario: Then we can see the judgment in others’ eyes – that somehow in their opinion we are to blame, it’s our fault, we are inferior, we are defective, we have ‘bad genes’ or we are ‘just too stupid to do things right’ — or we are just complaining (“Get on with it already!”) — along with being misdiagnosed
One of the main points the author of this article talks about at the end is the great need for all professions to get on the same page and realize that if you track back ALL SORTS OF LIFELONG DIFFICULTIES to infant-childhood maltreatment you will find what they all share in common — what they are all connected to, what caused nearly ALL of these difficulties — WHY and HOW — along with how to STOP IT FROM HAPPENING in the first place!!