Tag: mental illness

+LOOKING AT THE NURSERY AS THE SEAT OF VIOLENT CRIME

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I suffer no delusions about the source of my mother’s ability to commit her 18 years’ worth of violent crime against me.  All survivors of infant-child abuse, neglect and maltreatment were victims of violent crime that happened to them in particular ways, at particular times that impacted their physiological development before the age of TWO YEARS OLD.   For some survivors the maltreatment they received during these earliest months of life created the patterns within their little growing body-brains that led down a very straight road to an end result of becoming capable of perpetrating violent crime.

I have written on this blog in the past that the minimum prison term my mother as the abuser and my father as her enabler SHOULD have received would have been no less than 14,500 years.  I arrived at this figure simply my generalizing at a minimum how many times I was forced to endure a violent attack.  This figure does not begin to match a justified consequence for the related verbal violence that happened or take into account the 18 years of continual terror and trauma that the environment of my home of origin actually contained.

The source of all the violence I (and other survivors) experienced started somewhere, and that somewhere was the nursery.

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“Though we have been greatly concerned about government spending on the U.S. health care system, which many deem to be in crisis, we have not noticed that the cost of the criminal justice system is three times the cost of the nation’s entire health care budget.”

I am beginning my study of the book, Ghosts from the Nursery: Tracing the Roots of Violence (1998) by Robin Karr-Morse, Meredith S. Wiley.  I hope I have the commitment and strength to read this book cover to cover.  It will not be an easy read – but will be an important one.  As an 18 year infant-child-teen victim of severe and consistent violent abuse and battering by my mother, I am reading this book not only to gain a more clear understanding of violence that happens to others, but also as a survivor looking backwards into the nursery in which my mother was so pathetically, invisibly and malevolently raised to learn more about what happened to her.

The authors state on page 9:

“Media coverage of violence – murder and rape, gang violence, serial killings, the murder of parents, children, and coworkers – treats violent behavior as if it suddenly emerges from a developmental void.  It is a rare story that looks for the sources of this behavior even in preadolescence or grade school.  And this is far from the real root in most cases.  In order to understand the tide of violent behavior in which America is now submerged, we must look before preadolescence, before grade school, before preschool to the cradle of human formation in the first thirty-three months of life.  Those months, including nine months of prenatal development and the first two years after birth (33 months), harbor the seeds of violence for a growing percentage of American children.  In the violence equation…this is chapter one, the missing chapter.

“The ghosts of children lost to rage and despair, overlooked or abused by a community unaware of their existence, do retaliate.  These children – like all children – “do unto others.”  It may be easy and politically expedient to ignore them or to close eyes to the appalling circumstances of their lives while they are voiceless and powerless – little bodies tucked away where no one is looking.  But these children – grown larger and angrier – are swelling the rising tide of violent young offenders in our communities.  Range-filled adolescents only seem to come out of nowhere.  They come, too often, from the nursery.”

“As we begin to discover the previously unimaginable impact of the smallest insult to the brain at crucial times in development [and the stress hormones released during maltreatment of infants creates brain insult], we are beginning to see that much of what we have formerly written off as unknowable in origin and therefore unchangeable, can and must be prevented.  The current upswing in violent behavior is a clear sign of systemic distress.  If human life is to continue, our entire species needs to attend differently to our young.”  [addition of bold type is mine]

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+OUR NATION’S GAP IN CHILD WELL-BEING: A LOOK AT STATE RANKED #5

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When I began writing this blog April 2009 I never anticipated where my journey would take me.  Yet as I examine how I am feeling and thinking at THIS moment in time, and as I look back at my thinking process that has led me directly to this point, I realize that all the signposts were there along the way that I would get HERE sooner or later.

When I began to write in 2009 I did not in any way align myself with the ‘guilty’.  Having been a victim of pervasive and horrible abuse without reprieve from the moment I was born until I left home at age 18 had certainly contributed to my blind-sightedness about how my own experience fit into the grand continuum of degrees of benevolent-malevolent treatment of infants and children.  My layers of blindness have been peeling away until at this moment I believe I am very nearly at the core of what concerns me most.

When looking at the range of harm done by the intra- and intergenerational transmission of unresolved trauma (the overall topic of this blog) I now very clearly understand that suffering is suffering, trauma is trauma, overwhelming experiences of malevolent treatment all happen within the context of the society we live in.  Infant-child suffering is happening all over the place around me, and I am left asking the same two questions of myself that I would have asked of anyone outside of my family who did absolutely nothing to help me when I was an infant-child:  “Why are you not SEEING my suffering and why are you doing NOTHING to help me?”

There are days when I come very close to giving up ‘my work’ completely.  The big picture is – well – exactly that – A VERY BIG PICTURE!

The undercurrent of this blog is a discussion of how early deprivation, neglect, trauma and malevolent treatment of ALL KINDS can and usually does alter human physiological development on all levels so that infant-children ESPECIALLY between ages 0-3 (the span of the most critical developmental body-brain windows of growth) has to CHANGE itself in degrees according to experiences in the environment that are NOT OPTIMAL.  ALL experiences 0-3 profoundly determine directions of body-brain development FOR EVERYONE in accordance with degrees of safety and security of attachment or their absence with primary caregivers.

I understand now that no matter how horrible any individual early trauma survivor’s stories may be, the essence of what matters is how that person’s PHYSIOLOGICAL development was forced to change in response to their traumas.  This process is happening to some degree for every single infant-child who is NOT optimally safe and secure during their most critical periods of body-brain development.  Any lack of well-being experienced at the start of life will create ‘channels’ of lack of well-being PHYSIOLOGICALLY that will determine an adult’s life course.

It was inevitable that I would recognize myself (along with other adult severe early trauma survivors) in the river along with all the CURRENTLY SUFFERING little people within our nation.  (I can’t begin to talk about lack of child well-being outside of our nation’s boundaries – the conditions for our own children are bad enough).

I have selected this one of our 50 states to focus on in this post concerning some of the lack of child well-being issues within our nation:  Massachusetts.

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This report, available through searching the KIDS COUNT pages for ‘violence’ – “A State Call to Action:  Working to End Child Abuse and Neglect in Massachusetts” – is reporting on information collected in the 1990s.  Considering how damaging this ‘past’ information is I cannot begin to imagine what a similar report might contain that covers the current state of affairs in our recession.

According to KIDS COUNT data — KIDS COUNT overall rank – Massachusetts now rates #5 in the nation on overall indicators of child well-being.  When this report was created In April 2001 the state ranked in the top 10%, yet, according to this 216 page report the problems in the state fall exactly along the lines the United Nations reported in their 2010 report card on child well-being among the globe’s 24 richest nations with the United States having very nearly the widest gap between rich and poor (Credit for all citations below to:  Massachusetts Citizens for Children – Kids Count):

“However, contrast between the state’s overall progress and the incidence of child maltreatment is stark and confounding.  In the decade from 1987 to 1997, Massachusetts saw an 98% increase in the number of children reported for abuse or neglect, compared to a national increase of 54% during the same period.  Based on the latest data, roughly 46 of every 1,000 children in our state is involved each year in a child abuse or neglect report.  Each year, thousands of newborn children in Massachusetts go home from hospital only to return later with unthinkable injuries – injuries that for most will be life-changing and for some will be life-ending.

“Although Massachusetts ranks consistently in the top three to four states in per capital income, we have been unable to translate this extraordinary wealth into reductions in childhood poverty, family violence or child maltreatment.  States with fewer resources but clear vision are leading a national reform of child protection that is innovative, pro-active and effective.

“Since May 1999, over 200 Massachusetts policymakers and advocates have participated with Massachusetts Citizens for Children in the “Summit Initiative on Child Protection and Family Support.”  Motivated by a shared belief that overall current systems do not reflect our state’s deep and longstanding commitment to improving children’s lives, they collaborated to achieve a consensus for change.  This State Call To Action [full report also available at this link] reflects their collective vision on how Massachusetts can successfully deal with child maltreatment and reclaim its historic role of leadership in meeting the essential needs of all its children.  (page 9)”

Access full report here:  A State Call to Action:  Working to End Child Abuse and Neglect in Massachusetts

This report, which represents the combined hard work and dedication of a LOT of people, was generated in response to

“…the National Call To Action to End Child Maltreatment, initiated by Children’s Hospital and Health Center-San Diego at its January 1999 “Conference on Responding to Child Maltreatment.”  This effort to end child abuse and neglect has now brought together over 30 of this country’s leading organizations in a coalition to address this national crisis.”

I want to know what the results of the intentions and the efforts this report represents are NOW a decade later.  As far as I can tell, the most accessible current information is available HERE.

There is a link on this page to “Who’s For Kids and Who’s Just Kidding?” – This is a November 2010 citizen’s guide to candidates’ stands on these issues:

– Reducing Child Poverty

– Supporting Low-Income Working Families

– Providing Early Education and Care

– Improving Children’s Health

– Preventing Child Sexual Abuse

– Protecting Children In Foster Care

– Improving Juvenile Justice

These are among the questions posed to the candidates – good ones to be posed to ANY candidate for any position in America!

“Massachusetts boasts the third highest per capita income in the nation, yet 12%, or nearly 170,000 of our state’s children are living in poverty; 6% or 88,000 live in extreme poverty in households with annual earnings of only $11,000 for a family of four.  What will you do to bridge this persistent economic divide and to ensure greater economic security to lift these children out of poverty?”

“What will you do to address the harmful impact of the growing gap between low and high income earners in Massachusetts?”

“What will you do to tangibly improve the conditions of poor children and their families in the Commonwealth’s poorest cities, such as Holyoke, Lawrence, Springfield and New Bedford?”

Taking a look at some of the issues presented in this Massachusetts ‘flyer’ makes me wonder what’s happening in the very poor and middle income states within our nation.  Interspersed with this information being reported here are questions for the candidates:

PROVIDING EARLY EDUCATION AND CARE

– 43% of 3rd graders in the Bay State do not read at grade level, and two-thirds of these children are from low-income families.  The impact of reading failure on these children and our state is enormous, with many likely to become our lowest income and least skilled citizens tomorrow.

– Science has never been clearer about the long-term effects of early environment and experience on a child’s brain architecture.  Research confirms that providing high quality early education and care to children from low-income homes yields a 10% to 16% return on investment to the economy through better reading skills, greater high school graduation rates, college attendance, and healthier lives.

[me:  not to mention the power of a little one 0-3 growing an optimal body-brain IN EVERY WAY in a safe and secure attachment within a VERY low stressor environment, which also includes its effects on preverbal-verbal development]

– Organizations and schools have worked tirelessly over the past decade to press the state to build a system of universal access to affordable, accessible, and high quality services with well-trained teachers.  They have supported parents in playing a critical role in their child’s educational success.  To meet those goals, Massachusetts formed the nation’s first Department of Early Education and Care in 2005.

FACTS ABOUT OUR KIDS:

– 61% of Massachusetts’ 480,422 children ages birth through 5 years old have parents who are in the labor force, and most of these parents have child care needs.  92%of children under age seven are cared for regularly by someone other than a parent.  However, the quality of these arrangements varies enormously.

– Children from low-income families entering kindergarten are typically 12 to 14 months below national norms in language and pre-reading skills.  [bolding mine]  By 4th grade, many of these children will not be able to read or understand up to half of what is taught to them in the 4th grade curriculum, and most will continue to be poor readers even through high school.

– Only 32% of kindergarten and preschool teachers in Massachusetts hold a Bachelor’s degree versus 50% nationwide.  And only 16% of child care workers have graduated from a four-year school.

– By the end of fiscal year 2009, state funding for Universal Pre-K declined from $12 million to $7.5 million while funding for full-day kindergarten programs declined from $33.8 million to $22.9 million.

IMPROVING CHILDREN’S HEALTH

– Thanks to the expansion of health care coverage under Massachusetts law, the state has some of the best child health outcomes in the country.  In fact, Massachusetts ranks among the top three best states on key indicators of child health, including infant mortality, the death rate for children and the rate of births to teen moms, according to the latest KIDS COUNT data.

– Currently, only 2% of children are officially uninsured in the state.  Furthermore, 80% of children on Medicaid receive an annual health screening and 91% of our two-tear-olds are immunized.  Massachusetts is one of only six states where at-risk children are eligible for early intervention, special education and preventive health and mental health services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

– Despite these accomplishments, Massachusetts is still a tale of two states with regard to physical, dental and mental health outcomes for children living in the poorest communities.

FACTS ABOUT OUR KIDS

[lists double or more increases in percentages between low-income and the state percentages for child problems with infant mortality, teen births, environmental poisoning such as lead]

– Dental decay is the most common chronic childhood disease and is at epidemic levels among many low-income Black and Hispanic children.  It often leads to speech, nutrition and learning difficulties.  [low-income counties affected are listed]

– Mental health care needs in children are more prevalent than leukemia, diabetes, and AIDS combined.  However, parents of children with mental illness report serious issues ranging from long waits for services and inadequate training of school personnel to high out-of-pocket expenses. [also states that state Medicaid only covers an inadequate amount of only $250 a year for child prescriptions – also lists questions for candidates]

– Nearly 37,000 Massachusetts children were confirmed abused or neglected in 2008.  Cases of child sexual abuse rose 16% from the previous year, physical abuse rose 12% and neglect 10%.

– Child sexual abuse is “a silent epidemic,” according to the American Medical Association.  Surveys of adults indicate that one in four women and one in six men have experienced some for of sexual abuse before the age of 18.  Many victims suffer into adulthood with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, eating disorders, relationship problems and further sexual or physical victimization.  Among sexual abuse survivors, 70% to 80% report excessive drug and alcohol use and are more likely than their non-abused peers to develop psychiatric disorders and to attempt suicide.  Girls who report childhood sexual abuse are three times more likely to become pregnant before age 18.

– An estimated $23 billion dollars are spent each year as law enforcement agencies, courts, child protection, health and mental health systems, and social service programs struggle to deal with the aftermath of this epidemic. Prevention and early identification of victims and abusers hold the best promise of reducing the human and economic costs.  Despite this, most communities have not been mobilized for prevention, most adults are not protecting children from people who might abuse them, and most parents are not communicating to their children about a major health and safety risk.

– 50% of 650 Massachusetts citizens polled ranked “safety from abuse” as most important to a child’s well-being with quality education, medical care, economic security and child care compromising the remainder 50%

– 90% of Massachusetts residents polled believe that child sexual abuse is a serious problem in the Commonwealth, 85% believe child sexual abuse can be prevented, and 67% said they were interested in local trainings to learn how – up from 48% in a previous survey.

– Since 2002, a coalition of over 20 Massachusetts organizations has been working through the Enough Abuse Campaign to develop and test innovative programs to prevent child sexual abuse.  Hailed as a “trailblazing effort” by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) the Campaign operates in a dozen communities across the state.

[Information included here about foster care placements and kinship care needs]

On Juvenile Criminal Issues:

– Black youth are more than nine times as likely to be held in secure confinement as white youth – yet there is no evidence that black youth commit more crimes, or more serious crimes, than white youth.

– Massachusetts is one of only 12 states that consider 17-year-olds adults under the criminal law.

– Massachusetts has the 11th highest rate of juveniles sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in the country.

– The stark racial disparities in the Massachusetts juvenile justice system call into question the fundamental fairness of the system and represents one of the foremost civil rights challenges of our time.

– Massachusetts does not collect basic juvenile justice system data, e.g. what types of crimes youth are being prosecuted for.  This lack of data makes it impossible to evaluate the effectiveness of prevention and intervention efforts. [questions for the candidates here includes those on probation and rehabilitation issues]

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+FOR THOSE WHO CARE: ‘KIDS COUNT’ IS OUR PREMIER SOURCE FOR INFO ON OUR NATION’S CHILD WELL-BEING

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Are you one in the caring compassionate category who likes to keep your finger on the pulse of quality-of-life for our nation’s infants and children? Did you know that there’s a project sponsored by The Annie E. Casey Foundation dedicated to “Helping vulnerable kids and families succeed?”  Below you will find links to the most up-to-date and accurate information about the ‘state of the union’ of our nation’s most at-risk offspring.

Click here to reach KIDS COUNT DATA CENTER where anyone can “access hundreds of measures of child well-being.”  I ‘friended’ KIDS COUNT on Facebook so that I receive all kinds of valuable information on the state of our nation’s vulnerable little ones ASAP!  This is the link to KIDS COUNT main page.

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KIDS COUNT The Annie E. Casey Foundation is now on Facebook. Become their fan and receive updates on current and future work related to children and families: http://ow.ly/3DarQ

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On KIDS COUNT main data bank website you can access DATA BY STATE

  • Data within the bounds of a single state or territory
  • Includes community-level data
  • Search by location or topic
  • Create profiles, maps, rankings, line graphs, or raw data

As well as DATA ACROSS STATES

  • Data spanning the U.S.
  • Compare states or cities
  • Search by topic
  • Create maps, rankings, line graphs, or raw data

There is even a KIDS COUNT DATA CENTER HELP PAGE

Some of the information you can access on this site (well, the full report pdf file didn’t open on my computer but might on yours!) –

This is the list of key indicators the KIDS COUNT collects national data on about child well-being for The 2010 KIDS COUNT DATA BOOK:

Updated on 1/26/2011

·  CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT DATA AVAILABLE 12/1/2010

Congressional District data are now available for over 20 indicators including many of the poverty and employment indicators obtained from the 2009 American Community Survey.

Access the profile for your congressional district in Data By State and/or watch this short video to see how you can get started.

NEW EMPLOYMENT DATA AVAILABLE 11/23/2010

The Economic Well-Being section in Data Across States has been updated. Data includes estimates from the 2009 American Community Survey. Updated data for the U.S., states, and cities:
§ Children below 250% poverty
§ Children in low-income working families by age group
§ Children living in low-income households where no adults work
§ Children living in families where no parent has full-time, year round employment
§ Children living in families where no parent has full-time, year round employment, by race (US and states only)
§ Children age 6 to 12 with all available parents in the labor force
§ Median family (with child) income
§ Low-income working families with children

POPULAR TOPICS — Updated on 1/26/2011

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This is an example of other information that KIDS COUNT disseminates.  This information appeared on my Facebook page yesterday:

The Nation’s Report Card – Kids Scores in Science

Fewer than one-half of students perform at or above the Proficient level in science at all three grades

“Students throughout the nation in grades 4, 8, and 12 participated in the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in science. The assessment was updated in 2009 to keep the content current with key developments in science, curriculum standards, and research. To establish the baseline for future science assessments, the overall average score for each grade was set at 150 on a 0 to 300 scale.

  • Thirty-four percent of fourth-graders, 30 percent of eighth-graders, and 21 percent of twelfth-graders performed at or above the Proficient level.
  • Seventy-two percent of fourth-graders, 63 percent of eighth-graders, and 60 percent of twelfth-graders performed at or above the Basic level.
  • One percent of fourth-graders, 2 percent of eighth-graders, and 1 percent of twelfth-graders performed at the Advanced level.
  • Scores were higher than the nation in 24 states/jurisdictions at fourth-grade and 25 states/jurisdictions at eighth-grade.
  • At grade 12, there was no significant difference in scores for White and Asian/Pacific Islander students, and both groups scored higher on average than other racial/ethnic groups.”

Explore more national and state results.

For more information, browse the report online or download a copy of the report.

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This information also appeared on my Facebook page yesterday from KIDS COUNT on data they have collected:

Children in low-income households where housing costs exceed 30 percent of income (Percent) – 2009 (updated November 2010)

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+A MOST IMPORTANT LINK HERE ON FEEDING OUR NATION’S 22.5% HUNGRY LITTLE ONES — GET INVOLVED!

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Taking a look at JUST ONE component of the suffering of millions of our children I see this:

–More than one in five children (22.5 percent) live in families who are food insecure – meaning they struggle against hunger and report not having enough to eat

Do you personally know any of these most-hungry infants and children?  Do you have them in your household?  In your neighborhood?  In your city or county?

YES you have them in your nation – and not a ‘handful’ of them, either?

THIS IS THE WEBSITE FOR FEEDING AMERICA

There is an interactive national MAP for FEEDING AMERICA ACROSS THE NATION here

This website is presenting undeniable FACTS about ONLY one measure of our nation’s offspring’s’ lack of well-being.  PLEASE take a look – and then TAKE ACTION.

Take a look at the 2010 report about Hunger in America.

Find your closest Food Bank.

Register with Feeding America.

Take Action Now!

CARE AND CAREGIVE!!

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While we cannot argue about the United Nation’s facts about the suffering of a large percentage of America’s infants and children, or their facts regarding the appalling gap in our nation between the rich infant-children who ‘have’ and the poor ones who ‘have not’, we can PRETEND that everyone in our nation is created equal because we choose to IGNORE these facts.

Trauma, deprivation, abuse, neglect, exposure to violence to self and to others, affect the way an infant-child’s body-brain develops. This blog is packed with posts containing information about this fact.  Infants and children ESPECIALLY FROM AGE 0-3 will suffer from the greatest physiological changes to their development due to the malevolence in their earliest caregiving environments.

When Trauma Altered Development happens, those who survive it will NOT BE CREATED EQUAL – in their body-brain – to those who had a more benevolent early beginning.  THIS IS A FACT!

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The growing GAP in our nation between those who HAVE and those who DO NOT HAVE is becoming easier to ignore because of this GAP.  Many Americans live in their RICHER neighborhoods while the POOR live in theirs.  “Out of sight, out of mind?”

In this post I want to highlight something that EVERYONE in our nation can do to help.  In people who were raised within a ‘good enough’ early environment if not an optimal safe and secure attachment home, our EMPATHY AND COMPASSION caregiving system was SUPPOSED to be developed within our physiology RIGHT.  This means that we are able to DETECT the suffering of others of our species so that we can RESPOND WITH APPROPRIATE CAREGIVING.

It is a very real physiological fact that trauma and malevolence we are exposed to in our earliest 0-3 developmental stages alters the development of our attachment systems which causes our EMPATHY and COMPASSION and ABILITY TO RESPOND WITH APPROPRIATE CAREGIVING do NOT develop optimally.  I would say ‘normally’ but it seems to be that what our species is OPTIMALLY capable of offering individuals who are raised 0-3 in the BEST conditions is NOT HAPPENING.

Looking at the end result, that we as a nation are content to allow growing and LARGE numbers of our offspring to suffer – and hence suffer in their physiological development so that their entire lifespan will lack the basics of well-being – means to me simply that THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS somehow MISSED out on optimal development as members of their species.  “The proof is in the pudding!”

OPTIMAL growth and development in safe and secure attachment caregiving environments ESPECIALLY 0-3 means that these too-rare gifts of our species – empathy, compassion and abilities to respond with appropriate caregiving to others – has evidently NOT HAPPENED for the majority of Americans – no matter how MATERIALLY well-off they may have been in the beginning of their lives or how well-off they are now.

Evidently even though America still remains among the globe’s 24 richest countries, our wealth with its increasingly uneven distribution has NOTHING to do with the condition of our nation’s PEOPLE as human beings.

How are we as individuals and as members of a (once great?) nation able to ignore facts such as I presented in this recent post?

+PLEASE CHECK OUT THIS REPORT ON AMERICA’S CHILDREN IN RECESSION TIMES

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+RECESSION BUDGET CUTS – DESTROYING HOPE FOR THOSE THAT SUFFER MOST

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We must not lose sight of the facts about the immediate and long-term consequences that malevolent trauma has on growing infant-children.  There is nothing about being an American that changes the outcome that severe stress-distress has on physiological development during a little one’s MOST CRITICAL stages of early growth.

As this blog repeats over and over again neglect, abuse, deprivation, exposure to violent conflict including verbal abuse to ANYONE in an infant-child’s environment and other conditions of an early unsafe, insecure, inadequate early attachment environment WILL IMPACT physiology in development, thus changing the body a survivor will live in and with for the rest of their lifespan.

I want to highlight here yet again the important work the Center for Disease Control has been accomplishing to PROVE the link between Early Adverse Childhood experiences and lifelong adult suffering of all kinds.  As states within our nation deliberate about how to meet their budgets IN THE RED it will MOST OFTEN happen that assistance to the most desperate infant-children, their families, along with assistance to poor and sick who are MOST LIKELY adult survivors of infant-child malevolent environments will be cut.

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CHILD ABUSE SURVIVORSHIP IN THE NEWS:

Childhood Trauma May Shorten Life By 20 Years

CDC Research Finds Problems in Childhood Can Be Lifelong

By JOSEPH BROWNSTEIN
ABC News Medical Unit
Oct. 6, 2009

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The Center for Disease Control’s Adverse Childhood Experience (CDC-ACE) study is not without limitations.  All 17,421 participants were insurance members which means that information from the many other uninsured levels of our society were not included.   If they had been (or are in the future) how much more child abuse connected lifelong adult devastation would be seen?

I would like to see the model of this study expanded through the use of the ACE questionnaires in a far wider variety of settings, preferably included in every human well-being study our nation produces.  At the moment, I want to simply highlight the important work the CDC has been doing over the past 14 years with its studies of the consequences of child abuse for survivors for your thought and consideration by presenting some information from their website on Adverse Childhood Experiences as follows:

The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study is one of the largest investigations ever conducted on the links between childhood maltreatment and later-life health and well-being. As a collaboration between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente’s Health Appraisal Clinic in San Diego, Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) members undergoing a comprehensive physical examination provided detailed information about their childhood experience of abuse, neglect, and family dysfunction. Over 17,000 members chose to participate. To date, over 50 scientific articles have been published and over 100 conference and workshop presentations have been made.

The ACE Study findings suggest that these experiences are major risk factors for the leading causes of illness and death as well as poor quality of life in the United States. Progress in preventing and recovering from the nation’s worst health and social problems is likely to benefit from the understanding that many of these problems arise as a consequence of adverse childhood experiences.

Here is one website about the study:

The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study:  Bridging the gap between childhood trauma and negative consequences later in life.

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About the study:

The ACE Study was initiated at Kaiser Permanente from 1995 to 1997, and its participants are over 17,000 members who were undergoing a standardized physical examination. No further participants will be enrolled, but we are tracking the medical status of the baseline participants.

Each study participant completed a confidential survey that contained questions about childhood maltreatment and family dysfunction, as well as items detailing their current health status and behaviors. This information was combined with the results of their physical examination to form the baseline data for the study.

The prospective phase of the ACE Study is currently underway, and will assess the relationship between adverse childhood experiences, health care use, and causes of death.

More detailed scientific information about the study design can be found in “The relationship of adult health status to childhood abuse and household dysfunction,”* published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in 1998, Volume 14, pages 245-258.

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The ACE Pyramid represents the conceptual framework for the Study. During the time period of the 1980s and early 1990s information about risk factors for disease had been widely researched and merged into public education and prevention programs. However, it was also clear that risk factors, such as smoking, alcohol abuse, and sexual behaviors for many common diseases were not randomly distributed in the population. In fact, it was known that risk factors for many chronic diseases tended to cluster, that is, persons who had one risk factor tended to have one or more others.

Because of this knowledge, the ACE Study was designed to assess what we considered to be “scientific gaps” about the origins of risk factors. These gaps are depicted as the two arrows linking Adverse Childhood Experiences to risk factors that lead to the health and social consequences higher up the pyramid. Specifically, the study was designed to provide data that would help answer the question: “If risk factors for disease, disability, and early mortality are not randomly distributed, what influences precede the adoption or development of them?” By providing information to answer this question, we hoped to provide scientific information that would be useful for the development of new and more effective prevention programs.

The ACE Study takes a whole life perspective, as indicated on the orange arrow leading from conception to death. By working within this framework, the ACE Study began to progressively uncover how childhood stressors (ACE) are strongly related to development and prevalence of risk factors for disease and health and social well-being throughout the lifespan.

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Major Findings

Childhood abuse, neglect, and exposure to other traumatic stressors which we term adverse childhood experiences (ACE) are common. Almost two-thirds of our study participants reported at least one ACE, and more than one in five reported three or more ACE. The short- and long-term outcomes of these childhood exposures include a multitude of health and social problems. The ACE Study uses the ACE Score, which is a count of the total number of ACE respondents reported. The ACE Score is used to assess the total amount of stress during childhood and has demonstrated that as the number of ACE increase, the risk for the following health problems increases in a strong and graded fashion:

  • alcoholism and alcohol abuse
  • chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
  • depression
  • fetal death
  • health-related quality of life
  • illicit drug use
  • ischemic heart disease (IHD)
  • liver disease
  • risk for intimate partner violence
  • multiple sexual partners
  • sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)
  • smoking
  • suicide attempts
  • unintended pregnancies

In addition, the ACE Study has also demonstrated that the ACE Score has a strong and graded relationship to health-related behaviors and outcomes during childhood and adolescence including early initiation of smoking, sexual activity, and illicit drug use, adolescent pregnancies, and suicide attempts. Finally, as the number of ACE increases the number of co-occurring or “co-morbid” conditions increases.

Content source: Division of Adult and Community Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

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Adverse Childhood Experiences Study Questionnaires – AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE

This is the simplest version of the ACE questionnaire I have seen that consists of ten questions: What’s YOUR ACE Score?  Help me calculate my ACE Score.

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+TO BE ‘WALKED RIGHT THROUGH’ – WHAT MY BODY REMEMBERS ABOUT MY NONEXISTANT SELF

alchemynowLeave a comment

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I suspect that knowledge of the threat of death, even if existing only on a cellular level within our DNA, must accompany a newborn infant into this world.  Why else would a person’s life force naturally accomplish all that is possible to remain alive?  Is safe and secure attachment to caregivers designed to somehow banish this awareness of the threat of death?  Is this part of the mechanics of change that severe infant abuse/trauma (especially) maltreated survivors never lose when we never had those attachments?

When the caregivers are NOT the source of protection but are rather the transmitters of harm and great violence, what THEN happens to this awareness of the threat of death?

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It seems almost strange to me that as I wait this morning for the HUD housing inspector to park in my yard this afternoon it is the awareness of the continuity throughout my entire life since my birthing of this awareness of the threat of death that is being fed into my thinking directly from the way my body is feeling right now.

As I pay attention I understand that ‘being walked right through’ is a big part of what I am sensing in my body connected to its memory.  Yes, this inspector will ‘walk right through’ this entire personal, sacred, precious space of my home that is so much a part of ME right now.

The ‘being walked right through’ feels both extremely threatening to me right now and extremely familiar.  It brings to mind my memory of being 21, walking around the northern town I lived in alone late at night in a snowstorm as I stood with my bare hands out in front of me, looked at my palms and heard a ‘voice’ say to me from within:  “I am a wraith.”

At that time I didn’t even ‘logically’ know what the word wraith meant.  Searching online I find that it is used mostly this way:

1 –an apparition of a living person supposed to portend his or her death.

2 — a visible spirit.

The origins of the word appear to be unclear though either Scottish or Celtic origins are suspected.  Most of my genetic heritage is linked to these cultures.

For all the thousands of physical attacks I endured during the 18 years of my childhood, never – not one single time – did I experience of a sense that I as a person-self existed in the body that was being pummeled.  I didn’t have that sense because I DIDN’T exist.  And it wasn’t until that instant in that snowstorm that the first vague and distant clue arrived that I, in fact, did exist.

Until that instant there had never been a connection for me between my BODY and a ME-SELF capable of realizing anything about my own existence.

The two pieces of information had simply never built themselves into the associational networks in my brain.  For this connection between body and awareness of self to come to me, and then for a connection to be made between the self as being connected to that body to happen SO LATE in my life would be nearly unbelievable to me if I didn’t know my own life story.

MY SELF-self HAD always been ‘walked right through’.  My self, as existing not connected to my body, did not receive the physical blows that would have let it know it existed in time and space.  My body obviously knew this information.  It had suffered greatly.

My invisible self, my wraith self – contrary to definition in the dictionary – appeared for the first time when I was 21 not because I was on the verge of DYING but because I was on the verge of COMING ALIVE.

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Today I struggle with staying in and with my body as I go through this distress-provoking experience related to my well-being.  My body, with its in-built ancient DNA instinctual wisdom DID endure, DID persevere.  But this SELF I am with my awareness of my SELF existence remains only tenuously connected.  The two can very easily become disassociated rather than associated with one another.

My SELF does not want to become nonexistent.  I am very aware that in my case, given my unique history, that the fight to self-preserve happened IN MY BODY, but not in any way with this SELF I work to identify with today.

It is this self, who recognized herself for the first time when I was 21 in those words, “I am a wraith,” who knows what it was like to have no existence so that it could be ‘walked right through’ for my first 18 long years of torture.

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This is not an easy day……

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+BLOGGING AND THINKING WITH A TRAUMA-CHANGED BRAIN

alchemynowLeave a comment

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I live in and with an over-sensitized, over-sensitive, anxiety-trauma-built body.  Among the changes that happened in my physiological development is that ALL of me was changed in adaptation to severe abuse and violent trauma from the moment I was born and during the following 18 years I could not escape my mother.  This includes how my brain was structured from the beginning of life so that NOW it operates differently from ‘ordinary’.

These facts of course affect not only my thinking, but my writing as well.  I FORCE myself to think in words, which is an essential process that I do not obscure in my writing.

Although I am not ‘autistic’ my patterns of thinking can be as disconcerting to follow verbally as an autistic person’s can be.  I do not – because I really cannot – attempt to obscure from my writing how my brain (hence, I) move forward in time within the realm of words.

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Blogging has comfortingly allowed me to write in loops and circles.  What my body knows (as with everyone’s) provides information through my right brain that must then be handed over to my left brain for linear-logical-verbal exposure to consciousness.  In order for this process to happen, all this back-and-forth has to involve the ‘bridge’ between my two brain hemispheres – my corpus callosum.  As is well known and is much written about today, the development of both brains and the bridge between them is greatly affected by severe abuse, neglect, trauma, violence and malevolent treatment during the brain’s most critical early stages of growth.

I suffer from these consequences.  But I am determined and courageous.  It is my intent to make the most good possible come out of my disastrous early beginnings, and as is my prayer every day of my life, to at least offer something that might help someone else.

When I began this blog in April of 2009 I could not go back and reread or edit in any way anything that I wrote.  Whatever state I was in when I wrote was not one I could return to even in the immediate future.  I had no tolerance for my own words as if I was deadly allergic to them.  What I wrote about had been deadly toxic to me – and remained so.

I have made SOME progress, although most of the time I have to ‘look the other way’ as the words come out.  Having entirely lacked any concept of ‘being a self’ or of ‘having a self’ for the first 18 years of my life has left me with that all too familiar dissociational condition of being ‘depersonalized’ so that once a single instant of time has passed by in my life it becomes the ‘dereal’ past – not directly connected to me in any way unless I consciously, logically FORCE an awareness of a connection.

But I do not FEEL connected to myself as a ‘past entity’ or as a ‘future entity’.  All perception of time was built into my body-brain in the midst of ongoing severe trauma, and I now believe that if there is NEVER a sense of safety or security (as expressed in human attachment relationships), when there is no safe and secure time to REST between experiences of trauma, the acute trauma stage with its altered sense of time becomes permanent.

This also affects me as I think in written words.  I am ‘mind blind’ to words that are going to follow one another.  I have to, again, ‘look the other way’ rather than anticipate where my thoughts are going.  I believe when Dr. Daniel Siegel speaks of ‘Mind Sight’ he is referring to consequences such as I suffer from.  In my courage and determination I do not let these alterations stop me.

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Sometimes my posts must seem redundant to this blog’s faithful readers.  Every post I write has to have enough inner integrity that it can be found through someone’s future online search, read, and understood in context.  This is an example of this process in motion over time:

Posted yesterday in comment to a post:  +A LONG, THOUGHTFUL LOOK AT VERBAL ABUSE AS MALIGNANT TEASING

Word Count: 5876

“I googled “teasing as verbal abuse” because i wanted to read something exactly like this.”

This post is a long one.  Yet somehow within its structure of words it held something of helpful meaning to this reader – and I am glad it did!

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Because of my brain being built in the midst of severe trauma my emotional right limbic brain and the body that feeds it information IS overly sensitive-sensitized.  I will struggle with ‘failure’ on a primal level within me for the rest of my life, so when a comment comes in like this one, I struggle directly with the ‘rejection’ that it triggered:

Posted yesterday in a comment to post:   +INSECURE INFANT ATTACHMENT, DAY CARE AND EMOTIONAL NEGLECT

Word Count: 1234

“I’ve been skimming your recent posts (sorry, they’re a little long)”

And this post was a relatively short one.  Of course I welcome all comments.  My discomfort has nothing to do with the words of the commenter – nearly everything about being alive in my body is a trauma trigger to me, so pervasive was the malevolent trauma that built me!

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Now, THIS post is a very long one and I thought about perhaps figuring out a way to impose some structure on it at the time it was posted.  And yet dividing one of my thought stream writing processes into segments, like chapters, doesn’t work well in this blog’s format.  Although it easily contains enough words for 4-5 posts, it needs to remain a ‘stand alone’ piece for someone to discover sometime in the future as a ‘whole thing’ with its context intact.

January 16, 2011 post:  +TO BE OR NOT TO BE — HUMAN OR OBJECT: EARLY ATTACHMENT PATTERNS DECIDE AS THEY BUILD OUR ANS

Word count: 4095

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Computerized reading is nicely designed to allow for scanning and skimming.  Any post can also be read in parts over time – put down and picked up again like a book.

Somehow, to me, the nature of my writing-thinking process is integral to the purpose of this blog.  Nothing comes easily.  Nothing comes without effort.  When a severe infant-child abuse survivor attempts to accomplish a lifespan in a body-brain that was altered and changed in its development by trauma, nothing about our life happens in a simple straightforward way.  This can be especially true with our patterns of processing words that match our experience.

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NOTE:  It is always best to come directly to the blog post as it exists in real time because I DO now often go back after the post is published and make changes — exactly as I am at this moment.

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+THE ABSENCE OF SAFE AND SECURE ATTACHMENT AND THE NEED TO SELF-PRESERVE

alchemynowLeave a comment

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This will not be an easy day for me, nor did the event I anticipate happening today let me have much sleep last night.  Because I try as hard as I can to learn something useful out of every difficulty I encounter, the experience I am having right now must have a pearl at the center of it somewhere.

Being quite low income (fixed disability) I put my name on the local HUD Section 8 Rental Assistance program waiting list over three years ago.  My name came up.  Fortunately my kind, supportive, caring, helpful, loving and very clear-thinking daughter was willing to take care of the first level of paperwork when she came down to visit earlier this month.  This afternoon the housing inspector comes over to take a look around.

There is no way that I can escape the anxiety this entire scenario creates for me.  And this level of anxiety, because it threatens the entire safety and security of my life, disorganizes and disorients me.  In short, it hurts.

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Older houses in this border region were never built by rich people.  They don’t match anyone’s ‘building code’.  In the four plus years I’ve been renting this one I, and my loving brother when he comes to visit, have made every improvement that my limited budget could afford.

I have been cleaning and painting – and rearranging – and waiting – and stressing in my own unique distressed way for weeks.  Knowing the wiring in this house is really inadequate, and that my usual string of extension cords would be a dead give-a-way to that fact, I have worked to eliminate them.  Then there’s heating the inspector won’t like.  There’s all kinds of things about this house the inspector might not like.

Will he, can he make exceptions to his rules?  Will he overlook things in this poor house so its poor tenant can continue to live here?

Not knowing.  The unknown.  The helplessness and powerlessness and vulnerability and fear – no terror – I feel.  Dare I hope?

This is my home.  This and my gardens.  This spot on the earth I have found.  I do not want to move.  I cannot imagine moving.  Moving would be a malevolent traumatization to me that I can not imagine enduring or surviving.

If this house does not pass inspection, will my landlord alter-fix what needs to be done to make it pass?

I don’t know that, either.

If it comes to having to move from here to keep my valuable rental assistance voucher – what will I decide to do?

I do not know.

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Vulnerability is not good for me.  Being of low resources is not good for me, but it is the way my life is and I am grateful for all the programs I receive help from – at the same time I feel guilty, and feel sad for all those much needier than me, those with young children, all those who struggle – and I think I should have let my expiration date pass when my cancer came instead of fighting it, enduring, remaining alive, consuming resources that I cannot earn or pay for on my own.

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There’s a lot at risk.  There’s a lot at stake.  This strange man will come into my house, do his job, prowl around with his critical and meticulous eye, doing his job.  Will he look into every crack and crevice, every cupboard, every closet, peer here and there asking his questions, and will I be able to remain calm enough – not panic – not dissolve into the too-familiar tears that often come now when my anxiety erupts into escalated disaster-based emotions?

My home is my solace.  My infant-childhood abuse and trauma-related disabilities keep me mostly HERE in this place of my safety, security and comfort – such as I can wrest now from this world I abide in.  I do not leave here often, and do not go very far.  I can’t.

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Yesterday as I forced myself through the final stages of preparation for what FEELS LIKE an attack on my hard won well-being in my tiny corner of the world, I became very aware of my heightened depression and of its connection to one critically important state of existence.

In part because of my recent readings and study about how ALL attachment relationships are about PROTECTION first and foremost – protection of the BODY that holds the SELF – I realized that what triggers my deepest sadness (and it was triggered yesterday and certainly here it is today) – is the most ancient pervasive overwhelming state that I spent the first 18 years of my life in:

NOBODY is here to help me.  NOBODY is here to protect me.  NOBODY cares if I live or die (as an infant-child I was very aware they wanted me dead).  I am IN THIS ALONE.  I am desperate.  I am threatened.  My extinction is imminent.

I have to pause here and wait through my disorganized-disoriented storm, searching for words, for a pattern of thinking in words that I can reach for, grab onto, and follow as if dragged forward through time from this moment into the next one and the next one.

What?

I know I know it.  I know I know what I want to say.  I know that I am a self and that this self knows.  I know this scrambling is directly connected to how trauma formed my brain – my right brain, my left brain, the middle of the two – all changed by trauma so that thinking in words can be impossible at the same time emotions consume my body.

What?

I go back to the beginning.  No protection.  AHH!  That’s the word:  Self-preservation.

From the instant I was born if I was going to stay alive in the midst of violent trauma and abuse, if I was going to stay alive it was up to me to preserve my own self.

NOBODY as a tiny infant-toddler-child born tiny and helpless and needy and vulnerable and dependent SHOULD EVER HAVE TO KNOW THIS FEELING.

This is what I felt so strongly yesterday as I dragged my great depression and growing sadness about this inspection and all that hangs weighted in the balance.  This terrible sadness I drag around through my life as a ball-and-chain.

Being deprived by violent trauma and abuse without having a safe and secure attachment to ANYONE for 18 years – and surviving that IN SPITE of this fact – I self-preserved.  I persevered in my self-preservation – but there was and is a high, high cost.

That cost is sadness.

That cost is hurt.

When I read in the article posted yesterday about child abuse consequences that Substance P IS INVOLVED – as I know it is – I can now hang my sadness on that hook.  Being not only deprived for 18 years of ANY protection because I was deprived of ANY attachment – at the same time I was continually attacked by those same people nature had designated to be my caregivers – self-preservation grew and grew and took the place of what I needed and was SUPPOSED to have at the same time great pain and sadness grew within me at the same time.

Facing this inspection today with all the threat to my safety and security it entails, threatens also to overwhelm me with this sadness.  My abilities to self-preserve are coupled with this pain.

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+CLEAR ARTICLE ON LIFELONG INFANT-CHILD TRAUMA CONSEQUENCES

alchemynow2 Comments

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Although I am nothing like a ‘scientific expert’ on the topics I present on this blog, I sure can recognize comprehensive outside support articles on what exposure to passive and active malevolent treatment including violent trauma (including emotional and verbal abuse), emotional neglect, physical neglect and unsafe and insecure early caregiver attachments do to change the physiological and psychological development of infants, toddler, children and teens.

This article by Dr. McCollum that I present here today presents the topic of what I call Trauma Altered Development (TAD) in a clear, lay-readable format.  For all the times that I have mentioned that I believe that TAD directly affects the human developing immune system, I find the material in this article supportive of my belief.

The term being used here, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) comes from our nation’s Center for Disease Control (CDC) and is working to standardize the measurement across scientific fields of study related to suffering in infant-childhood caused by trauma in a little one’s earliest environment.

One of my strongest suggestions for standardizing all research about infant-child abuse and its lifelong consequences would be implementation of a federal-state mandate that would require that every American receiving any kind of health care services fill out a CDC ACE study questionnaire and that the results of these reports be accumulated in a federal (confidential) databank.

The article that follows gives us convincing reasons for believing that making the connection between the overall well-being of our nation’s offspring is of critical national interest.  If the subject of infant-child lack of well-being, neglect and abuse ever crosses a person’s mind, the following is the kind of information that needs to inform their thinking.  (I believe many forms of arthritis and cancer belong to the ‘health consequence list’. We also can no longer ignore the epigenetic changes that child abuse often creates that can also be passed down the generations.)

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I located this March 2006 article today on the Minnesota Medicine website, and have copied it over onto my blog for educational purposes only (please click on article title to find the list of references):

Clinical and Health Affairs — Child Maltreatment and Brain Development

By David McCollum, M.D.

Abstract
“A growing body of research has linked childhood experiences of maltreatment with a host of physical conditions that manifest in adulthood. In addition, newer neuroimaging techniques have documented structural changes that occur in the brains of individuals who suffer early maltreatment. This article briefly reviews the literature on these topics and outlines the connection between abuse in childhood and health problems in adulthood.

It has long been observed that some children raised in violent, abusive, or neglectful settings grow up to express violence, anger, depression, or to be engaged in drug use, alcoholism, or criminal activity. The thinking has been that children copy what they see and hear. When anti-social behavior is the norm and when it is reinforced by adults in the environment, children repeat it. During the past 15 years, scientific and clinical research has begun to document that more is at work. Anatomical and functional alterations occur in the brains of children who are exposed to adverse events.1 Research has also shed light on the less obvious link between childhood abuse and lifetime physical and mental health outcomes.2,3 This article reviews some of the research showing the neurobiological, neuroanatomical, and physiological effects of early life stressors and how they might relate to ongoing medical problems later in life.

The Connection between Abuse and Disease
Repeated exposure to adverse or harmful events in childhood has been linked to many adult health consequences. The adverse experiences that have been studied most are sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect. Anda et al. identified additional experiences that influence health behavior and outcomes, including mother treated violently, mental illness, substance abuse, incarcerated household member, and parental separation or divorce.4 Because at least 30% of children in this country experience some form of child abuse prior to age 18, we can expect adverse childhood experiences to have a significant impact on the health care system.5

New technologies such as functional MRI, PET, and MRI/T2 relaxometry (T2-RT) have enabled scientists to identify the chemical and structural differences between the central nervous systems of abused and nonabused individuals.6,7 This research shows that many health problems—including panic disorder/post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, depression, some auto-immune disorders, suicidal tendencies, abnormal fear responses, preterm labor, chronic pain syndromes, and ovarian dysfunction—can be understood, in some cases, as manifestations of childhood maltreatment.8-13

Brain Development
An infant’s brain is equipped with an overabundance of neurons, synaptic potential, and dendrites. DNA is responsible for early brain development. But after birth, experience helps to determine which neurons will persist, which synapses will develop and become permanent, and which connections will take prominence or be subdued. Myelination, formation of the protective sheath surrounding nerve fibers, continues throughout childhood and, in some areas of the brain, into the third decade of life. This process establishes final, permanent linkages within the brain structures.14

The limbic system is the part of the brain most vulnerable to adverse childhood experiences. The system is made up of the amygdala, hippocampus, cingulate gyrus, thalamus, hypothalamus, and putamen. Related structures include the cerebellar vermis, prefrontal cortex, and visual and parietal cortex. The limbic system is responsible for the generation and control or inhibition of emotions. It is also involved in interpreting facial expressions and evaluating danger, is responsible for the fight-or-flight response to stress, and integrates emotional reactions and connects them with the physical response. Various components are also involved in memory, both implicit and explicit, and in learning (Table).

Brain Sequelae
Stress initiates a series of hormonal responses in the limbic system. The initial response to stress or danger is activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary- adrenal (HPA) axis. This occurs in the locus coeruleus and the sympathetic nervous system, causing a release of the hormones norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine. The amygdala reacts to this hormone release and, in turn, stimulates the hypothalamus to release corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF). CRF, itself, acts as both a hormone, to stimulate adrenocorticotropin hormone (ACTH) secretion, and as a neurotransmitter, affecting areas of the cortex that are involved in executive functioning (eg, motivation, planning, and logic).15 Increasing ACTH secretion then leads to elevated glucocorticoids (cortisol). High levels of glucocorticoids have been shown to negatively affect the hippocampus, resulting in decreased dendritic branching, changes in synaptic terminal structure, and neuronal loss.16 A feedback mechanism in the hypothalamus and the hippocampus normally brings these levels back to their resting state.

If this process occurs repeatedly, CRF and glucocorticoids remain elevated, which eventually causes structural changes in the brain and impedes the feedback mechanism, leading to an imbalance in hormones and dysregulation of the HPA axis.17

Signs of Stress in the Brain
Several studies have shown a measurable reduction in the size of the amygdala, hippocampus (primarily the left side), corpus callosum, and the cerebellar vermis, and an increase in size of the putamen and lateral ventricles in both children and adults who experienced repeated childhood trauma.18-20 These changes are thought to be an effect of elevated glucocorticoid levels inhibiting myelination in these structures.14 Because most areas of the limbic system are high in glucocorticoid receptors, they are susceptible to the effects of early childhood abuse.

Functional changes have also been noted in the anterior cingulate gyrus and the visual and parietal cortex. Elevated resting levels of CRF have been found in the spinal fluid of abuse victims.21 Elevated T3 levels have also been found in patients with a history of childhood abuse.22

Dopamine, which is released during the stress response, stimulates areas of the prefrontal cortex, probably resulting in heightened attention and improved cognitive capacity. Chronic stress, however, appears to cause an overproduction of dopamine, which can result in reduced attention, increased overall vigilance, as well as a diminished capacity to learn new material and increased paranoid and psychotic behavior.23

Serotonin stimulates both anxiogenic and anxiolytic circuits, which create and reduce anxiety. Decreased serotonin levels in the prefrontal cortex have been found as a result of chronic stress. Suicidal behavior, depression, and aggression have been shown to result from low serotonin levels.

Substance P, a neuropeptide found throughout the body that participates in the pain response and inflammation, has been found at much higher levels in the spinal fluid of those with significant abuse history. Studies in rats showed that injecting high levels of substance P in the spinal fluid caused a significantly exaggerated pain response to a noxious stimulus.24

Related Health Problems
The health problems associated with these changes in the brain are significant. According to Anda et al., atrophy of the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex, and the subsequent dysfunction is related to anxiety, panic, depressed affect, hallucinations, and substance abuse. Increased locus coeruleus and norepinephrine activity have been related to tobacco use, alcoholism, illicit drug use, and injectable drug use. Defects in the amygdala and related deficits in oxytocin result in sexual aggression, sexual dissatisfaction, perpetration of intimate partner violence, and impaired pair bonding.4

Anderson et al. used a novel technology called static functional MRI T2 relaxometry (T2-RT) on a population that had experienced childhood sexual trauma and found evidence of significant changes in the cerebellar vermis in abused individuals compared with nonabused individuals.6 The vermis has been shown to play a role in suppressing excitability within the limbic system. The most consistent anatomical finding in children with ADHD is a reduction in the size of the cerebellar vermis. Other studies show similarities in hormonal changes in children with ADHD. Famularo showed a high correlation between traumatic family environments and ADHD comorbidity.25,26

Allsworth showed that dysfunction in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, common in people who have been abused, leads to ovarian dysfunction and early menopause.13 This is likely to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease in these women because estrogen is reduced prematurely and, therefore, its protective function is lost earlier, increasing risk for cardiovascular disorders. Another interesting finding is that early stress may lead to premature involution of the thymus gland. Anti-nuclear antibodies, which attack the body’s own tissues instead of foreign toxins and are frequently present in people with systemic lupus erythematosus, also have been found at higher levels in girls who have been sexually abused compared with those who have never experienced abuse.9

The link between fibromyalgia and sexual abuse has been extensively studied.27 Dysregulation of the HPA axis has been found in most patients with fibromyalgia.28 Substance P is found in high levels in this population. Irritable bowel syndrome has also been shown to be correlated with childhood sexual abuse, and higher levels of substance P have been found in the colonic mucosa of individuals who were maltreated as children. Also, increased glucocorticoid has been shown to act on the intra-abdominal adipocytes leading to increased fat storage.4 Findings that memory pathways are adversely affected by exposure to abuse may explain some amnesia, delayed recall of abuse, and dissociative disorders.29 Some authors consider conversion reactions and pseudoseizures a form of dissociative disorder.30 [bold type is mine]

Conclusion
For years, we have ignored the potential influence of childhood traumatic experiences on adult disease, preferring to look for genetic causes of disease and pure biochemical factors without considering experiential influences. Given new evidence that trauma in childhood alters the physiology of the brain, it is time for all physicians to be educated about the full health impact of violence and abuse and be trained to explore these issues as the true etiology of or an underlying potentiating factor that contributes to their patients’ maladies.”

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+THE MISSING MONTHS OF THE ‘ANTWONE FISHER’ MOVIE-STORY: WHAT WE MOST NEED TO KNOW

alchemynow2 Comments

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I rewatched the movie “Antwone Fisher” yesterday.  This movie is about an adult working to heal from terrible child abuse inspired by a true story and marks Denzel Washington’s directorial debut.

From my point of view, what the movie never describes is what probably makes the biggest difference in the outcome of this story.  What were Antwone’s first foster parents like?  Did they love that parentless infant RIGHT?  Did they form a safe and secure attachment with the baby?

According to the story Antwone was removed at age two from his first foster home he had been placed in when he was two months old.  For all concerns about interfering with early bonding-attachment relationships, I do not believe that age two is a permanently damaging age to change primary early attachments.  In this case the child was moved to a horribly abusive home, but nothing in the story addresses the nature and the quality of the earliest, most critically important caregiver attachment patterns BEFORE the age of two that impact the direction that all fundamental physiological development follows.  (See update in comment section to this post.)

I would say by looking at the story as it is presented in this movie that Antwone’s first two years HAD to have taken place within an adequately non-malevolent caregiver-attachment environment.  The remarkable recovery that occurs post-terrible LATER abuse would NOT have followed the same course it did if Antwone’s physiological body-brain development had been changed by severe trauma during his infancy.

When looking at our own recovery from our own severe child abuse it remains MOST IMPORTANT that we understand how profoundly our physiological development is impacted by our earliest experiences in our environment.  If we continually struggle to overcome the horrors of severe abuse experiences that we KNOW about, and can never manage to ‘get our wings’ and soar out of the ugly mire of abuse we know we experienced, I would ALWAYS say that it’s most likely that our body-brain development was changed by trauma in profound ways during the earliest months of our life.

I personally know that if the first two years of my life had been perfectly FINE I would not be in the same body NOW that I am in – no matter how severely I had been abused post-two-years-old.  It is the Trauma Altered Development that happened to me before that age because I was BORN into a malevolent, abusive and traumatic malevolent environment that has created these lifelong difficulties that I (along with all infant-toddler severe trauma-abuse survivors) continue to struggle with.

Because the presentation of Antwone’s story in this film completely ignores those first two MOST CRITICAL years of the child’s life we are left guessing that all infant-child abuse survivors could recover by following a pathway such as this survivor did.  Not so.  Not so.  Not so!

It is not ‘getting lucky enough’ to benefit from high quality therapy that makes the biggest difference.  It is not ‘being willing enough’ to face our traumatic childhood memories of experience that makes the biggest difference, either.  It is not ‘being genetically superior’ or even ‘being resilient enough’ that matters most.

As Dr. Bruce Perry clearly states, children are not born resilient.  They are born MALLEABLE.  When the earliest environment deprives a rapidly growing and developing infant-toddler of what it needs for its body-brain to follow an optimal pathway, Trauma Altered Development will occur – BECAUSE of this malleability.  The resilience a little person needs in order to develop a body most able to ‘deal with’ severe traumas anytime after the age of two comes in ONE WAY and ONE WAY only – FROM THE PEOPLE WHO CARE FOR THAT BABY from the time it is conceived UNTIL it has ESPECIALLY reached the developmental milestones a body has built into it by two years of age.

As far as I can tell a description of these first critical months of experience are complete missing from the Antwone Fisher story.

Is this same time-frame description missing from your child abuse story?  If you continue a struggle to heal from early traumas you DO know about in a body that does not seem to be operating ‘quite right’, my guess is that whatever description of your first months of life that you GUESS happened to you needs to be closely examined in the bright light of reality.

None of us just happened to end up in a Trauma Altered Development body through bad luck.  We were built this way because we grew from (conception) birth in a caregiving environment that did NOT do exactly that:  Give us the care we needed prior to age two so that we could have a body healthy and resilient enough to fully process and recover from our later abuse.

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