This one might not be for you if you are not a childhood trauma survivor
I live fairly rural , so a trip into town is always a nice treat , like I’m doing today , town after all has coffee shops and thats where Im sat.
I passed a man on the way here , I have seen him in town over a number of years , he’s a big fit man about 6.3 feet tall , I used to see him his family , I presume his kids are mid teens now. The thing is , he is not the man I used to see, now only a couple of years on , he is obviously suffering from , well I’m no Dr as you know, but it looks a lot like Multiple Sclerosis ( MS ) or something similar. He now walks along the high street to get to the Drs surgery at the bottom of town . He takes one step at a time , he uses two sticks his head and his whole body seems to spasm when he moves. He was on his own and I would guess it might have taken him 40 minutes to get from one end of our small high street to the Drs Surgery. I feel upset to see him , I also feel like going up to him and telling him what a hero I think he is , I don’t obviously , but he is a hero never the less . He is pushing back against his illness, he could have gone by car , he could be in a wheelchair , but he looks every bit like someone fighting for their independence . MS attacks the myelin of the central nervous system , we talked about myelin in our post about brain development and childhood trauma and how vulnerable small brains are until the axons are myelinated and how this influences communication within the body. I think we can all agree this is a brave man.
The point of this post , as ever I never seem to start off with it , anyway, the point is that in their own way childhood trauma survivors like us ,are pushing back against the disease, that we call Trauma. Perhaps not as dramatically that the man above , perhaps not to the same extent, but we are pushing back in our own way.
Pushing back
Every day we wake up , the trauma pushes at us , most days we push back , some days it’s a little push other days we shove back a lot and yes there are days when we are overwhelmed by the weight of the push against us . This struggle for most is unseen , we don’t have , thank God not as the man above , a visible disability , so others cannot see it . For many years , some sufferers have pushed back against an unknown villain , not everyone is of course aware that they are suffering from trauma .
During COVID -19 , some individuals that I know have developed Long COVID ,whatever the cause its clear that some people feel their lives are limited by it . Ive noticed , I bet you have too, that these people have symptoms that vary wildly , so its hard to pin down an exact outcome for those suffering .
My feeling having studied and researched childhood trauma over the past year is…in that respect we are similar . Although we are a community of sufferers ( and you should never feel alone) we have very different stories , both in how we were traumatised and our outcomes. The variables are huge , the ACE study , did its best to link outcomes to frequency and type of trauma . However other variables have an impact as we have previously seen , poverty v wealth , length of trauma , proximity , age , support from the main carer the list goes on . The outcomes vary from mild to severe , to those who cope by self destructive behaviours to those who cope by knitting ( nothing against knitting , it’s just an example, not a medical claim !) and those who by some unknown reason display resilience.
We do try and cope some do this by creating a false self image or of course seek help in a bottle , can , food or a needle . Some might experience Anxiety or Depression , some experience denial , (this is more a defence than a coping strategy) . We might feel shame , guilt , we might self isolate we might have a passive or active coping style ( Active is taking positive measures to get well , passive is taking none) .We might suffer with other illnesses as a result , like OCD , mental illness , obesity , diabetes , I could go on and on ……… we are a community , we can support each other, but just like the autistic spectrum (neurodivergent) we are on a spectrum , I like to think of it as a Trauma Spectrum .
I often think of us all like play dough , we’re all different colours, pink , yellow , blue , we are different different smells , blueberry , lemon , strawberry , some come on a multi pack , some individually , some have been mixed together and now look a strange green brown but at the end of the day were all just play dough …….
So can there be some good news for us on the Trauma Spectrum ?
Yes!
It’s not all bad news , some have overcome this adversity , as with any spectrum there will be a diversity of different outcomes., some have used this as a catalyst for success. I read an article in the London Times back in May , its title was ” The surprising key to Success ? Trauma”. The writers Rachael Sylvester and Alice Thomson , drew on their 25 years of interviewing and realised that an ” astonishing number of these high flyers have …..”grown up in families riven by addiction , mental illness , poverty or abuse”. ” Far from holding them back , dealing with disaster has driven these exceptional individuals on to extraordinary heights” . the article noted that , “two thirds of British prime ministers going back to 1721 suffered a serious trauma in childhood”.
The article goes on to say that in every walk of life the pattern of individuals being spared on by adversity is repeated. We have seen in previous posts that Will Smiths childhood was shaped by trauma and violence . Oprah , one of the richest people in America was sexually abused as a child. Drew Barrymore suffered child abuse at the hands of her farther.. Christina Aguilera ,marylyn Monroe ,Bill Clinton , Eleanor Roosevelt , Richard Nixon and many more . We are on a spectrum , we all push back in our own way , we are not alone . You are all superheroes , pushing back every day , some with and some without support . Some may be worse than you and some better , some may have bigger traumas , some less . Some will achieve great things , others will struggle , the point is we are all pushing together .
Some of you might know I work in a primary school , the kids are young and someone every day tries to hug me , as kids do . Im a male member of staff and we live in strange times so I never let them hug me , for obvious reasons , also as a ACE survivor I don’t like to hug . Ive come up with a compromise , I get them to open their arms like they are showing me the size of fish they have caught , I do the same and then we say ” air hug ” at the same time , making hugging movements with our arms in the air , bit not touching . Now they just come up and ask me for an ” air hug” , even the staff. If you are a trauma survivor , Id like to give you a big ” air hug ” and say I think you are a superhero…….
Anyway , thanks for spending your time here , I realise there is a lot of content out there , Im really grateful . Hope your well , see you soon ….
