The Long Term Effects of Childhood Trauma

Hello everyone, I am joined again by the wonderful Dr. Alexa Altman, she is a

trauma

specialist and psychologist. Anything else I'm missing, what else do you do? Yes, I am a clinical psychologist specializing in

trauma

and trauma including

childhood

and adult trauma. trauma, any overwhelming life event, yes, as humans go through and I did a series with Alexa a while ago, if you're a new viewer, I encourage you to check them out. I'll link to them in the description, we did a whole trauma series, but today I brought Alexa in specifically to talk about

childhood

trauma and the kind of ramifications that could follow us throughout our lives or in our family, for example if we have children , we pass on that trauma and I think the first way I want to start is. just defining trauma or how we know if we've been traumatized, there are a lot of different words that people use and I hear from a lot of you that you don't always know what that means or how we know if that happened to us okay So trauma is defined by an event overwhelming that overwhelms our ability to cope, so it's really subjective, so what may be traumatizing for one person may not necessarily be traumatizing for another, and sometimes people ask me what the difference is between trauma and stress, because stress is a good thing and we need to have stress that is like motivating, so fix that, yeah, sure, unless it exceeds that capacity, but then when it's an accumulation of stress, it can become really toxic.

Oh right, because it's overwhelming our system. I love the interior. I use the movie "Inside Out" as an analogy all the time. If you remember, you put marbles together and memories are marbles and that's why I like that they are overwhelming to our system because the marble can't be put together and it can't roll, almost like it shatters on the ground and I think That's why it's so subjective and that's why we can have a sibling who grows up with us in the exact same environment, you know, but we're traumatized and they're not right. and I read somewhere that cortisol, which is the stress hormone, we're experiencing stress or trauma, it's life in the system where it's not toxic, it lasts like 30 seconds, oh wow, that's the idea that it's supposed to we must experience stress and then physiologically. let it go, think about it if we keep building it up and it overwhelms a system, it not only has mental health outcomes that are really negative but also physical, yes we are bad, the system shuts down.

Oh, interesting because I remember it in our old videos. I had done some research on Peter Levine and somatic experience and how animals shake like they get stressed and then shake and I'm wondering if that's why the coin is supposed to hit and then go down. so shake it off, we're supposed to shake it off, we're supposed to protect her, defend ourselves, yeah, fight, flight or freeze, so sometimes I think about if there was a bear and then we'd have that intense stress response to hopefully , completely. Not fighting the bear mm-hmm, but what if that bear is a father and that bear comes home every day?

Yes, of course, and every day you are preparing, yes, you are landing the right blow and living in a chronic state of fear, yes, and what does that do when we were children? Let's say that's happening to us. It's okay, we are in a constant state of fear. If we don't treat it early, how does that affect us as we get older? I think there is a fundamental study. Which I'll talk about a little bit, but what the research shows is that when all of our resources are put into survival, which is really the limbic system, which is the part of the brain for survival, if we think about blood flow and all the the nutrients in the brain go to that part to protect us, so there is less blood flow for connection, yes, for planning learning, for education, so you think about a person who is in a chronic state of fear and then they are in a classroom, how receptive are they? assimilating new information is probably insensitive but not very receptive yes, because essentially it is like our because our bodies adapt for better or worse, they are there to help us survive, as I have learned that with eating disorder treatment the reason why people and I I know any of you who are recovering hate this but when you gain weight you gain it around your waist because your body needs to protect my vital organs and our bodies adapt to protect us and keep us alive and essentially learn It's not that important. like survival exactly any, I feel like it trumps everything, yeah, it's just the essence of exactly what we need to do.

I also think that when we think about it, if you're in a constant state of survival, which is adaptive, then it's good. I have to learn to regulate that state not always adaptively through alcohol, drugs, Cuddy, whatever it is, so if you think about it as not being that adaptive strategy in some way with

long

-

term

implications that are really negative, yes. Yeah, so if it's affecting our ability to learn our ability to connect with others, I guess then even if our kids aren't traumatized by something we've done, is there a way to potentially interact with our kids or other members? from our family that would create that in them, you know what I mean? like a generational trickle hmm, so the research is pretty new on this, where they are showing that our trauma is actually passed down through genes.

Oh, interesting, you know. We pass on our DNA and then there's something called an epigenome that sits on the DNA strand and can turn the expression of a gene on or off mm-hmm so they did do this study and I think it's really interesting. where they had these rats and they conditioned the rats that they would be afraid of the smell of cherries. Oh, interesting, I mean, ethically we could keep talking about yes, that's not all, yes, it's just that I have my own reactions to that, but that's how it is. The adult rats were afraid of the smell of cherries, right, and their offspring and their offspring, we are afraid of the smell of cherries too, but they were raised separately, so it was not a learned behavior, there was no way They learned it, yes. they didn't see them be afraid they are genetic they were passed down you can think of racism you can think of genocide you can think of those things that we don't know happened to maybe our ancestors mm-hmm but we have a fear response that yes, it's possible that let's not know where it originates from, which is really important, I think to say the least about people, because a lot of people, especially when we talk about other issues, not only trauma but generational trauma, as if yes, as if your family If you were Jewish and you had family members who were in what you know are part of or in a concentration camp, let's say it doesn't matter that it didn't happen to you, it's like technically your DNA is correct and it's not right, it may sound like a devastating story when Think about it that way like we can't escape, we can't escape years and years of generational trauma, so if we think about it, if the genome expresses trauma it can also express resilience to a horse, yes, I know we are We'll talk a little more about resilience factors, but when we think about how our current behaviors are affecting the next two, three, four generations, it makes you think twice about your next step, right?

Yes, and who and how you are affecting, because if you know you're not transmitting through behaviors because I think most of parenting is focused on behaviors. How do you discipline a child without traumatizing him? How do you communicate with your child to teach them to communicate appropriately at home? Yeah, but more than that, it's like, How do I feel? How do I act on my own apart from being a mother or father? Correct. Wow, right. I mean, there's a lot to think about. It does not assume responsibility if any measures must be taken to truly work clean. as far as we can, yes, they are of themselves so to speak, there was a groundbreaking study in 1997 that really changed the way we think about childhood trauma, it's called the ACE study, adverse childhood events, experiences, sorry , by Vincente, so late, Felitti, and involved 17,000 adults.

I think the average age was 50 and these were adults at a middle-class university. I think 80% were college educated and what he did was evaluate their adverse childhood experiences. I had ten categories for them to look at: physical abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, illicit drugs. use in domestic violence incarceration in the home there were a few more other categories of hoods, so they recorded how many events, not how many in each category, but how many categories each person has and what they showed, what was that if a person had even two Adverse

effects

. childhood experiences, their rates of depression, drug use, and suicidality were exponentially higher and the statistic that really surprised them is that if a person had six ace scores, they would be, I mean, this is a staggering number, forty a thousand times greater to have a probability of suicide.

Well basically I mean you don't hear statistics like that no and people don't talk about it enough because this came out a while ago so it's not like that I mean it's new information but it's not new it's not like 2018 .this nurse got it right and changed life expectancy by ten fifteen years, yeah, so you know, we can really think about mental health and the epidemic in our healthcare system with these kids that are going to and then we've done it. and then, of course. then their descendants who are affected by their childhood trauma. Wow, those are amazing statistics and amazing numbers, and I know when that study came out, I was, I didn't even have words to describe it, like it was so shocking to me, so if anyone has it right, I guess about going back to our original conversation about how we define it, how someone evaluates or how we know if there are aces, right?

You're talking about having those ace scores, from one to at least two, as we see. as physical and generational ramifications, how do we evaluate them or how do we know them well? Because it's not necessarily like a child telling you, yeah, and more often I think what you see is maladaptive behaviors, that maybe it's a child who acts out in school. they are hyperactive, maybe the coach sees an attitude, yes, that is becoming extra aggressive, yes, true, in a way, if you think about it, all of those behaviors are adaptive in the sense of a child who probably runs out of fear of Allah, yes, essentially yes They are having difficulty in school as we talked about, going back to what we talked about before, they don't have time to focus on learning properly because they are on the run or frozen and our ability to regulate our emotions is really tapped. because that's actually regulated by the front part of the brain, not the survival part of the brain, so if you think about it, that part of your system is not really online, yeah, there's no energy to put into that exactly , so you're I'm going to see all that acting while saying like it's really a call for help mm-hm many times those children, understandably, rules and limits are important are punished without that intervention in that house, yes, sorry and that's what really was my brain automatically went, they were, I was like wow so they're trying, they're like screaming for help and instead of helping them we say no, no, sometimes you're mean to yourself, right? and very similar to our prison system. yes, when we do not treat the problem, but treat the symptom correctly.

I feel like we could say that's true. Yes, 90% of the time, culturally I'm right, we just want to treat the symptom and I think one of What this study also shows and what the researchers reveal are all those protective factors that when these children get a stable relationship and constant and it could be in the form of a coach, a teacher or a neighbor, it is simply someone who gives them constant support. and the protective presence goes so far that this research came out that showed pro-maternal parenting behavior that involves moms not licking rat pups at birth and part of the licking is that they produce this protein and this is a really protective protein. and those babies grow up to live an amazing life, they had very good coping skills and their ability to regulate stress interesting, it's cool, yeah, and then the rats that aren't licked and cared for from the beginning are going to show anxiety and act aggression , the things that we would expect to see without that care, yes, but the thing is that if they showed up, is that even those puppies that didn't get it, if they got that care later in life, were just as able to produce that protein correctly.

Even if you don't understand it from the beginning, this is good news, this is good. I know I feel like a lot of this so far is not good. No, we have to learn. I feel like to make things better, we have to do it. To learn what it's like, you can't fix something if you don't know exactly how it's broken and I think you have to look under the hood and evaluate everything exactly, instead,with patch work on the way, yes. which is what we were talking about, we're patching or treating the symptoms, okay, now we know that if they don't get care, they can act out, but at any time you can get care later in life, right?

It doesn't mean you can't still love the communicative connection to all the things you already know if you didn't get it and you're in a position character, there are so many places you can go to gain those skills. Because I think a lot of people like it, but I didn't have that, I don't know how to thank God that we live in the time that we live in now it's not that difficult to find yes, a way to receive and learn how I used to do it, to those of you who don't know, one of my first jobs before I even went to grad school to see if I really enjoyed it. counseling I want to be in the therapy field.

I worked at this foster home for teenage girls. It was a lot, but I taught parenting classes there because a lot of them didn't have loving parents or any parents in general, some of them have lived. on the streets so there are tons of resources and ways to learn parenting skills and communication and parenting strategies, I mean therapists like us and counselors, and even in schools there are groups and there are always different ways, even online , to take courses and learn. The really good thing is that there are resources. I think the other thing that comes up when you say that is that I think sometimes we discount our reach, that as an adult you know if you have children in your life, even if they're not your children.

Really understanding the meaning of your own presence, that our reach is to be a present other for a child who might be struggling, is so great and I think sometimes we don't have that awareness to realize the implications of those types of gestures, yeah When I work with clients so often I ask them if they've had a lot of childhood trauma. You know who your circuits were because we all found some substitutions a

long

the way, yeah, and what I think is pretty good, mother, exactly, they come in. in the form of a coach or a counselor of some kind or a friend's parent.

I had a client who found a friend's family almost like surrogate family and who she felt helped her graduate from high school exactly like that resource and I know the resilience in the people I work with, but often people Those who have that type even know why they are looking for it or how they found it, but they knew that they needed to find health, yes, if their parents could not give it to them well and this. It is not like this? I don't know that it was a good job, brain and body, because it's going to get you out of a really bad situation, but we're resourceful, we approach each other well, and I think, like discrediting, that doesn't do you any favors. for all the strength and resilience that we have innately and I think it's like I said mother pretty well because there was a study like, I don't know, in the fifties, it couldn't be done now and I really like it, let's not do it. in the ethics of it, but it was these monkeys that had their mothers taken away from them too soon and some were left like a wire framed with a little cotton batting and that was the good enough mother and they would hold on to the good enough mother. and that's why I say that because sometimes even if it's not this perfect person who is very loving, we take what we can get and we reach out to find what fills the void and that's really cool, it means we can heal and we can grow, yes, exactly, it's good news, yes, it's good news, I think when it's like anta, one of the antidotes I would say is human connection, yes, you could come in the form of our faith communities, yes, yes, You know, religious gatherings.

I think that's what they're really showing and I think intuitively when you say it makes a lot of sense that when we can start using that attachment system and start trusting the world again because that's one of the implications of childhood trauma as a world not It's really a safe place well, that's our experience, you know, and it's adaptive in the same way that our brain can be adaptive, you know, for better or worse, right, it protects us, it's like you don't trust adults. , grown ups. have hurt all of us adults are not safe and that is a good explanation of why I wanted to have you here today and why I chose this particular topic about two weeks ago YouTube reached out to me and asked if I could attend the screening of a documentary. which they were part of and is called The Price of Free and is on YouTube.

You can see it on November 27. I encourage you to. It will be on the Soul Pancakes channel, but the entire documentary follows this. Kailash Satyarthi, who is working to end child slavery, and what caught my attention about the video, obviously, the whole documentary is heartbreaking because they find these children working for little to no money for 16 hours a day, you know. , and they don't. go to school, they essentially can't have a childhood and it was very difficult for me to see and I was curious about the ramifications of mental health because that's what happens when you think about it when you say you don't feel like the world. it's a safe place when they take these kids out of these horrible work environments they don't make eye contact they don't want to touch the adults at all they crowd the kids in because those are probably the only people that were there and we They're safe and I really wanted to get in on the ramifications of child slavery and why it is so important that we work together to end it and as we watch this documentary, when they go to rescue the children, essentially there are signs of emotional and physical abuse. abuse neglect and it's really hard to see how you really feel about these kids and that led me down this, you know, rabbit hole, like any therapist, I'm sure, but what are the long-

term

ramifications of this, not just for the children at the moment because that is what the collage foundation does is rescue them and take care of them from any physical ailment and they love them and nourish them and give them nourishment and understanding, but what is the trickle down of this if when they grow up? have their own children and that's why I wanted to talk more about how this can affect them later in life and even affect their own children, based on what we know and the fact that trauma can seep in and can affect. us later in life, that's what the research really shows.

I guess then the best way to combat that would be early intervention, because the earlier you have a child in those particularly sensitive periods of development where the brain has access to all the nutrients, whether through food or emotional nutrition and support , yeah, so if we want to intervene earlier, I guess it would be the way I told my teenage patients that their friends are the front line when we're younger, it would probably be teachers and coaches. pediatricians, yes, neighbors, I think one of the things that I really learned through my patients and my research is that I think a lot of adults are afraid to ask or friends are afraid to ask, yes, they might think or suspect that something It's happening, but you know.

I don't want to make the other person feel uncomfortable and I always think it's interesting that you say that because I talked about that when it comes to suicidality and asking, it's okay to ask someone if they're suicidal, you're not going to provoke them. that they are suicidal and when people like it, I don't want them to feel uncomfortable and, of course, you feel uncomfortable, I know that and I think it's okay to feel uncomfortable because the other option is to go unnoticed and not treat yourself exactly, I think that en What we have actually been describing today, I noticed that the entrance leads to a kind of horrible and horrible mental, physical and mental right for many generations, so the risk of asking is a short-term discomfort for a long term gain, so definitely. we should encourage those around us, if we see it, we should essentially say something and talk a little bit about the symptoms, like kids acting out, what if you are a teacher, coach or parent? a play date with another kid and you notice things is that what they should look for is just you know, I think acting the way she acts and I think sometimes it's because he's really withdrawn and seems really disengaged and not able to concentrate, but maybe No.

It sounds familiar to you because it is not like that, they are not always these great actions, many times they can be like in the price of the free documentary, such as the lack of eye contact, the struggle and not wanting the movements when someone tries to touch them. with that it was like a defense, I felt like it was constantly fight or flight that response, so if you notice something like that, don't be afraid to speak up, it's not going to make things worse, yes, it may be a little uncomfortable for that little one. a little bit, but like Alexa said, that's like a long-term gain, we're looking at not just your life but generations to come, so if you're that teacher, that coach, or that other parent, how do you ask what's the best way? to approach a child? potentially and ask them, do you know what exactly is going on because I think one of the biggest obstacles is that you're not necessarily going to sit down and say, are you being abused at home?

Yes, kids, I mean, often, especially if it's still happening. You're too scared to say anything or talk especially to adults, like we said, adults may not be sure, so you might want to start by asking: Hello, how are you? Just one question, sit down and ask deeply, how are things going? This is what I'm noticing, this has been a big change in his behavior, so I would start with what's observable first and work my way up, this is what I'm seeing. I'm trying to understand what's going on and would start. just asking little things like, hey, can you sleep at night? do you have nightmares?

Oh yeah, you know, can you eat? Do you feel like you could start asking more about symptoms versus content? Yes, so they can start talking. and then say like you know sometimes scary things happen, is there anything scary right now? I would start in general and then you can get more specific, yeah, as they open up a little bit more exactly, like building a relationship, a relationship, yeah, and you. You can talk about why you are a safe person, that you are here to protect them and that you care about them and have always cared about them, whether you have a long-term relationship with the person and the reason why you are asking these questions.

It's because you really want to help, yeah, well I think it's really cool because a lot of times, like when I was watching the documentary, it was like I didn't even know how to talk. How do you ask how? We often need to feel like we have to have actions we can take and things we can do, and a wonderful thing you can do today is you can donate to the Kailash Foundation and join Alexa and I in supporting. Kailash in his efforts to end child slavery and you can do so by clicking the blue donate button.

Thank you very much for coming and sharing your experience. It's incredibly useful. Come back again and look at the free price. It's a documentary again. will be out on November 27th on the Soul pancakes channel. I will link his channel in the description, check it out, it's really important and again, please donate to the kailash foundation. They are doing great things and every child deserves a childhood, so click the Blue Note donate button. and donate now and see you next time bye