HEALING FROM CHILDHOOD TRAUMA
A discussion to accompany the reading of A STORY LIKE TRUTH
by Deborah M. Padgett
The topic of childhood trauma is a difficult one for almost
everyone, regardless of his or her personal experience with it. Thoughts come to mind:
·
How graphic will the descriptions be?
·
What’s to be gained by rehashing old memories we
can do nothing about?
·
Everyone suffers trauma to one extent or
another. What’s the harm in just putting
it all in the past and moving on?
·
Is this going to be another expose by an angry,
bitter, vengeful and needy person?
·
What’s the point in exposing myself to someone
else’s story of harm done?
It’s understandable and common, when hearing the story of a
child being treated with physical violence, neglect, cruelty and sexual
invasion to become horrified, angry and move immediately to blame, outrage and
a cry for justice and accountability.
While this is understandable, I do not want to talk about blame,
forgiveness, justice or accountability. I
do not want to talk about who did what to whom and when and where and what
should happen to them as a result of their actions.
I want to focus exclusively on the healing that leads to
thriving. I want to look at, not the
how and why of the damage to the child in the wake of abuse, but to isolate the
damage…. The long-term effects that keep an individual stuck if healing does
not take place.
Each story is different.
Mine is one of never being certain of safety or protection in my own
home because of my father’s unpredictable acts of rage and violence,
specifically directed at me, from the time I was less than one year old as well
as being unsafe from sexual molestation in the home or presence of my maternal
grandfather. The best
description/visualization I’ve ever seen of what this lack of safety does to a
child is a video I saw online several months ago. In it, a young boy, 8 or 10 years old, looks
to all the world like any other boy. He
has a home to go to. He has his own
bedroom. His physical needs are provided
for. His mirror/shadow image is beside
him always but is shown as an expressionless dead weight. Every where the little boy goes, everything
he does, he lifts and carries the dead weight of his lifeless self. He rises to dress in the morning and has to
hold upright the limp weight of his damaged self. He goes to the breakfast table and remains
vigilant that his shadow self remains upright in the chair next to him. He lifts and carries his lunch box, his
backpack, dons his coat and boots and shoulders the weight of his other,
separated self as he walks to the bus stop and waits to carry himself onto the
bus and into the long day ahead. He
knows no other world. He doesn’t know that
other boys his age walk freely and unencumbered. He is exhausted. He aches.
He tries to look and behave like a normal boy but he doesn’t know what
normal is. Some days the weight feels
nearly too heavy to bear.
What does this child need?
What would remove the weight?
What would stop his pain and his sense that he’s all on his own against
the world?
Does he need someone to take his abusive father and
grandfather in handcuffs and haul him or her off to prison?
Does he need to go to court or the police station and be
subjected to relentless questioning about who hurt him and how much and why
that’s such a problem for him when clearly, he looks just fine and he should be
grateful to have a meal on the table and a roof over his head?
Would it help him if someone told him he just needed to
understand that Daddy and Grandpa are under a lot of stress and only hurt him
like that because they’ve had such hard lives?
No. I don’t think
so. What this child needs is rescue.
What keeps rescue from taking place?
Secrecy, shame & denial.
Let’s think for a minute what has to happen for this child
to be rescued.
1.
Someone has to notice something is wrong and
speak up.
a.
Why doesn’t this just happen?
i. If
this boy was sexually molested by his grandpa and he tells his mother (whose
father we’re talking about here) what are the risks to the family? If these risks are taken and there is
significant fallout, who is to blame? If
the boy just keeps his mouth shut and carries his own secret (and the valueless
dead weight of himself) no one is hurt but him (for the time being at least…)
ii. If
the boy comes home from Grandpa’s feeling confused, humiliated and violated and
fails to do his chores he will be dragged by the arm from the dinner table
without explanation, Dad will become red in the face with rage, slam the
bedroom door behind them and belt him until he cannot move or finds a way to
escape and run from the house.
iii. In
this household the father’s authority is absolute. The child’s mother does not take him in her
arms when he escapes his father’s belt.
She does not come to soothe him in his room after the beating. Nothing
is said. Nothing is done. He cries himself to sleep. He wakes in the night screaming. He is punished for screaming. It is a cycle from which he cannot hope to
extricate himself.
As you can imagine there are a variety of possible outcomes
for this child. If the cycle continues
until he is involved in school sports or some other extra-curricular activity
and he happens to show some promise, it’s possible a caring adult will extend a
loving and caring hand and the child will feel a sense of safety in that
adult’s presence. He will possibly feel
moments of refreshment and value. He
will see himself as having some value to someone. He will likely stay away from his home as
much as possible. He may be drawn to
groups of peers where he feels some sense of power or recognition – whether
that is for positive or negative behavior is a matter of happenstance. He will long for love and affection. He will long to be seen as worthy of some
response other than brutality.
If the child suffering the abuse in the family is a girl,
she is at significant risk for being seduced and raped by adult males in
position of authority. She will long for
the comfort of the arms of anyone. Her
chances of rescue by a caring adult are about 50/50 in ratio to being harmed by
an uncaring adult predator.
Because of the climate of denial and secrecy surrounding
family violence and sex crimes against children most children do not receive
rescue and grow toward an uncertain and volatile future. They exhibit symptoms of a range of mental
and emotional illness. They engage in
risky sexual behaviors, petty crimes and substance abuse. Their concentration and sense of right and
wrong are severely compromised and they have trouble making sense of the
decisions that might put their lives on a healthy path to self-sufficiency.
Significant rescue is likely to come only after troublesome
acting out in the teen years or beyond. Feelings of inadequacy, confusion, self-doubt
and shame can sabotage a life. When the sense
of being all-wrong gets overwhelming it can be life-threatening. In some cases feeling “all wrong” can lead to
feelings of rage toward self or others.
The effects of childhood trauma can be debilitating in a
variety of ways. I sometimes like to look
at the damage of abuse similarly to the damage that takes place in a person’s
life from an illness or an accident.
When it’s looked at in this way it becomes clear that blame and
retribution are irrelevant. What becomes
relevant is the need for rescue, accommodation, therapy/treatment and
ultimately, healing.
A significant difficulty in healing is the invisibility of
the wounds of child abuse. We can’t see
that something is wrong so we don’t realize the child is in danger. The sooner a child is rescued and receives
the care necessary to healing the greater the benefit to that child and to
society at large.
A child’s view of himself is not independent of the
treatment he receives at the hands of his caretakers and the authority figures
in his life. If a small child is greeted
with welcome, warmth and delight he will grow to believe he is worthy of these
things and will learn welcome, warmth and delight toward others. If isolated and treated as an unwelcome burden
worthy of derision, beating and molestation he will necessarily respond as a
beaten animal, at first bringing to bear an instinct to fight for survival but
ultimately retreating into a numb and dark state of being. This is the mental illness born of child
abuse. This is the broken state in which
we leave the unprotected child if we fail to provide rescue.
We know so much today about the effects of treating children
in this way and we know what is needed to bring that child back into the light
of welcome and acceptance and healing. I
like to imagine that one day, when it is discovered a child has been hurt in
this way… or to put it another way, when we have a diagnosis – look at it as if
a child has been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness – say, leukemia,
diabetes or cerebral palsy – Our response as family, friends, the medical and
mental health community will be to instantly take that child into our care and
set a program of treatment and therapies toward healing. It’s simply not the case that there’s nothing
to be done for such a child. At any
point we recognize a child broken by abuse we can begin a course of treatment
toward healing and wholeness.
This is the importance of bringing the stories of abuse into
the open light of day. Adults who were once abused children are stigmatized by
society. They are ashamed that they feel so damaged. They don’t want to be labeled as weak and
needy or, even, crazy. They feel a
burden on their families. If they tell
their stories they draw back the blinds on prominent and well-respected adults
who raised them. They are seen as
selfish for not protecting the reputation of the adult abuser. Congregations will fall. Classrooms will crumble. The family will be
left destitute without it’s provider. If
the child will simply keep his story to himself, all of this devastation can be
avoided (or so the thinking goes). This is why rescue seldom happens and why
the burden of shame so often crushes the abused child. Suicide is not always a single violent act. It can happen over time as a result of PTSD,
depression, situational bi-polar disorder, addiction and a relentless sense of
being a burden on family and society. With
rescue, therapy and healing,individuals can live rich, loving and rewarding
lives. With safety and welcome comes the
ability to feel rather than numb our emotions.
What it takes to heal:
1.
Acknowledgement of injury
2.
Assessment of the extent of the injury
3.
Availability of treatment
4.
Freedom from fear and hardship in obtaining
therapies and treatment
5.
Continued research and resources applied to
discovering a cure for the damage done
I am not saying that individuals who harm children should
not be held accountable. That’s a
discussion for another time and perhaps for individuals concerned with law
enforcement. Children are powerless to
stop these crimes in their own homes. I
don’t foresee a resolution to that dilemma.
I think what is necessary is widespread recognition that children are
sometimes in grave danger within their own homes and families. Widespread recognition that the sooner the
hurt is diagnosed, the sooner the healing can begin.
As an adult, having only recognized that damage had been
done once I left home and began to recognize “normal” I have gone in and out of
shame, blame, denial and acquiescence to the realization that I could not
thrive simply by the force of my will alone.
Over the 46 years since I realized I was in need of help to be well, the
field of study surrounding child abuse and its treatment has continued to expand
and deepen so that we now know the processes/therapies/treatments and practices
that heal the wounded child. We know
that, untreated, child abuse leads to further violence in society. It leads to depression and other forms of
mental illness. It leads to substance
abuse, risky sexual behavior, suicide and the perpetuation of violence in our
homes and communities.
As a society we do a grave disservice to ourselves and our
future health and safety when we look upon those who were abused with pity and
condemnation for their inability to thrive.
We need to ask ourselves if that is how we look at children who, through
no fault of their own or their families need medical attention, therapies and
cures to thrive in the face of life threatening illness or accidents.
As I said at the beginning, this topic is complex and many
faceted and we could talk for days and days about all of its ramifications.
What I want to be clear about is this:
Today, therapies and treatments and practices exist that can
heal the adult who was injured as a child.
These are not quick fixes and often times life long treatment is
required. I now believe we waste
valuable time with our accusing and begging to be believed and insisting on
prosecution and holding to the idea that we cannot heal until our perpetrator
admits guilt and our families embrace us and acknowledge our stories as
truth. This is no more true of healing
from child abuse than it is in healing from leukemia. I want
to see the discussion of health and thriving after injury separated from the
discussions about who is to blame and how severe their punishment should be and
whether or not forgiveness is in order.
Healing from child abuse does not require that someone is
held accountable. It does not require
that anyone forgives or admits guilt.
The child who is unwelcome and unloved in his family must learn he is of
value regardless. He must learn kindness
and compassion for himself and every living being. When he can offer these inherent rights to
himself and extend them to others he breaks a cycle of violence toward himself
and the larger world. It is a basic
truth that when we know our own value we are capable of valuing others and I
believe it goes the other way. Until we
know our own value we cannot properly value others.
The other day I was with a group of friends and
acquaintances who were discussing their thanksgiving experiences with home and
family. One by one they described this
or that family member as “crazy”, “needy”, “narcissistic”, “selfish”…
Each complaint issued was affirmed by another member of the group as
they described how discounted and marginalized and disregarded and
misunderstood they felt by the people with whom they had their most intimate
family ties. They shared stories about
time after time attempting to get a family member to give them what they
craved… recognition, acknowledgement, acceptance, delight… and all to no
avail. They talked of all the times they
had tried to get close to these people and always came away being criticized,
insulted or feeling used, judged and misunderstood. I saw, heard and felt the deep need each had
for simply being seen and accepted for who they are, flaws and all. All the old and not so old hurts and insults were
laid on the table and each woman received a nod of approval and support for how
right she was in her condemnation of these family members who just never found
a way to treat them as they felt they deserved to be treated. I recognize myself in them. I spent many years telling anyone who would
listen about how badly I was being treated and had been treated and how
invisible and unheard and how judged and negated I felt by my family
members. I think I thought I could be
cured of the hurt if I just talked about it enough and had my indignation
validated enough times. I realize now
that it’s unlikely there will ever come a time when shared condemnation of
others will result in healing.
I’ve learned a lot about the stories we make up about other
people and about ourselves that are a result of faulty thinking. I’m wanting to keep it all pretty simple
nowadays.
It’s so basic. It’s
about this moment. It’s about breathing
in. It’s about breathing out. It’s about extending a welcome. It’s about feeling and expressing delight in
the living, breathing presence of another.
Here is my practice:
After years of therapy, medication, study, research
and practice I have arrived at a place of peace, ease and acceptance. This peace, ease and acceptance is solidly
mine. I have it to keep and to hold and
I have it to offer to my loved ones, my acquaintances and the stranger I meet
on the street. When fear visits I
briefly lose site but I have a daily practice that takes me quickly away from
the fear and back into the truth of my peace, ease and acceptance… I’ve learned to recognize when fear is
dictating my responses and when I allow it to do that I am in danger of hurting
myself and others. It comes down to the
quote I cited in the A STORY LIKE TRUTH.
It’s from Barbara Kingsolver’s ANIMAL DREAMS. She says this. “The very least you can do in your life
is to figure out what you hope for, and the most you can do is to live inside
that hope. What I want is so simple I
can hardly say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat. Enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow
up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed.”
