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News News Article - Abused Children May Get Different Form Of Ptsd

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BloomInWinter

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I found this an interesting read. My trauma therapist believes this theory will eventually be confirmed as accurate.

I hope it does, and not just for those of us with PTSD already. I really hope this study will become leverage to be used to justify removing abused children from abusive homes far earlier in the process than they are now.

I also home my genes and my children's can be healed.

“In PTSD with a history of child abuse, we found a 12-fold higher [level] of epigenetic changes,” says Mehta. In contrast, people who experienced trauma later in life showed genetic effects that tended to be short-lived, and did not permanently alter the function of the genes.

“It’s a very interesting paper,” says Moshe Szyf, professor of pharmacology and therapeutics at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who studies epigenetics. “The important thing about this paper is that it looks at PTSD that has different life histories. One group has a life history of child abuse and the other doesn’t and we see a completely different functional genomic appearance.”

Source: http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/30/abused-children-may-get-different-form-of-ptsd/
 
TI think there is too little distinction between childhood trauma and PTSD on this forum, and I think the distinction is VERY important.

I have an innate kind of fussy reaction when I read this... even though I agree with it. There are serious differences between how people react when they had primarily childhood trauma vs. adult trauma. I have a weird combination of childhood and adult traumas. I have such a strong basis in the broken from early childhood that it is hard to figure out how to handle that compared to all the broken that happened as an adult.

I really believe that folks who are abused as young and as often as I was are marked with a giant V for victim on their forehead and perpetrators can see it. I am a mark.

It seems different from what I see in combat vets with PTSD or people who had medical issues. I'm not saying better or worse. This isn't a scale thing. It's just... it's more like what they are doing with autism. The diagnosis is just a name that means someone has some amount of a cluster of symptoms. But we know it is caused in a variety of ways and there is a wide variety of effects. Being slightly autistic is often a life-bonus for many careers. Being very autistic is hard.

It feels like PTSD is similar. There are a lot of causes and a lot of manifestations. Some people have more severe symptoms than others and it doesn't seem to be related to extremity of trauma.

I find this so fascinating. :)

I'm glad that they are actually proving that childhood abuse PTSD reacts differently to drugs. I've had a hard time with a lot of doctors trying to put me on meds. I think I do not have bipolar disorder because I've been on every drug made for it and they all make me so crazy I cannot live. Obviously that is not quite my problem.

I loved reading this study. Thank you!
 
I have a weird combination of childhood and adult traumas. I have such a strong basis in the broken from early childhood that it is hard to figure out how to handle that compared to all the broken that happened as an adult.
And this is important. With childhood trauma there is no 'normal' baseline to return to, ever, and the adult trauma on top of it is par for the course.

Fuss all you want ;)
 
You know how sometimes you hear something and think, "How dare you!" even though you agree with it... It's a thing. :)

Yes, my normal baseline is to expect to be beaten and raped by pretty much anyone in my life at random and I am just supposed to close my eyes and be silent and expressionless. I have to learn a new normal in my thirties. It's complicated.
 
Do you sometimes feel that you 'mimic' 'normal'?

That is in fact literally what I do. I spent my pregnancy with my first child reading Jane Austen novels and learning how to have manners. I have the most exquisitely polite child you have ever met. She's like a story book come to life. Her sister is rapidly catching up.

So uhm, define "normal". I don't really mimic what I see commonly around me. I don't go for that normal. Instead I have picked a set of mannerisms and decided that is my culture and I act like that all the time. I went from white trash to Regency manners. It's a real trip I'll tell you.
 
I have read about two different recent studies that show these epigenetic changes can also be inherited for a few generations.

I think another thing that we will start to see, as more of these studies are conducted, is an end to the concept that PTSD is dependent on "reactions", in the sense that one can control it. I hear so many people link PTSD to personality traits. ie, "He was always sheltered, so it hit him much worse." The research is showing that you can't really protect against PTSD per se, but you sure can prime (in a negative way) for it.

Anxious to see all the new things that are discovered.
 
Thank you for sharing this! As I dug a little bit deeper I found that the cited study discussed methylation as being impacted (!!). Wow, wow, wow, I'm fascinated! I wonder how/if this is going to be implicated in autoimmune diseases - immune diseases in general - 20 years down the line...

I am also quite anxious to hear about all the new discoveries made. :)
 
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