Developmental risks associated with childhood trauma (attempted murder)?

[MrMoonlight]

Anyone know the developmental risks associated with childhood trauma and fearing someone wants you dead? (attempted murder by fire @ 12)

That thought haunted me and I'd like to know if age has any bearing on these things. Or maybe age doesn't play a part though when developing self and view of the world how could it not..right??? Maybe the psychological makeup of the individual matters more???

I guess I find the discovery of myself difficult. I want a book with hard and fast rules for PTSD...if X happens then expect to deal with X issues. You know, at least a vague roadmap of issues I need to explore within myself. I feeling lost in the diagnosis.

 

[shimmerz]

Anyone know the developmental risks associated with childhood trauma and fearing someone wants you dead?

Yeah, this is me, from the womb until I was adopted at 2 years old.

An MRI showed 'grey matter heterotopia' which the neurologist puts down the to interruption of my mothers pregnancy with me to multiple abortion attempts. They say it is genetic too, but neurologist guessed situational, given my past.

Also, multiple attempts to get rid of me by
1. Selling
2. Accidental death

Screws with the head and the body. Can't really develop the way that kids who are loved and cherished do because I was so busy trying to survive. Even when I was safe, my body didn't know it. It was still trying to resolve my situation, which had long since passed.

I was smart at school, although they didn't expect me to be. So honestly, it didn't affect my cognition so much as it affected my regulation.

Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but it is what came to mind when I read the post.

 

[MrMoonlight]

Thanks @shimmerz . Are you speaking of emotional regulation? If you don't mind me asking what type of therapies have you had the most success with? Thank you so much for sharing part of you with me. My therapist wants to start EMDR with me but right now I'm most concerned with an upcoming family reunion during Christmas.

The guy who attempted to kill my family was a baseball coach in my little league. He was dating my mother at the time who was on again off again with my step father. When she decided it was over he lit the place up on 'new year's eve' by pouring gallons of gasoline around the cars in the garage. Which was just below my bedroom and my siblings.

All I know is that I feel horribly separated from people....and am completely untrusting. I don't let anyone "in" and I know my life will end tragically if I hold that course. It's a matter of time until the next trauma and that scares me.

I guess I want to boil PTSD down to some arithmetic problem but It probably doesn't work that way. I want to understand myself and know what things I need to be looking closely at.

 

[shimmerz]

I have conversion disorder as well, so regulation gets wrapped up in somatics and emotional.... like a path that is healthy gets rewired into a path that displays my emotions in a very disordered way. I pass out actually. That can last a long time for me. *heavy sigh*

So yeah, I think that I deal with things somatically, which is what babies do. I think those who are raised without all of these survival issues learn how to take the somatic stuff and convert it age appropriately into real, worded emotions. Kind of like the lessons for my kids of 'use your words sweetie' never got learned.

The logical brain wants to figure it all out. That is a problem. This comes down to body awareness. Learning the language it speaks, which is, in my opinion, something that our early education system, parents, authority figures 'beat out of us'. So, yah, I think that the arithmetic viewpoint is not what healing generally ends up like. It's more like 'that poor little boy must have been' (terrified, angry, sad, thought he was going to die.....so many new words).

Like words that describe the feelings. Feelings that were probably numbed out big time. Especially if it was something the whole family experienced. Ugh. That just magnifies the confusion of it all, you know? I am so very sorry you went through all of that.

 

[MrMoonlight]

That sounds terrible bud, to lose consciousness and I assume worrying about it happening in public or driving. Which probably makes it worse.

The day of my mental/physical collapse I had found bits of brain on a wall from the shotgun blast. A scene I was helping to manage for the company. I remember now how strongly it affected me. The next day I lost consciousness at work and never returned to the promotion I had been given. That was twenty years ago.

You mention conversion disorder, something my Psychiatrist told me after I lost my vision during my assessment. I know enough to apply it incorrectly but just after the fire I started getting migraine headaches. Last week while thinking about my life I got nauseated to the point of diarrhea and vomiting..at that point I passed-out for I assume just a couple min. I wounder if all these things fit the somatization/conversion disorder diag.

After reading your post I think I do need to mention this to my therapist and dig into somatization/conversion disorder a bit more. Do you know if this diag applies to only the extreme emotion or does it work in more subtle ways in regards to regulation?

 

[lostnconfused]

Hello. Have you looked at health websites like the NIMH PTSD webpage? (I'm sorry I couldn't post the link for you. I tried to, but this website said my post count is too low at the moment to be allowed to.) It explains the symptoms, and gives several links to other articles on how to treat it, etc.

 

[shimmerz]

@MrMoonlight, I wonder if this article may help you.

Medscape: Medscape Access