Childhood Developmental Trauma

[Chava]

Re-doing because I want to re-title my post and add a video. Hope that's okay. Maybe mods need to take down my other own.

Just read the chapter in "Healing Developmental Trauma" about the "connection" survival style and underlined almost the entire chapter. It's validating because it pretty much explains my life, my struggles, and even why my current therapy feels so important (a therapist who "gets it" and is very much from the somatic and "bottom up" approach camps of Lawrence Heller, Peter Levine, Bessel van der Kolk...).

Some main points (which I relate to at perfect pitch). I'm paraphrasing small snippets because I don't love quoting large portions of books. If you relate, I recommend the book. These are traits of earliest traumas. Usually "globalized" in effecting every part of our tiny organism:

Earliest shock and/or attachment trauma

Disconnected from self and others

Simultaneously shutdown and highly activated

Freeze Response

Core fear: "I will die or fall apart if I feel"

"Self" anchored in a role (musician, boss, mother,...)

shame over needs (anorexia seemed to help ease this for me)

Disembodied, disconnected from and out of touch with their bodies
Spend most time in their heads or spiritual pursuits

Use physical distance as substitute for normal boundaries

Ambivalence....Simultaneously crave connection and extremely afraid of it (I live in a hole in the bottom of the ocean)

Energy is of globalized high-intensity activation (how my therapist describes my stuff), seemingly low energy and sensation, dorsal vagal dominance

Shallow breathing, frozen thorax (yes, painful)

Extremely sensitive...to feelings and also sensory experience like sound and touch...(why I have symptoms that can appear rather autism spectrum at times...have to be careful about what I bitch about at work)

Limited range of tolerance for good or bad feelings, very vulnerable to later traumas (instead of talking to anyone after being sexually assaulted as an adult I tried to kill myself a few times, then just relied on lots of vodka since I didn't dare to live or die

My body memories are all extremely immobilizing (like if I move, feel, or even breathe too deep I will die).

Therapy includes recognizing the ambivalence towards connection and working with it carefully (I'm currently working on this), gradually and safely feeling and tolerating body sensations. And all the regulation stuff. Bottom-up approaches (body, nervous system based) or bottom-up plus top-down together (body + cognitive). Research shows CBT alone is of limited value for early shock and relational trauma, which is my experience too. Thought distortions ease up as regulation is restored.

Anyway, not sure if others relate to some of this experience...or if you've read the book. Just wanted to share. One less way I feel like I'm a fundamentally f*cked up human reject. I'm smart, caring, and actually have a decent level of awareness. I'm just horrified by the experience of being in my body or close to others...at one point that shutdown made very good survival sense, likely why I'm still here. I just need to learn how to live beyond the deeply ingrained survival patterns.

 

[fellowsufferer]

@Chava. I can relate to what you are saying. I feel like my body is permenantly scre#d up!! That's what i hate most about my trauma. So difficult to relax always feeling tense. Sometimes frozen. It's why i think a body approach in therapy is nessesary. Also trouble with regulating emotions from one extreme to the next or totaly numbing my feelings because it was what i did during the abuse. I feel like healthy self was stolen from me. What i also did during and after trauma was hiding away in my head by trying not to feel anything. I didn't feel i had an option in trying a different method i telt trapped. The stimulis was to high for me to handle. Why 20 years since then have past. I still struggle with this i am very gratefull for this forum i find it a real blessing to see that i am not alone ontmoet!

 

[sun seeker]

Yay Chava! I am so glad you are reading the book and getting so much out of it. I'd like to read it again. There's undoubtedly lots I would relate to on a whole other level from the first time I read it.

It's validating because it pretty much explains my life, my struggles

Isn't it a relief to know that! Painful... but a relief at the same time.

even why my current therapy feels so important (a therapist who "gets it" and is very much from the somatic and "bottom up" approach camps of Lawrence Heller, Peter Levine, Bessel van der Kolk...

I am glad you have found that. Sounds like you are moving in a good direction, hard as it is. Thank you for sharing.

 

[Pencil]

if others relate

Oh, totally!!

And, as always, not being able to go for therapy, it scares the hell out of me to read this kind of thing. It's as if I live in a frozen state, and most probably always will. Unless I can heal all of this by myself, and I don't know if it's possible.

 

[PlainJane]

Hmm...yep.

 

[watundah]

I really liked that book, too. It is probably one of my favorite trauma books, so far.

I liked the fact that it had exercises. I think it was page 79, or something like that, that said to rank where you think you are in different areas of recovery. I did the exercise, then took it to therapy - lets just say, my therapist was a much harder grader than me.

 

[Chava]

Thanks @watundah ...I'm not to the end yet. Would the exercises be helpful for @Pencil (or someone to do outside of context of therapy?).

@Pencil "liked" as thanks for relating. Don't like that you can't go for therapy. How come? Sorry if I read this somewhere and forgot. Does some amount of understanding your current struggles help you at all? I think I would have had a hard time even noticing any part of my body experience safely without a therapist. But I know there are other safe contexts...like I can feel more connected to myself through sound and music. Haven't found much else, but it's good to know what helps.

Forgot to note that, as a concept, the "connection survival style" relates to earliest trauma (like mostly <6 months, serious nervous wiring and attachment phase, etc). I relate somewhat to the "attunement survival style" and not much to any of the others. But pretty much every aspect of what Laurence Heller calls this connection style.

Sidenote, I slept with several people while drunk in early adulthood...but I've had two what I could actually call boyfriends in my entire adulthood (middle-ages here...WTF is wrong with me)...each for only a few months. I don't even try at relationships. I have super weak relationship vibes. I've mostly gotten over loads of self-hatred over all of it and fallen back into the endless amount of little solitary projects like I had in childhood. Well aware of connection needs though and willing to work on it carefully. I do better with structures like support groups and committees or book studies. If I push myself I need to get f*cked up or at least chain smoke.

 

[Biz]

@Chava! You're a mind reader. I just finished the book today (two day reading binge). I thought the exact same thing at the early description: Connection Survival Style, that's me.
It's interesting you reflect on touch and sound; those are my top two most sensitive stimuli too. I also found his case studies very relatable.
I especially liked everything he wrote about eye contact. Eye contact really messes with my boundaries and often feels intrusive or aggressive. Often, when I am receiving reiki and she asks me about where an emotion, I notice the emotion in my face. It's the eye muscles he's talking about.

The person I get body work from does a lot of his mentioned interventions. It's been the difference for me. I can track my object constancy and increased regulation. It's what's helped, to the degree that I will make corny statements like, "I'm enjoying my life more." I still find my limitations. In one of his case studies he talks about Aline, the other writer, working with a client and covering her up to acknowledge her need for space/separation. Even though I'm clothed, I cannot receive reiki/body work without being covered with a heavy blanket for that extra protection. This book helped me realize a lot of these limitations more and I like his idea of a natural expansion/contraction; it gives me a hopeful view about it all.

 

[Chava]

especially liked everything he wrote about eye contact. Eye contact really messes with my boundaries and often feels intrusive or aggressive

Me too. I don't always read as so distant and unapproachable, and yet...I do want to read that way. The ambivalence he talked about was right on. I have really deep habits of making myself invisible or untouchable wherever I do. I like to think I'm protecting my shaky connection to myself for a while longer, then will have some slightly easier time connecting with others. ???

 

[Chava]

Another fascinating thing is his discussion of the "designated issue." For me this would be anorexia and probably my chronic pain. Both are real, but like the other says, "Focusing on the designated issue diverts attention from the underlying unrecognized high arousal, dysregulation, and disconnection that drive the nameless dread."

The "designated issue" is protective...."Individuals with the Connection Survival Style believe that if only their 'problem' could be resolved, then they would be happy" but if the underlying arousal has not been addressed, the symptoms can all be felt more intensely if they try to just get rid of the designated issue. It has to be dealt with, but understood as secondary.

ARRGGH!!!! How many times I left eating disorder treatment and got insanely drunk...drinking my way quickly back into the hospital? This last time I finally gained weight, feeling very grown up for just doing it and seeing an eating disorder specialist, I was FILLED WITH DREAD. I've sensed this dread very tied to the chronic pain that developed not long after I reached a healthy weight. For years, I've also sensed both anorexia and pain had to do with high activation (or what I just thought of as way too much energy...like start-yourself-on-fire kind of energy...energy I would not know what to do with if I felt okay). I've also been somewhat aware of the protective ways they let me maintain disconnection.

Anyway, I appreciate that my current therapist is not trying to fix my pain, but work with underlying trauma and allow my body sort of its own process for reorganizing and dealing with all the activation really carefully.

 

[Bookoffee]

Thank you for sharing @Chava
It is fitting

I wish I could watch the video but I can't at this time. As soon as I can I will.

Hope you are doing well

 

[Chava]

Honestly I haven't watched it all...quite long, but will try to finish tonight. By the time I slow down I'm on ambien and who knows how long I'll last.

I saw this book mentioned a long time ago on this site. Took me a long time to order and another several weeks to even open. I think it's good that we respect our own processes of learning from our direct experience and learning more about trauma in more general ways. Right now it feels validating for me to learn more about this earliest trauma stuff.

I'm okay, thanks. Hope you are too @Bookoffee