I've been reading about the complex ptsd emotional flashbacks & realize that yes, this hopeless, frightened tiny upset person in this state is what I've always considered to be the 'real' me.
This fragile and vulnerable state this is often associated with trauma, complex or not, is what can lead to us being traumatized easier with new knowledge by a trusted source. Its a dangerously fine line with an adult traumatized brain.
That was what was confusing for me; I couldnt have ptsd because I didnt have flashbacks.
It is a rare occurrence with PTSD to experience a flashback. Not many people ever will experience them with PTSD. They are just one symptom, not a "required" symptom to have PTSD.
I should have been terrified of this rapist who told me he was going to kill me, but I was just resolved to accept and endure whatever happened.
The ironic part is that a highly traumatized person will also build some extreme defensive resilience to be quite easy going about ongoing trauma suffering, dismissive absolutely. It is quite often found and even one symptom of PTSD.
While I could no longer feel the physical pain, the emotional torture will never go away. Its all still there & its too painful for me to study this subject or to read about other people's abuse. Its all too complicated.
You shouldn't read others abuse if your not capable of handling it, simple as that. It will only endup bad for you, as you're exposing yourself to others trauma, when already highly traumatized yourself.
However, wouldn't it be true that if a child was developed enough to have an intense negative emotional response to a certain stimulus that that would be an emotional memory in the childs mind even though he didnt have the language knowledge to develop a statement to describe it.
Depends on the age you are talking about. Anything under one year of age, you are quite honestly more than likely creating a false memory based on adult knowledge through trying to assimilate knowledge now known to an age that you have no memory, but are literally trying to connect with. The brain just doesn't function that way. Our brain at that age doesn't even know what an emotion is. It can't put words with feelings, because the brain hasn't learnt them yet, which is why under the age of 5 is normal to be completely blank slate. It would only be hugely significant events at 3+ that a person "may", very unlikely, but it has occurred and been verified, that the person had snippets, which with verification, was able to complete a memory after the memory was triggered in present tense.
There are studies run in other cultures, adulthood, where the learning and knowledge is not what English is, so to experience rape and what we determine to be abuse, because we assimilate words with a meaning, then emotion, other cultures do not have words for, and the same events are not even traumatic, because their culture cannot describe it or understand it as such, so it is not so. Difficult to think about it, but exactly the same as applying to a child. If the understanding is not there, the brain cannot be traumatized by what it actually cannot understand with meaning. If told later in life, when the brain does have meaning, that is often what causes the traumatization, not the event itself at that young an age.
Another question is even if the mother withholds care from the newborn, if the child had a loving nanny to take the mothers place most of the time, wouldnt that compensate somewhat?
That is still emotional stability, yes. A child bonds, they don't really logically process the person, it is the act. We know as an adult they feel secure, but they do not know such language or meaning, they just like it.
That sort of damage with emotionless parenting is done when the child begins to understand as their brain and understanding develop. That is where damage is done. They go to school, other kids have loving parents, they now begin to understand they are different and try to work out why. They try to get the same from their mother or father as they see other kids get... this is where traumatization begins.
If you put the same situation where the child never knew what occurred with another child, there would be no traumatization, because there would be no actual logic or understanding to apply in their situation. This is why you see children who where stolen at birth, even just learning they where stolen, they will cling to the parent they know, because they know no different. Even though the person stole them, they know no different. The event won't become traumatizing until they begin to establish exactly what has happened, then begin putting words to feelings, learning their actual parents, etc... basically, everything they knew was not traumatizing, everything they must now learn, is, as its outside their normal spectrum of how they functioned and associated as normal.
