Post-traumatic Childhood

[groovedaddy]

AS a young psychiatrist, I worked with Vietnam War combat veterans and confronted the astonishing lack of resources to help these men and women who had sacrificed so much for their country. Three decades later, that situation has greatly improved. First, we named the problem — post-traumatic stress disorder — and then in 1989 Congress created the National Center for PTSD to help suffering veterans.

Their plight has also led to a greater recognition of the impact of violence on children. For every soldier returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with symptoms of depression or PTSD, there are around 10 children in the United States who are traumatized by exposure to family violence, sexual abuse, neglect and assault, with consequences comparable to those of adult exposure to war-zone violence. We have made progress in treating these children, but that progress is threatened by a drastic budget cut proposed by the White House.

Rather than being subjected to bullets and bombs, children are victimized by those who are meant to care for them. These are children like a 3-year-old girl in Anchorage who was found by a police officer in her crib, hungry, underweight and covered in her own feces; an 11-year-old boy in New York City who has had violent outbursts since he was sexually molested, and whose terror of being alone makes him a subject of ridicule by his classmates; or a 14-year-old girl in Boston who set fire to a church and repeatedly attempted suicide after being beaten at home. The Pew Charitable Trusts estimates that the annual cost of childhood maltreatment like this is $103.8 billion.

Inspired by the work of the National Center for PTSD, Congress authorized the establishment of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network in 2001 to evaluate and develop treatments for traumatized children nationwide, with a budget that is now $40 million — about the cost of keeping 40 soldiers fighting in Afghanistan for one year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/opinion/11kolk.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

[HereSince1628]

1. Although combat related PTSD is a high priority, yet most folks don't know

that the severity of childhood exposure to trauma is predictive of the severity of PTSD in adults and that includes combat veterans.

[Coyote_Bandit]

2. And sometimes those children

with PTSD suffer because of completely unintentional acts that had horiffic consequences. Children who were passengers in auto accidents that observed the severe injury or death of another, for example.

PTSD can result from a number of circumstances. It is wrong to suggest that it only results from war or violence or abuse.

[Gregorian]

3. I think the biggest threat comes from not the extremes, but from many so-called normal families.

I can see my parents reading their daily NYT paper. A good nuclear family. Now my sisters and I all just about retirement age, and finally figuring out why our lives have been so difficult. My younger sister was talking with me the other night, saying she felt we all had a form of PTSD. But I imagine my parents reading this article, which they will, and thinking about those bad parents who left their children neglected, and without sustenance. However, our normal family (much like most American families) lacked an invisible sustenance. I still need to read Gabor Mate's books. This topic could be a book. I've got a trench to dig. So I'm off. But in this car centric culture where nearly everyone is frantically working for their lives, something great is lost.

[truedelphi]

10. Can you explain more about the "invisible sustenance" that

American nuclear families lack?

I lived in a commune in the mid seventies, and that represented such a more humane, and all encompassing structure of support for the inhabitants, expecially when compared with the nuclear family all of us adults in that commune had grown up in.

Very interested to hear you flesh out the point you are making..

[Gregorian]

12. Time.

But it's not just time. It's valuing a child's perspective. It's simple, yet complex. I see so many parents who don't spend time. Just plain sitting. Nothing special. Time is gone because of money needs. But more than that, I find most parents feel they "own" their kids. It's my observation that most kids are smarter than their parents. And that many if not most parents had children because they were bored, or just wanted something to fill their lives. My father didn't want kids. My mother did. In the name of bettering me, I was forced into an array of things before I ever graduated from high school. I am certain it was to get me out of the house so they could have their own time.

It just seems to me that most people on this planet have lost their way. Someone said something to me once that bothered me. He said, you think too much. And I now believe that many people do think too much. I grew up next door to a family that I consider the best family ever. The man was a Harvard educated architect, and had enough money that he didn't have to work. But that's not why they were great. They were great because there was no conflict in the relationship between the parents and kids. My friend was the only kid I've ever known whose parents weren't adversaries.

I don't know. I still think it boils down to time. Maybe I'm wrong. There's a lot more to it than that.

[truedelphi]

13. That is what I liked about being in

A commune.

There was always someone somewhere amongst the five floors plus of rooms and space who had the time. The time to debate about politics. To offer a shoulder to cry on. To cajole into going to the main drag and celebrating one of life's little victories. or just to hang out with.

Once or twice I have almost come that close to being that happy. But inside a traditional relationship, often it seems like when I have free time, my spouse doesn't, and vice versa.

[nolabear]

4. One misunderstood thing about PTSD:

It's not just that there is a traumatic event or series of events or ongoing event, it's that there is no safe structure like a caring, responsible relationship in which the trauma can be dealt with in a way that keeps it from becoming walled off and unreachable without a massive amount of later work. Childhood maltreatment by family, or within the context of a family that can't gather around and reassure and reestablish a sense of general safety and trust leaves not only the original disorder but a fragile spot in the psyche that can be triggered by later traumas.

That's why it's so damned important that these programs remain in place and get more funding, not less. Those children are suffering, overtly or covertly, and will grow into adults who may well turn to very problematic sources of relief for that suffering, be it substances, desperately seeking and destroying relationships, or the confused perpetuation of that trauma onto the generation following.

[groovedaddy]

7. And it's not just PTSD but a host of "maladies", mental/personality disorders. The old rub "The

sins of the parents are visited upon the children" is as true as it ever was. We are making strides in identifying and treating these problems. However, if we don't provide adequate funding to allow access to theraphy/treatment, we will be kicking a larger and larger can down the road (as you so aptly point out.)

[CoffeeCat]

5. I have been diagnosed with PTSD...

...due to horrendous childhood abuse. I am lucky. I have great insurance
and access to a therapist who has been on the forefront of PTSD research
since the mid-1990's.

It took me five years of intense therapy just to get on level ground. It's
been ten years since I began therapy--and I only go when I get triggered or
have some maintenance issues to clean up.

Again, I am lucky.

I was raised in an upper-middle class family that looked perfect on the outside.
The greatest trauma for me, was being forced to remain silent and endure everything.
Because no one would have suspected anything--or believed what was happening--it
exacerbated the PTSD by forcing me to hunker down. I've sat in support groups and
witnessed so much of the same thing. Most of the people in my support group
came from "nice" families. Most of the abuse was sexual. Their fathers were
doctors, lawyers, accountants, construction workers, even pastors. When the facade
that you are required to prop up--is so starkly different than the reality--it's
outrageously stressful for a child, teenager, etc.

Child abuse is an epidemic in this country. One if four girls is sexually abused before
age 18; and one in seven males is as well. That's just sexual abuse. What about
physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect? I don't think it's a stretch to suggest
that at least 30 percent of our population has PTSD, due to childhood abuse.

Thank you for posting this. It means a lot.

[cutlassmama]

8. +1

[Jefferson23]

9. You're right, it is luck to a large degree to receive therapy after the

fact...thank goodness for you it worked out that way.

I don't know what kind of luck it takes for a child to be rescued before intensive therapy
is required to help them..this is a terrible neglect we have in the U.S.

Best wishes to you for continued success.

[zazen]

6. great site on complex PTSD and one on betrayal trauma

http://www.eastbaytherapist.org/news/article.html?eselect=detail&artid=105 (work by Pete Walker) on complex PTSD and managing emotional flashbacks

http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jjf/defineBT.html (betrayal trauma--theory first developed by Jennifer Freyd, University of Oregon)

[mountainlion55]

11. Thank you for the post

:smoke: