In September, 2013 I attended a community-wide meeting about the effects of domestic violence on youth. Since I have been in human services since 1998, I have been seeing these effects on youth and their families played out in hundreds of scenarios for many years. This meeting, however, inspired me to act in a way I hadn't before. There was a woman, Mrs. H, at the meeting who has been working with families in domestic relations court for thirty years. She was knowledgeable, articulate, and passionate in urging this group of people to see how ongoing trauma and turmoil affected these kids and their families long term, and to adopt more effective strategies for mitigating its effects.
As a survivor of childhood trauma related to witnessing domestic violence, I sat in that meeting trying to both participate, and to dissociate-- to remove myself emotionally and mentally from the environment. It was painful to engage emotionally with this topic. But something about Mrs. H, who had managed to stay present with her anger and frustration toward a system that was not meeting the needs of traumatized youth changed the way I saw myself that day.
I left that meeting thinking about how little progress I have seen: Families are in turmoil, and society punishes them for the effects of that turmoil, the violence, instability, and neglect the children unfortunately experience. Human services workers are often knowledgeable and understanding, but the criminal justice system, and society overall, usually are not. I knew that after fifteen years, it was time for me to make the very risky move of blending my personal self, as a trauma survivor, with my professional self as a youth advocate.
I immediately wrote the piece, Little Girl about my experience, which begins like this: Little girl is four years old, in the kitchen with Mommy and Boyfriend #1 who are arguing. The arguing gets louder and soon they are fighting too, with slaps and punches.
Little Girl watches frozen in the corner as Boyfriend #1 chokes Mommy on the floor until she shows him he has won this round.
Little girl's spirit begins to crack.
It was terrifying to put myself in this vulnerable position, but I was also beginning to have faith that this was the right thing to do. I called Mrs. H and asked her to read Little Girl publicly at an upcoming event. She agreed without hesitation, and read it with tremendous understanding and heart.
Let's talk about what I mean by trauma. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA, and Kaiser Permanente in San Diego, CA, have created the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, which "reveals staggering proof of the health, social, and economic risks that result from childhood trauma." They have an instrument to be used to assess the level of adverse childhood experience of an individual (http://acestudy.org/ace_score).
Most people will score at least a point or two, as things like parental divorce and alcoholism are counted toward the total trauma load. Some of us score higher, and the idea is that the higher your score, the greater your level of childhood trauma. However, everyone is different in how trauma affects them. An individual could have a low score and still have lasting and significant effects. Or they can have a higher score, but through resilience and other factors they may not have significant long term effects as an adult.
Of course, people can experience trauma as adults as well. There can be single incidents of major trauma, like witnessing a murder, or living through a natural disaster, and there can be complex or chronic trauma, such as experiencing ongoing domestic or sexual abuse that occurs over many months or years.
Those who go on to experience disruptive effects from their trauma, be it from childhood or adulthood, may meet criteria for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD is most often associated with soldiers returning from a war zone, but they are just one of the groups of people who have PTSD.
Anyone who has experienced trauma, whether they meet criteria for PTSD or not, may experience lasting or permanent effects. Serious or chronic trauma can cause permanent changes to the brain that affect mood and behavior, with symptoms like anxiety, depression, hypervigilance, rage, flashbacks, sleep problems, attention problems, irritability, sensory issues (such as sensitivity to loud or sharp noise), and more.
Many people with a primary diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety or Major Depression may be able to trace these conditions back to trauma. In that same meeting that I attended in September, a colleague of mine who works with traumatized clients said that she no longer asks them, "What is going on with you?" She now asks, "What happened to you?" Helping people to understand how adverse experiences shape their brains and behavior is the first step in helping them learn to cope, and overcome.
