Sometimes it takes a Nobel laureate William Faulkner to remind us that “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” That serves as a pretty good description of the impact of trauma.
We owe much to the courageous Canadian General Roméo Dallaire who told the world of his PTSD after returning from his service in Rwanda. Due to his bravery, wartime PTSD is no longer considered a sign of weak minds or defect of characters. This is an incredibly positive benefit of displaying one’s trauma in public. Why? Because it was intended to and indeed served the purpose of benefiting others, veterans in particular.
In recent decades, some psychiatrists began to extend their understanding of PTSD to cover a wider field, beyond that suffered by war veterans. In 1988, Judith Herman suggested that a new diagnosis, complex PTSD, was needed to describe the symptoms of long-term trauma, focusing on the impact of early childhood trauma.
When psychiatry began in the late 19th century, it focused on people identified as suffering from things in their past. Unfortunately, many in the profession have since turned toward the theory that the cause of psychiatric disorders is primarily, if not solely, the result of chemical imbalances in the brain. With the support of the pharmaceutical industry, many therapists treat depression with antidepressants and anxiety with anxiolytic drugs. With that, they consider their work complete. Now, increasingly, more therapists are once again inviting the patient’s to consider their personal histories in therapy; in particular, experiences of early childhood trauma.
Early childhood trauma goes beyond those suffering from the overtly violent battered child syndrome. More subtle forms of abuse and trauma are now seen as significant in producing later psychopathology. For example, sibling bullying at home can easily be overlooked. We all know the school environment can be cruel, especially for those with unusual physical or mental characteristics from size, to skin color, to accent, to clothing as well as to being comparatively poor.
Alcoholic parents may turn on one of their offspring and siblings may join in to abuse the now identified victim. Stronger or smarter siblings who are threatened themselves may pick on and singled out another child. It is difficult to escape from trauma when living under the same roof with someone stronger who is picking on you. While these circumstances may not lead to or even be brought to the attention of therapists, they certainly leave a mark on their targets. Following the Karpman social triangle, a victim in one setting might turn out to be an abuser in another.
We do not need to look far, just read with empathy Mary Trump’s book, “Too Much and Never Enough” or Prince Harry’s book, ”Spare”. Wealth and social status does not necessarily offer protection against the adverse effects of early trauma later in life. One should understand how powerfully one’s childhood subtly, and sometimes not so subtly, influences one’s life and the lives of all one encounters.
