“the birth of three new branches of science has led to an explosion of knowledge about the effects of psychological trauma, abuse, and
neglect. Those new disciplines are neuroscience, the study of how the brain
supports mental processes; developmental psychopathology, the study of the impact of adverse experiences on the development of mind and brain; and interpersonal neurobiology, the study of how our behavior influences the emotions, biology, and mind-sets of those around us.
Research from these new disciplines has revealed that trauma produces actual physiological changes, including a recalibration of the brain’s alarm system, an increase in stress hormone activity, and alterations in the system that filters relevant information from irrelevant. We now know that trauma compromises the brain area that communicates the physical, embodied feeling of being alive. These changes explain why traumatized individuals become hypervigilant to threat at the expense of spontaneously engaging in their day-to day lives. They also help us understand why traumatized people so often keep repeating the same problems and have such trouble learning from experience.
We now know that their behaviors are not the result of moral failings or signs of lack of willpower or bad character—they are caused by actual changes in the brain
This vast increase in our knowledge about the basic processes that underlie
trauma has also opened up new possibilities to palliate or even reverse the
damage. We can now develop methods and experiences that utilize the brain’s own natural neuroplasticity to help survivors feel fully alive in the present and move on with their lives. There are fundamentally three avenues: 1) top down, by talking, (re-) connecting with others, and allowing ourselves to know and understand what is going on with us, while processing the memories of the trauma; 2) by taking medicines that shut down inappropriate alarm reactions, or by utilizing other technologies that change the way the brain organizes information, and 3) bottom up: by allowing the body to have experiences that deeply and viscerally contradict the helplessness, rage, or collapse that result from trauma. Which one of these is best for any particular survivor is an empirical question. Most people I have worked with require a combination.” The Body Keeps the Score Bessel Van Der Kolk

I cannot stress the following quote enough. “We now know that their behaviors are not the result of moral failings or signs of lack of willpower or bad character—they are caused by actual changes in the brain.”

For most of my life I believed I was too stupid, too weak, too permanently damaged to “fix” what needed fixing in me. People seemed to expect that I could just put my childhood behind and be happy now and oh, how hard I tried always left feeling inadequate and so very tired.

I am relieved, but also saddened that so many years and so many tears have been spent trying to be like other people when I was not and never could be.

I am changing. It is both a relief and frightening. I find myself making decisions through thoughtful process rather than according to the roller coaster of my emotions. Two years of DBT with its mindfulness, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness training, and distress tolerance have brought a measure of peace to my once chaotic life.

Where once I listened to 70’s rock for energy, I listen to piano-violin duets. Where once I took drugs to help me sleep, I do guided meditation. And where once my emotions told me it was the end of the world, I now sit quietly and let them pass.

We live in a world of walking wounded; domestic violence, sexual abuse, war, natural catastrophe. Few pass through these events unscathed and yet people sit in judgement wanting them to be stronger willed and “do better.”

Then there are God touting people who mean to help and send their thoughts and prayers but no meaningful answers. They do not understand how solid my belief was as a child living in the wasteland of abuse and neglect or how my belief turned to hate when the Jesus I sang about in Sunday school never showed up to save me.

Science is saving me. Good old science. Amazing science.