Trauma

 I have been working with the ideas of Charles Whitfield lately and am finding them very helpful.   In his book, Healing the Child Within and companion book A Gift to Myself, he describes a system of classifying trauma which I'll use as the framework of this post.   

The categories, with examples given for children/adolescenrts,  are as follows:

1.  None:          No apparent psychological stressor

2.  Minimal:    Vacation with family

3. Mild:            Change in school year,  new teacher

4. Moderate:   Chronic parental fighting, change to new school, illness of a close relative, sibling birth.

5. Severe:         Death of peer,  divorce of parents,  arrest,  hospitalization, persistent and harsh parental discipline

6.  Extreme:     Death of a parent or sibling,  repeated sexual/physical abuse.

7.  Catastrophic:   Multiple family deaths.

Obviously,  numbers 1-3 are the kinds of stressors which we encounter all the time and which do not typically damage our sense of well being.   Whitfield says that if a person can name the more severe traumas and be able to speak about them,  s/he is off to a good start.  So here goes:

First of all,  I don't think any stressor in my life so far could be categorized as Catastrophic.   My entry into the scale is at the level of Extreme.   

My extreme stressors:   

--My father abandoning me when I was six.   

--Sexual abuse by a babysitter over a several month period when I was six.

--The death of my father at age fourteen.

--My mom became psychotic and was hospitalized when I was fifteen.

My severe stressors: 

--I fell while riding my tricycle and busted my chin open when I was three.  Had to get multiple stitches and there is a clear scar today.

--My parents divorced when I was four.

--Moving to a town many hours away from my dad when I was four.

--Shortly before my dad exited my life he came to my house to pick me up, quickly left,  and I was not able to catch up with him--so I rode my bike across town to his house.  He was not there and so my mom came and picked me there after several hours.

--Being in a car accident where I and my mom were relatively unhurt but the other car occupants had serious injuries (broken leg, pelvis, ribs) when I was nine.

--My mom having a nervous breakdown when I was ten.  I went to stay with the family of a class friend for several days while she was in the hospital.

--Getting slapped down by my mom's boyfriend, in front of my mom,  when I was thirteen.

My moderate stressors: 

--My mom's frequent irritable mood when I was growing up.

--My mom chronically being (sometimes hours)  late to pick me up all through my childhood.

---A neighbor friend of mine hit me in the face with a child's rake when I was three.

--We moved to a new state when I was four.

--Watching "The Exorcist" with my dad at the movie theater when I was five.

--Having kids in the neighborhood try to convince me that my mom was not my real mom and that they knew my real mom when I was six.

--I showed the babysitter who molested me a piece of art I had done and she said,  "You didn't do that--you're not good enough to do that."

--Receiving (infrequent) mail or phone calls from my dad from age six to age fourteen.

--My cousin coming to live with us (for about a year) when I was nine.

--Neighborhood bullies surrounded me and spit all over me when I was ten.

--Getting stabbed in the eye with a pencil by a bully in my class when I was ten.   The principal rushed my to the hospital and there was no permanent damage.   However, the lead made a mark in my eye which is still there today.

--I pooped my pants on my way home from school one day when I was ten.

--My mom having a blow-up fight with my aunt's new husband when we were visiting them--we abruptly left and flew back home,  when I was thirteen.

--A man who lived a few doors down from us called me up and said "I want your body" when I was thirteen.

--I was caught shoplifting when I was thirteen.

--Having sex with a total stranger as my first sexual experience after puberty,  when I was thirteen.

--A friend of the family's  killed himself when I was fifteen.

--My girlfriend was hit by a car as she walked to my soccer game when I was fifteen.  She was hospitalized for several days and recovered.

--My mom married a guy I did not all like when I was fifteen.

--Her subsequent marriage to him which included frequent yelling and emotional abuse.

--Having a near miss of a head-on collision when I was driving at age seventeen.

--Death of a close family friend when I was seventeen.

I probably have other stressors that I'm not thinking of,  most likely in the moderate level.    According to Whitfield I may have some level of PTSD as a result of these traumas.   He asks further questions:   

--How did you handle these stresses?

--Did anyone teach you healthy ways to handle these?

He says that if a person doesn't handle these stressors in healthy ways that s/he may still have some level of PTSD.   

He further says that the PTSD is more damaging and difficult to treat if 1)  the stressors happen over a long period of time (more than six months),  2) if the traumas are of human origin,  and 3) if the people around the stressed person tend to deny or minimize the existence of the stressor.

According to Whitfield, some of the symptoms can be 

1) re-experiencing the trauma (upsetting recollections, bad dreams, etc)

2)  Psychic numbing:    This may include a constriction or absence of feeling, or expressing feeling,  which often results in a sense of estrangement, withdrawal,  isolation or alienation.

3)  Hyper-alertness or hyper-vigilance:  person is constantly on the lookout for potential similar stressors

4)  Survivor guilt:  ie. escaping the trauma when others are still experiencing the trauma.

5)  Chemical dependence

6) Avoiding activities associated with the trauma

7)  Developing multiple personalties.

"When we are not allowed to remember,  to express our feelings and to grieve or mourn our losses or traumas…through the free expression of our Child Within,  we become ill."

More on this next week.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly, Ben