Our Bodies Reactions to Childhood Trauma
By Krystle Ramdhanie December 12,2022
*Warning* May contain some triggering information*
A time in our lives when we are in our most innocent stage of our life, our childhood. Most people hear the word childhood and think of all the wonderful memories like riding their first bicycle, ice cream trucks, birthday parties, playing in the snow or a fond memory of an activity with a parent that replays in their minds when they see or smell something familiar. Then there are some of us who hear the word childhood and we completely have a blank thought, our stomachs began to twist a bit, or we start to feel nervous, anxious, or angry. This is because CDC research shows more than 60 percent of American adults have as children experienced at least one ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience), and almost a quarter of adults have experienced 3 or more ACEs, likely an underestimate. Childhood or early childhood trauma can occur in many different forms from physical or sexual abuse, witnessing a traumatic event, witnessing domestic violence, bullying, mental abuse, and sometimes situations like refugee trauma or natural disasters. As children we often are unable to fully process what is happening to us, especially in cases of physical, mental or sexual abuse we tend to blame our selves as children or convince ourselves that the person did not mean to do it to us. As we develop and grow into adults our brains block out these horrific event until we are reminded of them in some way as adults. How does this trauma affect our bodies, well our bodies and our brains are built to protect us from imminent danger, we call this the fight or flight response where our brains release stress hormones like epinephrine, cortisol and adrenaline in response to it. The effects of childhood trauma can last well into our adulthood and effect our health and lifestyles choices. There is a higher likelihood of developing chronic illnesses in adults because of the trauma they experienced as children, they are more likely to engage in high-risk activities, poor dieting and more likely to develop depression. “Exposure to trauma during childhood can dramatically increase people’s risk for 7 out of 10 of the leading causes of death in the U.S.—including high blood pressure, heart disease, and cancer—and it’s crucial to address this public health crisis, according to Harvard Chan alumna Nadine Burke Harris, MPH ’02.” Trauma puts so much strain on our bodies as we internalize the pain and events that happened to us as children. As this trauma is stored in our bodies it releases hormones at higher than normal levels that begin to impact our mental and physical health. Headaches, upset stomach, muscle tension, and fatigue are just a few of the other things that happen to our body as we store trauma in it. Research has proven that children who experienced severe trauma such as verbal, physical or emotional abuse or lived with drug or alcohol abusers were 50% more likely to develop cardiovascular disease later on in life than those who had low exposure to childhood trauma.
But why just blog about how trauma affects our bodies, while taking this course I began to face a lot of my own traumas. At the beginning of it I became very ill and was sick for weeks trying to recover but it just felt like my body would not bounce back from this illness. The more I read the more I realized that maybe because of the trauma I had experienced as a child and not properly facing it, I myself developed all these other physical health issues. Compromised immune system, hypertension, chronic migraines, sleeping disorder, eating disorder, heart palpitations and several autoimmune diseases, and depression are just some of the things I battle with daily. I grew up in Roxbury, an inner city town that people referred to as “the ghetto”, young parents who barely knew what they were doing but trying to survive, I encountered my first trauma when I was just 4 years old. An older male cousin you molested me for 3 years until my parents moved to another part of Roxbury, and when I thought I had finally gotten away from the pain of that my father began using drugs and physically abusing me to punish my mom when she didn’t give him money to support his habits. There were nights I would just pray to die and other night I would just forget about what happened, but after reading The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk, I started remembering about nights when I would get beat and I would go to the bathroom and stick my fingers down my throat to vomit just so I would forget the pain from the belt. I realized that in fact these health issue were indeed a direct response to my trauma. Van Der Kolk says “As long as you keep secrets and suppress information, you are fundamentally at war with yourself…The critical issue is allowing yourself to know what you know. That takes an enormous amount of courage.”. The more trauma we suppress the more danger we put our bodies through, our minds begin war with our bodies and lead to dangerous outcomes.
There are ways to prevent this from taking over your life and healing from the trauma. Therapy is at the top of the list, starting it as soon as possible is the best. Working through traumatic events with a therapist helps your body and brain understand and process the memories of your trauma. Practicing calming techniques or mindfulness practices like yoga, meditation or breathing exercises help with decreasing your anxiety and redirecting negative thoughts around your trauma. Establishing healthy lifestyles like introducing exercise routines, better sleeping habits, avoiding alcohol and drug consumptions also help your brain rewire giving you space to slowly process all you have been through. Working these into our lives help us find a way to make peace with the trauma we are at war with and helping our bodies recover to live longer and healthier lives.
“The essence of trauma is that it is overwhelming, unbelievable, and unbearable. Each patient demands that we suspend our sense of what is normal and accept that we are dealing with a dual reality: the reality of a relatively secure and predictable present that lives side by side with a ruinous, ever-present past.”
― The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
https://www.heart.org/en/news/2020/04/28/traumatic-childhood-increases-lifelong-risk-for-heart-disease-early-death
https://www.cdc.gov/washington/testimony/2019/t20190711.htm#:~:text=CDC%20research%20shows%20more%20than,likely%20an%20underestimate%5B5%5D%20.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/childhood-traumas-devastating-impact-on-health/#:~:text=Exposure%20to%20trauma%20during%20childhood,Burke%20Harris%2C%20MPH%20’02.
https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/features/emotional-trauma-mind-body-connection
van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.