Mission Statement
Just as our body is covered in clothing, so to the soul within is covered in flesh.
And until we acknowledge and respect the soul / person in each of us, and the potential each of us embodies to create a more caring and just future… not much will change in this world.
What is a Traumatic Experience?
Any experience from which a person is not able to “bounce back” to the present after a short period of time – and function the same as before the trauma inducing experience – can be considered to be traumatic. And trauma is the residual negative energy a person carries around internally after such an experience.
Notably, Dr. David Berceli, an acclaimed trauma therapist with many years experience treating trauma victims in war zones around the world was the first to recognize that animals which survive serious trauma – say, from being attacked by a predator but surviving – release the negative energy accumulated in their body (from the attack or near attack) by shaking uncontrollably following the event, and after the negative energy has been released from the body the animal will carry on as before the incident – as normal – assuming the threat is no longer present.
Humans on the other hand, most often tend to bury the negative energy in their body which led Dr Berceli to develop a series of body exercises that are designed to release this energy that becomes trapped in the body at the time a person is traumatized. The exercises he developed are one tool traumatized people can use to release the negative energy locked in ones body as a result of unprocessed trauma.
And so when a child is repeatedly traumatized and never snaps back into the present and is thus unable to move on with their life – to continue to develop and grow as well as before the trauma (s) – is when serious personality and bio-physical problems may start to manifest and can eventually cripple an individual physically, emotionally, sexually and spiritually – for life – if left untreated in childhood.
What is early life trauma and why is it far more insidious than most adult life trauma, and how does it differ from later life trauma? The following two excerpts from world recognized authorities on childhood trauma illustrate quite well what the former is and a brief explanation later describes in more detail how early life trauma differs from trauma experienced as an adult, with the primary difference being in the former case most biophysical systems are not fully developed until age 20 or later, and in the latter case as an adult, they are fully developed. And so it’s been empirically proven that during the period of childhood, trauma can and does alter the physical / emotional development of a child and can damage a child for life if left untreated. Whereas trauma and the resulting PTSD experienced after most biophysical / emotional developmental stages have been completed is far easier to alleviate with conventional talk therapy, resulting in a successful recovery for the subject (in most cases).
What the Experts Say
Below (1) is an excerpt from an article / interview with DrGabor Mate (Author: In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts) which very well describes how childhood trauma can and does not only derail emotional growth but can also lead to drug addiction among other negative outcomes. Dr Mate is a world recognized authority on the effects of childhood trauma with part of his long career spent working for 12 years in the heart of Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Lower East Side treating adult men and women who were all victims of child abuse of one type or another, and often repetitive abuse.
Other research following (2), done by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris (Author: The Deepest Well / Healing the Long – Term Effects of Childhood Adversity) demonstrates that early life trauma can and does affect not only the emotional development of a child but also the physical development of many if not all of the biophysical systems that make up the human body and shows how this damage can and does affect health outcomes later in life. For example, if early brain growth is impaired due to unbearable stress (trauma), then further more complex brain architecture built on that weak foundation will only be a shadow of the growth and connectivity nature intended for that person.
1) The following is taken from an interview with Dr Gabor Mate…
Q: A big part of your book “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts” is about how you came to see that childhood trauma and pain lie at the root of addiction. Tell me about your insights.
“Downtown Eastside is North America’s most concentrated area of drug use. In 12 years, I worked with hundreds of female patients, and every one had been sexually abused as a child. Men were physically, sexually and emotionally abused, suffered neglect, were in foster care.
Thirty percent of people there are native Indians, what we call First Nations People. For generations, the government abducted their children and sent them to residential schools. Parents were barred from seeing kids. Kids were physically and sexually abused by teachers and priests. Tens of thousands died. Because of multigenerational trauma, native communities have high rates of sexual abuse, violence, addiction and suicide. It’s the most addicted population in Canada.
All addictions — alcohol or drugs, sex addiction or internet addiction, gambling or shopping — are attempts to regulate our internal emotional states because we’re not comfortable, and the discomfort originates in childhood. For me, there’s no distinction except in degree between one addiction and another: same brain circuits, same emotional dynamics, same pain and same behaviours of furtiveness, denial and lying.” – Dr Gabor Mate / 2019
(2) Other research by Dr Nadine Burke – Harris shows that early life trauma can and does affect the physical development of many if not all of the biophysical systems that make up our body and can have serious health consequences later in life if left untreated in childhood.
The following excerpt is from the inner jacket of her book The Deepest Well, with no author credit…
“Dr Nadine Burke Harris was already known as a crusading paediatrician delivering targeted care to vulnerable children. But it was Diego – a boy who had stopped growing after a sexual assault – who galvanized her to dig deeper into the connections between toxic stress and the lifelong illnesses she was tracking among so many of her patients and their families.
A study by healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente and the Centres for Disease Control (US) of more than 17,000 adult patients has led to our understanding that “adverse childhood experiences / ACE’s” like abuse, parental addiction or mental illness and even divorce can have lasting effects on human health. An “ACE” test is included in Dr Burke’s book. But the stunning news of Burke Harris’s research is just how, and how deeply, our bodies can be imprinted for life by these ACES. Childhood adversity changes our biological systems and lasts a lifetime. From stress responses to growth rates to diabetes, asthma, heart disease and more, we are all a product of our childhood environment.
For anyone who has faced a difficult childhood, or who cares about the millions of children who do, the innovative and acclaimed health interventions outlined in The Deepest Well represent vitally important hope for preventing lifelong illness for those we love and for generations to come.” – Author unknown.
In Summary
The primary difference between childhood trauma and adult trauma is that while it’s one thing to be traumatized as an adult after all the biophysical systems which comprise the human body system have been allowed to develop naturally in a loving, caring and low stress family environment (idealy), it is quite another matter altogether for a child to be sometimes repetitively overstressed by trauma of one kind or another before any of the emotional / bio-physical growth essential to function as an adult has even had the opportunity to simply develop into the person / personality that child was meant to be from birth.
In other words, the magnitude and duration of the damage caused by early life trauma can be exponential and last a lifetime when compared to trauma experienced by those who at the very least, had the opportunity to grow up in a moderately supportive / low stress environment and then experience trauma as an adult… after they have matured emotionally / physically in other words. This is not to minimize anyone’s trauma be they young, adult, male or female etc, but to merely point out the primary difference between the two types of trauma and their impact on a person within the context of age, type of trauma, severity and repetitiveness.
If I’d been given access to proper and effective treatment for childhood trauma when I was a child, the trajectory of my life would have changed dramatically. As it was, by age 10, I had become a prisoner of unresolved trauma that pretty well determined the outcome of my life before I even got to “start my life”.
In conclusion, if you believe in our cause / objectives and are so inclined to support the three pillars of COTS as outlined on the about page, then please consider making a donation to help those suffering from untreated childhood trauma get the help they need in order recover and move on with their lives, and to not go on the “fentyl holiday” like so many do every day in Canada and around the world.
