Childhood Trauma Part 2: Taking an Inward Look

After commencing the journey by shifting the blame and the shame from ourselves to the perpetrator it is now time to take an inward look. This involves recognising our own destructive behaviours and attitudes that have emanated from our painful internalised The truth is, that although these emotions are the valid, initial response to the traumatic event, when internalised they will always produce destructive behaviours, that will ultimately hurt ourselves and those we love the most.

Here are some of those common behaviours that threaten to damage us personally and our relationships; inappropriate anger, fits of rage; an inability to compliment, affirm or thank those who love you, constant criticism of others , deliberately denigrating yourself and other people, an inability to be loving, forgiving and accepting.

If, as a result of looking inward we were to identify even just one of these destructive behaviours, the chances are that we have been powerless to change it, because instead of owning it, we have always blamed someone else Here is a diagram that might help us.

WRONG THINKING – PAINFUL EMOTIONS – DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOUR

I AM GUILTY. -ASHAMED, ANGRY. -INABILITY TO LOVE OTHERS.

I AM WORTHLESS-RESENTFUL, BITTER- FITS OF RAGE, REJECTION.

It is important that we understand this essential step in our healing journey. Having affirmed that we are not responsible for the initial event, nor do we have the power to change what happened back then, we now affirm that to remain bitter and resentful, is our response and we do have the power to change that. And change it we must if we aspire to personal and relational health.

The benefit of step one is that refusing to carry the shame and the guilt for the event, enables us to focus on our inner healing. The benefit of step 2 is that in rejecting the guilt we carry for what we are not responsible for, empowers us to change the behaviours and attitudes we are responsible for.

In my next blog we will talk about the step we need to take to bring about this change. In the meantime, you can read more about this step in our book Walking in the Light at Midnight.

It is time to reflect on a particular type of suffering. In the many years that we have had the privilege of offering counsel and support to adults, the most common root of painful conditions, such as anxiety, agoraphobia, eating disorders, complex post-traumatic stress disorders and many others were childhood trauma.

Amongst the most common experiences of childhood trauma were separation from primary carers, verbal and physical abuse from parents, sexual abuse by trusted adults, schoolyard bullying, rejection by peers, extreme experiences of physical illness and the death of a parent or a sibling.

The most common reaction to these events is what we call the process of internalisation. People most commonly internalise sadness, guilt, worry, depression, anxiety, anger and fear. Signs of internalisation in a child are sadness, withdrawal, shyness, physical complaints and inhibition.

As we said earlier the most common disorders that occur when painful emotions have been internalised by a child or an adult are depression, anxiety, eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, passive-aggressive behaviours’, and extreme anger and aggression.

People who live with internalised painful emotions live in a constant state of emotional struggle and often describe their state as living in perpetual darkness. If you are living there, there is a way by which you can walk through this dark valley. Consistent with the idea of walking through suffering, it is a five step journey.

The first, and perhaps the most transformational step for those who have been hurt by a particular perpetrator is to address what we call projected guilt. If you have been manipulated to accept the guilt and to carry the shame for what another person has done to you, now is the time to challenge that lie by shifting the blame for the event back to the perpetrator.

Shifting the blame and the guilt that you have carried back to where it belongs is a choice you make to challenge a dominant and destructive belief and to see it as the lie it is. It is like saying, “I may have been a victim of abuse but I refuse to be the victim of false guilt.”

Dealing with false or projected guilt is the first part of step one and accepting how you have chosen to respond to the event is the other. All your life you may have wrongly believed that you are guilty of the event whilst at the same time blaming the perpetrator and others for the angry and resentful behaviour that injured you and people you love. The good news is that those painful responses are yours and therefore you have the power and the responsibility to deal with them. The question is. Do you have the will to start. Don’t miss my next blog when I talk about step 2.

A Conversation About Conflict with Graeme Cann and Graeme Semple

Graeme Cann & Graeme Semple chat about Graeme Cann’s upcoming workshops on Confronting Conflict.

To read more about Confronting Conflict visit the book shop.

I Feel Mad! Now What?

This blog post is brought to you by Graeme’s latest novel: The Guilt Busters

Read More today.

Clearly many Victorians are very angry about the circuit breaker lockdowns the state is currently experiencing. Many are angry, and validly so, because of what the lockdowns mean to them personally. The inability to go to work, the cancellation of important events, financial loss and for some isolation from all family and friends.  Others are angry because they believe their freedoms are being eroded by an unnecessarily authoritative and controlling government.

When you heard the announcement what did you immediately feel? Frustration! Disappointment! Confusion! Anxiety! What did you do next? Yell at the television! Swear! Call a friend! Curse Premier Andrews! Shrug your shoulders and say, “that’s life!” By the end of the day, you may have recognised some different feelings.  Painful ones like anger, fear, depression or positive ones like relief and contentment, or more neutral ones like acceptance or complacency.

The most important issue is, what have you done since with your painful emotions? There are a couple of options. The first is you have externalized them. You have vocally expressed your anger, your feelings of anxiety and depression. If it was anger you may have got on Facebook and loudly blamed the Health Officer, or the Premier or those in charge of Covid-19 security, or the Chinese Government or Bill Gates or the Devil or even God. Or, more seriously you might have taken out your anger on your partner, your children or another driver on the highway. If you were feeling anxious or depressed you hopefully spoke to a friend, a relative or rang a helpline and spoke to a stranger. But, you also might have drank a little more than usual, withdrawn from others or just had a ‘pity party.’ Does externalising our feelings help? Yes, usually but there is a downside.

The downside is that some expressions of anger lead to others being hurt, especially by the words we use whilst apportioning blame for what has upset us. The feelings and self-esteem of people we love, who are not responsible for our anger are sometimes the collateral damage of our externalization of painful emotion.

The second common way of dealing with painful feelings is to internalise them. This may simply mean that we supress them for a while with the intention of dealing with them after we cool down. This is often a very good idea, like the old advice we give to our children. “If you are mad, count to 10,” or the advice the Bible gives, “be swift to hear and slow to speak.” However, if suppressing our painful feelings is helpful repressing them is not. When we use repression, we are essentially denying to ourselves and to others that the feelings exist, and we push them deep down somewhere inside our psyche. The trouble with this method of dealing with our painful emotions is that it exposes us to physical, emotional and relational harm. What do I mean? Well think of the problem of storing nuclear waste. It is so destructive and toxic that it defies all efforts to safely control it. So is with our painful emotions. We can push them down inside, but they will seep through the pores of our personality and impact our physical health, our emotional health and our relationships.

If then internalizing or REPRESSING our painful emotions is never a good way to cope with them and externalising or SUPPRESSING them, only sometimes works, is there another way that always works? To explain it I am going to use a word that most people associate with Church, but it has a much wider application. So, here it is. When dealing with painful emotions don’t REPRESS or SUPPRESS them. CONFESS them! The word confession carries the meaning of acknowledging and expressing.

When confronting emotions like anger, anxiety, grief, guilt or fear I need first to acknowledge that they are my feelings and that they are a normal response to a particular event or stimuli. I then need to externalise them by expressing them not as an attempt to blame others or to get revenge or to justify myself but for the purpose of understanding them and ultimately resolving them.

Confessing also implies that instead of isolating myself from others as I do when repressing my feelings, I reach out to a loved one or friend or a ‘people helper’ or God and seek their help in processing my feelings and even sometimes finding a new way to think about what has caused them in the first place.

As a counsellor I am aware that painful emotions are often the result of faulty ways of thinking and of perceiving, the world we live in. Many of these wrong ways of thinking have in turn resulted from past hurts and identifying and owning them is always the first step toward greater wholeness.

During a pandemic it can be difficult to know whether our thinking is right or wrong. So many conflicting theories! So much confusion! Too many self-proclaimed experts! Who do we believe? How do we decide what position to take. I find it helpful to remember several things.

1.      I do not make the news, but I can decide where I get my news from.

2.      No matter what the news is I have the freedom to choose how I receive it, and what I decide to think about it. What I decide to think will shape the way I feel.

3.      I try to think of people who are more negatively impacted by the news than I am and reach out to those I know.

4.      I try to remember that whatever the circumstances I am in the greatest blessing I know cannot be taken away. That blessing is the receiving and giving of love from and to my family and friends and, for me personally, especially God.

God Bless

Graeme.

To read more of Graeme’s work on pain, fear and anger visit the Book Shop today.