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Why Trauma Survivors Still Feel the Trauma · Breaking Our Borders

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Breaking Our Borders podcast.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm going to talk about something that has been the toughest part of my healing journey, and that is still feeling unsafe in my body.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: I struggle daily with feelings of anxiety, hypervigilance, and fear.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: I have trouble relaxing and feeling safe even though I'm no longer in a traumatic situation.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode, I will explain why trauma survivors can get stuck in these feelings and what we can do to ease these feelings so we can feel safer and calmer.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get started talking about that right now.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: When we are children, our brains are developing, learning, and making connections with our thoughts and experiences.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Every thought and experience is processed by our brain, where the neurons make connections, create memories, and send messages to other parts of our brain.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: I've mentioned in the past that our brains are like an apple tree.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: When we are born, our tree is just a sapling.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Every day, the connections in our brain begin to grow, much like the root system of a tree.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: As we experience life, our trunk starts to grow.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: It represents our thoughts, our developing personality, and the decisions we make about who we are going to be.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: From there, we grow branches, representing the thoughts and beliefs we hold about ourselves.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Then apples grow on those branches.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: The apples represent our reactions and responses to our experiences.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: When a child is in a healthy environment, their root system develops a strong foundation for the trunk to grow thick and solid.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: The trunk can support many healthy branches, which then develop healthy apples.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like a tree, we depend on our roots, developed in childhood, to support us through adulthood, to continue supporting our trunk, branches, and apples.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: For example, if a parent provides the child with emotional support, then the child develops roots of comfort, safety, and encouragement.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Their trunk holds thoughts of being worthy.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Their branches hold positive self-esteem, positive self-confidence, and feelings of being enough.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Their apples are healthy and show signs of pride, empathy, and caring.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: But when a child experiences trauma, their root system can become unhealthy and weak.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: It may not be able to provide support to the trunk, branches, and apples to develop in a healthy way.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: The trunk and branches will be spindly, weak, and damaged.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: If the tree produces apples, they can be diseased, misshapen, and rotten.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: This type of tree will struggle to thrive into adulthood.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: For example, if a parent is verbally abusive, then the parent's harsh words are like poison to the roots.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: The roots don't spread properly to create a strong foundation of stability.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: The trunk may not develop healthy feelings of worth or value.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: The branches can be twisted by criticism, lack of self-esteem, and feelings of being unworthy and unlovable.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: The diseased apples will show signs of depression, anxiety, hypervigilance, and unhealthy coping behaviors.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like a tree, our brain develops from the bottom up.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thoughts enter our brain at the bottom, where the stress detection part of the brain is.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Here, the brain determines if a thought is safe or dangerous.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Then the thought moves into the middle part of the brain where the emotions are processed.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: When this part of the brain senses danger, stress hormones are released that cause our ability to think calmly and logically to become more difficult.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: This part of the brain is the thinking part.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: In the thinking part of the brain, we process the thought with logic and problem solving so that we can determine what to do.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: A simple example of how our brain processes information can be something like feeling hungry.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain says, I'm hungry.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: The stress part of the brain scans this thought to determine if there is any danger.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Since there isn't any danger, the thought moves on to the emotional part of the brain.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Here, the brain will evaluate what you need to stop the hunger and what kind of food you are craving to stop the hunger.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Then the thought can move on to the thinking part of the brain where it decides how to get what food you wanted.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like, I'm hungry, there's no danger.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: I want pizza.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: I have to go pick up a pizza.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: The process becomes much different when facing trauma.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: When we are faced with a dangerous situation, our brain recognizes danger and activates the stress response at the bottom of the brain.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: This thought moves up to the emotional brain and registers emotions that go with danger, fear, stress, and panic.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Our bodies may react with a racing heart, rapid breathing, tense muscles, or a sick feeling in our stomach.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And because our brain is focused on survival, it becomes much harder for the thinking parts of our brain to slow everything down, logically evaluate the situation, and then decide what to do.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: An example of this would be when a parent is shouting at a child, reprimanding and insulting them, saying things like, Why are you always messing things up?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't you do anything right?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're always a bother to me.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: The child's brain recognizes this attack as danger, produces stress chemicals, and the child's thoughts are delayed in the emotional part of the brain.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: The child may become overwhelmed with fear and stress, making it difficult to think clearly or process what is happening.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: When this happens over a long period during the child's development, their brain can begin to learn that this state of being on alert is normal and settles into this repeating pattern.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's like their tree was planted in bad soil.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: The roots don't get the nutrients they need, so it is stuck with trying to survive and grow in an unhealthy situation.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: When our brain is in the emotional part during dangerous experiences, stress hormones are released that also affect our body.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: These responses are helpful when we are actually in danger because they prepare our bodies to respond.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: But when the stress response is activated over and over again, it can take a toll on both our minds and our bodies.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Again, like the roots of the tree, if we don't get the healthy nutrients we need as a child, we will struggle to grow into a healthy tree that bears good fruit.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Long-term childhood trauma can leave our minds stuck in the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode, which is in the emotional part of our brain.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: We can become constantly on alert, which can contribute to feelings of anxiety, depression, and physical ailments from the stress hormones.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Our mind and body become over alert to any stress, especially if the trauma is ongoing for a long time.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: And childhood trauma caused by abuse or neglect often lasts for many years during childhood.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Our mind gets used to scanning for danger all the time, even when we are not in danger.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now as adults, our mind may still scan for danger because it has been in that mode for so long and knows no other way.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Our roots have been shaped by unhealthy experiences, our trunk has not developed as it should have, our branches may be weak, and our fruit may be diseased.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is our normal.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's how we think our tree should be.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And if this is our normal, just the way life is, we don't know how to make it any other way.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: As childhood trauma survivors, our roots have experienced physical or emotional abuse, physical or emotional neglect, or abandonment.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: This may have caused our trunks to develop beliefs about ourselves that we are burdensome, not smart, not good, not worthy or unlovable.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: These beliefs then extend to our branches, causing low self-esteem, low self-worth, anxiety, and depression.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Our apples may then be riddled with unhealthy coping behaviors like substance abuse, self-harm, self-criticism, self-sabotage, body dysmorphia, and hypervigilance.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Until we can see that our tree is not healthy and it needs different nutrients to improve its health, we may continue to live in these unhealthy patterns.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with our tree is the roots.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: When we endured childhood trauma, our roots were poisoned by negative experiences.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's not our fault or anything we should feel ashamed about.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: But as adults, it is now our responsibility to nourish those roots so that we have healthier trees.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: We may not have understood that our trees were any different than anyone else's because that's just how we grew up.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it seemed normal to have this kind of tree.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And if we did see other healthier trees, we may not have known what to do to change our tree.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: The damage to our tree has caused us emotional stress and deregulation, struggles with connecting and relationships, problems with functioning in society, and emotional peace and well-being.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: That damage to our tree happened as our brains were developing and learning.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And what we learned was to always be fearful, watch for danger, and constantly think about what to do when danger appeared.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Due to my childhood trauma, my roots experienced physical and emotional abuse, emotional neglect, and dysfunctional parenting.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: This caused my trunk to be filled with negative, violent, and painful experiences.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Those experiences then gave me branches riddled with low self-esteem and worth, anxiety, depression, hypervigilance, dysfunctional behaviors, and negative coping mechanisms.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: The apples that my tree produced had body dysmorphia, suicidal thoughts, people pleasing, perfectionism, a lack of social skills, and OCD tendencies.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because of my childhood trauma, the damage done to my tree, I have been in abusive relationships, have a lack of self-esteem, worth and confidence, have beliefs that I'm not worthy, never good enough, and a burden to all, that I am physically ugly, have social anxiety, and avoid interactions with others for fear of them thinking I'm stupid or a bother.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: I suffer from anxiety, depression, hypervigilance, muscle tension, joint pain, and digestive issues.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: My tree was poisoned and lacked nutrients as a child to help me develop into a mentally healthy and emotionally secure adult.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Until I was 40, I thought this was just how life was.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is just how people treated one another.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that it was just unfortunate that I was such an awful human that others had to tolerate.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Around the age of 40, I began feeling a deeper depression and sought help from a counselor.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: My counselor helped me understand what had happened to my tree and explained that what I had experienced was not normal.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: She explained how my tree was poisoned and how I could start giving my roots nutrients to start feeling happier and healthier.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: When a child endures trauma, their tree is developing and forming the foundation of their personality.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: When the roots are exposed to dangerous, violent, and abusive experiences, patterns in the brain are affected.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Moving through the parts of a tree is like moving through the thought process in the brain.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: The tree functions from the roots first, through the trunk, to the branches, then to the fruit.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: In the brain, thoughts start at the stress response at the base of the brain, move to the emotional part in the middle of the brain, then onto the thinking part at the top front part of the brain.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: When stress or danger is present, the mind recognizes it in the stress part of the brain, then passes it to the emotional part.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: The emotional part releases stress hormones that cause the thoughts to get stuck there.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the thoughts can't get past the trunk to fertilize the branches.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: When this happens for a long period, the branches get used to being weak and lacking nutrients.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: They think this is normal behavior and learn to survive this way.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: We get stuck in thinking that unsafe feelings are a part of life.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: But this is not a healthy way to live.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: When our brains become stuck in patterns of survival, our brain learns to watch out for danger, to recognize fear, and seek methods for coping with it.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Those stress hormones are like the disease in our trees' veins.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Survivors as adults have lived this way for so long that we don't know how to live any differently.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know how to turn the stress hormones off, to stop our brain from scanning for danger, or to use healthier coping mechanisms.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so we continue to feel like the same scared child we were when we were experiencing the trauma.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: We continue to keep nutrients out of our roots.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: We allow the disease to travel from our trunk to our branches, and we continue to accept our diseased fruit.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't have to be that way.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: As adults, we can now change our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to be healthier ones.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: We can begin giving our roots the positive nutrients they have always needed.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: We cannot change the experiences that developed our roots, but we can enrich them with positive nutrients with new experiences, healthier thoughts, supportive relationships, and positive coping skills.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And over time, those new nutrients can strengthen our trunk, our branches, and the fruit our tree produces.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Our first step to making this happen is to recognize what was done to our roots.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: I put a journal prompt on my website a few weeks ago with images of trees on it that can help you process these thoughts.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I also included my example of what my trees look like.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: For one of my roots, I listed emotional abuse.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: This affected my trunk with experiences of belittling, shaming, and assaults.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Those experiences poisoned my branches to have low self-esteem and worth, depression and anxiety.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Those traits then diseased my apples with self-criticism, body dysmorphia, and hypervigilance.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Once we recognize what happened to our trees, we have to accept what this is doing to us today.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Some people want to say, I'm fine, and that's all in the past, just let it go.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: But they struggle with developing healthy relationships, being motivated in their work, or feeling good about themselves.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Understanding what the trauma did to us can help us understand how to improve our mental health.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: For me, I recognized from the trauma I had horrible self-worth, a critical inner voice, body dysmorphia, and avoided situations because I thought I was so awful and too ugly to be around.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: The last step is to reconstruct our behaviors.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we find the nourishment we can give our damaged roots to produce a healthier tree.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Going back to my explanation about my roots being affected by emotional abuse, leading to my trunk having experiences of verbal attacks, which produced branches that carried low self-esteem, that caused me to have fruit filled with self-criticism.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: I had to learn that the hurtful voices of my mother were still living in my mind.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: I replayed them often, and needed to find a way to stop listening to them.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Each time I allowed my mother's voice to play out in my mind, it was like poisoning my roots all over again.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: I sought guidance from a counselor, read many self-help books about emotional abuse, and searched through websites and social media groups for ideas and support on how to stop listening to the voices of the past.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: I had to figure out how to change the words in my mind to be more supportive, encouraging, and positive to me, which then helped build my self-esteem and lowered my self-criticism.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Just understanding what had happened to me and understanding that it was not healthy helped jumpstart my healing.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Then I learned how to take the negative thoughts my mother said and turn them into positive thoughts.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: I also used journaling to help me work through changing my way of thinking.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: To learn how to stop poisoning our roots, we need to change how our brains respond to our thoughts, feelings, and experiences, which will then affect how our body feels.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: When our brain knows how to calm down, it doesn't release the stress hormones that will trigger our body to increase heart and breathing rates, to cause digestive issues, or cause muscle tightness.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: We can get help from counseling, breath work, EMDR therapy, yoga, or somatic therapy to help us learn how to calm our body and mind after the effects of trauma.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: There are many options out there to use to begin healing so that you are happier and more mentally healthy.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to find the ones that will work best for you.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: It is not your fault that your tree was damaged or that our brain continues to respond to the feelings of the time the damage happened.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: But now as an adult, you can begin undoing the damage and give yourself the nutrients you need to grow a healthier mind, body, and soul.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: I will repost that journal prompt about the trees, along with a new journal prompt that may help you begin discovering what happened to your tree during childhood and what you can do to help it grow into the tree you want it to be.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: You can find those on my website, breakingarborders.com, along with a suggested reading list and other journal prompts to help with trauma.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening today, and I hope you will join me again next week as I continue to talk about how we can heal from childhood trauma.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Until then, I hope you have a wonderful week.