THE GIFT OF TRAUMA

THE GIFT OF TRAUMA

IN THE BEGINNING:

I was sexually, physically and emotionally abused for the majority of my childhood.

Of course I knew that I couldn’t change what happened and that I couldn’t get back the lost decades of sadness, loneliness and despair, but I was damned if I was going to allow it to beat me down any further so a few years ago I decided to find a scientifically based, real world tested way of making it work for me.

After exhaustive research I realized that there wasn’t one that allowed for the uniqueness of each type of trauma and more importantly, the unique way that each person handles the aftermath of abuse so I created one.

For those of you who don’t know the myriad and cascading effects of trauma, let’s start with a brief primer.

THE SCIENCE OF TRAUMA

Trauma of any kind changes the neural patterns in the brain and for many, including me, this alters your life in every way imaginable.

Trauma can destroy one’s ability to evolve naturally and to feel safe, worthy and loveable. A child has absolutely no ability to understand or reason through what’s happening or why it’s happening and this changes their life’s trajectory as it did mine. The long-term effects of trauma may show up as addiction, sexual dysfunction, isolation, suicide, rage, anger, depression, life-long health issues, poor personal relationships, or trouble in their work life to name a few.

According to neuroimaging studies, the main areas of the brain that trauma affects are the amygdala, the hippocampus and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. These are part of a stress circuit in the brain, which may explain why traumatic stress continues long after the event is over.

When a person experiences trauma the amygdala takes over and triggers the “fight or flight or freeze” response meant to protect us from danger. Anything unnecessary to survival shuts down until the threat ceases. Once that happens, the nervous system is able to bring its higher functions into play. After severe trauma however, the effects of this shut-down remain, which can lead to nightmares, flashbacks, difficulty with change or self-expression and everything else I mentioned at the beginning.

The hippocampus is the part of the brain responsible for recalling memory and differentiating between past and present experiences. PTSD victims lose volume in the hippocampus due to elevated stress hormones. As a result they may have trouble telling the difference between the past and present, often causing them to avoid situations that remind them of their trauma or over reacting to unrelated events. In addition, memory loss in general is prevalent. In my case, the trauma was so great that I dealt with it by shutting down, or disassociating to the point that it became normal for me to forget everyday things and that persisted for most of my life until I found a way to rewire that part of my brain.

Volume loss also takes place in the prefrontal cortex or PFC, which controls our response to emotions. Having volume loss in this area can make it harder for those with PTSD to control their reactions and behavior because the amygdala enlarges and slows down the PFC’s ability to override the knee-jerk reaction of the amygdala. Remember the old saying “count to ten”? (I was always told to count to 1,000😊) As is often the case with colloquialisms, it is based in truth. For a normal person, seeing something that looks like a spider causes the amygdala to say “run now!” and about 10 seconds later, the PFC says “That’s not a spider, you’re safe,” and you continue on with your life. However, for those of us who experienced severe trauma, that 10 seconds can take 10 minutes, a month, a day, a lifetime.

THE GIFT OF TRAUMA

So that’s some of the bad stuff that happens. But there is some good stuff that happens too and focusing on the gifts that trauma gives you not only makes it easier for you to survive, it gives you the tools to go further and faster than most “normal” people.

As I said earlier, my childhood was traumatic in that I was raped repeatedly by my brother and father (with my mother’s help) and for fun they threw in a little torture and a whole lot of narcissistic chaos. It did all the bad stuff to me I described above but it also gave me a lot of preternatural gifts like the ability to know what someone wanted before they even knew what they wanted. I used that ability in my younger years to keep away from other predators but I also found it tremendously useful later on in my career, which at the time was sales. It was because of that gift that I became the #1 sales rep nationally for more than one company.

That first gift came from studying the micro-expressions of my family members in the misguided hope that I could avoid the pain. I couldn’t of course, but I found that I could transfer that ability to my profession which allowed me to read the expressions of clients and adjust the conversation immediately to close the deal quickly.

Another gift is one that most people see as a negative but by repurpusing the thought patterns around it we can make it a positive. Since I couldn’t stop the abuse, I had to deal with it as best as a six year old can deal with anything, and for me that meant shutting down all emotions. Not good if you want to love and be loved, but great if you find yourself in an emergency or disaster. In the Marines I flourished because of my ability to block out emotions that would hinder my performance or even put me in danger. In my professional life I was able to put in the time and singular focus on getting ahead because I didn’t have any pesky emotions to hold me back and that took me all the way to becoming the C.E.O. of a financial firm.

Eventually, though, it wasn’t enough and after devoting years to therapy, most of my education to understanding how the brain functions and trying every therapy modality out there, I devised a way to re-wire my brain through specific techniques and exercises and eventually created Life Intelligence™ a process that re-designs the brain for accelerated performance and a unique way to erode the effects of trauma. I also worked to integrate my dark side with the light and that has allowed me to go even further in my professional life while actually having a pretty good personal life complete with love, family and friends.

Today, I have taken that blend of neuroscience, emotional intelligence, behavioral science and other tools to make trauma victims successful in all aspects of their life by helping them surface their gifts and then re-wiring their brains through games, VR, cognitive behavior coaching, and structured activities.

Over the last decade I’ve been witness to some remarkable transformations through this program and though I would give anything to have had a “normal” childhood, I am grateful that it has given me the ability to help myself and others lead the life they deserve.

WRAP UP

It happened. It sucked. It never goes completely away but you can lessen the pain and leverage the trauma to be an incredible human with gifts that can take you where you want to go and change the world along the way. We have so many more tools available now and support systems to help you along the way so take advantage of every resource possible.

Your story is now yours to write and I know you will rise above.