childhood emotional trauma and later life resiliency (or lack thereof)

From this website http://www.uic.edu/classes/psych/psych270/PTSD.htm.

I'm just going to cut and paste a big segment for now, then come back and see what I want to keep later (bolds are mine, except title):

Damaged Self
Trauma forces the survivor to relive all earlier struggles over autonomy, initiative, competence, identity, and intimacy.

The developing child's positive sense of self depends upon a caretaker's benign use of power.

Traumatic events violate the autonomy of the person at the level of basic bodily integrity (Body ego -> first sense of "I")

The belief in a meaningful world is formed in relation to others and begins earliest life. Basic trust, acquired in the primary intimate relationship is the foundation of faith. Trauma creates a crisis of faith.

Damage to the survivor's faith and sense of community is particularly severe when the event themselves involve the betrayal of important relationships.

Survivors oscillate between:

Uncontrollable outbursts of anger and intolerance of rage in any form.

Seeking intimacy desperately and totally withdrawing from it.

Self esteem is assaulted by experiences of humiliation, guilt, and helplessness.

Vulnerability and Resilience

Individual personality characteristics count for little in the face of overwhelming events. With severe enough experience, no person is immune.

Individual differences play a part in determining the form PTSD will take. It is related to individual history, emotional conflicts, and adaptive style.

Highly resilient people are able to make use of any opportunity for purposeful action in concert with others,

while ordinary people are more easily paralyzed or isolated by them.

Comment: This person seems to suggest and/or assume that 'high resiliency' is a personality trait. A lot of assumptions being made here (by the writer) - how can you tell, in retrospect, whether the traumatized person started out being resilient, but became less so over time with repeated blows to their self esteem? Chicken and egg.

Note to self: As always, take what you need and leave the rest - take this particular bit of 'advice' with many grains of salt....

Some features of highly resilient people:

1. Alert, active temperament

2. Unusual sociability

3. Good communicating skills

4. Strong internal locus of control

and

GOOD LUCK

Increased vulnerability is enhanced by:

1. Disempowerment (children, adolescents)

2. Disconnection from others

3. Lack of social supports

4. Poor or absent communication avenues

The Effect of Social Support

The survivor's social world
can influence the eventual outcome of trauma.

The emotional support that is sought takes many forms and changes during the course of resolution.

In the immediate aftermath, rebuilding of some minimal form of trust is the primary task. Assurances of safety and protection are of the greatest importance.

Then, the survivor needs assistance of others in rebuilding a positive sense of self.

Others must show tolerance for the oscillating behaviors of the survivor. It is not blanket acceptance but the kind of respect for autonomy that fostered the original development of self esteem in the first year of life. (Movement toward self-regulation).

The survivor needs the assistance of others in her/his struggle to arrive at a fair assessment of her/his conduct. Harsh criticism or ignorance or blind acceptance greatly compounds the survivor's self blame and isolation. Realistic judgments include a recognition of the dire circumstances of the traumatic event and the normal range of the victim's reactions. They include the recognition of moral dilemmas in the face of severely limited choices. This, hopefully, leads to a fair attribution of responsibility.

Finally, the survivor needs help from others to mourn her/his losses. Failure to complete the normal process of grieving perpetuates the traumatic reaction.

The Role of Community

Sharing the traumatic experience with others is a precondition for the restitution of a meaningful world.

Once it is publicly recognized that person has been harmed, the community must take action to assign responsibility for the harm and to repair the injury. Recognition and restitution are necessary to rebuild the survivor's sense of order and justice.

Repeated trauma in adulthood erodes the structure of personality already formed, but repeated trauma in childhood forms and deforms the personality.

Under conditions of chronic childhood abuse, fragmentation becomes the central principle of personality organization. Fragmentation in consciousness prevents the ordinary integration of knowledge, memory, emotional states, and bodily experiences. Fragmentation in the inner representations of the self prevent the integration of identity. Fragmentation of the inner representation of others prevents the development of a reliable sense of independence within connection.

On Idealizing
By idealizing the person to whom she becomes attached, she attempts to keep at bay the constant fear of being either dominated or betrayed. Inevitably, however, the chosen person fails to live up to her fantastic expectations. When disappointed, she may ferociously denigrate the same person whom she so recently adored. Ordinary interpersonal conflicts may provoke intense anxiety, depression, or rage. In the mind of the survivor, even minor slights evoke past experiences of deliberate cruelty. These distortions are not easily corrected by experience since the survivor tends to lack the verbal and social skills for resolving conflict. Thus, the survivor develops a pattern of intense, unstable relationships repeatedly enacting the drama of rescue, injustice, and betrayal.

Relationship problems
1. Desperate longing for nurturance make it difficult to establish safe and appropriate boundaries.

2. Denigration of self and idealization of others.

3. Empathic attunement to the wishes of others and unconscious habits of obedience make her vulnerable to people in positions of authority.

4. Dissociative tendencies make it difficult to form conscious, accurate assessments of danger.

5. The wish to relive dangerous situations to make them come out differently leads to reenactments of abuse.

A New Diagnosis -- Complex Post Traumatic Stress

A history of subjection to totalitarian control over a prolonged period (months or years). Examples include hostages, prisoners of war, concentration camp survivors, and survivors of some religious cults. Examples also include those subjected to totalitarian systems in sexual and domestic life, including survivors of domestic battering, childhood physical or sexual abuse, and organized sexual exploitation.

As far as I'm concerned, emotional trauma should be included in this category. A child who is regularly and repeatedly GASLIGHTED by one or both parents, and possibly by a sibling or siblings as well, has been fucking traumatized, no two ways about it.

Alterations in affect regulation, including

Persistent dysphoria

Chronic suicidal preoccupation

Self injury

Explosive or extremely inhibited anger (may alternate)

Compulsive or extremely inhibited sexuality (may alternate)

Alterations in consciousness, including

Amnesia or hypermnesia for traumatic events

Transient dissociative states

Depersonalization/derealization

Reliving experiences either in the form of intrusive post traumatic stress disorder

symptoms or in the form of ruminative preoccupations.

Alterations in self-perceptions, including

Sense of helplessness or paralysis of initiative

Shame, guilt, and self blame

Sense of defilement or stigma

Sense of complete difference from others (may include sense of specialness, utter

aloneness, belief no other person can understand, or nonhuman identity)

Alterations in perception of perpetrator, including

Preoccupation with relationship with perpetrator (includes preoccupation with revenge)

Unrealistic attribution of total power to perpetrator (caution: victim's assessment of

power realities may be more realistic than clinician's)

Idealization or paradoxical gratitude

Sense of special or supernatural relationship

Acceptance of belief system or rationalizations of perpetrator

Alteration in relations to others, including

Isolation or withdrawal

Disruption of intimate relationships

Repeated search for rescuer (may alternate with isolation and withdrawal)

Persistent distrust

Repeated failures of self protection

Alterations in systems of meaning

Loss of sustaining faith

Sense of hopelessness and despair