Psalms 91:1,2 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the LORD, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”
Dr. Nadine Burke Harria discusses the connection between Early childhood trauma and significant health events later in life. What she found from her practice and research on childhood trauma was the high percentage of children that were being referred to her for suspected ADHD, but when she looked into the young person's past and asked the right questions what she discovered was there wasn't enough information to justify the diagnosis of ADHD because these children were really traumatize by early childhood adversity, not the ADHD they thought they had.. This study,http://www.acestudy.org/, was done on a sample consisting of 70% Caucasion and 70% college students, not students from certain economic zip codes.
What Dr. Burk Harris said made sense. Left untreated early childhood trauma may lead to significant health problems in later life. The reason why has to do with the fight or flight response that changes in people who have had early adverse childhood experiences. She found in her reserarch that there was a significant differerence in the way the pre-frontal lobe processes the stress-response reaction otherwise known as the fight or flight response. She used the illustration of being in a forest and encountering a bear where immediately your brain sends a signal for a fight or flight response. Then she said that it would be the right response as long as there is a bear present, but what happens when ordinary situations in life produce that response. A lifetime of these responses will go on and cause problems in the metabolic system of that individual with increase incidence for heart disease, cancer, lung disease, etc.
As a result of her research Dr. Burke-Harris changed the way she treats children who come to her. Rather than do the normal protocol of referring a child to social services she learned to dig deeper into the person's past with the right questions. Out of this research came the development of the Center for childhood wellness staff with Pediatric physicians skilled at diagnosing trauma in young people.
From my experience and knowledge with trauma I agree with Dr. Harris Burk's findings. We have it all wrong when there are no systems in place when trauma occurs. For the longest time we were told that families need to grieve privately or that we should avoid upsetting the person by not bringing up the name of their love one who died. The sad reality, in our families case, was that when my son returned to his school not one person came over to acknowledge his loss. Looking back I realize that everyone in that environment was grieving and probably needed help themselves. There were no grief counselors to help him or any of his school friends or staff to help them cope with this sudden loss.
As I look at our Veterans I see the same thing which is we try to treat the symptoms of their trauma rather than find ways to help them process their pain through story telling. I think everyone realizes that the medications that are prescribed are only a bandaid for a much wider problem. The image of the little dutch boy trying to hold back the leak in the dam wall with his finger in the hole comes to mind.
We need to stop this ideological thinking that grieving is a private matter left best to the person. Sudden and traumatic grief profoundly effects everyone whether it is a primary exposure to that incident, or a secondary exposure through their friend.
The solution is to recognize all trauma as a threat to the immune system and to learn to listen and empathize with the person experiencing that trauma. I have learned in my own research on trauma that the greatest help comes from teaching people to tell their stories, over and over again until they can tell it without eliciting the fight or flight response in the body.
If I would be king for a day I would require all institutions, public and private, to have a relationship with grief counselors and chaplains on standby should a traumatic event either happen during the day, or away. The message from this study is the sooner we can provide help to kids who suffer form early adverse trauma the sooner we can help these kids heal so there are not the long lasting health damages caused by the fight or flight response of the person.
For my family I have to say losing a loved one has taught us the importance of our faith and how our faith taught us to put one foot in front of the other and continue to go to church regardless of how we are feeling from moment to moment.
When we did we discovered that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, suffered the worse trauma of all with his persecution, his torture and his slow death on the cross and finally his resurrection. Knowing that we have a living Savior who desires to walk with you through all of your adverse life events gives us the hope that recovery is possible.
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