New research has found a specific change in brain chemistry due to trauma. An article on Medscape.com says:
“Lower serotonin 1B levels were also strongly associated with age at first trauma. The earlier the trauma exposure, the greater the brain alterations and the greater the severity of PTSD symptoms, and the greater the risk of developing comorbidities,” senior author Alexander Neumeister, MD, associate professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, told Medscape Medical News.
“These findings establish that trauma at a young age causes long-lasting neurobiological and psychological effects in survivors with PTSD. In other words, early-life trauma can interfere with normal brain development,” he said.
The article is somewhat technical, but lay readers like us can pretty much follow what is being discussed. To read the story, you need to register for Medscape.com, which is free.
Read Potential new drug target for PTSD on Medscape.com.
Link supplied by a Lovefraud reader.
As more and more research is done on the chemistry of the brain, I think there will be a corresponding understanding just how vital it is to nurture our young and to protect them from abuse. I think it will also help former victims to realize this is not just “something to get over” any more than you would tell a person with a broken leg to just “suck it up and get over it,” but would know that they required medical care to recover.
The injuries to our spirits, minds and emotions may not be VISIBLE like a broken leg can be, but they are REAL and this is just one of the studies being done that shows just how REAL the injuries done by abuse are.
Children who have been abused at an early age have damage done to them that makes them vulnerable targets for more abuse at a later age as well. It is really good I think that medical SCIENCE is starting to recognize this. Wish I could be around in 100 years from now when more is known about this.
Thanks for posting this.
Actually, yesterday I was thinking that I feel completely transformed, not just temporarily off-kilter. This article confirms my senses.
The idea that PTSD is something we need to return from or just pass through seems inaccurate, now that I am knee deep in the experience. I realize that this person that I am left with is ME, for better or worse, and I’m different now. I might not have guessed it to be an actual brain difference, but the feeling is very strong. It feels like I need to focus on cultivating what I have become, rather than just trying to “get it over with” and get back to being who I used to be. This is me now. A survivor. Someone who notices red flags and listens to them. Someone who deeply understands what it means to come face-to-face with evil, and therefore understands that evil does exist. The whole world looks different to me now. I cannot just wipe my mind clear of all these lessons and “get over it” to become that naive person I was before.
I am glad to hear there is some science behind this. I think this can help a lot of people dealing with PTSD, and also those who love people dealing with PTSD. People who have family or a loved one with PTSD might be waiting around for that person they used to know to come back, which might even make healing harder if this is expressed to the person trying to heal. This new information could give people the perspective that they should instead create, nurture, and especially renew bonds with a survivor, taking them as they are NOW and looking to the future with them.
Oxy, it is unfortunate that there even needs to be more information to get it through to people that they should nurture and protect children from abuse. What a world! It seems like common sense to me, but it’s true that not all adults seem to understand something so obvious. It would be nice if this was clear already. However, I agree with you. This should drive the point home even more for parents who don’t innately register that protecting and nurturing children is crucial to their development.
Panther, there are so many things that can happen to a child that “abuse” them besides being beaten or devalued by a parent….the parent can die, or there can be a divorce or trauma going on with the parents in the family that effect the child.
It seems to me that some non-P parents who could work out a relationship with each other don’t make as much effort to do so because they don’t seem to think that divorce hurts the kids….but I firmly believe it does traumatize most kids even in a “good” divorce. (Is there such a thing?)
I think children need a stability in their lives in the people they are bonded to….but “life” gets in the way of that stability sometimes…job transfers, death, divorce, illness, and other things that are not necessarily in the control of one or even both parents…so we can’t always protect our children from the traumas or serious abuses of “life” no matter how hard we try. However, I think we need to realize that these things ARE traumas to the kids, even at an early age, and can mean that they need EXTRA nursturing and teaching from the people who are their mentors and parents.
Unfortunately, sometimes we are also “injured” at the same time in which the trauma occurs (like in a divorce) and when our kids need us the most, we are able to give the least because of our own injuries.
The many parents here who are themselves injured by the divorce/separation from a psychopath, are also trying to (at the same time) mentor, parent and support a CHILD who is ALSO injured by that same separation/divorce and abuse.
Could this also mean that those who were abused and/or neglected by their parent/s at a young age are more apt to abuse others themselves as a means of protecting their own ego?
Sheila, I think so….
I think abuse can do two things to a person, for some of us that do not carry the gene to make us prone to APD/NPD, it will cause trauma and sometimes PTSD. For the others, I absolutely believe that abuse is at the root of what makes a person with the potential to be APD/NPD a full-blown APD/NPD.
I have a terrible history with APD/NPDs and keep going back to them. I am in therapy working on my FOO which makes me prone to seek these types of people out.
But in the meantime, I may as well do my own case studies on these guys, since I have had relationships with 4 guys, and 3 were full-blown APDs and the other one was just slightly NPD.
The one that was slightly NPD had been neglected as a child, with maybe just a small amount of physical abuse in the form of discipline. Although he is quite self-centered, he is not vengeful nor prone to the rages that usually accompany NPD/APD.
My 2nd husband was abused terribly as a child. I have a PO against him, as he is full-blown APD/NPD and totally unable to be reasoned with or show empathy.
3rd husband also APD/NPD. Also abused terribly as a child, including sexual abuse. Had conduct disorder as a child. Takes the facade of KISA but became a cop to satisfy the power & control needs of a NPD/APD. Also sex addict. No empathy for others but quite able to feel sorry for himself.
Last boyfriend (left this one before marriage so I am doing a little better here)….also severe abuse as a child. Also full blown APD/NPD. Also alcoholic and unable to handle responsibility of any kind.
So, IME, abuse as a child does really come into play when you look at what makes someone sociopathic.
The next time I consider dating, I am going to ask about his childhood. And talk to other family members, in depth, as #2 and #3 totally hid their childhoods from me.
To Lovefraud readers – the blog is experiencing technical difficulties at the moment – the webmaster has been alerted. I’m sure more recent posts will be restored soon.
I think it’s not so much “what happened” to a child (or an adult) necessarily, but how they interpreted the event. I have known siblings from the same family who reacted completely differently to the same events. For instance, I have a friend whose father was very covertly sexually abusive toward the two daughters. For some reason due to her resiliency, my friend was not nearly as traumatized by it as her sister was. Different people process the same events differently. I believe these “events” as Oxy stated do not have to be related to beatings and rapes. I believe we also absorb emotional states from our parents and the environment before we were born. We might internalize some comment made by someone in the operating room while we are under anesthesia. Some people are also more sensitive than others, and this will effect how they internalize events. Those who believe in reincarnation believe that you can even carry trauma from past lifetimes. These become part of our energetic patterning, keyed into our bodies and psyches even before we are born.
Once we find a way to release these patterns we can develop “resiliency”. Resiliency means having a set of coping skills to help us avoid being vulnerable to the same traumas again.
Star,
The “same sun that hardens the clay also melts the wax” so what the basic composition of the person/object is the SAME environment will act differently on them. No two people have exactly the same DNA AND ENVIRONMENT, even identical twins With identical DNA have somewhat different environments so may respond to a family situation differently.
My sons were raised pretty much in the same environment, but not identical, so with different DNA and a different environment they turned out differently, and I’ve seen people who were horribly abused as children turn out wonderfully and their sibling who was the “golden child” and privileged turn out to be a piece of carp! Since it is difficult to measure DNA as far as psychopathy is concerned (at this stage anyway) and environment as well, it is difficul to say for sure which is the most influencial, DNA for environment, but we do know that they both play a part.
Had a weird memory loss event today. Went to the movies to go see Tintin’s adventures (I’m Belgian, so extra interesting to go see a Spielberg movie about one of our national comic heroes… an Indiana Jones avant la lettre). Anyway, I put off my cell phone. Watched the 3D movie and for the life of me afterwards couldn’t remember the pin code. Last week I did it without thinking. Now I failed 3 times, had to go home to find the PUK number to reinstall a new one. But I’ve never forgotten my in before. Now I’m wondering whether watching a 3D movie in 3D might affect the brain in so much that when it’s already memory weakened by PSTD that it gets a meltdown?
CRS in 3D ? Oh My !