If Your Child Is A Trauma Victim
Dont be afraid to communicate with your children about their thoughts and feelings regarding their traumatic experience. Dont be alarmed if you find your child seeks safety by regressing into a younger age by bedwetting after being fully potty-trained or refusing to be alone.
Your comforting, positive, and patient attitude has a significant influence on childs trauma recovery. Children often tend to blame themselves for their own victimization.
Assure your child that he is not responsible for the traumatic event. Give your child a sense of hope and safety.
Recovering From Complex Ptsd With Reconnection And Integration
With reconnection and integration, you can establish safety and stabilization as well as practice remembrance and mourning. Essentially, its time to look ahead as you consider who you are without the cloud of trauma hanging overhead. In a way, this process is all about redefining and rediscovering who you are.
Instead of feeling powerless and perpetually victimized, you can find a new voice. Oftentimes C-PTSD gives rise to a sense of purpose through service to others. Giving back helps any kind of recovery work. In the end, this step is all about forward-thinking, not dwelling on the past any longer.
Examples Of Childhood Trauma
There are many examples of childhood trauma and there is no list that can capture the unique ways we respond to our environment and life events growing up. Childhood trauma can include single events or chronic exposure to something harmful in the environment.
Examples of childhood trauma may include:
- The chronic absence of basic needs, including affection, food, shelter, and education
- Experiencing systemic and institutional racism
- Displacement through chronically moving, removal from a childhood home, persistent homelessness, natural disasters, or acts of terrorism
- Experiencing emotional, physical, or sexual abuse
- Chronic and extreme stress in the childhood home, such as witnessing domestic violence, the volatile separation or divorce of caregivers, untreated mental health conditions of one or more family members, or parental incarceration
- Loss of a beloved family member or friend in childhood
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How To Stop Suffering From Past Trauma Ptsd Or Complex Ptsd And Start Living Joyfully In The Present
Hi. Im Lisa Guillot, a trauma recovery specialist and a survivor.
I work with individuals who have experienced childhood developmental trauma which can result in:
- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
- emotional dysregulation
- attachment disorders
I also support people who, though not diagnosed, know that past wounds are sabotaging their lives and relationships today.
- Car accidents or physical harm
- Covid and world issues traumatizing you
- Destructive behaviors, beliefs, and habits
Let me ask, Do you often feel unhappy, alone, or worried? Perhaps lost, anxious, and misunderstood?
Does life seem to lack any real meaning?
Traumatic events, past experiences, and unresolved issues that have not been addressed can wreak havoc in many ways.
Here are common signs that past trauma is damaging your life today and ruining your future:
- feeling depressed or anxious
- suffering from various health issues like high blood pressure, a racing heart rate, fatigue, headaches, autoimmune disorders, digestive issues or skin problems
- having difficulty trusting and connecting with others
- feeling unworthy, guilty, or shameful
- experiencing uncontrollable fears and worries
- finding yourself angry, irritable or frustrated too often
- sleeping poorly your mind constantly races or you agonize about past mistakes
- failing to set and reach goals
These things can bring you down and seem unfixable. They can derail your efforts to be happy.
Who Is Affected By Post
About 4% of children under age 18 are exposed to some form of trauma in their lifetime that leads to post-traumatic stress disorder. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, of those children and adolescents who have experienced trauma, about 7% of girls and 2% of boys are diagnosed with PTSD.
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Symptoms Of Childhood Ptsd:
- Sleeping too much or too little
- Loss of interest in activities they once liked
- Detachment/Lack of responsiveness
- Purposely avoiding places or situations
- Losing touch with reality/inability to comprehend what is real
- Reenacting the event, sometimes during play
- Problems in school or with concentration
- Worry about dying at a young age
- Regressive behaviors
- Physical symptoms like stomach aches
Why Someone May Be Reluctant To Seek Treatment For Ptsd Or C
Until relatively recently, PTSD and C-PTSD were thought to be incurable conditions but research shows it is possible to effectively treat both conditions with treatments such as EMDR and CBT.
If you, or your loved one has been diagnosed with PTSD or C-PTSD, it may then be difficult to explain, or understand why they are not ready for treatment or seem resistant to any help, but there may be a variety of reasons why such as:
At PTSD UK, much of the work we do looks at how we can help remove these barriers in the short and long term. Traumatic events can be very difficult to come to terms with, but confronting and understanding your feelings and seeking professional help is often the only way of effectively treating PTSD and C-PTSD so we need to help people undergo treatment as soon as theyre ready.
For more support to get the most out of you treatment, when youre ready to do so, visit this page on our website to help.
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Tip : Encourage Physical Activity
Physical activity can burn off adrenaline, release mood-enhancing endorphins, and help your child or teen sleep better at night.
Find a sport that your child enjoys. Activities such as basketball, soccer, running, martial arts, or swimming that require moving both the arms and legs can help rouse your childs nervous system from that stuck feeling that often follows a traumatic experience.
Offer to participate in sports, games, or physical activities with your child. If they seem resistant to get off the couch, play some of their favorite music and dance together. Once a child gets moving, theyll start to feel more energetic.
Encourage your child to go outside to play with friends or a pet and blow off steam.
Schedule a family outing to a hiking trail, lake, or beach. Spending time in nature can ease stress and boost a childs overall mood.
Take younger children to a playground, activity center, or arrange play dates.
How To Help Separated Families Post
While reunification of families is paramount, it is worth noting that reunification alone may be insufficient for reversing the effects of separation noted above. Symptoms of PTSD, anxiety, depression, and other disorders may continue to persist long after reunification. Accordingly, ongoing monitoring of previously separated children will be needed, as will efforts to ensure that children resume normal daily activities, such as school, play dates, and sports. The parents of these children should also be assessed at regular intervals, as parental psychopathology has been found to not only negatively impact parenting behaviors, but also child outcomes.20
Parents should consider seeking mental health treatment for children who have difficulty reestablishing a sense of normalcy or who continue to struggle with symptoms of PTSD for three months or more post-reunification. For these children, developmentally informed early intervention is best in order to minimize suffering and help steer children back to a path of healthy functioning and development.
For children who are struggling with other disorders, such as depression, anxiety, or substance use, other forms of CBT such as behavioral activation for depression, exposure-based treatment for anxiety, or dialectical behavior therapy are available.
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Distancing Yourself From Traumatic Events
Learning to distance yourself from your childhood trauma is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes time, patience, and ongoing support. However, learning to self-distance, or view oneself from a third-person perspective, can help reduce reactivity when analyzing your feelings.
The positive effects of self-distancing have been thoroughly studied among those with post-traumatic stress disorder, showcasing the potential reduction of intense emotional and physiological reactions to traumatic memories.
The key is to not fall into a pattern of emotional avoidance. Instead, you must learn to feel more grounded and in control, placing distance between you and the feelings or memories that cause distress.
Why Consider Bridges To Recovery For Treatment Of Childhood Trauma
At Bridges to Recovery, we specialize in diagnosing and treating complex psychiatric and emotional issues such as childhood trauma. We provide compassionate and effective care in a serene residential setting so clients can focus on their treatment and recovery without the worries of external pressures and stressors.
- Private residential accommodations. Our exclusive residential treatment homes have a maximum of six clients, providing a safe, private alternative to a more traditional hospital environment.
- World-class clinical staff. Our expert clinical team provides individual therapy using proven evidence-based treatment modalities to treat childhood trauma.
- Individualized treatment plans. After a thorough assessment, we create a truly individualized treatment plan that offers profound healing and strategies for overcoming the toughest obstacles.
- Health and wellness focused. To ensure your comfort during your healing process, our chefs create delicious healthy, gourmet meals. We also offer yoga, meditation, acupuncture, massage, and physical fitness classes.
At Bridges to Recovery, we believe that exceptional psychiatric, clinical, and holistic care can transform lives. With the utmost dignity and respect, we meet you where you are to develop a vision for the life you wish to have, and offer the care you need to achieve it.
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Practice Remembrance And Mourning
Skipping this stage of trauma therapy is something important that interferes with recovering from Complex PTSD. Many trauma survivors never recover because they dont do this stage of the work. This stage involves the resolution, or reconsolidation of old memories. Without this work, the brain cant move forward. Many survivors only have one coping tool avoidance. And its this very avoidance that keeps the trauma symptoms from resolving. Avoidance can be an excellent short term coping mechanism, but over the long run, its what keeps the pain, fear, anger and shame swirling within our bodies and minds.
Many wrongly believe that the only way to move forward is by not thinking about or not feeling what happened. What these people dont know is that a good trauma therapist can gently guide them through this stage and make sure that the process of remembering is not overwhelming. In fact, the key to successful trauma therapy is reprocessing and reconsolidating old memories in a comfortable enough way.
The step of remembering and mourning the trauma is essential for recovering from complex PTSD. In this second step of the Complex PTSD recovery stages, you are actively engaged in trauma recovery work. This is the heart of whats considered trauma therapy in that you are meeting with a therapist and working through what happened. There are several options available to do this safely and productively. For example:
Researchers Study Adolescent Recovery From Post
by Melissa Krug, Pennsylvania State University
Children in the United States may be exposed to a high rate of adverse experiences that result in post-traumatic stress symptoms , which can appear as feelings of stress, fear and helplessness that result from re-experiencing trauma or actively avoiding reminders of the trauma. Adolescents most likely to recover from PTSS are less likely to have experienced sexual or physical abuse and more likely to identify as a member of a racial or ethnic minority, according to a new study by researchers at theChild Maltreatment Solutions Networkin Penn State’s Social Science Research Institute.
The research team analyzed self-reported data from a group of adolescent females and their caregivers from urban and rural communities in the Midwestern United States that had experienced instances of substantiated neglect, physical abuse, and/or sexual abuse as well as other categories of potentially traumatic events . The National Institutes of Health issued a certificate of confidentiality, and the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital review board approved all research procedures.
The researchers found that about 16% of youth receive a clinical diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder . Even for survivors of child maltreatmentan adverse experience that generally promotes potent traumatic effectsPTSD diagnosis estimates range from 30% to 38%.
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Elevation Behavioral Health Provides Residential Treatment For Ptsd
Elevation Behavioral Health is a residential mental health center in Los Angeles, California that offers intensive treatment for adult survivors of childhood PTSD. The comprehensive program allows individuals struggling with trauma maladaptation to examine the pain sources and process the disturbing childhood events under the expert care of our compassionate psychiatric staff. Treatment includes intensive psychotherapy, group therapy, holistic and experiential activities, and medication management if applicable. For more information about our treatment program for childhood trauma PTSD, please connect with Elevation Behavioral Health today at 561-0868.
Treatment For Childhood Trauma
Delayed response or indeed an immediate response to traumatic experiences are both typical.
A mental health professional will work through your trauma with you and give you the right support and alleviate your symptoms.
Trauma symptoms rarely disappear by themselves, so those experiencing trauma symptoms must seek support and help.
There is a wide range of therapies specifically designed to treat trauma they involve:
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Staying With Difficult Feelings And Choices
This theme has three sub-themes: increased robustness in staying with difficult feelings, recovery brings about an increase in symptoms, and recovery brings about difficult choices.
3.5.1. Increased robustness in staying with difficult feelings
Some of the women experienced recovery, despite having a comparable symptom load. This related to their experiences of their symptoms changing as they discovered new ways of relating to them:
No, I have the same load of symptoms still, really, but it is a bit easier when they come, because I know how I I try, at least to And I know how I can try to get out of it, not bundling up in it even more.
Earlier, when I got it I have just panicked more and more. I thought, My God! Because I did not know why it happened. Now I have more explanations on why it happens, and then I am not so scared. The fear has gone away a bit. Even if I get anxiety now, and get the breathing-stuff, that the body in a way controls, I have discovered that you can control a lot that you don’t think you can control. I did not believe that earlier. It was something I wasn’t aware of before I started in the group, that there is plenty you thinkyou can control that you cannot. And there is plenty you don’t think you can control, that you actually can control.
These examples illustrate how the experienced process of recovery need not be linked to an experience of symptom decrease.
3.5.2. Recovery brings about an increase in symptoms
What Is Childhood Ptsd
PTSD in children occurs before the age of 18. This condition can develop after a child has witnessed or experienced a traumatic event. A child experiencing PTSD may have ongoing thoughts or memories about the event that they found terrifying, resulting in sleep problems and them seeming detached.
While PTSD-like symptoms are common in children and adolescents after a trauma, PTSD is rare in young people, the Child Mind Institute reports. A mental health professional may diagnose PTSD if the symptoms have been present for more than 1 month and negatively affect the childs well-being and ability to function.
Not every traumatic event leads to PTSD. The risk of a child developing PTSD after a trauma is influenced by many factors, including:
- how close the child was to the trauma
- the severity of the trauma
- how long the traumatic event lasted
- whether the trauma was recurrent
- the resiliency and coping skills of the child
- support from the family and community after the event
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Tip : Minimize Media Exposure
Children whove experienced a traumatic event can often find relentless media coverage to be further traumatizing. Excessive exposure to images of a crisis or disturbing eventsuch as repeatedly viewing video clips on social media or news sitescan even create traumatic stress in children or teens who were not directly affected by the event.
Limit your childs media exposure to the traumatic event. Dont let your child watch the news or check social media just before bed, and make use of parental controls on the TV, computer, and phone to prevent your child from repeatedly viewing disturbing footage.
As much as you can, watch news reports of the traumatic event with your child. You can reassure your child as youre watching and help place information in context.
Avoid exposing your child to graphic images and videos. Its often less traumatizing for a child or teen to read the newspaper rather than watch television coverage or view video clips of the event.
When Should I Call My Childs Healthcare Provider
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Feels extreme depression, fear, anxiety, or anger toward him or herself or others
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Feels out of control
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Hears voices that others dont hear
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Sees things that others dont see
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Cant sleep or eat for 3 days in a row
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Shows behavior that concerns friends, family, or teachers, and others express concern about this behavior and ask you to get help
PTSD increases risk for other mental health disorders, including depression, anxiety, and suicidal thinking.
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Symptoms Of Ptsd In Children
Trauma can lead to a wide range of thought, mood, and behavioral symptoms. Many of the symptoms of PTSD in adults also appear in children, adolescents, and teens.
It can take some time after an event for the effects of trauma to show up. If they develop soon after an event, the symptoms usually improve after 3 months. Sometimes, the effects might not show up for 6 months or more after the trauma happened.
For a diagnosis of PTSD, the child will have experienced disruptive symptoms for at least 1 month. Common symptoms of PTSD in children include:
- flashbacks or feeling as if the trauma is happening again
- seeming nervous, jittery, or extra alert, also known as hypervigilance
- seeming out of it, detached, or in a daze
- unwanted thoughts or memories about the traumatic event
- trouble sleeping, including nightmares
- avoidance of people, places, things, or situations that are reminders of the traumatic event
- problems in school
- no longer enjoying activities they used to
- intense outbursts of anger or sadness
- unexplained physical symptoms, such as headaches or stomach pain
- worries about death or getting hurt
- regressive behaviors, such as thumb-sucking or bed-wetting
Adolescents or teens might turn to substance use, such as alcohol or drugs, to deal with the trauma and its effects.