The Hidden Trauma

When we discuss trauma, especially childhood abuse, we frequently bring up three main varieties: physical, sexual, and emotional. As I've discussed in previous blog posts, these three types of abuse often instill negative beliefs about oneself that themselves arise in order to defend us in social interactions. That is, the lie trauma teaches us is that we are not worthy of love or consideration. We come to believe that lie over the years, and it takes a lot of work to undo it.

But in addition to these three types of abuse, there is another type that can cause this same problem, only it can be more dangerous because it can be invisible. This kind of abuse causes those same kinds of toxic beliefs that the other kinds of abuse cause, but the problem with this "hidden" kind of trauma is that, unlike physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, this kind of abuse exists more in the negative, in what wasn't done to us, rather than what was. And yet it can be just as damaging, and in some ways it can be worse only because it can go on for years unrecognized.

Knowledge is Power

In dealing with trauma, one must first face the trauma. I don't mean relive it with someone else, however. That kind of therapy is very painful and it is, in my opinion, completely unnecessary. Rather, facing it simply means recognizing that it happened and that it has had long lasting effects on us. That it happened and that this treatment caused certain emotional patterns to develop.

In the three kinds of abuse that we've spoken of so far, this can be difficult, but part of what makes it sometimes more manageable is that it is visible. It can be recalled in distinct events that happened. With the hidden kind of abuse, however, it can easily go unnoticed because we rationalize it, we dismiss it, or we question it. Did it really happen? Or am I just "whining" or "being a snowflake", etc. Other ways in which the hidden abuse gets covered up is with "well other kids had it worse than me" types of rationalizations. Or "it could have been worse", or "well at least nobody hit me, called me names, or molested me".

And yet, in twenty years of clinical experience, the hidden abuse I'm referring to can cause just as much mayhem in the psyche as the overt kinds. So what am I talking about here?

The Hidden Abuse

What I'm talking about is neglect. Now, it is extremely important to recognize something here: in the current zietgheist, lots of social media personalities, political pundits, and so forth love to talk about how "young people think everything is trauma". Then people start bringing in the generations. Gen Z, Millennials, Boomers, and all that stuff. And that's when the talking heads in the media start barking about how "kids these days" just "can't handle any stress", and blah blah blah. Then, predicably, the other side starts lobbing defensive insults, saying these people are insensitive assholes and "literally Hitler" and all that, and before you know it, you have a full-on and completely useless internet flamewar and this gets us all exactly nowhere.

This a HUGE distraction. Neglect is when children are left on their own for long periods of time, not given enough food, or even just blatantly ignored. It's when a child is confined to an area and then just left there for hours or even days. I've heard stories of children who were locked in a basement for days because the parents wanted to go use drugs. Or leaving kids in a parking lot for hours while they went to go to Amway meetings. Or when children were simply ignored because the parents were drunk, high, or engaging in other activities behind closed doors and they didn't want to be bothered by chattering kids.

I'm not talking about someone who was denied their avocado toast, or had their X-box taken away for a day, here, and yet some internet personalities love to equate that because it's so inflammatory. The real issue they are getting at is resilience, and the fact that adults raised now seem to have lower resilience than those of previous generations. But the resilience question has NOTHING to do with the discussion of how harmful neglect can be. I will be discussing resilience in another blog post in the future, but for now, I think it's critical that we not conflate these two subjects the way Internet blockheads love to do.

Shining a Light

Let's get this straight. Neglect is abuse. Full stop. And it can be horribly cruel in that it can go unnoticed by the sufferer, especially if they are inclined to dismiss treatment that is not overtly assaultive the way physical abuse is. But anyone knows that children crave attention so much that they sometimes will seek out negative attention rather than being ignored. This, like so many kinds of mental suffering, exists as defense. And this is because being ignored in the ancestral environment would have equaled death. Human children, compared to other animals, are almost completely helpless, and this condition persists not for a few months, as you see in almost every other animal, but for YEARS.

There are reasons why this is that are complex and have to do with our evolutionary history, but for our purposes here, suffice it to say that this prolonged vulnerability has caused several behaviors to be instilled in our species in childhood, and one of these is the constant seeking of attention from adults. The children that did this survived. But this means this hunger for attention can be starved, and for humans, this is much like food starvation, in a species where getting food for oneself is delayed for many years. And, of course, many children who are neglected are starved for food as well as attention. But because "nobody hit you", or "nobody molested you", the adult survivor of neglect will often think "well I didn't have it so bad".

This is a LIE. This kind of treatment of a child is cruel and instills the same toxic beliefs that the other kinds of abuse do, only in the case of neglect, the adult will feel this sense of worthlessness and emptiness that the other trauma survivors do, only they may not have any idea what is causing it. This leads to them blaming themselves, or compounding the toxic belief with others like "I'm just broken", or "I'm always a mess", or "I'm just not worth the trouble", etc. But all of those beliefs are lies.

Healing

Healing begins with identifying the events that CAUSED those toxic beliefs. Recognizing in a deep level that they are lies and why those lies emerged--they emerge in order to protect us when we are young. This may seem counter-intuitive, but it's a matter of risk management. A child who has low confidence and low self-esteem will be less likely to ask for anything or provoke further abuse or worse--risk being kicked out of the social group. This toxic belief keeps us from "rocking the boat". Of course, the problem is that it persists into adulthood when it is no longer needed, and it is naturally very painful. People try to soothe this pain will all kinds of addictions and try to fill the emptiness with all kinds of poisons.

But it can and does heal. I see it every day, and it is immensely satisfying. With high-quality treatment, you can see a recovery, a change, and you can see these changes be preserved permanently--no longer believing you are worthless or not worthy of love or care. You are.

See you next time.

EG