Comfort in Chaos: Understanding Trauma Brain

Comfort in Chaos

Understanding Trauma Brain

I make no bones about it, as a foster child, I don’t think I was an easy person to get along with and I certainly wasn’t trying to make bonds or connections with those around me. I went into foster care at the age of 13. My life prior to entering the system was one of immense dysfunction, and I had practically raised myself. My mom was rarely around, and when she was it was usually to tell me that we were moving.  We moved over 50 times and I went to more than 35 schools in my life before the age of 13. Chaos had become my normal.   

In learning to “cover” for my mom’s actions, and watching my mom talk her way out of almost any situation, I had learned a valuable skill over my early life . . .lying.  It had become a valuable skill and had saved me numerous times from severe punishments.

I had thought foster care would be a positive solution to the life I was living. What I found was more of the same. Loneliness, isolation and depression followed me into care. I had become disconnected from my feelings and accepted that I was unable to love and was unlovable myself.  I continued past behaviors and found no solace in the families that took me in.

I ultimately aged out of the system at 18, turned loose onto the world without any real connections to other people. When I hit the college campus, a feat I wouldn’t learn was remarkable until later, I made a pact with myself to never talk about my past with anyone. I was a good liar and because of my skill I kept that promise for over 20 years.

I spent those years, hiding the past, keeping myself at arms length from any real relationships and doing the one thing I was knew I was good at, “lying”. I didn’t know it at the time, but I found myself in what I now refer to as “trauma brain.” Going to that comfortable place in my mind of Fight, Flight, Freeze or Appease.

Chaos was comfortable for me. When things in my life were going well, I looked for and caused chaos for myself so I could feel “comfortable.” I of course didn’t realize, at least consciously, that I was doing it; until I started to become increasingly unsettled with the life I was living. I had a good job, managed to get married and had a child, but I was only comfortable in the unknown and I wanted to change.

For most of my life, I chalked up my behavior to the idea that I was just “crazy.” It was a concept that I was comfortable with, and I had known it was only a matter of time until I turned into my “crazy mother.” At the time, I was working in a law office, and I was watching clients with similar tendencies. I had wondered about their past and when I started to ask, I was surprised by how many of them had been former foster kids. I had always assumed there were very few of me, and the numbers appearing in my office was off putting to say the least.

Flash forward. In an effort to find peace in my life, I initially turned to self-help books. I found a little relief, but often found myself going back to old habits. I started to realize that hiding my demons was only making me more depressed, and more disconnected.

I tried everything, more books, journaling, yoga, meditation, and hiking. Physical exertion was having an impact, but it only lasted a few hours, and then I was back in mind, returning to old habits. Finally, I realized that I had to tell my story. I wrote Garbage Bag Suitcase and began diving into understanding trauma and its effects on the brain.

The research began turning me onto new books, and suddenly I understood my “trauma brain” in a whole new way. I wasn’t “crazy” my brain was just programed to constantly be in Fight, Flight, Freeze, Appease mode, and this knowledge changed everything for me.

I recently heard Dr. Cathy Fialon explain trauma brain as a sledding hill. When you go sledding the path becomes worn, and when you go down how you gain greater speed. The well-worn path is easy, and comfortable. However, if you take your sled over a few feet to a part of the hill that hasn’t been used, it is difficult to slide down, you can’t gain momentum, and you often start and stop a lot. It takes time, she explained, to break in this new path and make it enjoyable for sledding.

I understood exactly what she meant. My learned reactions as a child had become the well-worn sledding hill. It was easy for me to go down that road, regardless of the effects. But, when I started working on myself (i.e. taking my sled to a new hill) it was difficult. Don’t get me wrong, while I’m still working on breaking in my new path, every once in awhile I like to take a spin on the old one.

That is “trauma brain” retraining ourselves, and oftentimes those we care about, how to break in a new way of thinking. I am thrilled to say, that I have a new career that allows me to help others recognize their trauma brain and the trauma brain of those around them, to help themselves and other heal in a brand new way. We all deserve to try out a new place to sled.

Shenandoah Chefalo is a former foster youth, and advocate. She is the author of the memoir, Garbage Bag Suitcase, and co-founder of Good Harbor Institute an organization focused on ensuring sustainable, implemented trauma care within organizations and individuals. You can learn more about her and her work at www.garbagebagsuitcase.com or www.goodharborinst.com

Reaching the Fourth "R": Schools and Classrooms can make all the difference

Healing Trauma in the Classroom 

I am very excited to bring you my first guest blog. In full disclosure, I met Cathy Anther-Fialon, at a webcast on a seminar regarding building trauma informed communities. It won't be hard for you to understand that we immediately hit it off. Up until that point I had been working in my community, primarily isolated and the progress was slow. After out interaction, we have been able to move our community forward, together at a more rampant pace, which is good for my own mental health and well-being. 

Schools teach. Schools teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. But what happens when a child can’t learn what is taught? What can a teacher do with a child who can’t learn? Classrooms have steadily been growing. In these larger classrooms of 25+ it is nearly impossible for a teacher to dedicate the individual attention a student in distress may need.

But why wouldn’t a child be capable of learning? When a people experience adversity or toxic stress their brain, in an effort to be protective, signals the body to fight, flight, freeze or submit. This is a life saving response when confronted with immediate danger like an angry bear while out hiking on a trail.

In childhood if the adversity or toxic stress is within the family or immediate environment the brain acts just like there is an angry bear present. The child’s brain goes into its evolutionary fight, flight, and freeze mode. In childhood the brain experiences a period of unparalleled growth and development, which means the brain, can actually develop in a way that fight, flight, freeze or submit become the programmed response. When a brain is responding to danger in fight, flight, or freeze mode other parts of the brain actually shut down.

When danger is present, the brain does not take time to strategize, access executive level functioning, or consider options. Also, under these conditions the brain signals the body to release hormones to aid in the danger response. These chemicals bathe every cell in the body, priming them to respond to danger. They impact hunger and digestion. They impact eyesight and smell. The body becomes hyper- vigilant.  Now imagine, if a brain develops under these conditions to the point that these conditions become the brain’s norm. These children cannot learn, because a brain experiencing danger is not in the position to learn new information- organizing and interpreting the new information with executive functioning skills. The brain is instead stuck in a mode of constantly scanning the environment for the next threat. This trauma brain syndrome is experienced by millions of children in classrooms across the country every day.

There are two solutions to help children learn and escape the negative impacts of trauma brain syndrome. The first solution is prevention. Prevent childhood adversity. Prevent childhood trauma. However, many times the adversity is not preventable or the risk of adverse circumstances is not known to those who can offer support to prevent. The second solution is to build resilience (The Fourth “R”) Help children reach a place of resilience. According to a leading researcher Emily Werner (1995), resilience is the ability to achieve positive life outcomes despite risk and the ability to rebound from adversity with strength. Harvard’s Center of the Developing Child Supportive Relationships and Active Skill-Building Strengthen the Foundations of Resilience (2015), details how resilience is built in children.

To reach resilience a child needs one, not two or three, but only one, positive, stable, adult relationship. Only one. There are other factors which contribute to resilience, but the most important and most successful is for a child to have access to one, positive, stable, adult relationship.  This adult relationship does not have to be a parent. It can be any adult.

Reaching the fourth R- resilience can be accomplished at school. How can a teacher, with an over-crowded class, be the stable, positive adult relationship for each child? How can an overburdened teacher offer the kind of personal relationship needed? It doesn’t have to be the teacher. The connection can be offered by a classroom volunteer, a bus driver, a cafeteria staff person, any adult in the school environment.

The adult needs to be consistent, positive, and needs to regularly reach out to listen to the child and share conversation with the child. So, with dwindling budgets, over-crowded classrooms, low staff salaries, what if school staff can’t dedicate enough time to develop a positive, stable relationship with every single child? The solution begins with the community.

Schools offer opportunity for community members to volunteer, in fact, they welcome volunteers. Helping children reach resilience prepares them to weather any kind of adversity they may experience. It allows a child to avoid the negative impacts of a trauma brain and have the ability to learn. A resilient brain can access executive functioning. A child with the ability to learn has a greater possibility of becoming a healthy, happy, productive adult adding to the greater community in a positive way.

I offer a thank you to all of the school staff across the nation dedicated to helping children reach resilience. Thank you to all of the school volunteers. You do make a difference. Your time and energy is building our future community. Let’s agree every child deserves to have access to at least one, stable, positive adult in their life. Let’s agree to make this happen.

Cathy Anthofer-Fialon holds a PhD in human services. She has previously worked in domestic violence victim/survivor advocacy, with the juvenile justice system, and in higher education. She currently dedicates her time to educating others about the lifetime impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) and inspiring resilience.  

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Healing Trauma: One Grocery Store Line at a Time

There’s a women standing in front of me at the grocery store. I can see her fidgeting, shifting her weight back and forth. She glances my way and gives me the “what is taking so long” look as she rolls her eyes. I shrug and smile. She turns back around. I notice she doesn’t have much in her cart.

After the person in front of her is finished, the cashier asks, “How is everything today?” Of course the cashier had no way of knowing what was coming next. This woman begins to unleash a verbal onslaught about everything that is wrong with the way the cashier is doing her job, the way the store is being managed, how she couldn’t find anything she was looking for, and basically how she could fix everything that is wrong in the world.

If this event would have happened a year ago, I would have kept my distance and tried not to engage this person. I would have chalked it up to some sort of mental illness or some issue she was having that didn’t concern me. Essentially, I would have minded my own business. I would have thought, “What is wrong with this lady?” I would have said nothing.

But that was before.

I try to edge up closer. I move from behind my cart to the front of my cart. She is still carrying on.  I catch a glimpse of the cashier who is trying to interject an apology, but isn’t making much ground. “Excuse me. . .” I’m almost yelling but the women stops to take a breath. “It seems like you are having a rough day. What happened?” 

She looks at me quizzically, and then I can see tears welling in her eyes. She’s not yelling any more, but her pain is speaking volumes: “My mother is near the end of her life, and I’m trying to get back to the hospital,” she said.  

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” I say. “Is there anything I can do?”

“No. But thank you for asking,” she says. “My husband passed away last year, we had no children and she is the last of my family.” As she continues talking, the cashier rings her up and before I know it, she is pushing her cart out the door.

As I make my way out to my car, I notice her waiting outside. She stops me. “I am so sorry for yelling. I knew I shouldn’t come to this store, it always makes me upset.”  This makes me smile. “I don’t think it’s the store; sometimes we are all under stress that no one else understands and it makes us do things we wouldn’t normally do.” She reaches out to hug me. “Thank you for understanding.”

You may or may not fully understand what I did that day — or why. You may question whether or not you’d have the balls — or compassion. Some people naturally engage with others; it takes some work for the rest.

How can we possibly heal trauma in line at the grocery store? One interaction at a time.  You really want to make a difference? Say something. Say something with care. Or simply engage.

I shared this story with an acquaintance and she confessed she had a note next to her laptop that reads:

Lady in FF Oct. 15 (Tues.), 2013: “I just wanted to say thank you for making me smile and thank you for reminding me what’s important in life.” All my acquaintance had done was happily engage with a child who did not belong to either woman in line at the store. It can be so simple.

People in pain sometimes act out in aggressive (or passive) ways.  Some have so much trauma that they don’t even know the way they feel isn’t “normal.” They may have been infected for so long that they actually start to feel trapped by their own emotions, which come out in all sorts of ways — most of which make no sense to the waiting judgment of others. 

But you can do something to help them heal. You can remind them that better times are possible. They don’t need judgment; they need compassion and empathy. They need to know someone believes in them and that they are worthy of love.

You might have the chance to do that the next time you’re in line at the store.

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How Grief Goes Unnoticed in Foster Children; and the underlying trauma it can cause

HOW GRIEF GOES UNNOTICED IN FOSTER CHILDREN

And the underlying trauma it can cause

I have attended several funerals during my lifetime. At one, when I was still in high school, I remember watching the mother of a friend throw herself over her son’s casket, unable to contain her emotions.

Those of us who were there sat and stared, stunned, but silent. Eventually, a much older lady with gray wispy hair came running down the aisle, throwing her arms around the women’s shoulders, whispering that it was OK and that she should take a break for a while. She hugged the grieving mother and supported her while they looked for an empty chair.

Later in life, I was at a funeral for a man who had died, and his wife, so upset that she was shouting profanities at his casket, banging on it, asking him why he broke his promise to never leave her. Again, a women came from the back and threw her arms around the distraught woman. This time I couldn’t hear the conversation, but you could tell it was soothing.

In any other public situation, these types of outbursts would be deemed unacceptable. But, at a funeral, when individuals are grieving, it seems we have an unstated rule that any and all behavior is acceptable, and it probably should be.

However, what if you lost a loved one over and over again? What if they presumably died more than once? For some of the children lost in our foster care system, that is exactly the case. They are pulled from their parents, and placed in a presumably safer environment. Some are reunited, only to be pulled again. Others will never see their parents again. How are they allowed to grieve?

If a small girl is pulled from her mother’s home, only to be placed in the safety of strangers, and she attends school later that week, only to throw something at another student or even the teacher, is she grieving or a troublemaker?

Children are often unable, and fail to recognize the underlying cause of their own behaviors, unable to make the leap that their grief and sorrow may be connected. Professionals often dismiss these problems as impulsive behaviors or a symptom of a larger psychological issue. Some foster children are not so social; they do not talk much to other children, and have a difficult time understanding their own feelings and actions.

These children have suffered a tremendous loss — a deep sadness and grief that often goes unrecognized, and often leads to deeper traumas. When we learn to recognize that a child may be grieving, it may be easier to throw our arms around them and tell them everything is going to be OK, instead of issuing a punishment.

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