I came across this book after I have heard a conversation between Jay Shetty, Oprah and Bruce Perry. I was so impressed by the talk between the three that I felt that this was a new book worth ordering.
What happened to you?Conversations on trauma, resilience and healing is a wonderful read. The title says it all about the format of the book: this is an entire conversation written down. I like how Bruce can pinpoint the science and the facts behind his psychiatric expertise while Oprah can translate the scientific language into compassionate storytelling.
I was amazed to find out that the first two years in the lift of a child can be a massive blessing or a serious hindrance further in life. If you were neglected in the first 2 years of your life it affects you enormously. Neglect is not connected only to your caregivers capacity to feed you and change your diapers. Neglect can also be emotional. Imagine a mother unhappy in her marriage or living with her horrible mother-in-law. She is frustrated, emotionally drained and holds a lot of anger inside. This mother, despite all of her best intentions, won’t be able to nurture her child in the right way. She can’t give what she doesn’t have , she can’t offer what she hasn’t been offered in her own family: love, peace, emotional care, attention . I believe that Oprah hits the nail on the head when she suggests that young parents should receive more support, especially the mothers. We now live in a society when it is still believed that the mother should do it all. We create these high expectations of super-hero mothers while the fathers are not held accountable. It is unfair and cruel to expect one human being to do so much while also nurturing for one child or more.
The neglected children end up being dysfunctional adults. Their brain just doesn’t function the way it should. They get easily angry and triggered by emotional cues they are not even aware of. A scent, a certain surrounding, a specific word or attitude and boom, they burst in anger. Unfortunately few seek therapy or help . These adults have issues with maintaining any long term relationship and they usually sabotage any chance of a good one. Used with neglect or violence or abuse, they try and recreate the same dynamic in all of their human interactions. I liked how Oprah and Bruce talked about the importance of noticing at a young age the way kids interact and trying to offer therapeutic solutions for the parents in order to shift the way things are done in that family. Oprah is so sincere with her own painful past and sad childhood and I am amazed how she ended up being such a power force despite her adversities. She confesses that books were of great help to her because she could escape mentally through reading. I can totally relate to that and I am sure that books helped many kids to disconnect from a troubling family background.
Our brain is designed to react before we think. This happens because of the biology of our brain and it happens even faster than it should for dysfunctional adults. The capacity to soothe ourselves is build in childhood. If someone is angry you cannot reason with them because anger actually lowers your IQ in that moment: you literally can’t access the smart part of your brain, the cortex, while you are angry. This is why you end up saying and doing stupid stuff you regret later. The emotional relationship is what matters the most when you really want to get to someone. We talk easier with people with whom we feel a connection with. If the emotional connection is damaged, the case is pretty much closed: that person will not want to hear from you because they no longer feel a connection with you. The best advice is : touch their heart before you tackle their mind.
Fortunately, the book gives us hope: with a lot of therapy and appropriate help, dysfunctional adults can regain power over their lives and learn what healthy relationships are. They can learn to make the difference between love and abuse and they can rewire their brain. For this to happen , a lot of practice must be done. New circuits have to form therefore repetition is the key. Resilience and connection are build when people do not run away from tough conversations and choose to stay there in the situation and solve it. It is easy to shut down , turn your back and sleep or ignore. But this can only burn a little more from the bridge you are trying to build. Too many relationships and marriages are already dead inside because people stopped trying years ago. The key to shift this dynamic is to educate the brain to choose the path least tested. To build the emotional resilience that your parents failed to teach you from various reasons. Therapy is not compulsory as there is another key aspect from the lives of those who managed to come out sane from dysfunctional families: connectedness. If you manage to have a few people around with whom you can spill your heart out in short bursts of confessions, then this can be almost like therapy. This is why having quality friends matters: you have a safe place where you can reopen the wounds and slowly heal through conversation. This is what most humans look for in a romantic relationship as well: to heal from past trauma through the relationship. Only with an intimate partner we can talk things we never talked with anyone else. This heals, soothes and helps us restore our emotional balance.
Another important subject brought to our attention in this book is the addiction to technology and the way this impacts the brain. We need face to face interactions. There is more texting and tweeting and less conversation. People are distracted by their phones while a person is sitting in front of them: this is hurtful for the person as it feels disrespectful to have your partner more focused on the phone than on you. For the kids it is even worse: left for hours with the phone as the babysitter this is damaging for the baby’s brain. They do not learn language and emotional skills from the phone. This is a way of making them disconnected and lost. We need to learn again how to be together, in the moment, with each other. Technology free. This is vital if we want the future generations to do a better job at parenting than our parents did.
I selected a couple of my favourite quotes from the book and I hope they will inspire you to read it. Have a great day and toodle loo!
If you have never been loved, the neural network that allow humans to love will be underdeveloped. The good news is that with use, with practice, these capabilities can emerge. Given love, the unloved can become loving.
The journey from traumatized to typical to resilient helps create a unique strength and perspective. That journey can create post-traumatic wisdom.
Childhood experiences literally impact the biology of the brain. And as a result, it will affect how you function for the rest of your life
We shouldn’t be walking away from a conversation in rage; we should regulate ourselves. Repair the ruptures. Reconnect and grow.When you walk away, everybody loses. We all need to get better at listening, regulating, reflecting. This requires the capacity to forgive, to be patient. Mature human interactions involve efforts to understand people who are different from you. But if we don’t have family meals, don’t go out with friends for long, in-person conversations and communicate only via text or Twitter, then we can’t create that positive, health, back-and-forth pattern of human connection. True growth comes from tougher moments, more difficult conversations. And we need to approach these moments with an awareness of “what happened to you”?
When you’ve lived through adversity, you can come to a point in your life where you can look back, reflect, learn, and grow from the experience. I believe it’s hard to understand humankind unless you know a little bit about adversity. Adversity, challenges, disappointment, loss, trauma- all can contribute to the capacity to be broadly empathic, to become wise. Trauma and adversity, in a way, are gifts. What we do with these gifts will differ from person to person
I keep going back to a show I did with Iyanla Vanzant years ago. She said that until you heal the wounds of your past, you will continue to bleed. The wounds will bleed through and stain your life , through alcohol, through drugs, through sex, through overworking. You have to have the courage to pull out the wound and begin to heal yourself
The acknowledgment of one human being by another is what bonds us. Asking “what happened to you?” expands the human connection
Disconnection is disease. We’re all too attached to our phones. No one even makes eye contact. There’s more texting, tweeting, and posting, but less actual conversation
Dismissive caregiving can lead to an unquenchable thirst for love. You cannot love if you have not been loved
When you’re young and you’re forming your primary associations about how the world works, your major influences come from your parents. And not really what they say, but how they act
Be courageous enough to spend time with people who are different from you and who may challenge your biases. It can be uncomfortable. But remember: moderate, predictable, controllable stress can build resilience. Create new associations, have new experiences
All of us have had the experience of having a conversation with somebody and feeling dismissed when they disengage to look at their phone. And even though we’re adults and we have developed brains and we understand how the world works, it still feels disrespectful. It hurts
No matter what has happened, you get a chance to rewrite the script. It really is never too late. Healing is possible. The key is knowing where to start the process. And matching the developtmental needs of the person
If you come from an abusive background, you might be in a relationship with someone who is abusive because it’s familiar? Yes. In fact, if you get into a relationship with somebody who’s not treating you poorly, you may find yourself increasingly uncomfortable. And then, unconsciously, your mind might seek a “predictable” response. You may try to provoke a bit of response. Maybe I’ll do X and it’ll piss him/her off. If this elicits the behavior you’re most familiar with-he\she gets angry and treats you poorly-it can actually be validating. The worldview has been confirmed. Even though the result is chaos and conflict, it’s comforting in the sense that it’s familiar
Relationships are absolutely key. For the infant, the relationship with primary caregivers is the foundation of their capacity for all future relationships
If someone has a life with chaotic, uncontrollable, or extreme and prolonged stress, particularly early in life, they’re more likely to act before thinking. Their cortex is not as active, and reactivity in the lower areas of the brain becomes more dominant. It’s very difficult to meaningfully connect with or get through to someone who is not regulated. And it’s nearly impossible to reason with them. This is why telling someone who is dysregulated to calm down never works. You can’t talk someone out of feeling angry, sad, or frustrated, but you can be a sponge and absorb their emotional intensity. If you stay regulated, ultimately they will “catch” your calm
Let’s keep talking about how you can help a dysregulated person feel more regulated. Instead of saying ‘Hey, tell me what you’re thinking about’, you need to let them control when and how much they’re going to talk about what’s upsetting them. If you give a person that control and help them feel safe, in their own time they will be more capable of talking.
Fear may come from transgenerational transmission. The fear of the grandparent becomes the fear of the parent, which becomes the fear of the child. Understanding what we inherit and how we inherit is necessary for the insight required to make intentional change.
It is conceivable that the experiences of our grandparents, great-grandparents and ancestors even further back have had a significant influence on the way we’re going to express our DNA.
In order to communicate rationally and successfully with anyone, you have to make sure they’re regulated, make sure they feel a relationship with you, and only then try to reason with them
We know that a dysregulated adult cannot regulate a dysregulated child. An exhausted, frustrated, dysregulated adult can’t regulate anybody. If you don’t give back to yourself, you simply will not be effective as a teacher, a leader, a supervisor, a parent,a coach, anything. Self-care is huge
If, in the first two months of life, a child experienced high adversity with minimal relational buffering but was then put into a healthier environment for the next twelve years, their outcomes were worse than the outcomes of children who had low adversity and healthy relational connection in the first two months but then spen the next twelve years with high adversity. Think of that: the child who has only two months of really bad experiences does worse than the child with almost twelve years of bad experiences., all because of the timing of the experiences.
If we could support young parents in those first months, it would be like giving their children resilience-building megavitamins
The most powerful and enduring human interactions are often very brief. You can spend hours with someone , but if you are not present and attentive, the hours are less powerful than these brief cereal moments.
It is in the small moments, when we feel the other person fully present, fully engaged, connected, and accepting, that we make the most powerful, enduring bonds.
The more threatened or stressed we are, the less access we have to the smart part of our brain, the cortex
When children have abusive fathers, their brains begin to connect men with threat, anger and fear.
I believe that every environment has a tone.If you were to walk into any home as a stranger, not speaking the language, you could absolutely feel wheter this is a place where people are loved. Just as you can sense when something’s off. You may not know what it is, but something feels off.
If a child sees repeated verbal or emotional or physical abuse of their parent, or experiences abuse directly from a parent’s partner, their brain makes connections between all the attributes of the abuser and threat.
When we meet someone, we form a first impression (“He seems like a really nice guy”), frequently with no apparent information on which to base it. This is because attributes of the person evoke in us something we’ve previously categorized as familiar and positive. The opposite can happen (“This guy is a complete jerk”) if some attribute taps into a previous negative experience.
So many phenomena of everyday life are directly linked to this process of the brain making sense of the world by creating associations and making memories. This is why asking “What happened to you?” is so important in understanding what’s going on with you now.”
The brain is a meaning-making machine, always trying to make sense of the world. If our view of the world is that people are good, then we will anticipate good things from people. We project that expectation in our interactions with others and thereby actually elicit good from them . Our internal view of the world becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; we project what we expect, and that helps elicit what we expect.
This is one of the central problems in our society: we have too many parents caring for children with inadequate supports. The result is what you would expect. An overwhelmed, exhausted, dysregulated parent will have a hard time regulating a child consistently and predictably.
We elicit from the world what we project into the world; but what you project is based upon what happened to you as a child.
It turns out that the most powerful form of reward is relational. Positive interactions with people are rewarding and regulating. Without connection to people who care for you , spend time with you , and support you , it is almost impossible to step away from any form of unhealthy reward and regulation. This includes alcohol overuse, drug overuse, eating too much sweet and salty food, porn, cutting, or spending hours and hours on video games. Connectedness counters the pull of addictive behaviors. It is the key.
To the newborn , love is action. A parent may truly love his child, but if he is sitting at a computer posting on social media about how much he loves his child while the infant is in another room, awake, hungry and crying, the infant experiences no love.
The attentive, loving behaviors grow the neural networks that allow us to feel love, and then act in loving ways toward others. If you are loved, you learn to love. Caring for the infant in this loving way also changes the brain of the caregiving adult. Love is relational superglue. The way you treat a child, from the time that child is born, is what sets them up to either succeed or struggle.
I believe so strongly in the “What happened to you?” approach ; it avoids the judgement of “What’s wrong with you?”. Addiction of any kind, anxiety, depression, rage, difficulty holding a job, or a cycle of unhealthy relationships: what I know for sure is that all pain is the same. And I believe the despair that runs through nearly all destructive behavior is a deeply rooted feeling of unworthiness. There is a difference between thinking you deserve to be happy and knowing that you are worthy of happiness. So often we block our blessings because we don’t, at our core, feel that we’re enough.
It has been estimated that childhood adversity plays a major role in 45 percent of all childhood mental health disorders and 30 percent of mental health disorders among adults.
Our major finding is that your history of relational health –your connectedness to family, community, and culture – is more predictive of your mental health than your history of adversity. This is similar to the findings of other researchers looking at the power of positive relationships on health. Connectedness has the power to counterbalance adversity. One second major finding is that the timing of adversity makes a huge difference in determining overall risk. Put simply, if you experience trauma at age two, it will have more impact on your health than the same trauma taking place at age seventeen
You can stand the emotional intensity of visiting the wreckage of your trauma-fractured life for only a few seconds before your brain starts to do things to protect you from the pain.
With things that are very hard to deal with, you don’t want to talk about the pain or loss or fear for forty-five minutes nonstop. You want to talk with a really good friend for maybe two or three minutes about some aspect of it. When it gets too painful, you step back, you want to be distracted. And maybe you want to talk more later on. It is the therapeutic dosing that really leads to healing. Moments. Fully present, powerful but brief.
If we don’t feel safe, we become dysregulated
The most common form of neglect is fragmented, patternless caregiving, Some days when the infant cries, adults come to feed and nurture them. Other days, no one comes. Still other days, someone comes and yells at, shakes or hurts them. This confusing , chaotic world is very dysregulating
Very often, “what happened” takes years to reveal itself. It takes courage to confront our actions, peel back the layers of trauma in our lives, and expose the raw truth of our past. But this is where healing begins
A person is rarely aware when they’re activated by an evocative cue
So often we use the word snapped when we don’t know where a burst of anger is coming from or why someone is having a violent reaction. Well, now we know: something has happened in the moment that triggers one of the brain’s trauma memories
What I know for sure is that everything that has happened to you was also happening for you. And all that time, in all of those moments, you were building strength. Strength times strength times strength equals power. What happened to you can be your power
Thanks so much for the review feel like I have read it all but I probably need to read the book itself. You have done a good job reviewing it.
The vry truth behind this could be so hurting to see kids un able to express love tey never got becoming adults who can not understand love. Tis is where I believe the concept of family is very important, asides that society must need to supply as much love to children and young adults as they get ready to stir their lives into a world of the unknown, there must always be love waiting at home for them.
Hello! You're welcome! It it true that adults who haven't been shown love have a difficulty expressing it when they grow up, it is difficult to even understand what healthy love is. This information leaves room for compassion and understanding as you can be more empathic towards this kind of people and not hold a grudge. I think that you will find the book very helpful and I do recommend you reading it. Have a lovely day and thanks for stopping by!
Thanks for the reply, I ll heed to your recommendations and also stay close by for more of your posts. Thanks again.
Thank you so much for sharing this review with us @creativemary! The timing couldn't have been any better as I am dealing with some personal issues related to the topic at the moment. I will look into getting this book as I think it will help me to understand better and almost wished it was translated in my language so I could share it with a person who is struggling with similar issues described in the book from what I gather from your in depth review.
Well, to be honest. It is my mother and I, and my current living situation, which is triggering a lot of past trauma, trauma that I have been trying to have a conversations about only to be shut down, in almost mocked way which makes it even worse. I did not have a very happy childhood and I believe I was traumatized since my existence which has affected my entire life and how I connect with people. Or really I have very difficult time to connect with people. I am scared to be mocked and laughed at, I am scared to be perceived as a weirdo, in fact, I have been told to my face that people thought I was one and that they were surprised that they could actually have a great time to be in my company xD I have a huge difficulty to have any conversations with strangers apart from written form, I get awkward and self-conscious, I stumble upon words because of the fear of sounding stupid only to be unable to portray my thoughts clearly which probably makes them then think that. It hurts a lot that I can't speak of any of this with my mother without triggering her anger issues. It is impossible to have any conversations about it without it ending in a fight. For a longest time I could not understand where the anxiety comes from now that I am an adult, but it is all those triggers. Tiny little things that remind me of those stressful situations growing up. But what happened to me probably happened to her too. And she passed it down to me. It makes me sad to know that she has not addressed any of those issues as I see her going through the same loops over and over again. Letting the anger rule over everything. That is not to say that there was no loving moments or caring for me, there was a lot of it, but there was buckets of trauma without understanding that her actions permanently damaged me.
People mess up their own kids a lot. I believe in that to be true. It is very stigmatized topic too. Not many people are talking about this or working on the past trauma.
Hey girl! I am more than happy to share this as it also helped me to understand so many things. I remember reading about your interaction with your mom in some of your posts. I can see why this is a painful thing to talk about . I am impressed that you can comprehend the bigger picture as indeed what she passed onto you was passed down to her as well. Anger usually hides fear and it is usually a defense mechanism. Once we can understand this, a whole array of facts disclose themselves to us. You are in a tough moment right now, to have to live together and also cope with her anger and your helplessness. You must have nerves of steel in order to withstand everything. An angry parent is most likely going to lower your self esteem. My father had the same issues and I can see how much his early behavior affected me. He is an alcoholic and since my parents got divorced I no longer kept contact. I did manage though to have one final talk with him this year telling him what an awful job he did as a parent. His answer...Anger. I believe that dealing with angry, sometimes toxic, relatives is the hardest thing to do. There are many layers underneath someone's behavior. The way you relate to the world is what your caregivers taught you. Part of the healing process is to become aware that you are actually strong and that you don't have to fit in the box people put you, including your mom. It's hard girl, so hard. I managed to grasp many things about parent-child dynamics after I have discovered Harriet Lerner. She has a book called The dance of anger, I totally recommend it to you, it will be mindblowing to read this , it will help you understand many many things about your mom-you dynamics.
People don't talk about trauma from several reasons: they don't see it as trauma, it is too painful, it is an excuse to remain the same, it is part of their ego, it feels shameful etc. Non-acceptance is always the cause. It also took me years to understand my own trauma and how having the parents that I had affected me a lot in the way I behaved, in my romantic relationships and in my way of seeing the world. Think of parents like those who pick a glass through which you see reality. Until you grow up and develop awareness, you keep on looking at reality through that old stained glass your caregivers passed onto you. Imagine some people die thinking that "their reality" was all it was....when in fact there was an entire different world under that glass lens.
I truly truly hope and pray for you for overcoming this and I hope you heal and reclame healthy boundaries. It is a longtime process and it will be tough. I admire that you acknowledge the problem straightforward and that you want to solve it. You are already one step further into changing the you from today to the you from tomorrow. A better you, a more self-aware you, the kind of you that will shed the old clothes of childhood that no longer fit you. Buckle up, it's going to be quite a journey girl! I am spiritually with you all the way, I pray for you! Hugs , big hugs !
Whatever happens to us in life holds a lesson to learnt.
Instead of making a banter, we should sit back and think about it.
Nice review dear.
Yes yes, every experience is a lesson! I like this perspective as it shifts the dynamics of failure and transforms it into opportunity. I believe that everything happens for a reason, including trauma. Thinking back and rewiring our brain is the best opportunity for change. To accept the status quo and what we are as the norm would mean just settling. I strongly think that in the pursuit of self growth we need to ask questions: why am I like this? Who taught me to be and think like this? Is it possible to change and is there more to life than what my caregivers taught me? And...the most important question of them all: why do I do what I do the way I do it and how I can change that?
Thank you for stopping by!
It's good to ask questions and answers them honestly. I helps you to see where you are in life and make a change.
This is true indeed. I believe that often when we want to make an affirmation, for example you are like this, or this situation is like this, it would be better to replace the affirmation with a question: why ? is there something I should know? Tell me more? etc. A question shows that we want to delve more into the topic rather than judge. I have learned this throughout my life and I can see now, looking back, that putting the right questions would have helped much more in many situations rather than just sticking to affirmations.
Being honest when answering a question is vital. Honesty is vital in relationships with others and with ourselves. Sometimes when we do not like what we are or what we have, we might cling to our old beliefs and give the wrong answers. But we can never lie to ourselves forever, the truth and our true inner self will always want to come out. Thanks so much for reading this, the book is truly a gem
Oh my, you amaze with your expertise.
You are right.
Thanks for having me
You're very welcome!
😊😊
My name is Ibrahim, I'm a German living in Belarus. I would be glad if you visit my profile, I'm trying to write a blog about my medical study in belarus.
Hello Ibrahim! Thank you for stopping by, I congratulate you for joining Hive and also studying medicine! I wish you good luck in your journey and hopefully you will enjoy being here, it is a fantastic place for people all over the world!
Woo!
there is so much to learn and take home from this review.
Hello! I am happy that it helps you in any way, thank you for stopping by!
nice review
Thank you!