Recently I led a men’s retreat. I was asked to speak on the topic of authentic manhood. Throughout the weekend, I told my own story vulnerably and authentically. I talked about the intersection of my story with my understanding of the God story. Then I asked the men to allow my story to empower them to tell their stories in the same manner – vulnerably and authentically.
During a break in the weekend one of the participants walked up to me and said, “Could I tell you my story?”
I said, “Sure.” And we sat down to talk.
With uncommon courage and clarity, he said, “When I was eight years old my father baptized me. He raised his hand to the sky and spoke a word of blessing over me. With the same hand, my father molested me over and over during my childhood.”
Tears filled my eyes as I worked to choke back the raw emotion that surged through me. Though I’ve been around a lot of people who experienced childhood trauma, it still takes my breath away when I hear what we are capable of doing to children.
As I’ve written in other posts, I had several experiences of childhood trauma. Over a lifetime I have sought to understand how trauma can happen at the hands of people of faith. If God is love and people of faith seek to pattern their lives after God’s sacrificial love, then how is it possible for them to be the perpetrators of violence?
In recent days with the rapid development of the world of neuroscience, I have learned three important things that are helping me see this problem more clearly and to see its impact on the individuals and families in our communities.
I want to be clear that I am not an expert in this. I experienced my own trauma. I’ve learned from others who have graciously shared their trauma stories. And, I’m in a Faithwalking learning community now that is seeking to understand how childhood trauma impacts spiritual development. And, with all of that, I’m not an expert. I’m just sharing my learning.
First, when children are traumatized, something happens to their brain…
that makes it difficult – sometimes impossible – to connect to themselves and to have empathy for others. The sense of being fully alive is lost because of this inability to connect to self and others.
Let me be more explicit. Human beings are incredibly resilient and when trauma occurs in the context of a loving, functional family and community, children often recover, incorporate their learning and move on. But when a child is traumatized at the hands of a caregiver (parent, family member, teacher, pastor) – brain development is interrupted in some important ways.
Here are the big culprits.
- Physical, sexual, and emotional abuse
- Neglect or abandonment
- Living with a mentally ill parent or one who is addicted to drugs or alcohol
- Divorce in which children become a pawn in the conflict between parents
Those who experiences trauma in these settings often find it difficult to put their thoughts and feelings into words because of the malfunction of a part of the brain called Broca’s area. It is a speech area of the brain that can be damaged in the experience of childhood trauma. Where others are able to experience trauma, express their experience to others, find healing for it, integrate the learning into their experience and move on, adults who experienced childhood trauma outside of the context of a loving family are stuck in their trauma. They find it virtually impossible to express their experience so they remained locked inside the trauma. Consequently the trauma gets triggered again and again, and every time the trauma is retriggered, they are so overwhelmed that they can not experience or express their thoughts and feelings. They just shut down.
Because they can’t get access to their own experience, they can’t experience empathy for others. From my spiritual tradition we are taught that all of life is summed up in loving God and loving others as we love ourselves (Mark 12:30-31). For those who experienced childhood trauma, it is deeply challenging at best and often impossible to love either themselves or others.
Second, the brain can be healed – even years after the trauma occurred.
It’s called neuroplasticity and it simply means that the brain has the ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. Neuroplasticity allows the neurons in the brain to compensate for injury and disease and to adjust their activities in response to new situations or to changes in their environment. This is good news, and it is important because the best research says that more than 40% of all American adults have at least one experience of childhood trauma.
More than 40% of all American adults have at least one experience of childhood trauma. Click To TweetPediatrician Nadine Burke Harris says childhood trauma is the most significant mental and physical health issue of our time. Her fifteen minute TedTalk entitled How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across a Lifetime is worth hearing.
If we are to build loving families and loving communities, we must acknowledge the impact of childhood trauma, and we must learn how to work with the brain’s ability to heal itself in ways that liberate adults who experienced childhood trauma from the prisons of their past.
Third, addressing the challenges that this epidemic represents will require a fundamentally different approach to mental health concerns in our communities.
For the past forty years, mental health has been relegated to the world of psychology, psychiatry, and counseling. Medication and talk therapy have been the primary means of treatment. I regularly recommend people who experience trauma to see a counselor and to work with a physician to determine whether meds are appropriate. Be sure that you hear me. I am not saying these approaches are not good. I am saying that I do not believe they are enough.
A significant part of what heals the brain is giving the brain a new kind of experience for a long enough period of time that healing takes place. Any time your brain senses a threat, it rapidly scans your past experience looking for strategies to make you safe in the present. If the only thing it has to draw from are experiences of trauma, the one who experienced trauma as a child will return home to the source of the trauma. As confusing as that may be, it is what the brain does. Until the traumatized person has a new set of experiences – experiences of safety, respect, and love – the old pattern will replay again and again.
The kinds of experiences that I am talking about are long term, one-on-one and small group experiences where communities of people (like families) care for the one who has been traumatized.
The implications of this research provide a new possibility for the church and for other loving communities to be resources for the transformation of the lives of trauma victims. These families or groups become the incarnation of God’s love in tangible ways. Our learning community is exploring these possibilities together.
For all of the pain of the story I was told in the men’s retreat, this man’s story was one of redemption. He had courageously sought help. He became surrounded by a loving community of friends in his church. They listened patiently over and over to his stories. He had been in counseling and had been on medication. And here he was in a men’s retreat, openly, authentically, and courageously telling his story – not as a victim – but as one who had endured an unspeakable tragedy – and had learned to thrive.