Hey there, it’s Kerri! Thank you so much for joining me on this latest episode of Invisible Wounds Healing from Trauma. This is episode 6 Early Childhood Trauma Ages 1 to 6. I’m so glad that we’re walking the path towards healing together!

So just a quick reminder, I’m not a clinician, counselor, or physician. I’m a Certified Trauma Support Specialist with lots of lived experience with trauma. The information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and not meant to replace treatment by a doctor or any other licensed professional.

Also, as we talk about childhood traumatic experiences, this is NOT me giving parenting advice! I made a TON of mistakes as a parent, we all do, whether we have a trauma history or not! I’m taking information from published studies and readily available from reliable sources, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and others. I will also relate my personal experiences, what’s made sense to me and helped me, in the hopes of connecting my thoughts and feelings to something you may have gone through. As we go through this topic, it could get a bit triggering. If it does, stop listening, take a break and do some mindful belly breathing, or any of the other exercises we’ve learned, and come back when you’re ready.

Alright let’s dive in!

So, in episode 5, we talked about how trauma can affect us before we’re born, and as brand-new little people! In this episode, we’re going to look at how trauma can affect us between the ages of 1 to 6 years old.

A few months ago, I discovered Ancestry in a big way! I’d been on it before, but for some reason, I became obsessed with it. I found a ton of old family photos and began scanning them and adding them to our family tree. I spent weeks gathering and adding information from things I had, along with reaching out to old family connections and friends of my parents for stories, pictures, any bit of information I could get! Then, one day, I just stopped. I looked through some pictures of me with my parents as a newborn. I was being held by my parents, with them looking happy together, and smiling lovingly at me. I REALLY looked at those pictures, and I began to wonder just what they’d do, or how they’d react, if they knew the hell that was waiting for them over the next 27 years of our lives. That only ended when my mother died. I wanted to somehow magically reach into those pictures, wave my “magic” wand and fix all of the trauma, fix my parents, and change the direction of all of our lives….does any of this sound or feel familiar? I’m sure for many of you it can. What would we all fix or change with that “magic” wand? Suffice to say, I haven’t been able to get back onto Ancestry since that day, maybe at some point I will, but not for a while at least!

So just a few statistics, it is estimated that 46% of children experience trauma at some point in their younger years. As many as 15% of girls, and 6% of boys will develop post-traumatic stress after a traumatic or many traumatic events. In my opinion, those numbers should be much higher!

My very first memory was from when I was about 2- 3 years old. I remember my dad keeping me away from my mother. My mother was chronically ill, as I mentioned in my first episode. She was always sick, either in bed, or in the hospital. Starting really early, our relationship was completely enmeshed. I took care of her, she needed me. She told me I was the only reason she was still alive and that became my full-time job. Being separated from her terrified me! So, when my dad would keep me from going into their bedroom, so I didn’t disturb her, I lost it! I can remember hearing her saying “It’s okay, let her come in” and my dad restrained me and wouldn’t let me go. I would throw awful “tantrums” out of the fear I felt. I screamed, cried, struggled to break free from my dad’s grip. Once I started, I couldn’t stop or calm down. Children don’t know how to do this on their own. They have to have a supportive person in their lives in order to work with them to help them soothe or calm down. I didn’t have that. My Dad’s solution to get me to “calm” down, was to throw me, fully clothed, into an icy cold shower. Being so little, I remember how terrifying that was for me. I don’t know if I developed my deep fear of having water poured on my head before this, or because of this, but for years when I was little, that fear of water on my head lead to my poor mother having to “painstakingly” and carefully washing my hair in the kitchen sink. It was just so scary for me; it took me years to get past that terror. It was so ingrained in me that I remember it so clearly even now at 58! This was only the beginning of my trauma history.

When young children are exposed to scary, distressing, disturbing, confusing, unpredictable, and other kinds of traumatic events, either with or from their caregivers, or environment, it can have a very profound effect on them across their lifespan. Anything that they feel is a “threat” to their immediate safety in body, mind, or environment can be traumatic. They can also be affected by witnessing a traumatic event involving a loved one. Young children are like little “sponges” and absorb everything through what their senses tell them. Small children’s brains are still developing, and they don’t have life experiences or skills built in order to process and deal with things they don’t understand.  Small children can’t understand the relationship between “cause and affect” (this is the understanding that one event leads to another) and they haven’t developed problem solving skills. So, their fears, wishes, and what they think about them in their minds, become very real to them, and have a kind of power. They think that their thoughts, feelings, and emotions can turn into “real” things and situations. Young children have no idea how to keep themselves safe. Small children will often create extreme situations in their minds. For example, underneath all of my fear at being separated from my mother was that she would “go away” for good, if I couldn’t see her, then I’d be left alone with my dad, who I was terrified of.

Small children also will feel that it’s “up to them” to keep traumatic things from happening. They blame themselves along with their caregivers for not being able to keep them safe. I spent so much of my life when I was little (ok, throughout my whole life if I’m being honest!) being so angry at my parents for not “protecting” me, or making me feel safe, or not being able to change the outcome of things. I also felt that I was responsible for keeping my mom safe. Even when I was really small, very often during their nightly fights, I’d lay there listening to it and if I felt my mom was “in danger” I’d run out and get in the middle of it. This kind of confused thinking around reality, just makes the impacts of trauma worse.

Small children, as we’ve talked about, their brains are still developing. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the first 8 years of a child’s brain development are crucial in beginning to lay a healthy foundation for future learning, health, and success in life! When they experience traumas, it can make physical changes to their brains. Early childhood trauma has been associated with creating a “smaller” area of the brain called the “pre-frontal cortex.” I’ve described this before as the “thinking” brain. This part of the brain is responsible for things like language, memory, attention, perception, problem solving, and other very important functions. A smaller thinking brain can lead to issues with IQ, the ability to regulate emotions, slowed language and learning development, among many other things.

For me, this led to my being terrified of EVERYTHING as a small child. I NEVER felt safe. I couldn’t trust the adults in my life to protect me. I was terrified of going to sleep (I was afraid I’d stop breathing) afraid of waking up, and everything in between. I had a really short attention span, threw tantrums, and had a very hard time learning. When I started school, I couldn’t focus, concentrate, or pay attention. I was always afraid of what was “coming” next! I was in that hypervigilant “fight, flight or freeze” mode constantly. I was living in survival mode, which is pretty much the way I’ve lived my life!

Small children don’t have the skills to put their thoughts, feelings, experiences, and emotions into words. For small children who’ve had traumatic experiences they might act and behave in ways that their caregivers may not understand. They can be fearful, clingy, afraid of anything new. They can become impulsive, aggressive, have nightmares, and have difficulty sleeping. They may lose skills they’ve gained or go “backwards” in regard to learning and development. They might act younger than they are (think of a child going backward or regressing and starting to suck their thumb), or they might seem detached and not responsive, numb. They feel helpless, out of control, and overwhelmed by their own reactions, and the reactions of others. They may physically get sick, have upset or sick stomachs, have headaches, throw up, or physically shake. The constant stress can weaken their immune systems and lower resistance to things like colds, infections, flu, and viruses. I was ALWAYS sick as a child!

Adults will sometimes say things about children, for example “they’re little, they won’t remember this” or “kids don’t pay attention to stuff, they didn’t hear/see/listen to us!” Not always true! Children are VERY aware of what goes on around them, particularly if there is disruptive, disturbing, distressing, violent, or threatening behaviors and actions going on with their caregivers or in their environment. I listened very carefully to my parent’s arguments, would creep out of bed, hide behind a corner, or at the top of the stairs to hear what was going on so I could be ready for whatever was going to happen!

For me as a little child, my mother’s illnesses, frequent hospitalizations, both of my parent’s drinking and their mental health issues, frequent moves, their fights, their neglect of me, and other problems, led me to “parentifying” behaviors. I parented my mom, and at times my dad. I felt that being a little adult, taking care of my mom, cleaning the house, acting, and speaking like a grown up, gave me a little control over my extremely chaotic life. For example, from a very early age, I could hear from downstairs, the sound of my mother fainting and falling to the floor in their upstairs bedroom. There was a certain noise, a thud, I could identify. I’d rush up the stairs, grab the “smelling salts” which was a little glass tube containing very strong-smelling mix of ammonia and other things, crush it and place it under her nose to try and bring her around. Then I’d grab a washcloth, get it damp, and dab it on her forehead and face to comfort her. I didn’t panic, I knew what to do. Remember, I was only 3 maybe 4 at this time! I’m sure that at least some of you can relate to this kind of “grown up” behavior. How many of you had to “parent” your parents, or caregivers?

Although learning at school felt almost impossible, I learned to read very early. Sesame Street thank you very much!! I learned by absorbing a lot on my own. I escaped into books and music. I had an old radio in my room that played the hits of the day constantly. The Beatles, Motown, pop hits of the 60’s and later, the 70’s, I loved it all. I learned the words to both books and music by heart. I could recite them in my mind. Repetitive favorite things became “comforting to me. I read my favorite books over and over again: there was safety and stability in that “familiarness” which I didn’t have in “real” life.

I also retreated into a “fantasy” world. I made up all sorts of different scenes in my mind that constantly played, like a tape loop. They all ended up with me confronting my parents then they’d stop their behaviors, listen to me, and become the “magical” kind of parents that I wanted and needed. Magical thinking using that magic wand we all wished we’d had!

My behaviors baffled my parents and teachers alike, they never “got” it. Years later when I was in my 30’s, I gathered up my courage and talked to my dad once about why I behaved the way I did when I was little. He told me that “I was a very difficult child to love.” We never discussed it again… I’ll go into this in more detail in a later episode when we’ll talk about our almost desperate need to get answers around WHY the people in our lives abused us.  That’s a big topic!

Deep breath!

For those of us with childhood trauma, the really good news is that we can learn, gain knowledge about, and understand how trauma has affected us. And when we recognize how it might still be showing up in our lives, we learn and use new coping skills, techniques, and tools to help us heal. We can’t change what happened to us, or how it’s affected us, but we can rewire our brains using these tools, practicing them, and taking things one tiny, baby step at a time..

This is where I like to close us out with an exercise of some kind, something we can add to that coping skills toolbox that we’re building together. As always, you don’t have to do this right now or at all if you don’t want to, but you might just listen and tuck it away in your mind in case you ever need it!

This is a simple exercise from basic Yoga called “Child’s Pose.” It’s good for releasing muscle tension in the back, neck, and shoulders. It’s calming, grounding, and can reduce anxiety.

This can either be done on the floor, or you can modify it by doing it on your bed. Before getting on the floor, place a mat, towel, or blanket on the floor as a cushion.

Begin on all fours, supported by your hands and knees. Your hands should be directly beneath your shoulders, your knees should be directly beneath your hips. Your feet should be lined up behind your knees. Breath slowly in through your nose, belly pushing out as you inhale, for a count of five. Hold your breath for a count of one. Slowly exhale through your mouth for a count of 5, belly naturally moving in as you exhale.

Sit back onto your feet, keeping your feet and knees hip’s width apart. The soles of your feet will be facing the sky.

Modification: If needed, you can widen the space between the knees and feet, opening it up a bit for more support.

Then gently lower your upper body forward belly resting against the top part of your upper thighs, resting your forehead on the floor/bed.

Modification: To relieve pressure on the forehead, place a towel or blanket to rest your forehead on.

Allow your arms to rest loosely by your sides, hands by your feet, with palms facing the sky.

Focus on your breathing, inhale slowly gently stretching your spine. Exhale, relaxing your shoulders.

If you are more comfortable, you can gently stretch your arms out forward, with the palms of your hands on the floor. This is relaxed and easy, no forcing or stretching is needed.

Modification: If you need more support, either on the floor or on the bed, you can place a pillow or two between the knees, extending out away from the body. Lower your torso down, turning your head to one side to rest on top of the pillow. Then tuck your hands comfortably under the pillow, your arms on each side relaxed.

This is a resting pose. You can stay this way for 30 seconds, or a few minutes, whatever you are comfortable with. Focus on your breathing, slowly in through your nose, and out through your mouth, releasing any tension that you feel. Gently notice the contact of your body, arms, forehead, and hands on the floor or on the bed. Feel yourself “sink” into the floor or the bed.

When you are ready, gently move your arms in towards your body. Your arms from your elbows to your palms should be flat on the floor/bed.

Gently use your forearms to help support, lift, and raise your upper body back to a sitting position, sitting on your feet. Supportively move to a standing position or move your legs over the side of the bed to sit or stand as you want to.

How do you feel? Do you feel calmer, or more balanced and relaxed?

I hope this exercise is something you found helpful, and it’s another tool to add to our “mindful” toolbox that we’re building together. Whenever you need to go to that toolbox and pull out any skill we’ve learned in order to feel more grounded, safe, and connected. I have created a list of all of the techniques and exercises we’ve learned on my website invisiblewoundshealingfromtrauma.com and will add to it as we go along. If you want to, you can copy the information and paste it into a word document to keep on your computer as a handy reference guide!

Thank you so much for taking the time to listen today, and please keep on listening! Wherever you listen, please like, subscribe, favorite, and follow me! What you think really matters to me too, so comment on the show, what you think, whatever’s on your mind. You can find me on Facebook at Invisible Wounds: Healing from Trauma, Twitter at Kerriwalker58, and my websites invisiblewoundshealingfromtrauma.com and enddvnow,com

Look for my new episodes dropping every Monday on all of your favorite podcast and listening apps!

Please take extra good care of yourself, and we’ll talk soon!