You Promised Me a Treasure — How Symptoms of Childhood Trauma Have Changed the Map in Adulthood

Imagine you’re a kid and you’re shown a map to where a treasure is.  There are photos of the treasure and photos of people having a great time with the treasure.  You’re told that if you follow the map, you'll get to have the treasure too.  You can’t have the map yet, but when you turn 18 – the map and the promise of the treasure are all yours.  Meanwhile, you get to see commercials and ads about the treasure that awaits you at the end of that map you’re going to get, people will teach you some things you’ll need along the way on the quest for the treasure, and people will make sure you’re able to learn what you need to know to deal with all the ups-and-downs of getting to the treasure. 

Finally, the day comes, and you’re handed the map – then suddenly they take the map back, blindfold you, give you a few good spins, and push you out the door with a “Good luck!  Go find that treasure”.  Next, you realize that you’ve never known anyone who made it to the treasure, nobody you know can give you any clues about how to get there, and worse, nobody made sure you had the tools to make it to the end.  You start knocking around, blind and lost, then sad, blind, and lost, and then...you finally give up. 

They take the blindfold off and show you clips on the news about how all these other people your age made it to the treasure and how much they’re enjoying it, and you finally realize – there must be something fundamentally wrong with you if all these other people could make it.   

What you don’t realize is they weren’t blindfolded.  Or maybe they were blindfolded, but someone had spent a lot of time beforehand describing the path to the treasure.  Maybe nobody told them about the path, and they were still blindfolded, but someone has spent a lot of time telling them how hard it would be and teaching them how to get past the hard and get to the treasure.  Or maybe none of that, but someone was with them along the way. 

Now, replace the treasure with being a successful (not in a financial way, but in a “winning at life” way) adult.  Replace the blindfold with a brain that science has proven was affected when you were small, and replace not getting the tools and the clues with...well - neglect, violence, trauma, or abuse – or all of it together, which are referred to as Adverse Life Experiences. 

Symptoms of childhood trauma in adulthood are evidence that brains that have been changed – rewired.  Areas like the amygdala that shouldn't be ramped up all the time can be in constant overdrive, and areas that need to be “on” can be lagging.  What you end up with is someone being sent out on their own who probably overreacts emotionally, has little to no emotional regulation, impulsive behavior, chronic anxiety or PTSD like symptoms, and can’t recognize that they’re safe even when they are – they're mistrustful and on-edge – most of the time with most people. 

See the red in the brain on the left? Their emotions are controlling everything. The brain on the right didn't experience trauma or Adverse Life Experiences and the front part of their brain (where reason and impulse control live) is driving the bus. Image from Hosseini-Kamkar et al. (2023), Unlocking the Impact of Early-Life Adversity on Brain Function. McGill University Newsroom. mcgill.ca

The problem is that little kids evoke an emotional response from us when we know that’s happening – because they’re little and snuggly, so we want to protect them (which is why God made them snuggly, so we would want to protect them –or are supposed to want to).  Big “kids” - not so much - so we can end up chalking up all those signs up to rebellion, laziness, lack of drive, or lack of character.  (Disclaimer – sometimes it is those things because nothing is ever always). 

The good news? God made our brains capable of healing. Yep, He designed our brains with the capacity to be rewired and basically reprogrammed, but short of a miracle, it takes time. The saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day” applies to brain reconstruction. 

Over the next few months, we’ll post some of the really cool ways that God designed brains to reboot!  So bookmark the page and keep an eye out, let’s learn some cool stuff together! If you have a particular question - leave a comment and we'll come up with an answer together.

References

Because you shouldn’t just say stuff without backing it up, here’s where the information is from. 

Hosseini-Kamkar, N., Varvani Farahani, M., Nikolic, M., Stewart, K., Goldsmith, S., Soltaninejad, M., Rajabli, R., Lowe, C., Nicholson, A. A., Morton, B., & Leyton, M. (2023, November 21). Unlocking the impact of early-life adversity on brain function. McGill University Newsroom. https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/unlocking-impact-early-life-adversity-brain-function-352864 

Hosseini-Kamkar, N., Varvani Farahani, M., Nikolic, M., Stewart, K., Goldsmith, S., Soltaninejad, M., Rajabli, R., Lowe, C., Nicholson, A. A., Morton, B., & Leyton, M. (2023). Adverse life experiences and brain function: A meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging findings. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 58, 101180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2022.101180