Krishnananda (Tom Trobe, M.D.)

I used to believe that someone could say he or she was traumatized as a child when he or she had suffered from sexual or physical abuse. That is certainly true but I have learned that it takes much less dramatic and severe experiences for us to become traumatized. And this trauma affects our life today.

For instance, if one of our caretakers as a child was angry and frustrated, this energy is deeply shocking even if the anger is unexpressed. If one of our caretakers was not emotional present or often disturbed, or if his or her behavior was unpreedictable, if we were often criticized or compared to another, if we were pressured or expected to behave in a certain way or to become something — any of this is enough for us to come out of childhood with severe symptoms of trauma. Sometimes accidents, difficult deliveries or hospitalizations can be the cause of our trauma. In fact to a child who is so impressionable, sensitive and dependent, any kind of insensitivity or invasion especially when it is repetitive can produce deep wounds which he or she will carry inside.

What are some of the symptoms of trauma? How do we show in our life today that something from our past has wounded us? The most common way it shows is in some kind of dysfunction. In other words, some key aspect of our life today does not work. We may have sexual problems such as premature ejaculation or impotence for men or inability to have orgasm or viginitis for women. We may find it difficult to discover or express our creativity. We may be afraid of another's anger or reaction and therefore are unable to confront someone or set a limit. We may find it difficult to open to another or even to relate socially with others. Or we may find ourselves emotionally frozen. What makes matters worse is that we may have no idea why we have these difficulties and the trauma which produced them is buried in the unconscious. We may also be what is called "hypervigilant" which means that our nervous system is speeded up, we feel like we are running through life and we may often feel in overwhelming stress. Trauma can often show itself also in the body with such illnesses as asthma or ezyema, frequent colds or bronchitis, weight problems, nervous disorders and many others. And ofcourse, phobias are a direct result of some earlier shocking experiences.

Trauma as a child also is the cause of our going into shock in our life today and often we don't even know why. Before I understood more about shock and trauma, I was unable to explain situations in my own life where I found myself suddenly full of fear, unable to think or speak clearly, sometimes physically almost paralyzed or unable to feel. These reactions could come in situations where I was competing with someone, or taking a test or even in making love. Sometimes they would be provoked in situations which seemed totally trivial like changing trains in a station or arriving in time to catch an airplane or going to a party. Then I just thought that something was very wrong with me or I was a coward or I was just making a big fuss about nothing. In fact, shock can be one of the things which makes us feel that we just "don't messure up", that we will never really be good enough. In our workshops, when we begin to talk about shock, almost without expection, everyone discovers that he or she has the same experiences in their lives today. And they find it a big relief that there is a name to what they have been feeling and that it is shared by so many. It is the beginning of a discovery that there is not something dreadfully and incurably wrong with them. It certainly was for me.

At first glance, my own childhood seemed anything but traumatic. I was not sexually of physically abused, my parents were loving and supportive and my home always felt like a secure, warm and stimulating place to be. So how to explain my shock? Genetics? Bad luck? Laziness? With closer observation, I began to put together a story of a child who was raised with deep pressure and expectations, in a family where the male values of competition, performance and achievement were exhaulted at the expense of the softer values of intimacy, relaxation and intuition. In addition to their love and support, both my parents were also highly protective and controlling. No parents are perfect and as far as my childhood are concerned, I was luckier than most. But still, I was traumatized and until I realized how deeply this trauma has affected me, I could not love myself. This self love does not come from blaming our parents. Often they sincerely did as well as they could. But to heal, we need to understand how we were wounded.

In fact, I have noticed that the more sensitive we become, the more we also become aware of how much shock there is inside. My work with trauma and shock both with myself and with those I work with has helped me to realize two very amazing facts. The first is that most people suffer from shock in their lives today. And the second is that most people have been deeply traumatized as a child. Our nervous system is built to respond to invasion or threat by either running or fighting. But as a child, we cannot do either. When something happens which frightens us as a child such as invasion, pressure, expectation or even criticism, we simply do not have the resources to either fight or run. We respond by freezing and retreating inside.

As a child, we are totally dependent on our caretakers and we also look up to them and assume that they are right. We often don't even know that we are being traumatized but our nervous system does. It feels the assault on our sensitivity and vulnerability. On the outside, we may even be able to keep functioning and performing to please the expectations and demands of the "big people" but inside, we have gone into shock. Later, as we get older, this shock can come up at any time. It can arise, for instance, when we start to come close to someone, when we have to preform on a job, when we become stressed or when we feel the slightest expectation.

There are many many situations which provoke shock. This can become very troublesome in our relationships. We may react dramatically to any expectations or even perceived expectation from the other person. We may also react strongly whenever we are afraid that the other is going to leave because it triggers old and forgotten abandonement experiences. And our abandonment wound can also get provoked when the other is in shock because they have retreated inside and we cannot feel them anymore.

It's my experience that we have to work with our trauma and shock in order to love ourselves again and in order to have a flowing love with another. We can heal it and it can even become a source of greater love for ourselves and for others. The first step is simply to recognize and validate it. If we have shock symptoms in our life today, then we have been traumatized as a child. And it is also my experience that when we begin to suspect that an abuse happened, 99% of the time, it did. Sometimes we remember how, sometimes we don't. We don't have to look for traumatic memories. They come up naturally as we work with our shock and begin to explore our past. The important thing is to embrace ourselves with patience, love and compassion. Understanding about shock and trauma gives us the understanding to do that. Part of recognizing and validating our shock comes when we become more aware and more sensitive to moments in our daily life when fear arises. This includes noticing how our fears gets triggered, feeling the way the fear feels in the body and how it affects our behavior.

A second aspect of healing shock and trauma is beginning to learn to say "no!". This lesson comes not from becoming paranoidand mistrustful. It comes from learning to love ourselves enough that we can know and trust our own needs and likes and protect our own boundaries. When we have been traumatized, we lose respect for ourselves. We don't think that we have the right to say no. We are much too afraid of reprisal in the form of punishment, anger or rejection. We don't even think that we deserve love so to say no is unthinkable. And also, what I discovered is that most of the time, I didn't recognize the need to say no until it was much too late. And if I did, my nervous system wouldn't respond. I would be overwhemled in fear and the words would get stuck somewhere between by mind and my mouth. But with time and practice, we do learn to get our dignity back. We stop living a life of compromise just to get crumbs of love.

Often we continue to relate with those who traumatized us as though nothing ever happened. We may even continue to be invaded and disrespected as we did in the past. I have found this very common in the work I do. For instance, a woman who was continually criticized and humiliated by her father shared with me that when she calls or goes home for a visit, it still happens. This is not a healthy situation because it only perpetuates our trauma and shock and our lack of self-love. Part of our healing is to stop this and become more truthful and self-respectful in how we relate, especially when we are with our family. This is not easy but it is essential. And for those who of us who have been sexually or physically abused, it is usually important to actually confront the one who abused us with what happened. Most of the time, he or she will not even admit it happened, let alone apologize but that it is not important. It is only important that we stop living the lie and expose the secret.

Another aspect of healing from shock and trauma is to overcome the guilt that we may feel inside. A child will do anything to support his or her parents and to relieve his or her pain. Naturally, we believe that if we were invaded or criticized, it was our fault and we deserved it. These feelings are so deep it is as though they live in our cells. But the more we understand about our past and about the emotional problems of our parents, the more we can recognize that this behavior came out of their unconsciousness, not out of our faults. The more we work on our shock and trauma, the more we realize how unconscious was much of the way we were raised. We naturally stop repeating it with our own children.

A fourth and another important aspect of our healing also comes from saying yes to the rage and grief that we carry inside. These feelings are there but it may take much time before we can acknowledge and connect with them. It is very important that we give ourselves total patience and gentleness to allow these feelings to surface on their own. Shock makes us emotionally frozen. The ice has to melt before we feel what is underneath. I recognized that when we begin to connect with the way that we were traumatized as a child, it breaks our heart. If we witnessed someone else going through what we went through, we would either get very angry or weep.

Finally, in healing our shock and trauma, we need support and guidance. We need the support of loving friends who understand and who also are dealing with their own shock and trauma. I also find that we need the guidance of someone who is trained and experienced to lead us into our trauma and shock with gentleness and spaciousness. This kind of guidance was very important for me. I could not have done it alone. There was just too much fear, self-judgment and confusion.

As we bring love and understanding to our shock and trauma, I have found that our life naturally begins to change by itself. We find ourselves in more loving and supportive relationships. We are able to stand up for ourselves and we can take bigger risks. We have more self-respect and appreciation for our uniqueness and our gifts. We are no longer so plagued with guilt. Our natural and spontaneous energy comes alive without pressureing or pushing ourselves. But our shock does not vanish. Mine is still there but I can watch it with more love. Sometimes it frustrates me but I can also see that I would not be the same person nor would I be able to do the work that I do without having gone through what I did. Understanding shock and surviving trauma makes us human.

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