A psychiatrist friend once summarized a basic tendency he saw in children from their earliest years. He said that a child could grow up either trusting the people and world he lived in or feeling insecure and uncertain about them. A child would either feel safe or unsafe, and a lot depended on this basic emotional orientation.
He told me about one of his neighbors, a boy about two and a half years old, who liked to come visit him. The boy would sit with his older friend and have a bowl of cereal as they talked. One day, the toddler accidentally knocked over the bowl and spilled the tiny nuggets all over the table. Immediately and without showing much reaction, he set about picking up every little piece to get them all back in the dish where they belonged.
As any parent could tell you, that is not what little kids usually do. In my experience it’s much more common for a toddler to enjoy the new arrangement of cereal bits and perhaps add another ingredient to make it even more interesting.
For one so young to carefully clean up a spill, the psychiatrist thought, suggested that the boy was trying to create a sense of safety. Perhaps, there was something in his home life that made him anxious? What happens to a kid if he doesn’t fully trust his parents to keep everything safe and stable?
This story brought to mind a brief incident that happened about 15 years ago. A colleague and I had been visiting a small town in a beautiful and remote region of the Southwest. We had just met the young physician whose clinic offered the only nearby health care. He walked us a couple of tree-lined blocks to his home for lunch. His wife, who was teaching in the elementary school, arrived as we got to the front door. With her was the couple’s three-and-a-half year old son. They were a beautiful young family living in a pleasant rural house. Everything seemed idyllic.
As the others were going inside, I suddenly felt a small hand take my own. There was the boy at my side.
“Come this way,” he whispered. “Come and see.”
He was gentle and good-looking like his parents. At the moment, he had a hushed air about him, as if he were letting me in on a big secret. I was a little reluctant to go off with him but didn’t want to refuse. I thought he had a special treasure around the corner of the house, and we’d only take a second to have a look. But it was a little more than that. As he drew me past the house, the narrow flagstone path turned into a long, wide dirt lane that led to a group of old sheds, stables, and a small barn. These were part of the house’s history, for there were no horses or other animals now.
I realized that he wanted to take me all the way down that lane, about 70 or 80 yards, to those buildings. I hung back a little for fear of taking too long before joining the others for lunch. Of course, I couldn’t resist him – he so wanted to share this – whatever it was. He kept on motioning down the lane while gently holding my hand.
“Come on, it’s here.” So we walked hand in hand all the way, and he paused in front of the barn.
“It’s in here.” He was still whispering and pointed to a weathered door in a shed right next to the barn. Slowly he pulled it open on its creaky hinges. I stepped inside with him, and everything went dark until my eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering through cracks in the siding.
We were in a small cozy room that smelled of wood and something like sweetgrass. It was no more than ten by ten, a storage space of some kind, and beams slanting down slightly from the barn lowered the ceiling to about seven feet. There was a deep shelf along one rough wall, which was just boards nailed to uprights. The shelf was covered with hay, and a couple of worn runner carpets and old blankets were spread across its length. It was a quiet shadowy nook – a perfect retreat.
“This is so special,” he said as he climbed onto the shelf. “It’s my secret place,” he whispered. He looked so comfortable and happy there, especially sharing it this way, but there was something sombre about him as well. I told him how I loved that room, that I had never seen such a neat place and wished I could have a spot like that too. I told him how lucky he was, and he sat there staring at the shadows and walls, his familiar companions.
After just a few minutes, he jumped down and took my hand again for the walk back to the house. “Remember,” he said while shutting the door on his retreat. “It’s a secret.”
We went back and had a warm, friendly lunch, but I was deeply uneasy the whole time. This wasn’t the first young child I’d met who had taken me aside – a total stranger – to tell or show me something. Of course, it was flattering and heart-warming to be singled out that way, but in every case this turned out to be the gentle, hushed sound of a troubled family and a very worried kid.
This boy had found his imagined place of shelter and safety, but he needed a lot more than that. About six months later I heard about the sudden and unexpected divorce of this splendid couple. No one had seen it coming. But that boy had taken in the signals on some basic level where his fear and worry had been growing, whether he was aware of it or not. He’d lost trust in his parents to keep him safe and so instinctively had started looking for safety on his own. Most kids I’ve known have paid a heavy price for taking on that impossible task. I have no idea what happened to this boy later – he’d be about college age now, but I often think of him in that quiet place he had found.
I know that many readers of this blog have had childhood ripped out of them by much more violent means. But it seems to me that my psychiatrist summed it up rather well – it comes down to that sense of trust and safety. From infancy on, the sights and sounds flood in – they may feel reassuring or they may put you on your guard, long before your awareness can give words to what’s going on.
Did you have the need for a safe haven when you were growing up? Was it a place or a style of behaving that gave you a sense of safety?
Incredible quest there. What happened after?
Take care!
Here’s an account of the initial EMDR treatment (eye movement desenstitization and reprocessing) I received. I started seeing a therapist several weeks ago for a second round of EMDR treatment. I first went through EMDR about 4 years back and felt it helped a lot, but I seemed to have more to work on, i.e. additional unprocessed memories.
The first 6 one-hour sessions were spent providing background on my history and symptoms and answering the therapist’s questions, all of which helps her provide the right treatment. The number of preliminary sessions needed depends on your particular situation, symptoms and your history. Some people don’t need as many sessions.
In brief, my history is that during most of my childhood my father often came home in a drunken rage and subjected my family, mostly my mother, to his anger and intimidation and sometimes physical threats. This happened countless times over a decade; I became petrified by these events. This was compounded by the fact that until my teens my father was very distant and disapproving toward me, and the only real emotion I could feel toward him was fear. The problem was further compounded by the fact that I couldn’t talk to anyone about this and kept it bottled in where it festered and hid the emotional damage. All of this led to a life of stifled, confused emotions, anxiety, dissociation, and later in mid-life, severe episodes of depression.
In the EMDR treatment the therapist asks you to think of one particular traumatic incident in your past. She then instructs you to allow your thoughts and feelings to go wherever they go and not try to steer or control them. Then she had me concentrate on looking at a pen that she moved quickly from side to side for about 30 seconds. This was followed by me closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. I found my thoughts drifting to other things. Most importantly, the incident I originally focused on became less disturbing to me at this point. The therapist repeated this series of acts a half dozen times. At the end my thoughts shifted to how much my father loved me despite the terribly destructive things he did. This moved me to tears which is something I almost never do in front of anyone.
The goal is for the EMDR to bring down the sense of how disturbing the target incident feels, which definitely happened for me. EMDR helps you to reprocess old, unprocessed memories that are like unhealed wounds continuing to hurt you and cause your symptoms. I considered this session a big success, but was told it will need to be repeated several times in future sessions.
Did my symptoms of depression subside in the 4 days following this treatment? That’s a lot to expect from just one EMDR session, but actually, yes I do feel better. More hopeful, motivated, purposeful. Let’s hope it lasts.
I’ll provide another update in a couple weeks. I’m hoping these accounts will entice others to explore this simple treatment which is by far the most effective method I’ve tried for healing the traumatic wounds that underlie many mental illnesses.
– Tony Giordano
Thank you, Tony –
This gives me a lot of insight into how the process can work and what to expect. I hope EMDR keeps working for you and look forward to hearing about your further experience with it.
JOhn
I think that’s all true John. For children the primary attachment and dependence is naturally with parents, and that’s why they’re so vulnerable to trauma in the family. When a parent fails to protect the child, or worse is the source of the danger, it totally destroys the child’s sense of trust and saftey. So trauma in the family that may be non-violent but occurs repeatedly can be extremely damaging. This often happens when a parent is alcoholic, drug-abuser, or has a mental illness. Since this kind of trauma is more subtle it tends to be ignored and often goes untreated, and it can keep producing symptoms of mental illness. But as Dr.Whitfield says in a recent book, you’re not really “mentally ill,” you just have untreated and unresolved wounds.
I’m reading a book on EMDR now and I then plan to go through a second round of it. I’ll post updates.
–Tony
Hi, Tony –
It was an eye-opener for me to realize that non-violent trauma repeated over and over could be just as damaging as physical abuse. I think, in fact, that the constancy of emotional injury is the important part of it. I’ll be interested to hear about your work with EMDR. I noticed that Frances Shapiro has a new book, and I want to read it as soon as possible.
John
Hi John,
That’s the book I’m reading– Shapiro’s latest, “Getting Past Your Past.” It’s very good so far, although I’m finding a lot of it is information I’ve encountered elsewhere, eg in Dr.Whitfield’s books. Shapiro focuses more on treatment, not just cause. I’ve always wanted to fully understand causes– that’s key for deciding on treatments, and it just helps you understand yourself. What’s compelling in Whitfield’s work is that he not only draws upon his clinical experience as a psychotherapist, he reviewed countless studies of mental illness and found a clear pattern of history of emotional trauma in most cases of mental illness. And yes this trauma is often of the non-violent but chronic variety. What’s surprising and unfortunate is that this knowledge is not making its way into the treatment plans for most people, who are being treated with outdated and ineffective methods. I think everyone with symptoms of mental illness should be checked out for earlier trauma.
John,
I recently started therapy in preparation for EMDR treatment and will give an update in a couple weeks that I hope can be helpful to others. I’m struck by often trauma seems to underlie mental illness and EMDR looks very promising as a treatment technique.
— Tony
Hi, Tony –
I hope the therapy works well for you, and I look forward to hearing about your experience with EMDR.
John
Since it will be several weeks before I complete EMDR treatment (eye movement desenstitization and reprocessing), I want to first follow-up on my earlier post about Francine Shapiro’s latest book, Getting Past Your Past, which I just read. The book talks about not only how EMDR can address many kinds of disorders, but also gives some techniques you can use on your own for some kinds of issues.
The premise of the book and of EMDR is that “unprocessed memories” of trauma underlie many kinds of mental illness and they cause negative responses, attitudes and behaviors that are unconscious and have become part of our personalities, preventing us from feeling well and adapting effectively. These unprocessed memories are like old wounds that never really healed and continue to cause harm.
The memories need to be surfaced and processed, which is what EMDR does. It’s interesting that no one seems to know exactly how EMDR works on the brain, but we should also remember than no one knows exactly how antidepressants work either. The science of mental illness and treatment is still pretty primitive.
Reading this book I was amazed at how many different kinds of disorders could be effectively treated with EMDR—not just the usual variety of mental illnesses but also disorders such as ADHD, phobias, panic disorders, and even phantom pain that often occurs after someone loses a limb. I didn’t put PTSD in this list of disorders because in effect all of these things appear to be types of PTSD. The problem is that they’re not usually diagnosed or treated that way, and so the sufferers don’t improve. (Again I need to say I’m not a trained expert but rather an informed survivor.)
As for the techniques in the book that you can use on your own, these kinds of things never seem to work for me and they didn’t this time either. I don’t know if my situation is different or too complex or if I’m doing the techniques incorrectly, but in any case I feel better leaving this to a pro. That’s why I started seeing a therapist trained in EMDR, and I’ll post an update on this in a few weeks.
I would definitely recommend Shapiro’s book, which is informative, well-written, not too technical, and can help the countless people who’ve experienced trauma that leads to mental disorders.
I’ve read a number of books on this subject and I’m more convinced than ever that emotional trauma often underlies disorders such as depression and many others. Trauma can be more damaging than most people realize, especially in childhood. Damaging trauma is usually present in families where there’s alcoholism, drug abuse, mental illness, neglect, and of course, outright child abuse. I THINK ANYONE EXPERIENCING SYMPTOMS OF MENTAL ILLNESS SHOULD BE PROFESSIONALLY SCREENED FOR EARLIER TRAUMA SO YOU CAN BE EFFECTIVELY TREATED.
— Tony Giordano
Reading all the stories about the need for a safe haven in childhood, it really pains me to see all the people who are suffering, and possibly not getting effective treatment for their conditions. I’m one of these people and I can identify with the pains and frustrations. When I saw that I couldn’t depend on therapists and psychiatrists to help me heal from depression, I decided to learn as much as possible about mental illness and its causes.
Of all the things I’ve read I’m most convinced by the ideas of Dr. Charles Whitfield. In a nutshell, and I’m oversimplifying a bit, most mental illness is caused by trauma, usually in childhood, and so it’s a form of PTSD, and needs to be treated as such. Things like depression, anxiety and dissociation are symptoms, not disorders. They’re caused by the typical reaction a person makes to severe trauma—you hide.
When you do this repeatedly, it becomes part of you. You habitually hide, disconnect, suppress feelings. You’re locked inside yourself, not engaged in the outside reality. You may not even remember the trauma, but it’s there encoded deep in your brain, possibly below consciousness. It affects your behavior, your feelings and your overall wellbeing and it needs to be surfaced and treated. It may be difficult and painful at times, but it’s necessary for healing and recovery.
Most mental healthcare just treats symptoms and so it’s usually ineffective. You need to isolate the cause(s) and treat that. The cause is that earlier emotional trauma, which you probably have yet to fully process and resolve. Many people haven’t done this because they aren’t encouraged to do it and may not even know the cause. (That’s a problem too because not knowing there’s an outside cause leads many to blame themselves, and the guilt hinders healing.)
A good technique for processing and resolving trauma is EMDR—eye movement desenstitization and reprocessing. I went through this several years ago and it really helped me. I may go through another round because, although I’m feeling much better than my worst times, I think there’s more deep down there to resolve. (I’m the son of a disapproving alcoholic father who subjected the family to repeated violent rages, which can produce a lot of deep wounds.)
I’d suggest that everyone try to learn if there’s severe trauma in their past and see if treating that can help them heal. Beside EMDR, psychotherapy can help, but it really depends on having a good therapist you connect with.
That’s my take, and I should add that I’m not an expert or trained professional in the field (most of whom don’t know what they’re talking about anyway). I’m just a self-educated sufferer of depression who’s been reading about it 10 years now and have tried all kinds of treatment with little success in most cases. There are more and more experts lining up with Whitfield’s thinking on trauma and mental illness and I think we’ll see a revolution in mental healthcare soon, finally. I recommend Whitfield’s books such as his classic Healing the Child Within, or one of his recent works.
–Tony
Thanks, Tony –
This is a really useful overview, and I’m especially interested to read about your experience with EMDR. I’ve read some recent studies about trauma confirming that the less violent experiences can be just as harmful when they are repeated over and over again – as they almost always are in childhood. There’s a lot of work being done on the neurobiology of attachment, and the conclusions of that research seem compatible with Whitfield’s ideas. So much of the impact of trauma is about the breaking or betrayal of a basic human connection that is essential to our development.
John
There was a kind of despotic threat of harm looming over me much of my childhood. My dad would suddenly go from silent and detached to violent. I never knew when it was coming. My mother would warn me to take my younger sister to the room we shared, to shut the doors, and be quiet. And hide. And, “Don’t do anything to upset your father.” So instead of my mother protecting us, she told me to protect my sister and myself by running and hiding. No wonder dissociation was so easy later in life. And from an early age, even as a very small toddler, I always played by myself quietly, even though I had sisters and a brother. I didn’t want to attract my father’s attention, I’m sure. I am 53 now and still seek solitary interests like painting, writing, reading. My mother, oddly enough, can’t understand why I don’t ever “risk myself” with other people. I know if I were to ever broach the subject, she would deny my father was anything but a saint. He’s gone now; died in 2005. I started praying at about 8 or 10 years old that he would die or disappear — cancer, divorce, accident, I didn’t care how God took care of it. When he died, it was almost a relief because I knew I would never have to be scared of him again.
Hi John
Now you mention it – I think I found “safety” in my journals. Some solace and comfort, and relaxation from everyday achievements during my childhood
Thanks for this. Just made me ache, but much needed
Noch Noch
Hi, Noch Noch –
You remind me that the safe places I went to were places in my imagination – and once you’re there, you have no limits to worry about and perfect control over what happens. Maybe that’s how I started to link being powerful with being hidden and invisible.
John
I have subscribed to the post for more than a month now. there is so much that i can relate to which has given me hope and courage to go on. I appreciate the non preachyIts kind of the worse i have been, and am just surprised at my own courage to find hope where i can look for, your post in on the top of the list!
Childhood fear and safety heavens…i can relate to this one so well. My parents always fought, and constantly used us as tools against each other. The attention was conditional and subjected to constant threats and blackmail. Even when they din fight, I wasn’t important enough the way i was. A growing child.The attention I got was contextual, conditional and always obligatory. I haven been able to revise those learnings in my adult relationships. I am watchful, on guard, for signs of rejection and disapproval, find them, overemphasize, Cannot let go of the fear of being left and leave before they do.
As i kid my room was my safety heaven.That defined my phsycial as well as mental boundaries security. I was hugely uncomfortable in sharing it with anyone. At the end of the day I had to be alone. The music was a escape. Freinds were. a\Actually in retrospect their approval was. I don remeber having a fight ever , anywhwere, even with my closest freinds. I had learnt to never have a dissenting opinion, If i had I never expressed ( its crazy how it doesnt even occur me still that its perefectly normal to not agree. Its okay. No one is going to punish you.)
I am still in the process of learning that to get along is not the same as go along!
Recently when i got into a abusive relationship, I din leave. There was no alternative reality.But i was so scared, beyond what even a relatively normal person can and shoud do for self defence, i stayed and stayed. I wanted to hear from him that i was a good girl and THEN i could go!!! i lost so much on my way before i realised what was i doing. How the hell is this random person so important to get approval of.
I am so fearful to new situations, in anticipation of a punishment (I have recently figured this one out) its more of a fear of being ‘found out’ than doing something wrong. Fear of negative judgement can make me do anything,Its tiring and demeaning to treat myself this way but i react before i can think and act. Mostly.
I am tired of creating these boundaries of safety zones the minute i step put of the house and operating only within them.The fear of rejection, anticipation of the same has effectively ensured people respond the way i expect. Treat the way am asking them not to.
The worse is no amount of preparation makes me feel safe. I have been lauded on my calmness , how i don react, get angry. I cant even explain how fearful am on the inside, being angry has never been an option and am taking care of the mess because its self motivated. I just want you on my team and then i will leave and pick the next person and put in everything to make them like me.This is the game i play over and over again to feel safe.
I guess each day is a new learning so going to hang on!!
once again John….well articulated post.
regards.
Hi, posh –
There is so much in your description of safety zones that I could repeat from my own experience. If only we gained something from narrowing our lives down like this! I can’t say I got much safety out of all the restraint. I met with more rejection by never disagreeing than by being honest because people couldn’t trust me if they weren’t sure what I was really feeling or thinking. I know it doesn’t make any sense and that we grow up with these patterns. But as you say, it is so tiring. It takes enormous energy and constant alertness – I was always so tense. Even though I haven’t lost those defenses completely, I am much more relaxed now about being myself than I ever used to be. You remind me that I need to write more about this subject.
Thank you for commenting – and do hang on. Change is possible!
John
I’m really glad I found this site. I can relate to so many of the posts, and it makes me feel better that I am not alone. I haven’t thought too much about my childhood. I know my parents discouraged me from having friends. I found safe haven with imaginary friends, and sort of playing out scenarios where actual people I knew were my friends and we would have conversations. I have to admit I still do this today. I suffer from social anxiety and loneliness and depression, and so retreating to my imagination is an automatic reaction because it stops the pain for a while.
Jane, your mention of autoimmune disease really caught my attention. I suffer from psoriasis and erythema nodosum. I have a bad outbreak of EN on my leg right now, and never thought my depression could be a trigger.
Hi, Sara –
I’m also glad you found this site. Playing out scenarios is something I’ve often done. For a long time, I thought of it as a desperate way to try to compensate for something I was missing or failing to get right in my life. There’s also a healing dimension to it, though – I think we need relationships so much that it helps to invent and act them out at times.
John
Your psychiatrist was spot on. In childhood I never had that sense of safety – I found many refuges, all of which were constantly criticized by my parents. Many years later, a naturopath gave me the insight that because I was so fearful from the age of 3-4 pm, that my body had internalized that fear, and helped predispose me to my autoimmune disease and depression. I think there’s a lot those first few critical years do to us. It breaks my heart and I wish some people never had anything to do with raising children.
Blessings,
Jane
Hi, Jane –
You’ve touched on something that should get more attention than it does – the effect of childhood stress and fear on the immune system and the many problems that can lead to later in life. It’s terrible that parents can criticize a child’s attempts to find a refuge rather than respond to the obvious emotional need. Thanks for commenting.
John
Oh, my – talk about sights and sounds flooding in! I wanted to weep while reading this. It reminded me of the last movie I saw through Netflix – The Safety of Objects. It’s four different stories that all end up intertwining and each one is very touching. I think that feeling of safety has eluded me much of the time. I did feel safe with my grandparents when I was a kid, but there was always that knowing that I couldn’t stay there forever. I also remember feeling safe when I moved out on my own for the first time, determined I would never go back. Once I started having my kids, though, that feeling started disappearing, probably because I realized that I didn’t have very good parenting skills – I only knew what I DIDN’T want to have happen but nothing positive to take its place except, I guess, what I experienced with my grandparents. So, I didn’t feel safe for my children which, in turn, triggered the sense of danger I’d buried away.
I remember the time I realized that being in my therapist’s office made me feel safe – such a relief! It almost seemed unreal to be able to be heard – and to listen to myself.
Now that I have a grandson, it’s such a joy to be able to give him the emotional safety I didn’t have and maybe couldn’t even give my own sons. Sometimes I see him thoroughly enjoying every minute of his life and it seems so amazing to that he can be a little boy and not have to look over his shoulder, fearful of the moment when somebody is going to put an abrupt end to his fun. His parents are divorcing, but I’m very proud of them for putting their son first and doing all they can to just let him be.
Hi, Judy –
How wonderful that you have a grandchild – and that he is being responded to so thoughtfully in a stressful time. It’s amazing how resilient people can be if the basic emotional bond is secure. It’s so easy for kids to take on responsibility for anything that goes wrong. What you say about your childhood and the experience of being a parent reminds me how I never really have stopped trying to find that safe and secure “place” – sometimes that has become more a place of escape than safety, especially during depression.
John
I found secret hiding places growing up, and I needed them to avoid my stepmother’s attention. But although gaps behind the bushes protected me, I also learned to retreat into my mind. I developed a rich fantasy life that sustained me for years, long after most kids give up on imaginary friends. I invented entire towns to inhabit, and I would escape to them when the real world felt intolerable, which it often did given the cruelty I endured. In some ways my habit of imagining better spaces helped me later on: I think it improved my visualization skills. But it also primed me for a lifetime of problems with dissociation. Nowadays I visualize to calm myself when it is safe to be inattentive, but I also need to watch my mental state when under duress to avoid spacing out inappropriately. Anyway, I totally understand that young boy’s attachment to his special, safe room. A child is in a sad situation when something like a dusty chamber in a barn feels more nurturing than the home, but it’s all too common.
Hi, Will –
Dissociation has been a reliable getaway for me too. Not a welcome or helpful one but always available. As I think about it, most of my childhood escape was about assuming a stance of emotional distance from people I was uncomfortable with. Eventually, that turned into a form of disappearing in place – I suppose it’s a kind of magical thinking. I can stand here quietly and disappear, no one will notice. Quite frightening to think how often I acted that way.
John
I read this a while back and found it beautiful and haunting- it still is.
Thank you, Emily!
I hope all is well. Iris looks so beautiful.
John