The traumatized child

A few people in response to the book or blog have accused me of narcissistically wishing that the world would accommodate me and other sociopaths, rather than us adapting to the way the world already works. The funny thing about that suggestion is that adapting to a hostile environment is how I got here in the first place. I was raised in a home with parents who were always self-involved, often neglectful, and sometimes violent. Ever since I can remember, it was always me adapting to them and my environment (or more like me rolling with the punches) rather than experiencing any special accommodations for me and the person I was growing to become. I often think that my lack of attachment to any sense of self derives from these childhood losses. To my child mind, there was no point to becoming attached to something or care about it in an emotional way if it could disappear, be destroyed, or be taken from me the next day. Of course this is not the way that every child responds to those sorts of environmental triggers, nor was my childhood even remotely close to what I consider real trauma and abuse. But I feel like I experienced enough (obviously) to not only trigger whatever genetic propensities I had for personality disorders or other mental health issues, but also to understand how influential one's childhood experiences are in shaping the person that one eventually becomes.

From the NY Times under the headline "Teaching Children to Calm Themselves":

Children . . . who experience neglect, severe stress or sudden separation at a young age can be traumatized. Without appropriate adult support, trauma can interfere with healthy brain development, inhibiting children’s ability to make good decisions, use memory or use sequential thought processes to work through problems.

Do these children expect the world to accommodate them?

The education system responds bluntly to kids with these challenges. The standard arsenal of disciplinary measures — from yelling and “timeouts” to detentions and suspensions — are not just ineffective for children who have experienced traumatic stress; they make things worse. By some estimates, preschool expulsions are 13 times more common than K-12 expulsions — a finding that, given the bleak future it portends for these children (and the associated costs for society), should send alarm bells ringing across the nation.

I don't actually think these children expect anything, much less to be accommodated. But is it a good idea to accommodate them? Probably, at least as long as it is cheaper to accommodate them and provide them with adequate coping mechanisms while they are young rather than leaving them to continue their behavioral issues into adulthood, and all of the accompanying social costs that would entail. At least that is the economic rationale for whether it is a good idea. Is there a moral one? And if so, does the moral one say that we should help them? Or maybe that we shouldn't accommodate bad behavior (the classic parental excuse, "he just wants _____, so don't give it to him)? Maybe our moral beliefs cause us to believe that people should bear all responsibility for controlling any behavior that is even remotely volitional? Or do we only start saying those sorts of things about people once they've turned 18 and become an adult who still has behavioral problems (i.e. after society has already failed them)?

One of the most interesting parts of the article to me was what sort of "special accommodations" were advocated for these children:

Luke is receiving individual therapy. But he is also surrounded by caregivers who understand his needs and know how to respond when he needs help. Through the Head Start Trauma Smart model, teachers, parents and even the bus drivers and cafeteria workers who interact with children receive training in trauma.

This allows them to respond more skillfully, rather than reacting out of anger, frustration or resentment. Indeed, one of the biggest lessons for teachers and parents who undergo this training is that the very first step is learning how to calm, and care for, themselves, especially when they are overstressed.

In other words, one of the primary goals of the training is to try to minimize the caregivers' own emotional reactions to the child's behavior -- to focus on calming their own selves down first. Does that suggest any plan of action to empaths who deal with sociopaths on a regular basis?

One bus driver who underwent the training explained how it changed the way she sees the world:

“I used to be the kind of person who said, ‘The way it looks is the way it is.’ But I don’t look at it that way anymore,” McIntosh said. “There are things that happen to people that we don’t know about.”

And as a director of a similar program argued:

“We’re built to succeed as human beings. If that normal process gets disrupted, we need to do anything we can do to put it back on track.”

Could it be that sociopath children who have experienced trauma have already come up with a way(s) to put their lives on track to overcome their chaotic environments? But in a way that is both more efficient, powerful and more objectionable than people would like to see in their child victims of trauma?

Winning streaks and outsourcing

I taught myself to feel anxiety about certain tasks for my continued health and welfare. I taught myself to be sensitive and careful about certain select things. And now it is sometimes hard to turn it off.

This is not a design flaw. If I had made anxiety easy to turn off, I would turn it off whenever it was inconvenient to me to feel that way.

I'll give you an example of why it might be good or necessary to not have control. I have never been a gearhead. So I have a friend who makes all of my choices of what to buy in those particular areas. Sometimes I question his judgment, think maybe I might like something else. I was telling another friend about this and he said, "so why don't you just buy what you want then?" But that's the thing. I have outsourced the decisionmaking to my gearhead friend. If I second guessed all of his recommendations, then really I have not outsourced anything to him. I have just decided to get his opinion about things. But that's not what I want. I want to not have to decide.

Similar with the anxiety. I used to not care at all. I used to do the craziest things. Then I didn't like the consequences, so at least in certain areas of my life I set my brain to thinking more about particular important tasks. At first I made it a game. Can I do this simple but important task better than anyone else? Then the game became about consistency -- can I achieve this level of superior skill for the longest streak ever seen?

It was such a successful tactic that I kept adding tasks to care about. It's funny, in my mind and in my life I must have hundreds if not thousands of these little games going on by now. All simultaneous. All keeping my life together. And they are sort of important, that's why I singled them out once upon a time to care about. But now when something goes wrong, the feeling of loss or letdown I feel is out of all proportion to the relative significance of the small skirmish lost. Because it's not just the one mistake, it's the end of a winning streak.

It's sort of laughable, that I have made myself like this -- chosen the choices I have led which have, when compounded with hundreds of similar choices, made me care a lot about certain little things. I should maybe rethink the plan. But I also now better understand why most people are the way they are -- why nature or God has chosen to reinforce our important decisions like mating with emotions like love. We have to give ourselves some sort of system to rely on when our minds might be distracted -- some way to make sure that important things don't slip your mind or through the cracks. And my system does that too, and probably just as well or better than emotional reinforcement. But my system takes an incredible mental toll. And when my mind gets taxed just slightly above what I have expected it, I can push myself into mind sickness. So that's why I might have to reconsider my system. Or maybe I should just to outsource more.

Nerves

I tell people I don't get nervous. They ask why my voice sometimes shakes or I have other physical symptoms of nerves and anxiety. Ok, it's a bit of an exagerration to say I don't get nervous. Yes, my body gets nervous. Or it gets ready for whatever risky situation I am planning on subjecting it to. But my mind doesn't interpret that emotionally and think -- wow, I'm nervous.

This NY Times article about the body's reaction to risks explains it well:

To get an inkling of how this physiology works, consider the following scenario, in which a trader grapples with a rumor that the Fed may raise rates later that afternoon:

As 2:15 — the time of the announcement — approaches, trading on the screens dwindles. The floor goes quiet. The trader feels intellectually prepared. But the challenge he faces requires more than cognitive skill. He needs fast reactions, and energy for the hours ahead.

Consequently, his metabolism speeds up, ready to break down energy stores in liver, muscle and fat cells. Breathing accelerates, drawing in more oxygen, and his heart rate speeds up. Cells of the immune system take up position at vulnerable points of the body, ready to deal with injury and infection. And his nervous system, extending from the brain down into the abdomen, redistributes blood — constricting flow to the gut, giving him butterflies, and to the reproductive organs, since this is no time for sex — shunting it to major muscle groups in the arms and thighs as well as to the lungs, heart and brain.

The announcement will bring volatility, and a chance to make money. The trader feels a surge of energy as steroid hormones are synthesized by their respective glands and injected into his bloodstream. Steroids are powerful, dangerous chemicals — they change almost every detail of body and brain: his growth rate, lean-muscle mass, mood, even the memories he recalls — and for that reason their use is tightly regulated by the International Olympic Committee and the hypothalamus, the brain’s drug enforcement agency.

These past hours, the trader’s testosterone levels have been climbing. This steroid hormone, produced by men (and, in lesser quantities, by women) primes the trader for the challenge ahead, just as it does athletes preparing to compete and male animals to fight. Rising levels increase confidence and, crucially, appetite for risk. For the trader this is a moment of transformation, what the French since the Middle Ages have called “the hour between dog and wolf.”

The stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol surge out of the adrenal glands, and the cortisol travels to the brain, where it stimulates the release of dopamine, a chemical operating along neural circuits known as the pleasure pathways. At high levels, cortisol provides a nasty, stressful experience. But in small amounts, in combination with dopamine — one of the most addictive drugs known to the human brain — it delivers a narcotic hit, a rush that convinces traders that there is no other job in the world.

Finally, at 2:14, the trader leans into his screen, pupils dilated, breathing rhythmic, muscles coiled, body and brain fused for impending action. An expectant hush descends on global markets.

This scenario illustrates just how sensitive the body is to information. We do not regard prices on a screen as a computer would, dispassionately; we react physically. Our body and brain rev up and down together, and this natural fusion makes us better risk-takers.

So yes, my body does respond to risk. And it can't just keep taking a beating. So even though my mind can handle things, sometimes my body can't, and vice versa.

Stress vs. arousal

I sometimes feel anxiety, the word I use for when I am on edge because I know I am about to do something important, as defined by having a potentially disproportionate or lasting effect on my life. It's not that I feel afraid, per se, or even stressed by things, but the stress of feeling on edge can take its toll on my body -- like too many late nights and too much caffeine will do. But I found this interesting article that not only describes the difference between interpreting your body's reactions to important performance situations as either stress or arousal, it also provides hope that everyone could train themselves and their bodies to have a reaction of arousal instead of stress. From Wray Herbert, author of On Second Though (and potential sociopath?).

Imagine that you are at the top of a ski slope, about to make a run. It’s a challenging slope, black diamond—steep and narrow, lots of trees. Plus it’s windy, and there’s that treacherous drop-off on the right. You’re an inexperienced skier, not a novice but not at all confident that you belong in such extreme terrain. Your heart is pounding and your gut is tight.

Now imagine that you’re on top of the very same slope, but you are a skilled downhill racer, an Olympic contender. You’re sure you know how to attack this slope—you’ve done it many times before—but even so, your heart is pounding and butterflies are fluttering in your gut.

Both of these hypothetical skiers are under stress, and feeling the arousal that comes with stress. But one is experiencing good stress, the other bad stress. They are both looking at the same slope, but one sees it as a threat, the other as a challenge. The expert knows that his skills are more than sufficient for the situation. The nervous learner has no such confidence.
***
Is it possible that stress is not all that bad, that in fact it may be tonic at times?

The key is how we think about stress and arousal. Those two skiers are in fact experiencing different bodily changes. Though both are feeling activation of the sympathetic nervous system, the fearful skier is feeling constriction of the vessels, which makes the heart work harder. The expert is actually experiencing more sympathetic arousal as he contemplates the challenge ahead, but the blood vessels are dilating, increasing cardiac efficiency. But they don’t know or care what’s going on inside them. They both simply feel edgy and aroused.

How to do it yourself?


Just prior to this event, some were instructed about the value of human stress response in high-level performance. They were encouraged to interpret any signs of arousal as a positive thing, a tool that would aid them in making a confident speech. The others were told to ignore their stress arousal, or they were told nothing at all.

The findings were clear. During the speech, those instructed in reappraisal were much more like the Olympian skier, showing what Jamieson calls “physiological toughness”: They experienced less blood vessel constriction and more cardiac output, as if they were attacking the slope. What’s more, immediately after the speech, these volunteers were less vigilant. In other words, they felt confident, not threatened.

Unflappable?

Very few things bother me, but sometimes I am bothered when there is an unexpected reaction or consequence to something I've done. My friend says that I'm never so mad as when I think I have been doing things on the up and up, but someone still chastises me.

The other day I was traveling and had to rent an automobile. I parked in a particular location that turned out to be in front of somebody's garage. They left a note for me saying that they needed to get their car our of their garage and were going to tow my car, etc. I grabbed the note and hurried away, I was late for something, but the note continued to bother me. How could I have not seen the garage, I wondered? What would I have done if they had towed it, let the rental agency deal with it? How had I let this almost happen? My mind wouldn't let it go.

I read a good description of this type of reaction in this comment:

Any time a kink happens in my social interactions, whether it's a slip of my tongue or an unexpectedly aggressive reply, I dwell on it. It replays in my mind, and I dissect it to find out what I could have done differently. Did I misread the person's intentions? Was I not forthcoming enough? It's not that I truly care how people perceive me; I don't hunger for their acceptance or praise. But I very carefully cultivate my outward persona: it is charming, it is witty, and it is benign. So when it fails to work as planned, it's a serious problem. It throws into question all of the hard work I've put into it. 

If I make someone cry, I'm not disturbed because I've caused them pain. I'm disturbed because I don't mean to be seen as a negative source--now I have to apologize or feign sincerity, or all my effort to appear as a sympathetic and trustworthy person, and the emotional power it gives me over that person, vanishes. 

I'm disturbed because I control everything, all the time, and for me to not do that, or stumble--it's unacceptable. 


With regard to my parking incident, I drove back the next day to that same neighborhood to investigate. There was no cutaway from the curb. The "garage" was covered in ivy and not clearly either a garage or functional. It was as hidden from sight as the Batcave. I was at glad to see that my mind hadn't slipped as much as I thought. And I started to wonder at how often people park in front of their garage. Do they deal with this every day? Could they put up a sign? Or perhaps paint the curb a different colour? I was angry at them, for setting me up for failure--for trapping me and acting like they had some sort of moral or legal high ground. I left them the note they wrote, secured in their door. I don't know why, but I thought it was vaguely threatening, like letting them know that I knew where they lived. And they shouldn't leave notes on my automobile. Or something...

Nothing more than feelings

I've been really busy recently and my jaw has started to ache. I grind my teeth. I have ever since I was young, but it got noticeably bad in a particularly stressful year of graduate school. The funny thing was, I didn't realize that I was particularly stressed until I felt my teeth ache. I am anal about my teeth, so of course I made an appointment with the dentist as soon as possible, who told me that it was my jaw hurting, not my teeth.  [Bruxism, of course is quite common. A dentist has suggested that 9/11 changed the face shape of the average New Yorker -- the increased grinding built up the masseter muscle, giving everyone a more square jaw appearance].  Ever since then I've used mouthguards, which shield my teeth but my muscles still get a work out when I'm stressed, like now.

Stress to me is only expressed in physical symptoms.  Without a sore jaw or finicky stomach, I wouldn't realize that I was actually experiencing stress.  Instead of thinking stressful thoughts first then having those thoughts cause the physical symptoms, I feel the physical symptoms which then indicate to me that I am stressed.  My theory is that although I am mentally fine with risky, high stakes situations, my lizard brain still responds with additional adrenaline and cortisol that takes its own toll on my body.

I was reading a Scientific American blog about anxiety and how it was not acknowledged by the Greeks as an actual disorder, then only became a purely physical illness starting with the Romans, then only recently has been seen as a primary mental affliction.  I understand that there are people who suffer from anxiety disorders, but for garden variety anxiety felt as a result of simple stress, is anxiety primarily a physical phenomenon?  A natural, but largely physical reaction, perhaps?  A poignant reminder from the part of our brain that is primarily (or only) concerned with our survival that we need to get out of harm's way sooner rather than later?

I'm interested in this topic because I have grown increasingly susceptible to the effects of anxiety over the years.  The shift is particularly dramatic given my previously almost non-existent levels of anxiety.  My friends wonder what happened to me.  And sociopaths are not supposed to be anxious.  But actually, sometimes they are.