How Trauma Affects the Development of Mental Disorders

you know that Meme emotional baggage well it always makes me chuckle a little bit because as somebody that practices in the field it's kind of true and um that's inadvertently what this video is is about today it's about how the role of trauma and ongoing trauma can actually affect the development of future clinical disorders um and so I'll introduce myself briefly I'm Kim long I'm with DOA Psychological Services in Spruce gr Alberta as always this is educational content it's it it's My Views I'

m not doing a deep dive into the research on this one because otherwise it would be way too psycho babbly and defeats the purpose of actually sharing meaningful information sometimes we get lost in the Academia of it all um so I want to talk just briefly about what trauma is trauma is when in my opinion is when your system is overwhelmed to the point that you um that you just you're you're helpless in that situation you you can't your regular coping strategies don't work and that can have signif

icant impacts on how you view yourself the world other people it can have lasting impacts in your ability to emotionally regulate and it can have lasting impacts on your physical self resulting in things like autoimmune disord orders even um there's some research to support that so I'm not going to kind of keep going down that road because otherwise we're going to Veer too far away um but when you think about trauma in that lens of your system was overwhelmed and your regular coping strategies d

on't work you can then think that because we are naturally hardwired to survive we come up with some pretty interesting ways to over overcome that trauma these ways aren't always considered healthy so if you think about it sometimes if people start to drink or use drugs that can be a form of coping um self harm can be a form of coping um withdrawal from the world and from others and relationships the way we see in depression can be a form of coping so depending on how well resourced you are at t

he time that the trauma occurs and how [Music] um I don't know how resilient you are at that time um it can really affect the development of these these um clinical diagnosis later on um so sorry too many thoughts going on in my head around this because this is this is a pretty big topic to try to um bring down so when you think about complex trauma let's go back to Childhood when you think about little ones that are exposed to traumatic environments they're definitely vulnerable and and helples

s they haven't yet been exposed to challenging situations on a more minor scale where they can learn resiliency and they can learn hey I can overcome this and I have the skills to do that they're kind of pushed into the deep end of trauma and and horribleness if that's even a word um and so in order for them to cope they have to almost twist their thinking so that they don't blame their caregiver because if they do they're losing probably the only resource they have um and you can imagine how th

at could have um some long-term effects on how they view themselves elves the world their safety within it their place in it who they are um all of those things so some Studies have shown that for example personality disorders like narcissism and borderline personality disorder um develop as a result of exposure to really really traumatic things as a child and it's in a way these become some not so healthy um coping strategies or survival strategies for that child and the thing is is that as a c

hild those strategies may work for them and that's why they keep using them but as an adult or as a teenager it's not so helpful but they haven't learned any other ways so in order to prot protect themselves and their psyche they keep getting stuck in this pattern um now personality disorders not my field of expertise um they fascinate me um but it isn't something that I work a lot with so I will defer to the Judgment of those that are are better versed in it but that's my basic rudimentary unde

rstanding of it is that in a way it is a survival skill even though we see it as being super destructive then if you think about something like on an extreme end dissociative identity disorder that's where the person completely checks out they have what's called altars where um there are different parts of the self that function at different times to keep the core more vulnerable self protected but they're unaware of each other because they dissociate we all dissociate to a certain extent just l

ike we all exhibit signs of narcissism and borderline personality disorder in certain facets of Our Lives depending on what's going on in the context um but dissociation shows up in a lot of other mental disorders as well simply because what happens when our system is overwhelmed is sometimes it takes us out of it so we don't feel like we're there anymore we feel like we're in a dream um that's dissociation and that shows up in PTSD just like in PTSD and some of the other trauma and stressor Rel

ated Disorders anxiety and depression can be there and so again if you think about it as this is a way that somebody's trying to cope with PTSD you see hypervigilance they're always checkin making sure that nothing every is a threat so they're always on guard for that threat as a result they end up really exhausted um their view of the world is that it's unsafe their view of themselves is that um they can't be trusted or that they couldn't handle it and they beat themselves up for that so there'

s a lot of Shame all of that kind of relates to depression so you can see how depression can be a way of us figuring out listen if I just beat myself up then I will monitor monitor my own behavior so that I'm not not ever under threat again if I just stay quiet and and small and also if I'm exhausted right it it's um it's another way of coping that maybe we don't understand or it's a way of indicating that the system is overwhelmed same with anxiety same with anger same with all of those things

it's it's a way of coping with trauma um some in the field that I that I've talked with also say that there's a lot of overlap with ADHD um not to say that everyone with ADHD has experienced trauma but this if you think about it that ADHD is a problem well it's not really a problem of executive function it's it's a problem of it there's no filter on the stimuli coming in because everything's coming in your system is constantly overwhelmed so some of the ways that you some of the behaviors that y

ou see there um Can mimic trauma so I don't know if I've actually answered the question about how like what's the role of trauma in the development of all these other disorders I think at the end of the day it just if I really simplified it in my opinion it comes down to um trauma affects the development of other uh clinical mental disorders in that um it can create some not as healthy ways of coping and surviving in our world and those will show up in many different ways for many different peop

le and the way that it shows up for those people and how pervasive it is in their life and how much it shuts them down and creates issues for them that that's what can lead to the label of some sort of mental health Disorder so that was a really long-winded video just to get to that point but thanks for sticking with me um so as always if you have any questions feel free to reach out to us um it like I said it's a pretty big issue to try to get into a video that's less than 10 minutes um but hop

efully it it helps destigmatize some of it for some of you and and helps you maybe think about what am I using this to cope with like you're not you're not broken you're just trying to survive so you know it at the same time you don't get to be a jerk like you know you're it doesn't give you free reain and what is also true is maybe reframe it and it might lead you somewhere that that brings to some strategies that maybe aren't so destructive for you and and actually help you a bit more so in th

e meantime please take care of yourself and um we'll see you later bye for now