Residues of Childhood Trauma

To illustrate how early experiences can set the stage for life-long patterns and difficulties, I will relate the history of a client who came to see me some years ago. Shortly after WWII Paul’s father left his wife and family behind, immigrating to Canada in search of work and the resources to establish his family in this country. Paul, at one and a half, was the youngest of four children. Four years later the family came to Canada, seeing their father for the first time since his departure. As the baby, Paul had been especially close to his mother during this period, sharing her bed and being her special pet. Suddenly he was confronted with a man who was a stranger to him, replacing him in his mother’s bed and, as he experienced it, in her affections. He had the usual immigrant terrain to manage as well: starting school without benefit of the language spoken by most if not all of his classmates. Before long his busy mother had the care of two more babies to occupy her. His older brothers, closer to each other in age, would tease and pick on him, excluding him from their games. Both parents, worn with work and cares, would yell and hit him in their exasperation with any misbehaviour.

Misbehaviour became for Paul a way of expressing his frustration and unhappiness but also a vehicle for attention, especially from his mother. A pattern developed of activities designed to annoy her, an explosion of her anger, a deluge of unhappiness followed by tears, repentance, and reconciliation. 

This mode of communication was replicated in Paul’s adult life with his partners. He had come to see me originally because of the troubles in his most recent relationship. He had come to understand that he was behaving in ways that maintained a current of disturbed interaction. There was no peace or consistency with his girl friend. One of the main issues that would surface between them was his jealousy. Convinced on some level that like his mother, who had “replaced” him with his father when they came to Canada, any woman would ultimately betray and abandon him. He was hyper-sensitive to the slightest indication of friendship or regard that his partner had toward another man. By turns sullen, angry, or suspicious, Paul continually provoked his partner in ways that would lead to the familiar round of fighting, estrangement, and tearful reconciliation.

There were no simple or quick passages through this thicket of emotional reactions for Paul. An intelligent man, he was able to appreciate the underlying triggers and patterns that were being repeated with his girl friend. This in itself could not rapidly lead to changes, however. Our intellectual understanding and our emotional lives are not entirely coincident. Coming to knowledge at the intellectual level and developing an emotional connection leading to deep changes in behavior have rhythms of their own, not at all co-terminus. We are more deeply attached to our emotional responses and change them more slowly precisely because of their connections to elemental factors like pleasure and pain, fear and safety.

Wounded emotionally when young, we can grow up around that wound, developing physically, socially, and intellectually, all the while living with the unhealed pain within. It functions somewhat like a break in a bone that wasn’t properly repaired. Other systems may be functioning fairly well, but the slightest pressure on the area of the break will provoke severe pain. Growing up with an inner place of unresolved trouble one finds ways of dealing with it, ways which are particular to the nature of the injury and to the individual’s personality and circumstances. Paul dealt with his pain through anger and provocation. Physiologically and emotionally he found much to confirm him in this outlet. He had the excitement of rebelling and of rousing his mother to rage, exercising a power in the home that his youth would otherwise belie. Suffering the inevitable punishments meted out by her or his father, he could release pent-up emotions with his tears and self-pity. Abasing himself and seeking reconciliation with the loved one, his mother, he could bathe for a brief time in the warmth of her closeness and love.

The adaptations -- mental, physical, and emotional -- that we form during childhood to deal with painful experiences can be successful in the sense that they allow us to maintain a connection to the source and nature of our pain by re-enacting it in some form over and over, while still being able to move forward in other essential areas of development. As we come to maturity, however, these adaptations, by their very origin immature, hamper our quest to fulfill adult roles in a satisfying manner. Recognizing that something is not working and developing insight about the nature and origins of the behaviour that is thwarting one’s desires is but a beginning.