[seeker33]

Sorry I decided to delete the question

If you want to can share your experience of trauma affecting mental capacity, or share general info about the topic.

[leomama]

Originally Posted by seeker33

Sorry I decided to delete the question


If you want to can share your experience of trauma affecting mental capacity, or share general info about the topic.

Why did you delete it

[Deejay14]

No it has not effected my intellect or cognition.

[shezbut]

It's affected my memory a lot ~ I only remember tiny bits and pieces (which are mostly negatives) until around 6th grade. From there, I have a lot more memories! Intellect and cognition weren't really affected, I don't think. Other factors were the cause for mine.

(((hugs))) seeker

[satsuma]

Just going on a few people I know - a traumatic childhood made them very "driven" and they have been very high achievers, although with a lot of difficulty and suffering in their personal life.

You might expect to see the opposite of course e.g. that it would be harder for an abused child to concentrate on reading or schoolwork.

An interesting and possibly related question seems to be the one about nature v nurture, e.g. is intelligence or potential primarily a genetic thing which is then influenced by our environment, or do people start more as "blank slates"...

[OliverB]

Trauma didn't have a negative impact on my cognition since I ended up reading a studying a lot to distract myself from the pain.

Originally Posted by seeker33

Sorry I decided to delete the question

If you want to can share your experience of trauma affecting mental capacity, or share general info about the topic.

for me, I think, growing up as a child, I grew up in a sort of bubble. because of all the abuse I experienced, and all the hold over me- decision making was never something I got the chance of doing, it was all made for me.

now of course I'm away from that place and can make my own decisions, but it feels wrong.. it feels like I don't have that right, and I feel in many situations- things still need to be decided for me (they arn't, I decide them myself), but it's hard and I feel if I do, I'll be punished.

I will also say that a lot of concepts that are familiar to people, are not so familiar to me- because of the same reason.. never was exposed to them, never was allowed to find out about them etc etc

[Purple Heart]

I can relate to this question. I believe yes it did! Because the abuse started pre-verbal. This affected my cognitive development including speech. I had a lot of learning and speech problems growing up. I stopped talking at about 2.5 years, why? I did some research and found this happens for people with autism or with intellectual disabilities. Therapists and friends have not found these problems in me. The thing is a lot of people over the years have said I'm highly intelligent. I have been to university and currently doing post-graduate studies. So if that is the case, why did I have so many learning and speech development problems growing up? My body memories/flashbacks tell me I was severely bullied by mother and sisters from a very young age. So today when I try to think, read, do I have body sensations of being bullied. It has done profound damage to my confidence and self-esteem. It has made it very hard to have a voice in the world. I've never felt love and acceptance by my family. So I do believe abuse can stunt a person's intellectual development.

PH

[pachyderm]

Yes, it has affected me drastically. Only in those times when I start to think clearly can I see how much.

[12AM]

Originally Posted by pachyderm

Yes, it has affected me drastically. Only in those times when I start to think clearly can I see how much.

Same

....

[pachyderm]

I think intellect is affected by trauma in this way:

The first reaction is to engage the fight response, or the flight response if fighting cannot work. If as a child neither of those is available, and the trauma situation continues and the person perceives their very survival to be at stake, then to preserve what is left of sanity the mind can shut off most other responses and go into almost a dormant state. It is a desperate move, but available if nothing else is, though it means any defenses are unavailable, and your survival depends on the attacker (I assume that is what is happening) being confused by your shutdown and quiting attacking.

I think that sort of thing happened to me, and the effects of the near shutdown of much thinking ability, and its replacement by pure instinct, lasted until puberty, and its effects are still noticeable today.

[amandalouise]

no trauma did not negatively affect my intellect/ cognition. in fact it helped it. Because of the trauma I went through I became a dissociative to the most extreme. this ability to dissociate gave me the ability of high concentration/ blocking out distractions, or anything else remotely positively or negatively triggering going on around me. Not to mention for fear of abuse I learned how to memorize/ study and learn things the first time around, my abusers never had to tell or show me something more than once. I was what they called Hyper vigilant, even in a numbed out spaced out frame of mind I was acutely aware when someone was approaching me. teachers move around a classroom a lot. I also had another advantage that came from my extremely traumatic childhood. I had alternate personalities. each of my alters had their own way being, what they could and could not do. that meant the one who did the Math had lots of cognitive skills for math, problem solving and so on. I was "one creative and very smart child with fantastic cognitive abilities when my head was on my work" appeared many times on my school records.

[cptsdwhoa]

I don't think it's really affected my intellect. I can still learn and I am surprised by my vocabulary sometimes! It's difficult to believe that I am intelligent when I hear people say it though. I'm still exploring what I know and can learn though.

Memory though! Whew! My short term memory seems to be shot lol. It's funny because in high school my friends thought I was so trustworthy with their secrets. I kept them of course, but I realize that due to relationship issues and "zoning out" due to trauma I honestly just didn't remember what they told me! To this day I have that problem.

[cptsdwhoa]

Originally Posted by amandalouise

no trauma did not negatively affect my intellect/ cognition. in fact it helped it. Because of the trauma I went through I became a dissociative to the most extreme. this ability to dissociate gave me the ability of high concentration/ blocking out distractions, or anything else remotely positively or negatively triggering going on around me. Not to mention for fear of abuse I learned how to memorize/ study and learn things the first time around, my abusers never had to tell or show me something more than once. I was what they called Hyper vigilant, even in a numbed out spaced out frame of mind I was acutely aware when someone was approaching me. teachers move around a classroom a lot. I also had another advantage that came from my extremely traumatic childhood. I had alternate personalities. each of my alters had their own way being, what they could and could not do. that meant the one who did the Math had lots of cognitive skills for math, problem solving and so on. I was "one creative and very smart child with fantastic cognitive abilities when my head was on my work" appeared many times on my school records.

WOW! Maybe I was dissociating as well! Now I understand why I am so good at tuning things out and having the appearance of calm. I escaped my trauma by blocking out all of the "noise" of the trauma happening. It got to the point that I would literally just sit and turn up the t.v. wait for the violence and fighting to stop and calmly waiting until it was over.