Just curious

I am a volunteer CASA and today I spent the entire day in a seminar titled "The Impact of Trauma on Healthy Growth and Development" by Dr. Barbara Sorrels.

She taught me many things today, but the one thing that really sticks with me is that almost ALL mental illnesses are the result of some type of childhood trauma.

What I want to know is how many people are on this site that DID NOT experience childhood trauma. I realize there are going to be some people that dissociated and may not know, but I'm just curious in general. This isn't a formal question, just me being curious.

I'm not sure if what I think of abusive or cruel behavior towards me counts as "trauma." One strong memory I have is my parents taking me on one of those cars (I forget what they're called) that are on cables that carry you across land to a mountain (kind of like ski lifts), and I was scared, and I could see it was so far down if we fell, and I screamed, "Let me out of here!" scaring the other people in the car. I don't know if that caused anything, or I already had signs of anxiety even when I was that small, but my family used to tell the story and laugh about it. It's never been funny to me.

I don't remember any actual trauma, just bad things that happened to me. I was very timid and shy as a kid.

Not sure if this counted as trauma or abuse.

Since I was a kid, I've been alienated or rejected a lot. Even one teacher keep picked up on me. I managed to get few friends, but never popular. My parents always disagree with me and hate all things I do. At my teenage times, I got bullied. Teachers sided with bully and bully me even more. I never tell my parents since they will sided with teachers and blame me in the end. Yeah, the teen times scarred me a lot, but it is not childhood times.

As older I am, things gradually better. Still, I have problem to trust anyone unless if they are as gloomy as me.

That's a popular theory lately....not sure if I buy it though. Even though it's a nice tidy explation.

However..... I have 2 kids, they grew up together. One is a healthy, happy, emotionally stable person. The other one is a violent, deeply disturbed, bipolar, schizo affective, psychotic , abuses substances, and has been in jails and hospitals more times than I can count. Go figure. Who knows?

That's a very interesting theory. It brings to mind the Hemingway family who have had so much mental illness in the extended family including multiple S. I just wonder how that can be explained by that theory. Good luck in your quest.

I'm afraid I am one of those mentioned in the theory. I feel, though, that I had only a genetic vulnerability and the traumas flipped the switch so to speak.

Best wishes.

Well, I guess I found it interesting because she's done decades of work with traumatized children - keeping in mind there are dozens of ways a person can be traumatized - and the results she's seen over the years.

Also, she did iterate that it's not every single case of MI, nor in every case of trauma does a person develop PTSD. The brains of traumatised people are different as well.

I have not undergone any severe childhood trauma. We were poor and struggled in that sense sometimes, but it was a loving, single parent home. I have struggled with mental illness to some degree since I was a young child, and it runs in my family big time. I think sometimes mental illness may have a purely biological cause.

In my case, I am the only one, and I am the only one who was severly abused.

I agree, though, in some cases, it's purely biological. The question is, why?

Is the primary cause trauma, and the secondary cause biological?

In the list she gave us of the types of trauma, some surprised me.

Abuse
Divorce
Prenatal exposure
Adoption
Incarceration
Emotional abuse
Neglect
Difficult pregnancy
Early medical trauma
Foster care
Death
Premature birth
Sexual abuse
Difficult birth
Surrogacy
Military deployment
Abandonment

I'm not sure if that's the entire list, but it's the one she gave us.

I've never had any kind of trauma, but I still don't know how to handle my life..

The problem with that theory is that children who are predisposed to mental illness are usually much more sensitive to what might not be abuse to a child who is not inclined to become mentally ill.

Personally, I grew up in a violent and clearly abusive home.

My grown daughter grew up with my husband and I and our son in a very loving home. There was zero abuse. But my daughter, though doing very well in life, has battled severe anxiety since she was a small child.

I believe that most people who are mentally ill did experience abuse while growing up, but many did not. Also, poverty is a factor. A home might be free of abuse and very loving, but poverty can cause serious childhood issues.

Good questions, Olanza-what?. Genetics play a very large role in mental illness, that's for sure.

Werewoman, what is CASA?

Court Appointed Special Advocate for foster children.

My gut feeling is its wrong , ie non scientific to presume every mental illness is due to traumatic stress. The only diagnosis I can think of is PTSD. Okay one other one Complex PTSD. I find that the all MIs are due to trauma is way over generalizing I believe MI is much too much complex for that. There is genetics, environment family history, ie genetic and environmental factors.

I think I need to reiterate that it was recognized that trauma was not the only, just a much bigger factor than previously thought. Perhaps I didn't word it properly.

Either way, it's a lousy choice, nature or nuture, so to speak.