There are books I come back to repeatedly, looking for reference, guidance, or inspiration... And then there are those worth rereading. One such book is ‘The body keeps the score’ by Bessel van der Kolk, a book that took me a year to read and another to digest as it triggered many processes. At the time, I wasn’t interested in healing anyone else’s traumas but my own, so that’s how I read it, taking in all that spoke to me personally and not paying much attention to things irrelevant to my personal journey.

Not long ago, I enrolled in a Master program for Trauma treatment with Bessel van der Kolk and other equally impressive lecturers, and to prepare, I went back to those pages, full of side notes and mouse-ears. Not to skim through, but to reread it from a different, more objective perspective.

This book is not easy reading, but it simply explains the complexities of trauma, sharing stories of real people and their struggles and connecting them to relevant research. One such story is of an obese nurse who wanted to lose weight without surgical intervention, so she enrolled in a program at an obesity clinic run by Dr Felitti and lost a staggering 120 kg over 51 weeks. She was 28 and weighed 182 kilos (408 pounds). What a massive effort that must have been! Unfortunately, it didn’t last too long. After a sexual harassment incident involving a male colleague at work, she started binge eating again. Two months after the program at the clinic ended, she gained more weight than Dr Felitti ever thought was possible in such a short time. As he talked to her, wanting to figure out what happened, she revealed a history of incest.

Not long after, Dr Felitti stumbled upon another similar story which prompted him to look deeper into the subject. Leading an obesity clinic, he had access to many subjects who were never asked about their past. Once they were, it was revealed that most of his obese patients were sexually abused as children. This was in the mid-’80s, and the finding was the first of its kind.

Dr Felitti was encouraged to do a much larger study using the general population he had access to through the Department of Preventive Medicine he ran. The study, now known as the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE), revealed that childhood trauma is more common than anyone expected. It might be good to mention that the study subjects were primarily white, middle-aged, well-educated and financially secure.

The questions included categories like physical and sexual abuse, physical and emotional neglect and family dysfunction (mentally ill parents, abuse in the household, addiction, imprisonment, etc.). More than half reported at least one, and one-fourth reported more than two categories of child abuse. Now, what is interesting is that compared to their medical records, those who had experienced childhood abuse, compared to those who had experienced none, had increased health risks for alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, and suicide attempt, also smoking, poor self-rated health, physical inactivity and severe obesity. (ACE study )

All of this made me ponder. If statistics are correct, every second person will have suffered neglect and abuse as a child and, as a result of the unresolved trauma, has a disadvantage in staying mentally and physically healthy as an adult. This realisation made me see things in a different light, and think about how often we give unsolicited advice and judge others for their unhealthy habits like smoking, binge eating, not exercising etc. (especially in the Yoga/Wellness world). While some perhaps might find our words inspiring, I wonder if, for many, they may not be helpful at all, quite the opposite. We address this issue in more detail in the Trauma Sensitive Yoga module, but as of late, I feel it's an important subject to discuss with all yoga teachers to be, so we include it in every Spanda Institute Yoga Teacher Training.

We need to acknowledge each other's pain and understand that we're all doing the best we can with the tools we were given and the cards we were dealt. Traumatised people create different protections which may or may not make sense to us. But they do to them. The nurse, from the beginning of this story, created an armour of fat around her, so no man finds her attractive and touches her. But, what we see as fat, she sees as her safety armour. People drink to numb the pain, take drugs to escape reality, or smoke to regulate themselves. Many engage in self-destructive behaviours out of self-blame. It's not a matter of choice but a matter of need. With the help of their loved ones and therapy, some traumatised individuals have found healing, but many are still stuck in their often silent suffering.

There is a lot of healing to be done on this world; hateful speech, misunderstandings and divisions we see now have made that painfully obvious. But, healing can only be done through understanding and compassion. Someone once said, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle". For sure, some are fighting a more arduous battle than others. We need to acknowledge that and help each other heal with kindness and love.

References:

Van der Kolk, The Body Keeps The Score 2014, pg 144, 145

The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study 1998 Felitti et.al.

The Wisdom of Trauma Film 2020

Photo: Luis Galvez Unsplash