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Introduce me to any one of these people. I can almost guarantee that every single one has some form of developmental trauma. I’m willing to be proven wrong, but

Introduce me to any one of these people. I can almost guarantee that every single one has some form of developmental trauma. I’m willing to be proven wrong, but after seeing a dozen ish cases up close and personal, I’m currently batting 1000. I would bet that the reason you are unaware of the past trauma is because the individuals have chosen not to disclose it to you, due to the stigma and shame associated with opening up. Also, in the most severe cases, the core wound is generally repressed until some shock to the system causes it to be more accessible.

biotech 8y ago
I can guarantee that there are many people who have no past trauma who have addiction. I can't say exactly how common it is (it may be a minority for all I know), but I know for a fact that they are there.
- mindgam3 8y ago
  I’m sure there are some of them out there. The world is a big place. My point is, the vast majority of serious cases can be traced to developmental trauma.
  - DanBC 8y ago
    > the vast majority of serious cases can be traced to developmental trauma. Citation needed.
    - mindgam3 8y ago
      Let me qualify that: every single case I have personally encountered, which is on the order of a dozen, can be traced to trauma. I’m making an educated guess about the wider prevalence. Getting societal scale data is practically impossible for many reasons including privacy. However, for those looking for some data points, I’m sure Gabor Mate’s book mentioned in the original article is full of examples. The most convincing academic references I am aware of at this time is are Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (“The Body Keeps the Score”, focused on PTSD) and Christine Courtois’s books including “Treatment of Complex Trauma“ and “Healing the Incest Wound”, both of which cite a large amount of research literature.
- mjevans 8y ago
  I hypothesize that occasionally the trauma is being in the wrong social environment; being peer pressured in to something that digs in hooks.
robocat 8y ago
I would like to see the results of a double blind test - if we look for trauma we can find it; or create it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory_syndrome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory_syndrome From the article: "in his 40s and 50s, he began to unravel the root cause – and that took him all the way back to Budapest, where he was born in January 1944. Two months later, [snip] “Right now,” the doctor replied, “all the Jewish babies are crying.” This is because, explains Maté, what happens to the parent happens to the child: the mothers were terrified, the babies were suffering, Later, Maté’s mother, fearing for his survival, left him for a month in the care of a stranger. All this, he explains, gave him a lifelong sense of abandonment and loss which had an impact on his psychological health. [snip] To compensate for his buried trauma, he had buried himself in work and neglected his family." I get that is a truth for him, but it sounds contrived as only a psychologist can do (without more context)
- mindgam3 8y ago
  As stated in the Wikipedia link you provide, so-called “False Memory Syndrome” is fake news in the sense that it is not even recognized by any psychiatric manuals (not that the DSM is necessarily a reliable guide for actual illnesses given the things that make it in there these days). To your point: yes, humans have the ability to make up stories about anything and do so frequently. Yes, there are bad or misguided psychologists out there who may manipulate some patients into saying something that isn’t true in order to, say, boost their career. Yes, there are bad psychiatrists and social workers who do the same thing. On the other hand, child abuse is a real thing that due to the crushing societal stigma tends to be severely underreported. It’s like sexual harassment cases, except the risks are even higher, so most people just never talk about it. Some people go insane because they never even admit it to themselves and end up dying of addiction trying to fill an un-fillable hole. Meanwhile, people talk about False Memory Syndrome like it is a problem of the same magnitude. It isn’t.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - robocat 8y ago
darawk 8y ago
I'm a former heroin addict. I don't have any physical trauma i'm aware of. I don't have anything in my past that I consider to be 'emotional trauma'. I had lots of friends that were also addicts (many of whom I remain friends with to this day), some of them had various forms of trauma, but many do not. It is definitely the case that trauma can cause addiction. However, I think it's over-reaching to describe it as the sole cause, especially when it comes to physically addictive drugs like opioids. Sometimes addiction just is what it looks like it is - the brain's neural nets finding a trivial solution to their prime directive.
- mindgam3 8y ago
  First, thank you for helping fix the addiction problem by reducing stigma through the act of writing about your experience. Not trying to sound patronizing here - that takes courage and I deeply respect it. I don’t believe I ever claimed that trauma is the sole cause. As stated in an earlier comment thread, I believe based on experience that it is the primary cause especially of the most severe cases. I do think you bring up a good point about some substances which are so physically addictive that it might entrap people who are less psychologically vulnerable than trauma survivors. That said, if you don’t mind me pushing for a bit more clarity here - you must have known going in that heroin is an exceedingly bad idea due to its physical addictiveness. What was it that caused you to start taking it? I am genuinely curious, not here to judge you. I might guess based on your comment that peer pressure may have been a factor, given many friends who were addicts. But if so, what was the root cause of the insecurity that caused you to be vulnerable to peer pressure in the first place? (If it wasn’t peer pressure, whatever it was... basically I’m just trying to understand what was the root cause of you personally making the unhealthy decision to try heroin)
  - darawk 8y ago
    > That said, if you don’t mind me pushing for a bit more clarity here - you must have known going in that heroin is an exceedingly bad idea due to its physical addictiveness. What was it that caused you to start taking it? I am genuinely curious, not here to judge you. I may be an odd case. I started reading about drugs on the internet, on Erowid, and various forums. I started experimenting, first with psychedelics and dissociatives, but then others things as well. Eventually I discovered opioids, and I just really really liked them. I sort of didn't believe the hype about their addiction potential, thought that I was strong enough not to have that happen to me. I also have some social anxiety, and drugs generally helped me to socialize with other people. Both by reducing my anxiety in social situations chemically, and also by having something to talk to people about that we were both interested in (drugs). > I might guess based on your comment that peer pressure may have been a factor, given many friends who were addicts. But if so, what was the root cause of the insecurity that caused you to be vulnerable to peer pressure in the first place? I wouldn't say it was peer pressure that got me into these things. I sought them out, consciously. That being said, you are right to ask about the root of the vulnerability, but it wasn't so much vulnerability to peer pressure as it was difficulty socializing, probably caused by my generally introverted nature. If you want to try to connect that back to trauma, you could say that I had a difficult time in middle school socially, but I think that's a fairly common experience. > (If it wasn’t peer pressure, whatever it was... basically I’m just trying to understand what was the root cause of you personally making the unhealthy decision to try heroin) To summarize as best I can: - Genuine curiosity - Distrust in authority and their narratives about drugs - Social anxiety - Belief in my own invulnerability, common around that age (18-21 was the time in my life) - Really really liking the way opioids made me feel
stinos 8y ago
some form of developmental trauma Depending on how you define that, doesn't nearly everyone have some form of developmental trauma? Is there really such a thing as a perfect childhood with no trauma whatsoever? Isn't going to puberty itself already enough of a traumatic experience for a lot of people out there?

biotech 8y ago

I can guarantee that there are many people who have no past trauma who have addiction. I can't say exactly how common it is (it may be a minority for all I know), but I know for a fact that they are there.

mindgam3 8y ago
I’m sure there are some of them out there. The world is a big place. My point is, the vast majority of serious cases can be traced to developmental trauma.
- DanBC 8y ago
  > the vast majority of serious cases can be traced to developmental trauma. Citation needed.
  - mindgam3 8y ago
    Let me qualify that: every single case I have personally encountered, which is on the order of a dozen, can be traced to trauma. I’m making an educated guess about the wider prevalence. Getting societal scale data is practically impossible for many reasons including privacy. However, for those looking for some data points, I’m sure Gabor Mate’s book mentioned in the original article is full of examples. The most convincing academic references I am aware of at this time is are Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (“The Body Keeps the Score”, focused on PTSD) and Christine Courtois’s books including “Treatment of Complex Trauma“ and “Healing the Incest Wound”, both of which cite a large amount of research literature.
mjevans 8y ago
I hypothesize that occasionally the trauma is being in the wrong social environment; being peer pressured in to something that digs in hooks.

robocat 8y ago

I would like to see the results of a double blind test - if we look for trauma we can find it; or create it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory_syndrome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory_syndrome From the article: "in his 40s and 50s, he began to unravel the root cause – and that took him all the way back to Budapest, where he was born in January 1944. Two months later, [snip] “Right now,” the doctor replied, “all the Jewish babies are crying.” This is because, explains Maté, what happens to the parent happens to the child: the mothers were terrified, the babies were suffering, Later, Maté’s mother, fearing for his survival, left him for a month in the care of a stranger. All this, he explains, gave him a lifelong sense of abandonment and loss which had an impact on his psychological health. [snip] To compensate for his buried trauma, he had buried himself in work and neglected his family." I get that is a truth for him, but it sounds contrived as only a psychologist can do (without more context)

mindgam3 8y ago
As stated in the Wikipedia link you provide, so-called “False Memory Syndrome” is fake news in the sense that it is not even recognized by any psychiatric manuals (not that the DSM is necessarily a reliable guide for actual illnesses given the things that make it in there these days). To your point: yes, humans have the ability to make up stories about anything and do so frequently. Yes, there are bad or misguided psychologists out there who may manipulate some patients into saying something that isn’t true in order to, say, boost their career. Yes, there are bad psychiatrists and social workers who do the same thing. On the other hand, child abuse is a real thing that due to the crushing societal stigma tends to be severely underreported. It’s like sexual harassment cases, except the risks are even higher, so most people just never talk about it. Some people go insane because they never even admit it to themselves and end up dying of addiction trying to fill an un-fillable hole. Meanwhile, people talk about False Memory Syndrome like it is a problem of the same magnitude. It isn’t.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- robocat 8y ago

darawk 8y ago

I'm a former heroin addict. I don't have any physical trauma i'm aware of. I don't have anything in my past that I consider to be 'emotional trauma'. I had lots of friends that were also addicts (many of whom I remain friends with to this day), some of them had various forms of trauma, but many do not. It is definitely the case that trauma can cause addiction. However, I think it's over-reaching to describe it as the sole cause, especially when it comes to physically addictive drugs like opioids. Sometimes addiction just is what it looks like it is - the brain's neural nets finding a trivial solution to their prime directive.

mindgam3 8y ago
First, thank you for helping fix the addiction problem by reducing stigma through the act of writing about your experience. Not trying to sound patronizing here - that takes courage and I deeply respect it. I don’t believe I ever claimed that trauma is the sole cause. As stated in an earlier comment thread, I believe based on experience that it is the primary cause especially of the most severe cases. I do think you bring up a good point about some substances which are so physically addictive that it might entrap people who are less psychologically vulnerable than trauma survivors. That said, if you don’t mind me pushing for a bit more clarity here - you must have known going in that heroin is an exceedingly bad idea due to its physical addictiveness. What was it that caused you to start taking it? I am genuinely curious, not here to judge you. I might guess based on your comment that peer pressure may have been a factor, given many friends who were addicts. But if so, what was the root cause of the insecurity that caused you to be vulnerable to peer pressure in the first place? (If it wasn’t peer pressure, whatever it was... basically I’m just trying to understand what was the root cause of you personally making the unhealthy decision to try heroin)
- darawk 8y ago
  > That said, if you don’t mind me pushing for a bit more clarity here - you must have known going in that heroin is an exceedingly bad idea due to its physical addictiveness. What was it that caused you to start taking it? I am genuinely curious, not here to judge you. I may be an odd case. I started reading about drugs on the internet, on Erowid, and various forums. I started experimenting, first with psychedelics and dissociatives, but then others things as well. Eventually I discovered opioids, and I just really really liked them. I sort of didn't believe the hype about their addiction potential, thought that I was strong enough not to have that happen to me. I also have some social anxiety, and drugs generally helped me to socialize with other people. Both by reducing my anxiety in social situations chemically, and also by having something to talk to people about that we were both interested in (drugs). > I might guess based on your comment that peer pressure may have been a factor, given many friends who were addicts. But if so, what was the root cause of the insecurity that caused you to be vulnerable to peer pressure in the first place? I wouldn't say it was peer pressure that got me into these things. I sought them out, consciously. That being said, you are right to ask about the root of the vulnerability, but it wasn't so much vulnerability to peer pressure as it was difficulty socializing, probably caused by my generally introverted nature. If you want to try to connect that back to trauma, you could say that I had a difficult time in middle school socially, but I think that's a fairly common experience. > (If it wasn’t peer pressure, whatever it was... basically I’m just trying to understand what was the root cause of you personally making the unhealthy decision to try heroin) To summarize as best I can: - Genuine curiosity - Distrust in authority and their narratives about drugs - Social anxiety - Belief in my own invulnerability, common around that age (18-21 was the time in my life) - Really really liking the way opioids made me feel

stinos 8y ago

some form of developmental trauma Depending on how you define that, doesn't nearly everyone have some form of developmental trauma? Is there really such a thing as a perfect childhood with no trauma whatsoever? Isn't going to puberty itself already enough of a traumatic experience for a lot of people out there?