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The Body Keeps the Score: Book Summary

217 points by jger15 7y ago

tomhoward 7y ago
I could be seen as a living case study for these theories. I started experiencing a complex combination of physiological symptoms in early adulthood (actually in childhood in some ways), that gradually got worse into my 30s. All kinds of treatments were suggested and tried over several years, but nothing really moved the needle until I started regular practice of subconscious emotional healing techniques. I've been doing this type of work for about 7 years now. There is improvement in a lot of areas, though the process is not complete. I still have some anxiety and muscle tension/pain, and evidence of inflammation in my body. But it's not nearly as bad as it was before I started the emotional work. And I keep finding new emotional baggage to heal. So it's a long journey, but the results are clear. It's hard to talk about with peers, as there's a general attitude among scientifically-minded people that the notion of a link between emotions/thoughts and physiology is absurd. Yet the very same people will generally insist that there is no mind-body distinction, and that consciousness is obviously just an emergent phenomenon of brain matter/chemistry. Apparently it doesn't occur to a lot of people that if mind and body are one and the same, mind activity must surely be deeply interconnected to physiology. Anyway, that's a little of my story. AMA.
- zeofig 7y ago
  Sounds interesting. I also have some minor but unsettling symptoms which I think could be related to such things. Would you mind sharing what kind of symptoms you experience?
  - tomhoward 7y ago
    It ended up as something resembling "chronic fatigue syndrome". That very concept is controversial, as is the notion that it has any underlying emotional cause, so I don't frequent CFS communities or talk about it in those terms much, but it does seem to be in that sphere of illnesses. Defining symptoms have included chronic muscle tension/pain, slow digestion, immune system dysfunction, enlarged/painful lymph nodes, unrefreshing sleep, always feeling under-oxygenated/undernourished even when having a very healthy diet, a constant sense feeling "tired and wired", or "spinning the wheels"; i.e., at-once feeling exhausted, but also like your body/mind is working at full speed, but not being able to get much forward momentum in life.
    - balfirevic 7y ago
      What are the techniques you've used? Any information available online?
      - tomhoward 7y ago
        My reply here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21342725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21342725
    - rewgs 7y ago
      You're basically describing the past 10 years of medical mystery for me, especially this: "unrefreshing sleep, always feeling under-oxygenated/undernourished even when having a very healthy diet, a constant sense feeling "tired and wired", or "spinning the wheels"; i.e., at-once feeling exhausted, but also like your body/mind is working at full speed, but not being able to get much forward momentum in life." Completely, utterly on point. Thank you!
      - bosie 7y ago
        How do you feel 'undernourished'?
        rewgs 7y ago
        Hard to explain, but I guess Bilbo Baggins said it best: "like butter scraped over too much bread." I exercise (primarily weights and yoga, plus cardio here and there) 3-4 times per week, eat incredibly healthy (lots of greens and lean proteins), get enough sleep (7-9 hours). My blood pressure, weight, and BMI are great. I have sleep apnea and am allergic to wheat but have treated those as best I can (the former is difficult, the latter is quite simple). And yet, I feel sort of "removed." Constantly fatigued. Kind of like being in caffeine withdrawal (and no, that's not it). Don't feel as strong as my exercise and age (late 20's) would have you think. Always dehydrated. Very little "vitality." Around the same time period, I was "floxxed" by Cipro, and got Mono. My best explanation is that it has something to do with one or both, but no doctor has ever figured it out. By all accounts, I'm very healthy. I just constantly feel like shit.
- peteretep 7y ago
  > as there's a general attitude among scientifically-minded people that the notion of a link between emotions/thoughts and physiology is absurd I am surprised to hear that's the case, and also it absolutely does not match my experience of the scientifically minded people I know, all of whom are familiar with both the placebo effect and the term psychosomatic.
  - chongli 7y ago
    Anyone who is scientifically minded enough to have spent some time learning biology and human anatomy has probably heard of hormones such as adrenaline and have felt their effects on the body. Under stress we sweat, feel jittery or flighty, get dry mouth, have trouble speaking clearly, and more. Casually speaking, it might seem easy to wave off such body changes in response to emotion as a temporary thing. That would be premature. Cortisol is another hormone associated with stress and people with stressful lives show elevated cortisol levels which may be related to weight gain and obesity [1]. [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2009.76 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2009.76
  - tomhoward 7y ago
    > all of whom are familiar with both the placebo effect and the term psychosomatic Sure, but those concepts are more often regarded with dismissiveness in the context I'm talking about. Try proposing to such a person that chronic auto-immune illness, that has resisted treatment by conventional medicine, could be remedied via non-mainstream subconscious healing techniques. It's notable that zealots end up tying themselves in knots over these topics. In attacking homeopathy (which, to be clear, I’m not into), Science Based Medicine [1] goes as far as claiming that the placebo effect doesn't bring about any actual physiological improvement, but rather just brings about a feeling of wellbeing. This seems to contradict the way in which it the concept is used in mainstream medical trials. It also presumes that "feeling good" and physiological healing are unrelated concepts, which would be surprising from an evolutionary perspective. But hey what do I know? I'm no doctor, just a poor shmo trying to make sense of it all while trying whatever means possible to get well. [1] https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo-myths-debunked/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo-myths-debunked/
- veganjay 7y ago
  Thanks for sharing your experience. Could please describe more about subconscious emotional healing techniques? How did you learn about it and is it a solitary practice or one that is guided by a professional?
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    I am curious too.
    - ianai 7y ago
      Me three
  - tomhoward 7y ago
    Everyone curious about this is welcome to email me (address in profile). If you don't hear from me, hit me up again; I'm intending to prepare a doc that explains the approach I've used. I don't want it to be too long, but I just need to find the time to do make it adequate. But if you can't wait for me to do that, reading/watching content by Bruce Lipton is a good start.
    - circlefavshape 7y ago
      Uurgh, dude - it's not the emotional healing that puts scientifically-minded people off, it's Bruce Lipton's language. "The subconscious mind is operating at a vibrational frequency of theta". What? That's the kind of nonsense I get from the stoners down in my local pub. If his techniques work, they work, and I'm happy for you that you have improved your life. I, however, find such language so off-putting that I can't imagine ever trying anything like this
      - tomhoward 7y ago
        Are you actually in need of this kind of help in the first place? If not, why not just ignore it and move on, rather than posting drive-by bile like this as your one-and-only contribution to the entire thread? His presentation style is not for everyone, sure. Nobody’s is. He talks in pictures and metaphors, which for many people is the most effective way to receive information. Not you? No worries! But consider that you’re only talking about persuasiveness of language/presentation for yourself, not science. The very quote you picked out to mock is perfectly valid science.
- rectangletangle 7y ago
  I would honestly be surprised if this kind of link didn't have at least some measurable impact, physiology is hardly decoupled (in the coding sense). It's been well established that poor mental health (loss of will to live) correlates strongly with early mortality, even when controlling for obvious variables. Though establishing the causality on that is challenging. There are lots of strange physiological links that aren't necessarily logical, due to the imperfect nature of natural selection (it strives for the local optima and "good enough," over the global optima). For instance it's well documented that consciously smiling improves mood, even though the causality is "backwards."
  - amelius 7y ago
    > natural selection (it strives for the local optima and "good enough," over the global optima) It might also optimize for the community rather than the individual, I suppose.
- Lewton 7y ago
  One way that emotional healing could possibly have real positive effects on symptoms is if the symptoms are remnants from a real disease that have passed. As an analogy. When you’re stretching your muscles, you’re generally not actually elongating any part of your body, instead you’re teaching your nervous system that it’s safe to move your muscles in the range you’re stretching into. Most people get to experience acute back pain in their life, and will notice how this can cause your entire back to freeze up, even well past the point of where the actual thing that caused the pain has been healed. This is the nervous system protecting your back from hurting itself. Making it a necessary part of rehabilitation to do stretches to show your body that the range of motion is safe again. In the same kind of way, actively working on mentally overcoming symptoms that were your body’s reaction to real disease or trauma that has since passed, can have very real effects. This could be in the form of meditation, therapy or even faith healing(!) [0] [0] see derren brown talk about his experiences doing faith healing as a skeptic https://youtu.be/CCzzaDwUuDk https://youtu.be/CCzzaDwUuDk time stamp 22 minutes 18 seconds
  - jvln 7y ago
    The analogy about muscle streching is wrong.
    - SamBam 7y ago
      There's a fair bit of evidence now than most of stretching is, indeed, actually about training the body not to reflexively contract to fight the stretch. > Due to neurological safeguards against injury such as the Golgi tendon reflex, it is normally impossible for adults to stretch most muscle groups to their fullest length without training due to the activation of muscle antagonists as the muscle reaches the limit of its normal range of motion. [1] > First, they end up mostly agreeing with a body of previous research suggesting that increased range of motion following a prolonged stretching program is mainly the result of increased tolerance to the sensation of stretching, rather than actually loosening the muscle-tendon unit. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretching [2] https://www.runnersworld.com/health-injuries/a20811349/does-stretching-loosen-muscles-and-tendons/ https://www.runnersworld.com/health-injuries/a20811349/does-...
- billman 7y ago
  Have you read John Sarno?
- superpermutat0r 7y ago
  My partner is also heavily burdened by emotional trauma that has resulted in asthma, stomach issues, urinary tract infections (where every urinary analysis finds some other obscure bacteria, not common anywhere). The emotional trauma, constant tension, lack of meaning, depression, inability to learn anything, or learning very slowly, bad autobiographical memory, all symptoms listed in the article. I truly believe if she were to do something about the mind that stuff would get better. And I'm a very hard-science guy that reads Cochrane and doubts everything. Although, problem is that CBT does not work for her, talking with professionals does not work too. Obviously, the issues are that the bodies immune system is weakened from some stress that should not be there.
  - elbear 7y ago
    The article also mentions that CBT does little for this kind of trauma. There are more effective treatments. They're listed towards the end.
netfl0 7y ago
It is really hard to determine what qualifies as trauma in this article. It seems like a spectrum of course, but it is hard to tell what region of the spectrum is being focused on.
- Hnrobert42 7y ago
  One of his primary arguments in the book is that trauma is not always a dramatic event like those usually associated with PTSD. Instead, trauma, especially as experienced in childhood, can be sustained abuse, degradation, neglect with a cumulative impact equal to that of a dramatic event.
- palimpsests 7y ago
  trauma is not an event or sequence of events, trauma is the physiological response to an event or sequence of events that were highly stressful. trauma is a collection of symptoms, biomarkers, and behavioral adaptations.
mindgam3 7y ago
I cannot praise this book highly enough. Every single person who has ever experienced depression or anxiety should read it.
eindiran 7y ago
I don't understand how "trauma is universal" is a reasonable interpretation of the facts that are related there. I'm always wary of an argument that hinges on the meaning of a word being changed (the subtle expansion of "trauma"; the standard definition being called "acute trauma" instead), but in this case I don't think even the expanded definition of trauma supports the conclusion that trauma is a "near universal human experience". The ACE study mentioned ([0]) suggests that about 2/3 of people have 1 or more ACE, but after looking at the definition of ACE they used, it appears to use a significantly weaker definition of trauma than even the expanded one given explicitly in the article: it includes having a parent with a mental health issue, having a chronic health condition while young, or being chronically separated from a parent (due to eg divorce). Further, it looks like there is quite a bit of clustering: people with ACEs that qualify as classic traumas tend to have several. Perhaps trauma is much more pervasive than I thought, but it looks to me like the definition of trauma was changed quite significantly to make the claim hold. [0] https://www.aap.org/en-us/Documents/ttb_aces_consequences.pdf https://www.aap.org/en-us/Documents/ttb_aces_consequences.pd... There is more info on the wiki page here as well: [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_Childhood_Experiences_Study https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_Childhood_Experience...
- tomhoward 7y ago
  I agree with that, and held back from including it in my original comment to avoid letting it be too long. Through the subconscious healing work I've done, few of the events/issues I've processed are ones that I would characterise as trauma. Little of it involves abuse, violence, separation or anything else that fits the conventional definition of trauma. But it is a snowballing history of unpleasant life experiences, which all compounds and steadily amplifies one's underlying sense of anxiety, fear and distrust of themselves and the world, along with the severity of physiological symptoms.
  - kqr 7y ago
    > But it is a snowballing history of unpleasant life experiences, which all compounds and steadily amplifies one's underlying sense of anxiety, fear and distrust of themselves and the world This fits in so much better with my understanding of how humans learn other things as well: through many tiny increments, not in one sudden dramatic event.
bloopernova 7y ago
Ironic that the pain clinic doctor who recommended this book to me was also the most abusive doctor I've ever met. They caused trauma through emotional abuse and gaslighting to multiple patients before they were fired.
- christefano 7y ago
  I’m so sorry that happened to you. For what it’s worth, Bessel Van der Kolk is not without issue himself. Here’s a partial transcript that I wrote up (so any mistakes are my own) when listening to a podcast episode about trauma and abuse. The relevant part is around time code 30:00. https://www.probablypoly.com/post/episode-25-interviewing-samantha-manewitz-from-polyamory-s-me-too-survivor-pod https://www.probablypoly.com/post/episode-25-interviewing-sa... Trigger warning: trauma, gaslighting, and abuse Mandee Conant: Well, I think it’s important not to discount the book, More Than Two, because we know that Eve had a lot of input into this book, but as a whole, just because someone writes a book about something does not make them an expert in it, and I think we kind of… as a community we kind of took that because their book was one of first how-to manual what to do, what not to do resources fo us, so he must be an expert. And we just took that, we took that too easily, and we need to learn to not do that. Samantha Manewitz: And sometimes even when when people are experts they can still be terrible people. For example, Bessel Van der Kolk, who founded The Trauma Center in Brooklyn, which is my back yard. He wrote wrote the book, The Body Keeps the Score, which is required reading in any grunt school and required reading for anyone who ever wants to go into trauma work. Period, full stop. I was initially applying for a job at The Trauma Center, and then it came out in The Globe that his co-writer and co-founder and CEO was horrifically abusive and he created a toxic work environment, and the way he responded was just textbook gaslighting, and then sort of [wrote this letter] why these people didn’t come tell him to his face. Yes, why would someone with 1 or 2 years under their belt make ever make a criticism about this person who the luminary of trauma work. If anyone should know better, it’s Bessel Van der Kolk.
  - jeancasimir 7y ago
    "The Globe that his co-writer and co-founder and CEO was horrifically abusive and he created a toxic work environment, and the way he responded was just textbook gaslighting" Not very helpful to throw somebody under the bus for having a bad work partner...
numbers 7y ago
Thanks for the summary, I will definitely be reading this!!
peteretep 7y ago
> Consider the case of antidepressants. If they were indeed a permanent, long-term solution, depression should by now have become a minor issue in society. Yet it has not made a dent in hospital admissions. The number of people treated for depression has tripled over the past two decades, and one in ten Americans now take antidepressants. This is not how logic works.
- jonfw 7y ago
  Would you care to support that statement?
  - peteretep 7y ago
    > If they were indeed a permanent, long-term solution, depression should by now have become a minor issue in society. Chemotherapy is a permanent, long-term solution for cancer, and yet cancer has not become a minor issue in society. Anti-depressants are life-saving medication for many many people, but not everyone gets the right dose, not everyone continues taking them, and in some people they plain don't work. Claiming that they're somehow not a solution for depression because they don't work for everyone, all the time, is logical fallacies all the way down. > Yet it has not made a dent in hospital admissions This is a stupid sentence. First, it's not sourced. Secondly, in the hospital admissions of whom? New patients or admissions of patients on anti-depressants? The first is an absolutely pointless statistic because -- who knew?! -- medicine that hasn't been administered doesn't work. If he's claiming that over the group of people taking anti-depressants, their rates of admission post anti-depressants doesn't decline, that's still a shitty statistic, for a whole range of what should be obvious reasons, but I can spell out for you in a further comment if needed, but start with the fact that most people _develop_ mental health issues as they get older, and almost anyone who's hospitalized for a mental health issue will get medicated at that point moving forward, and anyone who's been hospitalized once for depression is dramatically more likely to be hospitalized again. Unless the exact statistic being cited here is that there's no difference in readmission rates for patients who have been hospitalized for depression between those who took their medicine and those who didn't, it's absolutely ridiculous to be using to support his argument. Did I mention he didn't cite it? > The number of people treated for depression has tripled over the past two decades So? It seems like "common sense" that as a society we're better at talking about mental health than we used to be, and referring (rather than simply jailing) the mentally ill than we used to be. I bet his source (oh look, he didn't fucking cite it again) attributes this to many many many other factors rather than the non efficacy of anti-depressants > and one in ten Americans now take antidepressants. Again, this has nothing to do with his argument
meesterdude 7y ago
Great book, by the father (to most at least) of PTSD and CPTSD. Has revealed for me the role of trauma in my life, and those of basically everyone around me. But after reading it, i felt a little... lost. I knew a lot about the problem space, and some solutions outlined, but it wasn't integrated within me, and all i had was a few therapies I could try out and hope the best for. Luckily, the next book I picked up was Mindsight by Dr. Daniel Siegel, and that has helped immensely in applying the knowledge of The Body Keeps Score, to bring about a shift in focus and presence in our bodies. One thing he talked about that i found of interest is a column of neurons, only 6 deep, that make up our perceptions of reality. the top 3, take on a top down approach from the cortex downwards; while the bottom 3 come up from the limbic area of our sensory inputs - and it is in the middle of space of the column that reality appears - a mix of our past perceptions and preferences, with what we are observing in the here and now. So, What happens with PTSD? There is a shift towards the top-down thinking, and a muting (or overriding) of limbic signals. In the tug of war of 6 neurons, the top down wins out over our perceptions - allowing people to experience and truly relive flashbacks of traumas like war in their bedroom - they are detached from their limbic signaling. Which is why - mindfulness, meditation, and being more present in your body matter so much. What you pay attention to matters - and allows us to hone/reshape firing patterns. https://www.amazon.com/Mindsight-New-Science-Personal-Transformation/dp/0553386395 https://www.amazon.com/Mindsight-New-Science-Personal-Transf...
- deleted 7y ago
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abledon 7y ago
Bottom-up regulation involves recalibrating the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which originates in the brain stem. We can access the ANS through breath, movement, or touch. sad as it is, the state of modern yoga, and the bullsh* * of lululemon, 500hr certs, and instagram etc, people had it figured out so long ago, how to go underneath the conscious layer and heal trauma through moving meditation. I wonder how the future parents of this generation will reduce trauma being carried in their bloodline or add to it?
jeromebaek 7y ago
It’s a great book.
mitchtbaum 7y ago
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=lPVBrRd9wCo https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=lPVBrRd9wCo
saaaaaam 7y ago
How curious to see this here. I got talking to a guy on a train journey the other day and he gave me this book. He said it had changed his life.
djaychela 7y ago
I'm 48, and suffered from debilitating back pain until the last few years; it started when I was badly beaten up when I was 19, and got worse as the years went on - each episode would become worse and longer-lasting until around 7-8 years ago it was so bad I was in constant pain all day, every day, but with episodes of pain so bad I can't really describe it every couple of months or so. I've never been overweight or had any other issues, and people couldn't understand why my back was so bad or the pain so intense. (me included) It was only learning to relax (and starting meditation) and stopping seeing my body as the enemy (thanks to the kind encouragement of my girlfriend as well as working with Alexander technique teachers) that I started to make any improvement, and this combined with appropriate physical exercises has meant that I've been fortunate to have nearly 2 years of normal life (which to me in the past would have just been a dream) - no spasms, no 'episodes', and now I can do normal things like go for a walk and not worry if I'll make it back, etc. I was physically abused by my father when I was a child (fortunately he died when I was 8), and I really didn't think it had effected me much, but I now realise I spend most of my time out in public assessing who poses a physical attack risk to me, and it's only since talking my my girlfriend about it (she's training to be a counsellor and has this book by her bed) that I've realised that this is -not- normal! My life is unrecognisably better since taking this sort of thinking on board. I'm definitely a 'science' person - lifelong atheist, try to be as rational as possible, etc - but we still don't know everything, particularly of how incredibly complex the human brain is, and how it can control so much of not only our experience, but our existence.
- eurekin 7y ago
  Can you elaborate on the specific techniques you used (Alexander technique, meditating)?
  - djaychela 7y ago
    In terms of meditation, I've been using Sam Harris' "Waking Up" app as it's chimed with me greatly; I was originally using Headspace, but it didn't click with me in the same way (plus I'm a fan of Harris and have listened to his podcast since it began). Alexander Technique lessons have been a revelation in terms of understanding how I move, and how much tension I was carrying in my body all the time, plus learning to use the 'right' muscles in the body for posture. There is also an element of meditative mindset present with both my teachers, which has helped with my default 'judgemental' mind-state. I think that Alexander Technique is hugely important, but it's subtle and difficult to describe - I think it's a case of going for a few lessons and seeing if it works for/with you, as it sounds like "woo" to a lot of people - it did to me until I tried it. I think the combination of all these things has helped greatly to move me in the right direction towards a better way of living, and not fighting myself all the time.
alpaca128 7y ago
> The lawyer would get totally absorbed in devising a strategy for winning a case, and would stay up all night enmeshed in the details. “It was like being in combat,” he said. He felt fully alive, and like nothing else mattered. But when the case finished, win or lose, he would lose his energy and sense of purpose. This sounds like me but with programming. It's the one thing I can always do and focus on no matter how the rest of my life is going. But outside of it I constantly need to push myself to do anything.
- arandr0x 7y ago
  Find more exciting stuff to do outside of it. There's something of a percentage of the population that are probably meant to be running on loads of adrenaline all the time, and people are happy to capitalize on their restlessness to make them produce things to sell at work and buy things to feel better outside, like unhappy ever-moving little economic wheels.
Pick-A-Hill2019 7y ago
I too found the book extremely helpful and informative. A therapist I know recommended a companion book by Peter Levine called Healing Trauma (ISBN: 9781591796589), also available on YT as an audio book. It uses mental imagery as a way of relieving the symptons of trauma without having to relive the actual event(s). Although some of the imagery exercises are sometimes brutal/exhausting it seems the basic under laying theory of the book is using a form of exposure therapy reduces the impacts of flashbacks to the point of ripples in a stream of consciousness rather than the usual roaring tidal wave. YMMV.
alexandercrohde 7y ago
I wanted to upvote this, but the more I read it the more it felt unscientifically culty. Claims pretty much every psychiatric inconvenience (distraction, laziness, stress, restlessness) can be caused by "trauma." Proposes "trauma" is so blanket that anyone/everyone can have it. This would all be terribly interesting if there were links to scientific studies validating any of this. Let me know when there's a "cure" for trauma that treats distraction/laziness and a double-blind study finds clinical significance for it. I'll let the FDA vet my panaceas for me, thank you very much.
twoquestions 7y ago
> All of us, but especially children, need such confidence—confidence that others will know, affirm, and cherish us. But they won't. I don't know what fantasy land the author and reviewer live in, but here in America in 2019, the world is a dangerous, knife-edged, and pitiless place where it's a constant fight of all against all. Anyone you meet, even immediate family members, is your enemy by default, and usually an ally at best. Everyone ruthlessly exploits everyone else to survive, everyone kills and dies by inches to eat tomorrow. I've no idea where these people come from saying people love and support one another. Out here, others are either threats or exploitation targets, not partners. Very good article nevertheless, helps to sort out adaptive things from maladaptive things.
- marmadukester39 7y ago
  This worldview you are trapped in will damage you in exactly the ways enumerated above. I hope that you find a new story to live in.
  - viklove 7y ago
    I disagree, and if you go through life expecting everyone to constantly support you, you won't make it very far once you start to face any real adversity. You have to learn to rely on yourself, at least that's what my experiences have shown me. You may be living in a story, but the rest of us have to live in the real world.
- rayalez 7y ago
  > Everyone ruthlessly exploits everyone else to survive [...] Out here, others are either threats or exploitation targets, not partners. "Everyone" is a strong word. People are very different. Some are evil, some are admirable and kind, most have a mix of good and bad traits. To me, a random internet commenter with no horse in this race, this comment sounds really disturbing, it sounds like you're having some problems warping your world view(or maybe you're just hanging out with the wrong people). I'm not usually the one to diagnose random strangers, but what you're saying sounds pretty extreme. Biased, or influenced by some psychological thing, I don't know. Either way, not factually accurate. Do you have at least one person that you like, that you can talk to about this stuff? I don't really know what advice to give you. I'm just gonna say that even though it's easy to see all the ugliness and flaws in human nature, there's a lot of goodness and beauty in it too. Make an effort to see good in people, or to seek out people that are good. There are plenty.
kbos87 7y ago
I had seen and passed this book over a number of times because I never experienced what I thought was true trauma. It was only after evidence of past trauma came out in some neuropsych testing I recently did to see if I had ADHD that I reconsidered my past experiences and how they may have impacted who I am today. I’m looking at some things differently and understanding how they may have affected me - growing up LGBT and isolated as a result, with parents who had a dysfunctional and often rocky relationship. I’m starting to see that trauma doesn’t necessarily mean you were subjected to some sort of violence or single life shattering event, especially as a child.

217 points by jger15 7y ago

I could be seen as a living case study for these theories. I started experiencing a complex combination of physiological symptoms in early adulthood (actually in childhood in some ways), that gradually got worse into my 30s. All kinds of treatments were suggested and tried over several years, but nothing really moved the needle until I started regular practice of subconscious emotional healing techniques. I've been doing this type of work for about 7 years now. There is improvement in a lot of areas, though the process is not complete. I still have some anxiety and muscle tension/pain, and evidence of inflammation in my body. But it's not nearly as bad as it was before I started the emotional work. And I keep finding new emotional baggage to heal. So it's a long journey, but the results are clear. It's hard to talk about with peers, as there's a general attitude among scientifically-minded people that the notion of a link between emotions/thoughts and physiology is absurd. Yet the very same people will generally insist that there is no mind-body distinction, and that consciousness is obviously just an emergent phenomenon of brain matter/chemistry. Apparently it doesn't occur to a lot of people that if mind and body are one and the same, mind activity must surely be deeply interconnected to physiology. Anyway, that's a little of my story. AMA.

zeofig 7y ago
Sounds interesting. I also have some minor but unsettling symptoms which I think could be related to such things. Would you mind sharing what kind of symptoms you experience?
- tomhoward 7y ago
  It ended up as something resembling "chronic fatigue syndrome". That very concept is controversial, as is the notion that it has any underlying emotional cause, so I don't frequent CFS communities or talk about it in those terms much, but it does seem to be in that sphere of illnesses. Defining symptoms have included chronic muscle tension/pain, slow digestion, immune system dysfunction, enlarged/painful lymph nodes, unrefreshing sleep, always feeling under-oxygenated/undernourished even when having a very healthy diet, a constant sense feeling "tired and wired", or "spinning the wheels"; i.e., at-once feeling exhausted, but also like your body/mind is working at full speed, but not being able to get much forward momentum in life.
  - balfirevic 7y ago
    What are the techniques you've used? Any information available online?
    - tomhoward 7y ago
      My reply here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21342725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21342725
  - rewgs 7y ago
    You're basically describing the past 10 years of medical mystery for me, especially this: "unrefreshing sleep, always feeling under-oxygenated/undernourished even when having a very healthy diet, a constant sense feeling "tired and wired", or "spinning the wheels"; i.e., at-once feeling exhausted, but also like your body/mind is working at full speed, but not being able to get much forward momentum in life." Completely, utterly on point. Thank you!
    - bosie 7y ago
      How do you feel 'undernourished'?
      - rewgs 7y ago
        Hard to explain, but I guess Bilbo Baggins said it best: "like butter scraped over too much bread." I exercise (primarily weights and yoga, plus cardio here and there) 3-4 times per week, eat incredibly healthy (lots of greens and lean proteins), get enough sleep (7-9 hours). My blood pressure, weight, and BMI are great. I have sleep apnea and am allergic to wheat but have treated those as best I can (the former is difficult, the latter is quite simple). And yet, I feel sort of "removed." Constantly fatigued. Kind of like being in caffeine withdrawal (and no, that's not it). Don't feel as strong as my exercise and age (late 20's) would have you think. Always dehydrated. Very little "vitality." Around the same time period, I was "floxxed" by Cipro, and got Mono. My best explanation is that it has something to do with one or both, but no doctor has ever figured it out. By all accounts, I'm very healthy. I just constantly feel like shit.
peteretep 7y ago
> as there's a general attitude among scientifically-minded people that the notion of a link between emotions/thoughts and physiology is absurd I am surprised to hear that's the case, and also it absolutely does not match my experience of the scientifically minded people I know, all of whom are familiar with both the placebo effect and the term psychosomatic.
- chongli 7y ago
  Anyone who is scientifically minded enough to have spent some time learning biology and human anatomy has probably heard of hormones such as adrenaline and have felt their effects on the body. Under stress we sweat, feel jittery or flighty, get dry mouth, have trouble speaking clearly, and more. Casually speaking, it might seem easy to wave off such body changes in response to emotion as a temporary thing. That would be premature. Cortisol is another hormone associated with stress and people with stressful lives show elevated cortisol levels which may be related to weight gain and obesity [1]. [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2009.76 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2009.76
- tomhoward 7y ago
  > all of whom are familiar with both the placebo effect and the term psychosomatic Sure, but those concepts are more often regarded with dismissiveness in the context I'm talking about. Try proposing to such a person that chronic auto-immune illness, that has resisted treatment by conventional medicine, could be remedied via non-mainstream subconscious healing techniques. It's notable that zealots end up tying themselves in knots over these topics. In attacking homeopathy (which, to be clear, I’m not into), Science Based Medicine [1] goes as far as claiming that the placebo effect doesn't bring about any actual physiological improvement, but rather just brings about a feeling of wellbeing. This seems to contradict the way in which it the concept is used in mainstream medical trials. It also presumes that "feeling good" and physiological healing are unrelated concepts, which would be surprising from an evolutionary perspective. But hey what do I know? I'm no doctor, just a poor shmo trying to make sense of it all while trying whatever means possible to get well. [1] https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo-myths-debunked/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo-myths-debunked/
veganjay 7y ago
Thanks for sharing your experience. Could please describe more about subconscious emotional healing techniques? How did you learn about it and is it a solitary practice or one that is guided by a professional?
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  I am curious too.
  - ianai 7y ago
    Me three
- tomhoward 7y ago
  Everyone curious about this is welcome to email me (address in profile). If you don't hear from me, hit me up again; I'm intending to prepare a doc that explains the approach I've used. I don't want it to be too long, but I just need to find the time to do make it adequate. But if you can't wait for me to do that, reading/watching content by Bruce Lipton is a good start.
  - circlefavshape 7y ago
    Uurgh, dude - it's not the emotional healing that puts scientifically-minded people off, it's Bruce Lipton's language. "The subconscious mind is operating at a vibrational frequency of theta". What? That's the kind of nonsense I get from the stoners down in my local pub. If his techniques work, they work, and I'm happy for you that you have improved your life. I, however, find such language so off-putting that I can't imagine ever trying anything like this
    - tomhoward 7y ago
      Are you actually in need of this kind of help in the first place? If not, why not just ignore it and move on, rather than posting drive-by bile like this as your one-and-only contribution to the entire thread? His presentation style is not for everyone, sure. Nobody’s is. He talks in pictures and metaphors, which for many people is the most effective way to receive information. Not you? No worries! But consider that you’re only talking about persuasiveness of language/presentation for yourself, not science. The very quote you picked out to mock is perfectly valid science.
rectangletangle 7y ago
I would honestly be surprised if this kind of link didn't have at least some measurable impact, physiology is hardly decoupled (in the coding sense). It's been well established that poor mental health (loss of will to live) correlates strongly with early mortality, even when controlling for obvious variables. Though establishing the causality on that is challenging. There are lots of strange physiological links that aren't necessarily logical, due to the imperfect nature of natural selection (it strives for the local optima and "good enough," over the global optima). For instance it's well documented that consciously smiling improves mood, even though the causality is "backwards."
- amelius 7y ago
  > natural selection (it strives for the local optima and "good enough," over the global optima) It might also optimize for the community rather than the individual, I suppose.
Lewton 7y ago
One way that emotional healing could possibly have real positive effects on symptoms is if the symptoms are remnants from a real disease that have passed. As an analogy. When you’re stretching your muscles, you’re generally not actually elongating any part of your body, instead you’re teaching your nervous system that it’s safe to move your muscles in the range you’re stretching into. Most people get to experience acute back pain in their life, and will notice how this can cause your entire back to freeze up, even well past the point of where the actual thing that caused the pain has been healed. This is the nervous system protecting your back from hurting itself. Making it a necessary part of rehabilitation to do stretches to show your body that the range of motion is safe again. In the same kind of way, actively working on mentally overcoming symptoms that were your body’s reaction to real disease or trauma that has since passed, can have very real effects. This could be in the form of meditation, therapy or even faith healing(!) [0] [0] see derren brown talk about his experiences doing faith healing as a skeptic https://youtu.be/CCzzaDwUuDk https://youtu.be/CCzzaDwUuDk time stamp 22 minutes 18 seconds
- jvln 7y ago
  The analogy about muscle streching is wrong.
  - SamBam 7y ago
    There's a fair bit of evidence now than most of stretching is, indeed, actually about training the body not to reflexively contract to fight the stretch. > Due to neurological safeguards against injury such as the Golgi tendon reflex, it is normally impossible for adults to stretch most muscle groups to their fullest length without training due to the activation of muscle antagonists as the muscle reaches the limit of its normal range of motion. [1] > First, they end up mostly agreeing with a body of previous research suggesting that increased range of motion following a prolonged stretching program is mainly the result of increased tolerance to the sensation of stretching, rather than actually loosening the muscle-tendon unit. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretching [2] https://www.runnersworld.com/health-injuries/a20811349/does-stretching-loosen-muscles-and-tendons/ https://www.runnersworld.com/health-injuries/a20811349/does-...
billman 7y ago
Have you read John Sarno?
superpermutat0r 7y ago
My partner is also heavily burdened by emotional trauma that has resulted in asthma, stomach issues, urinary tract infections (where every urinary analysis finds some other obscure bacteria, not common anywhere). The emotional trauma, constant tension, lack of meaning, depression, inability to learn anything, or learning very slowly, bad autobiographical memory, all symptoms listed in the article. I truly believe if she were to do something about the mind that stuff would get better. And I'm a very hard-science guy that reads Cochrane and doubts everything. Although, problem is that CBT does not work for her, talking with professionals does not work too. Obviously, the issues are that the bodies immune system is weakened from some stress that should not be there.
- elbear 7y ago
  The article also mentions that CBT does little for this kind of trauma. There are more effective treatments. They're listed towards the end.

netfl0 7y ago

It is really hard to determine what qualifies as trauma in this article. It seems like a spectrum of course, but it is hard to tell what region of the spectrum is being focused on.

Hnrobert42 7y ago
One of his primary arguments in the book is that trauma is not always a dramatic event like those usually associated with PTSD. Instead, trauma, especially as experienced in childhood, can be sustained abuse, degradation, neglect with a cumulative impact equal to that of a dramatic event.
palimpsests 7y ago
trauma is not an event or sequence of events, trauma is the physiological response to an event or sequence of events that were highly stressful. trauma is a collection of symptoms, biomarkers, and behavioral adaptations.

mindgam3 7y ago

I cannot praise this book highly enough. Every single person who has ever experienced depression or anxiety should read it.

eindiran 7y ago

I don't understand how "trauma is universal" is a reasonable interpretation of the facts that are related there. I'm always wary of an argument that hinges on the meaning of a word being changed (the subtle expansion of "trauma"; the standard definition being called "acute trauma" instead), but in this case I don't think even the expanded definition of trauma supports the conclusion that trauma is a "near universal human experience". The ACE study mentioned ([0]) suggests that about 2/3 of people have 1 or more ACE, but after looking at the definition of ACE they used, it appears to use a significantly weaker definition of trauma than even the expanded one given explicitly in the article: it includes having a parent with a mental health issue, having a chronic health condition while young, or being chronically separated from a parent (due to eg divorce). Further, it looks like there is quite a bit of clustering: people with ACEs that qualify as classic traumas tend to have several. Perhaps trauma is much more pervasive than I thought, but it looks to me like the definition of trauma was changed quite significantly to make the claim hold. [0] https://www.aap.org/en-us/Documents/ttb_aces_consequences.pdf https://www.aap.org/en-us/Documents/ttb_aces_consequences.pd... There is more info on the wiki page here as well: [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_Childhood_Experiences_Study https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_Childhood_Experience...

tomhoward 7y ago
I agree with that, and held back from including it in my original comment to avoid letting it be too long. Through the subconscious healing work I've done, few of the events/issues I've processed are ones that I would characterise as trauma. Little of it involves abuse, violence, separation or anything else that fits the conventional definition of trauma. But it is a snowballing history of unpleasant life experiences, which all compounds and steadily amplifies one's underlying sense of anxiety, fear and distrust of themselves and the world, along with the severity of physiological symptoms.
- kqr 7y ago
  > But it is a snowballing history of unpleasant life experiences, which all compounds and steadily amplifies one's underlying sense of anxiety, fear and distrust of themselves and the world This fits in so much better with my understanding of how humans learn other things as well: through many tiny increments, not in one sudden dramatic event.

bloopernova 7y ago

Ironic that the pain clinic doctor who recommended this book to me was also the most abusive doctor I've ever met. They caused trauma through emotional abuse and gaslighting to multiple patients before they were fired.

christefano 7y ago
I’m so sorry that happened to you. For what it’s worth, Bessel Van der Kolk is not without issue himself. Here’s a partial transcript that I wrote up (so any mistakes are my own) when listening to a podcast episode about trauma and abuse. The relevant part is around time code 30:00. https://www.probablypoly.com/post/episode-25-interviewing-samantha-manewitz-from-polyamory-s-me-too-survivor-pod https://www.probablypoly.com/post/episode-25-interviewing-sa... Trigger warning: trauma, gaslighting, and abuse Mandee Conant: Well, I think it’s important not to discount the book, More Than Two, because we know that Eve had a lot of input into this book, but as a whole, just because someone writes a book about something does not make them an expert in it, and I think we kind of… as a community we kind of took that because their book was one of first how-to manual what to do, what not to do resources fo us, so he must be an expert. And we just took that, we took that too easily, and we need to learn to not do that. Samantha Manewitz: And sometimes even when when people are experts they can still be terrible people. For example, Bessel Van der Kolk, who founded The Trauma Center in Brooklyn, which is my back yard. He wrote wrote the book, The Body Keeps the Score, which is required reading in any grunt school and required reading for anyone who ever wants to go into trauma work. Period, full stop. I was initially applying for a job at The Trauma Center, and then it came out in The Globe that his co-writer and co-founder and CEO was horrifically abusive and he created a toxic work environment, and the way he responded was just textbook gaslighting, and then sort of [wrote this letter] why these people didn’t come tell him to his face. Yes, why would someone with 1 or 2 years under their belt make ever make a criticism about this person who the luminary of trauma work. If anyone should know better, it’s Bessel Van der Kolk.
- jeancasimir 7y ago
  "The Globe that his co-writer and co-founder and CEO was horrifically abusive and he created a toxic work environment, and the way he responded was just textbook gaslighting" Not very helpful to throw somebody under the bus for having a bad work partner...

numbers 7y ago

Thanks for the summary, I will definitely be reading this!!

peteretep 7y ago

> Consider the case of antidepressants. If they were indeed a permanent, long-term solution, depression should by now have become a minor issue in society. Yet it has not made a dent in hospital admissions. The number of people treated for depression has tripled over the past two decades, and one in ten Americans now take antidepressants. This is not how logic works.

jonfw 7y ago
Would you care to support that statement?
- peteretep 7y ago
  > If they were indeed a permanent, long-term solution, depression should by now have become a minor issue in society. Chemotherapy is a permanent, long-term solution for cancer, and yet cancer has not become a minor issue in society. Anti-depressants are life-saving medication for many many people, but not everyone gets the right dose, not everyone continues taking them, and in some people they plain don't work. Claiming that they're somehow not a solution for depression because they don't work for everyone, all the time, is logical fallacies all the way down. > Yet it has not made a dent in hospital admissions This is a stupid sentence. First, it's not sourced. Secondly, in the hospital admissions of whom? New patients or admissions of patients on anti-depressants? The first is an absolutely pointless statistic because -- who knew?! -- medicine that hasn't been administered doesn't work. If he's claiming that over the group of people taking anti-depressants, their rates of admission post anti-depressants doesn't decline, that's still a shitty statistic, for a whole range of what should be obvious reasons, but I can spell out for you in a further comment if needed, but start with the fact that most people _develop_ mental health issues as they get older, and almost anyone who's hospitalized for a mental health issue will get medicated at that point moving forward, and anyone who's been hospitalized once for depression is dramatically more likely to be hospitalized again. Unless the exact statistic being cited here is that there's no difference in readmission rates for patients who have been hospitalized for depression between those who took their medicine and those who didn't, it's absolutely ridiculous to be using to support his argument. Did I mention he didn't cite it? > The number of people treated for depression has tripled over the past two decades So? It seems like "common sense" that as a society we're better at talking about mental health than we used to be, and referring (rather than simply jailing) the mentally ill than we used to be. I bet his source (oh look, he didn't fucking cite it again) attributes this to many many many other factors rather than the non efficacy of anti-depressants > and one in ten Americans now take antidepressants. Again, this has nothing to do with his argument

meesterdude 7y ago

Great book, by the father (to most at least) of PTSD and CPTSD. Has revealed for me the role of trauma in my life, and those of basically everyone around me. But after reading it, i felt a little... lost. I knew a lot about the problem space, and some solutions outlined, but it wasn't integrated within me, and all i had was a few therapies I could try out and hope the best for. Luckily, the next book I picked up was Mindsight by Dr. Daniel Siegel, and that has helped immensely in applying the knowledge of The Body Keeps Score, to bring about a shift in focus and presence in our bodies. One thing he talked about that i found of interest is a column of neurons, only 6 deep, that make up our perceptions of reality. the top 3, take on a top down approach from the cortex downwards; while the bottom 3 come up from the limbic area of our sensory inputs - and it is in the middle of space of the column that reality appears - a mix of our past perceptions and preferences, with what we are observing in the here and now. So, What happens with PTSD? There is a shift towards the top-down thinking, and a muting (or overriding) of limbic signals. In the tug of war of 6 neurons, the top down wins out over our perceptions - allowing people to experience and truly relive flashbacks of traumas like war in their bedroom - they are detached from their limbic signaling. Which is why - mindfulness, meditation, and being more present in your body matter so much. What you pay attention to matters - and allows us to hone/reshape firing patterns. https://www.amazon.com/Mindsight-New-Science-Personal-Transformation/dp/0553386395 https://www.amazon.com/Mindsight-New-Science-Personal-Transf...

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abledon 7y ago

Bottom-up regulation involves recalibrating the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which originates in the brain stem. We can access the ANS through breath, movement, or touch. sad as it is, the state of modern yoga, and the bullsh* * of lululemon, 500hr certs, and instagram etc, people had it figured out so long ago, how to go underneath the conscious layer and heal trauma through moving meditation. I wonder how the future parents of this generation will reduce trauma being carried in their bloodline or add to it?

jeromebaek 7y ago

It’s a great book.

mitchtbaum 7y ago

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=lPVBrRd9wCo https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=lPVBrRd9wCo

saaaaaam 7y ago

How curious to see this here. I got talking to a guy on a train journey the other day and he gave me this book. He said it had changed his life.

djaychela 7y ago

I'm 48, and suffered from debilitating back pain until the last few years; it started when I was badly beaten up when I was 19, and got worse as the years went on - each episode would become worse and longer-lasting until around 7-8 years ago it was so bad I was in constant pain all day, every day, but with episodes of pain so bad I can't really describe it every couple of months or so. I've never been overweight or had any other issues, and people couldn't understand why my back was so bad or the pain so intense. (me included) It was only learning to relax (and starting meditation) and stopping seeing my body as the enemy (thanks to the kind encouragement of my girlfriend as well as working with Alexander technique teachers) that I started to make any improvement, and this combined with appropriate physical exercises has meant that I've been fortunate to have nearly 2 years of normal life (which to me in the past would have just been a dream) - no spasms, no 'episodes', and now I can do normal things like go for a walk and not worry if I'll make it back, etc. I was physically abused by my father when I was a child (fortunately he died when I was 8), and I really didn't think it had effected me much, but I now realise I spend most of my time out in public assessing who poses a physical attack risk to me, and it's only since talking my my girlfriend about it (she's training to be a counsellor and has this book by her bed) that I've realised that this is -not- normal! My life is unrecognisably better since taking this sort of thinking on board. I'm definitely a 'science' person - lifelong atheist, try to be as rational as possible, etc - but we still don't know everything, particularly of how incredibly complex the human brain is, and how it can control so much of not only our experience, but our existence.

eurekin 7y ago
Can you elaborate on the specific techniques you used (Alexander technique, meditating)?
- djaychela 7y ago
  In terms of meditation, I've been using Sam Harris' "Waking Up" app as it's chimed with me greatly; I was originally using Headspace, but it didn't click with me in the same way (plus I'm a fan of Harris and have listened to his podcast since it began). Alexander Technique lessons have been a revelation in terms of understanding how I move, and how much tension I was carrying in my body all the time, plus learning to use the 'right' muscles in the body for posture. There is also an element of meditative mindset present with both my teachers, which has helped with my default 'judgemental' mind-state. I think that Alexander Technique is hugely important, but it's subtle and difficult to describe - I think it's a case of going for a few lessons and seeing if it works for/with you, as it sounds like "woo" to a lot of people - it did to me until I tried it. I think the combination of all these things has helped greatly to move me in the right direction towards a better way of living, and not fighting myself all the time.

alpaca128 7y ago

> The lawyer would get totally absorbed in devising a strategy for winning a case, and would stay up all night enmeshed in the details. “It was like being in combat,” he said. He felt fully alive, and like nothing else mattered. But when the case finished, win or lose, he would lose his energy and sense of purpose. This sounds like me but with programming. It's the one thing I can always do and focus on no matter how the rest of my life is going. But outside of it I constantly need to push myself to do anything.

arandr0x 7y ago
Find more exciting stuff to do outside of it. There's something of a percentage of the population that are probably meant to be running on loads of adrenaline all the time, and people are happy to capitalize on their restlessness to make them produce things to sell at work and buy things to feel better outside, like unhappy ever-moving little economic wheels.

Pick-A-Hill2019 7y ago

I too found the book extremely helpful and informative. A therapist I know recommended a companion book by Peter Levine called Healing Trauma (ISBN: 9781591796589), also available on YT as an audio book. It uses mental imagery as a way of relieving the symptons of trauma without having to relive the actual event(s). Although some of the imagery exercises are sometimes brutal/exhausting it seems the basic under laying theory of the book is using a form of exposure therapy reduces the impacts of flashbacks to the point of ripples in a stream of consciousness rather than the usual roaring tidal wave. YMMV.

alexandercrohde 7y ago

I wanted to upvote this, but the more I read it the more it felt unscientifically culty. Claims pretty much every psychiatric inconvenience (distraction, laziness, stress, restlessness) can be caused by "trauma." Proposes "trauma" is so blanket that anyone/everyone can have it. This would all be terribly interesting if there were links to scientific studies validating any of this. Let me know when there's a "cure" for trauma that treats distraction/laziness and a double-blind study finds clinical significance for it. I'll let the FDA vet my panaceas for me, thank you very much.

twoquestions 7y ago

> All of us, but especially children, need such confidence—confidence that others will know, affirm, and cherish us. But they won't. I don't know what fantasy land the author and reviewer live in, but here in America in 2019, the world is a dangerous, knife-edged, and pitiless place where it's a constant fight of all against all. Anyone you meet, even immediate family members, is your enemy by default, and usually an ally at best. Everyone ruthlessly exploits everyone else to survive, everyone kills and dies by inches to eat tomorrow. I've no idea where these people come from saying people love and support one another. Out here, others are either threats or exploitation targets, not partners. Very good article nevertheless, helps to sort out adaptive things from maladaptive things.

marmadukester39 7y ago
This worldview you are trapped in will damage you in exactly the ways enumerated above. I hope that you find a new story to live in.
- viklove 7y ago
  I disagree, and if you go through life expecting everyone to constantly support you, you won't make it very far once you start to face any real adversity. You have to learn to rely on yourself, at least that's what my experiences have shown me. You may be living in a story, but the rest of us have to live in the real world.
rayalez 7y ago
> Everyone ruthlessly exploits everyone else to survive [...] Out here, others are either threats or exploitation targets, not partners. "Everyone" is a strong word. People are very different. Some are evil, some are admirable and kind, most have a mix of good and bad traits. To me, a random internet commenter with no horse in this race, this comment sounds really disturbing, it sounds like you're having some problems warping your world view(or maybe you're just hanging out with the wrong people). I'm not usually the one to diagnose random strangers, but what you're saying sounds pretty extreme. Biased, or influenced by some psychological thing, I don't know. Either way, not factually accurate. Do you have at least one person that you like, that you can talk to about this stuff? I don't really know what advice to give you. I'm just gonna say that even though it's easy to see all the ugliness and flaws in human nature, there's a lot of goodness and beauty in it too. Make an effort to see good in people, or to seek out people that are good. There are plenty.

kbos87 7y ago

I had seen and passed this book over a number of times because I never experienced what I thought was true trauma. It was only after evidence of past trauma came out in some neuropsych testing I recently did to see if I had ADHD that I reconsidered my past experiences and how they may have impacted who I am today. I’m looking at some things differently and understanding how they may have affected me - growing up LGBT and isolated as a result, with parents who had a dysfunctional and often rocky relationship. I’m starting to see that trauma doesn’t necessarily mean you were subjected to some sort of violence or single life shattering event, especially as a child.