Breaking the Silence about Childhood Trauma

The National Institute of Mental Health (USA) defines childhood trauma as: “The experience of an event by a child that is emotionally painful or distressful, which often results in lasting mental and physical effects.”

Childhood trauma doesn’t come in a single package, it can be due to sexual abuse, loss of a loved one, psychological abuse and so on. In Nigeria, 6 out of 10 children experience some form of violence before they turn 18, with half of them experiencing physical violence. Others are abused emotionally or sexually. 

Traumatic experiences during childhood are a root cause of many social, emotional, and cognitive impairments that lead to increased risk of unhealthy self-destructive behaviours, risk of violence or re-victimization, chronic health conditions, low life potential and premature mortality. As the number of traumatic experiences increases, the risk of problems from childhood through adulthood also rises.

Childhood trauma is a risk factor for almost everything, from adult depression to PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and most psychiatric disorders, as well as a host of medical problems, including cardiovascular problems such as heart attack and stroke, cancer and obesity.

     This article would be really lengthy if I choose to write on each risk factor childhood trauma poses to an adult, so I will focus on PTSD. 

What do you think about when you hear post traumatic stress disorder? I am sure the answer is the military, and there’s a reason for that,  there’s a lot of service members who have PTSD and there’s also another reason for that; the injury that troops suffer happens very far away and that injury is happening to people we consider heroes, so that’s a very safe way for us to talk about PTSD. It’s a safe way for us to talk about trauma because it happens far away and it’s happening to very strong people. PTSD doesn’t just affect the military/veterans however, so here’s a little about me (a PTSD patient).

  

    I lost my father when I was 3 days old so I only had pictures of him not his real presence. That didn’t make me have PTSD, I was really little and I didn’t think too much about it. The real trauma began when I was 7 years old, I was sexually harassed by my neighbours (a family with a lot of boys yeah), I was sexually abused by my primary 3 teacher and he seemed like my superior so I didn’t tell anybody about it. I tried to go through everything by myself, the teacher eventually travelled out of the country and I thought I was free not knowing that wasn’t the end. When I was in junior secondary school I got threatened by a teacher who wanted me to get intimate with him else I would fail his subjects. It really seemed funny because I thought that only happened in African magic and universities not secondary schools. Anyways with God’s help I was able to refuse and got past that, but that’s not the end of my story. In senior secondary school I had a tutor who always touched me inappropriately and sometimes made me  wait after school hours for his evil intentions. At that point in time I felt I was at his mercy because he was handling everything that concerned my set so I couldn’t report, I tried my best to avoid him and just endured everything. Whilst going through all these I became emotionally unstable, overreacting at small situations, I always had to cry intensely before I could sleep and I was always so unhappy, at a point I was having delusional trauma. When I’m outside I smile a lot at people and act like I’m okay because I didn’t want anyone to know. At 18, I discovered I have PTSD and the first stage of the healing process was talking to my mum about everything and that lifted a burden off my heart. So I’m healing gradually.

Lots of people think that PTSD is just for veterans but it can affect children too just like it affected me and I’m not alone in my experience, and I’m willing to bet that there are people reading this who have experienced other kinds of trauma; it could be a car accident, a serious illness, witnessing a death, physical violence, even living in poverty can be a type of trauma. The stakes are extremely high for children because trauma can change the architecture of the developing brain and since stakes are so high, I’m wondering why I didn’t know about this before, why don’t we talk about trauma in children, why don’t we talk about trauma in other populations? So, in addition to reading about PTSD and seeing it in a clinical way which is also a safe way to deal with trauma, I’ve learned about PTSD by experiencing it.

Here’s what you need to know about trauma and here’s what you need to know to help millions of children like the child  I was 

     Children who experience trauma and are not given the proper care and therapy needed grow  up hurting. These children will experience higher rates of suicidality, higher rates of eating disorder, higher rates of obesity, dysfunctional relationships, higher rates of addiction. 

     

So what can we do to make our communities and our schools friendlier and safer for children. 

The first thing is simply to disseminate information. Information helps, we need to make sure that information about childhood trauma isn’t relegated to universities and medical setups. We need a sustained commitment to spreading information about childhood trauma and that can happen in our schools, it can also happen in our communities and other places children go to. 

 The second is  to share our stories, I’m sharing my story so others can be able to share theirs. I didn’t feel I needed to talk about it till I heard someone’s story so it’s important to share our stories. Through this, other victims know they are not alone and they realise that until they let others into their pain, healing can’t begin.

The third thing to do is to be an ally, support those who tell their stories and help them to get justice. We should be real allies to children by listening to them, not keeping them at arm’s length but making them feel heard, seen and understood.  And I’m sure with this we can help children lead a happy life.