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April, 2009

The Black Hole Of Trauma

The black hole of trauma sucks a man's energy without giving anything in return. These are some thoughts about the Black Hole of psychological trauma.

As I mentioned last month, this Black Hole of trauma mimics the feeling of the Void of initiatory ordeal. A man moving into initiation and the Void often encounters a traumatic Black Hole. This is a time where eldering is necessary for an explanation of the differences. The Black Hole calls for retreat to a place of healing. The Void demands courageous perseverance and the strength to stay in place. Black Holes are about the past. The Void is about a man staying deeply in the present. Black Holes push a man into the clinical depression of an untended wound. The Void brings a man to an initiatory depression of healing. The Black Hole can cause the rage of a wounded animal. The Void often brings the healthy anger of grieving and letting go.

The black hole of emotional trauma leaches away a man's energy to deal with the present because a good part of him is stuck in the past. Trauma feels like being in a revolving door of fearful, anxious feelings that have no resolution. Most traumatized men do not know they suffer from an emotional and soul wound.

One way to understand trauma is from the viewpoint of the inner warrior. Trauma is defined as any overwhelming negative experience or series of similar experiences where a person does not have the emotional resources to deal with the situation. In other words, trauma can develop when a boy or man is pushed to feeling his survival is at stake. The inner warrior always witnesses trauma and is ready to martial forces if the psyche is threatened. When survival is threatened the warrior automatically steps in to defend the man body and soul. Warrior energy causes a man to prepare to fight, flee, or freeze in the face of a traumatic situation. All these preconscious reactions are intense survival reactions that the warrior instinctively follows. A traumatic situation could be a physical survival situation such as war or a car accident. Or, as in the case of a child, an emotional incident that feels like survival is at stake such as physical abuse or feelings of abandonment by a caretaker.

The survival mechanisms that the warrior triggers have to do with the preconscious mammalian brain, the instinctive, emotional, and physiological part of the brain. This mammalian brain automatically, like an animal, sets the body in survival mode. Under a perceived threat the guardian warrior first uses the mammalian brain to throw the body into physiological and emotional fighting mode resulting in increased, shallow respiration with increased heartbeat; increased blood pressure caused by the constriction of blood vessels; release of natural steroids; increased levels of adrenaline and blood sugar; and many other hormonal and biochemical emergency measures.

This is where humans have a particularly hard time with trauma. After the survival situation passes and survival is restored the emotional and physiological reactions stick in the brain. Modern humans seem to have lost much of the ability that animals have to process and let go of these kinds of experiences. In humans the emotions and resultant physiological reactions get stuck and stored in the mammalian brain. Animals seem to be able to let go of the traumatic situation physiologically and emotionally once the situation passes. The mammalian brain in humans has a much harder time letting go. (For a good discussion of these reactions see Peter Levine's Waking The Tiger). In humans the survival, warrior mode often gets stuck in the 'on' position. This chronic 'on' position readily explains the health problems of modern man including high blood pressure, heart problems, diabetes, and compromised immune systems.

So the warrior in protecting the psyche has to do something with these stuck reactions and stuck memories of survival situations. He does this by using certain biochemical and neurological mechanisms to throw the whole experience into the unconscious where there is little awareness connecting memory and emotion or memory and uncomfortable physiological reactions. Once memory is hidden the warrior then uses any means necessary to keep the overwhelming emotions of fear and anger numbed out. He can do less about the physiological reactions, though. So things such as high blood pressure and high blood sugar as well as anxiety reactions such as panic attacks persist with no memory of how they were originally caused.

Without explanation the only respite from this emotional and physiological pain seems to be to have no emotions at all, to be numb. And the easiest way toward creating numbness seems to be an addiction, be it a substance, sex, work. The only other way of numbing is by explosive anger.

Warriors are experts at numbing by setting emotions aside. Healthy warrior energy uses emotional storage as a necessary part of the drive to focus and action. This is why the initial reaction to a traumatic situation is healthy. Emotions can get in the way of swift action for survival, as in war, or laser like action toward a worthy goal. In a healthy situation, when the goal is reached or the survival is restored healthy warrior energy then allows other parts of the personality the chance to deal with emotions. The informed warrior does not throw the memories and emotions into long-range storage.

Trauma, on the other hand, tricks the warrior to view feelings as unable to be dealt with, even when the traumatic situation is past. So the warrior depresses the emotions to stay in survival mode. They become stuck in the subconscious, even when the emerging man has enough present inner resources to deal with emotional fallout. Unfortunately, under certain circumstances the emotions stuck in the unconscious will pop out to take over the personality.

If there is any resemblance between past trauma and a present situation the warrior instantly responds. Any memory fragment of danger brings the warrior into fighting mode even though there is no conscious memory. The warrior knows and tells the body to react physiologically as if the warrior is being attacked in the present. This warrior reaction is what has been called a flashback. This is also called a post-traumatic stress reaction. The continuing condition results in a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD.

Most PTSD reactions in everyday life come from childhood trauma. It is also probably the case that a man is susceptible to trauma as an adult because a traumatic template has already been laid as a child or adolescent. For example, about 15-30% of men in combat suffer from severe PTSD. It is yet to be verified why some men have severe reactions while others do not, but childhood trauma seems a likely source for clinical wartime PTSD. What is clear is that it is not an emotional or physical weakness that causes PTSD. (It is also clear to me that no man who has been in a life or death survival situation such as war escapes without some traumatic emotional wound, some sub-clinical signs of trauma).

Childhood trauma related to abuse or neglect creates a traumatic situation, more than even the medical community realizes. The boy inside is traumatized. The memory may go underground. Yet the mammalian brain will recognize any situation that slightly resembles the traumatic memory. A triggered stress reaction will then emerge for no conscious reason. The warrior really acts to protect the boy in the only way he knows how. He may attack angrily anyone either emotionally or physically who seems dangerous. But for most men the warrior tries to numb the fear and anger in order to spare overwhelming distress to the boy inside. Then the man tries to blunt any physiological reactions as well as leftover emotion with an addiction to comfort himself. That is until the next breakthrough flashback.

The feelings of the traumatized boy whose wound is triggered results in emotions of fear, loneliness, confusion, powerlessness, disorientation, darkness. The boy's traumatic emotions, especially of fear or agitation, can automatically take over the personality in a flashback situation. Any intense negative emotional reactions that are out of proportion to a present situation are signs of the traumatized boy and the protecting warrior. Men are not taught how to handle these fear emotions of the boy. So even when these emotions emerge a man is taught to ignore them and put on the unemotional mask of the warrior instead of understanding the pain of the boy inside.

As I have described, this is where trauma gets in the way of a man's psychospiritual growth. Initiation throws a man into an ordeal that mimics the same symptoms of PTSD. The Void brings feelings of powerlessness, confusion, fear and loneliness, often with the adrenaline rush. Facing these initiatory symptoms is part of the process of transformation that is initiation. However, if initiation causes flashbacks because of powerless, fearful emotions the distinction is blurred. This is where a man needs an elder to translate this process. Otherwise a man is lost in a wilderness of emotions that feel too much like tragedy rather than transformation. He feels like a boy again, overwhelmed by situations beyond his capacity to handle. He loses an opportunity for healing the boy inside. He also loses the opportunity for initiation by mistaking the gateway to initiation for the sucking event horizon of a Black Hole.

So what to do with PTSD? The first thing to do is to be aware of the possibility that intense negative emotions, including fear or anxiety or rage, are probably traumatic in origin. They are flashbacks that bring the traumatized boy to the forefront of the psyche and the threatened boy to the warrior's intense awareness. This is where the man must realize that it is the boy who is frightened about something long past. And it is the warrior who is presently in fight or flight mode doing what he is made to do.

This is the time for the conscious man to release the warrior from his defensive stance, as a king would do. He must honor the warrior for his strength and courage but tell him he is not presently needed. There is no need to prepare to fight. There is no need to hide memories.

Then the conscious man must turn to the traumatized boy inside. A traumatized boy needs fathering. He needs someone to hold a safe place for him to heal. Healing by a father needs to come before initiation by an elder. This is the time a man needs a second father. The boy needs an explanation about why he feels such fear even in the present moment. Then, in one way or another he must experience the traumatic emotions in the safe place a father figure provides. There needs to be a slow, controlled desensitization where a new experience of safety replaces an old one of reflexive fear. This is the way the trauma gets unstuck and let go. The healing boy then frees the man to move into the Void.

A second father can be a therapist familiar with trauma and initiation. He can be a man who has survived and healed from trauma and is on the path of transformation. He can be met or read or heard. He is someone who knows the ropes of healing because he has been there. He can guide the boy within in ways the boy has always needed. In many ways he provides the safe space through his warrior energy so the boy may be healed.

As healing progresses, a man must become his own second father. This is the reparenting that therapists, like John Bradshaw in his book Homecoming, talk about. This fathering brings a man to the brink of ordeal with the strength and knowledge to step into the waiting Void.

Next month I will talk more about how this second fathering provides for the healing of PTSD and beyond.

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