Troubled Youth – Understanding Traumatised Parts Of Ourselves

So, I am surprised and yet interested in the emergence of my troubled youth self in a recent dream, inviting me to explore her young world again and to take a more forensic eye to what she has to tell me.

I am open to what her teachings might be. And even now, I am not sure what is going to emerge by exploring this chapter, but my inner teenager, particularly my fourteen and fifteen year old self, is a voracious writer and I am ready to let her take her pen and write her story. I can’t imagine a better guide and teacher than this girl.

Let’s hand over to her and see what she has to say.

I am also the daughter of a factory working mum. She is a proud homemaker and mother of two and yet she has no power and is completely dominated by her husband.

I have a younger brother by twenty two months. He spends a lot of his time in the silver ash tree in our backyard. I used to join him but am getting a bit old for that at fifteen.”

This tree is an escape from the violence in the house.

I have lots of friends, both in my Glen Waverley suburban street/s and at the local high school. I am passionate about Calisthenics, a world away from home and school, a world of costumes, music, precision, and joy. I love this activity and so does my mum. I spend many hours at this activity and it provides further friends and a chance to compete around Melbourne and the state.

Calisthenics is a healthy distraction and break from the violence at home.

I write a lot. I have written a small book, an historical novel, with a burnt cover for atmosphere and authenticity. My teacher has this book, asking to keep it as soon as I showed her. She conveys that my achievement in writing is special. I do it easily, hours of handwriting, mostly over the school holidays. It is my bliss, an extension of me, of who I am emerging to be.

I don’t know that I will ever see that book again. My teacher has not returned it, and lacking confidence and skill, I can’t ask for it back.”

Today, now in my sixties, I still wonder where it is and if Miss Stillman still has it?? But I have continued writing, mostly in courses and at university.

Current writing over the past years is in a blog, detailing my experiences as a psychologist and therapist. This is me, the sixty two year old, but to return to the young girl. What does she want to tell me and what is the story that she wishes me to tell, to share with others, to connect with others like her?

I have a very personal and shameful secret.

I cannot go to the toilet. I have severe, chronic constipation. My Mum said it started when I was one year old. I have a memory of her and my aunty from down the street holding me down on a table to insert a suppository. I remember the trauma and humiliation and basically the horror of somebody forcing something into my body.
It didn’t work to address the real problem. This approach didn’t address the underlying cause of the symptom. Treatment and accompanying attitudes to treatment and cause were a big issue for me.”

I want to tell you that my constipation problem was caused by my father and not a problematic bowel, or poor diet.

I also believe it was caused by the relationship dynamic of my mother and father.

“I am a frightened girl and feel afraid of the next parental explosion, of dad lashing out in extreme rage and I feel no one can stop this violence, no one can make him go away, or take my mother somewhere with my brother and I to be safe.

I must endure this situation, and the hypervigilance that I live with every day, and it is this dynamic that is making me sick. I fear my constipation will be my companion, my unwelcome friend, forever.

With no control over my father, his behavior towards us all, his yelling, his physical violence, his lack of caring, I learn that I can control my bowels. I can take medication and control my shitting.

By remaining tense, anxious and afraid, my body stops working. I am too tense to go to the toilet, too stressed and anxious. I take medication when I deem it appropriate and then I can poo!!!!

I resist my mother’s efforts with suppositories. Instead, the remedy to my constipation becomes the medication Senokot, the laxative of the day. I take control of my Senokot ingestion quite young, maybe eight, nine years old. I cannot shit without it.

I think about my constipation, my shit, all the time, all day, everyday. It is a big secret. I tell no one I use laxatives to shit, and it limits my movements, my confidence. Going away is a trauma. How will I organize my secret medicine taking? How will I go to the toilet? Where can I take long periods to shit!! How will I find a toilet when the medicine kicks in? I am terrified.

Yet I am a social girl. I love people, the world in general, I am a lover of connecting and engaging.

Life so limiting, so controlled in this context is depressing and a burden.

The joy gets lost, the excitement and anticipation of happy events clouded.

I can never relax. I cannot relax because of Dad, and I cannot relax because I can’t shit. I aren’t normal.

Like any secret, this behavior isolates me, it keeps me separate, apart from my peers. I believe I am a freak. That my behavior is disgusting. That I am a freaky pooer, destined for shame and rejection if anyone were to find out the truth.

This problem affects my self-esteem, my sense of worth. It is unthinkable that anyone should find out!!!”

My shameful problem was always with me. It overshadowed me and took over all my experiences.

This went on for years……and even when I got a boyfriend at sixteen.

I told my boyfriend eventually. The first person to know my shameful secret. He was supportive, understanding and didn’t shame me for my abnormal and disgusting behavior.

The problem continued. It still controlled me, where I could go, how I would plan for my outings, my holidays. I could never really relax and feel good about myself. This shame never left my thoughts for long. I married, I went on a long overseas trip and my inability to shit came with me, and also my much-trusted Senokot.

In strange homes, hotels, bedrooms, I would have to negotiate the toilets, the shared bathrooms, the hosts. I was only twenty-three and the budget was tight. No ensuites on that schedule!!! Mostly bed and breakfasts and Zimmer Frei!!!!

I persevered and went on this trip with my problem of shame in tow, but it was always overshadowing me, taking over all my experiences. However, I didn’t know any different. This problem had been with me, literally, forever. So, I got to twenty-six years old.

A big change I wasn’t anticipating was afoot.

Somewhat unhappily, I resigned from a government job I had had for eight years. I decided to complete on a full time basis, a Bachelor of Arts that I had started two years prior on a part time basis.

It was a big step for me, giving up employment, a salary, an identity, a lifestyle. But what I discovered was life changing.

I loved my new life as a full time student at University. I was in my element. I was learning, growing, making new friends and ultimately blossoming. I had never felt so comfortable, so stimulated and so at home as I did in my new role.

I undertook lots of different subjects, still not really clear what I wanted to major in. I was interested in them all, sociology, psychology, politics, media, philosophy. But eventually I settled on psychology and media studies.

My grades just kept getting better and better. I found it so much easier, and more pleasant, to not have to juggle full time work and part time study. I could indulge my passion for learning and throw myself into campus life, socializing, library research, debates with fellow students. I also did a little part time work at my local chemist but this didn’t last long.

Then a very surprising, amazing, totally unexpected thing happened.

I just started to go to the toilet and shitting like a normal person, for the first time ever!!!!

Suddenly, I didn’t need to take Senokot anymore. And once this change occurred, it continued, and I have never gone back to my former problem of constipation, not ever.

My diet hadn’t changed, my relationship with my boyfriend, now my husband hadn’t changed, my home hadn’t changed. So why did this happen?

What had changed was I left an unsuitable job, in an equally unsuitable environment, a conservative and very traditional role (Human Resources, recruitment, training, workers compensation etc. etc.) and moved into a progressive, challenging, stimulating, and exciting environment.

I was mixing with different types of people, many types of people I had never met before, and I felt alive.

The problem of a lifetime, the shame and anxiety of having a shameful secret, just disappeared and my life was transformed.

Medical issues for children, such as constipation, asthma, rashes, tummy aches, headaches and migraine, are frequently diagnosed as just that, medical issues.

However, as in my own case, there are frequently psychological issues at play, and these commonly occur due to the environment the child is experiencing. Clearly, I am referring to toxic and abusive environments, however sometimes it is more subtle, like environments where the child is very uncomfortable, where they don’t fit in, where they feel unsafe for reasons other than violence and abuse.

With family violence, children will frequently exhibit symptoms such as mine; weird, strange, often unresolvable symptoms are present, and the medical world keeps intervening with a medical diagnosis and a medical solution, when a more in-depth investigation is necessary and indeed, could resolve the symptoms much more effectively.

What was needed more was someone to ask about what was happening at home.

Of course, symptoms need treatment, and my symptoms needed treatment, but what was needed more was someone to ask about what was happening at home. To directly enquire whether there was any violence occurring in the home, was the mother/and or child feeling unsafe?

Why were they feeling unsafe? Was the child reaching all their developmental milestones?

Children who are being abused have enormous trouble relaxing and feeling safe and in this environment some children will not be able to be receptive to learning, and so they won’t learn, or their learning will be inhibited.

It is ok to ask questions, in a professional setting when you are a doctor, counsellor or health professional, and also when you are a caring family member or a friend.

It is important to make sure the environment in which you are asking is a safe environment (not within earshot of the perpetrator). If not ready a victim will not disclose, they will defend against the truth and the pain of the truth and deflect or dismiss and this is ok, this is appropriate and should be respected.

But, if an individual is ready to disclose, they will welcome the question, recognize your knowledge and care in asking such a question and probably feel very relieved they can open up about an issue they have been burning to talk about.

Children’s symptoms often reflect their emotional distress about a situation.

Medicalization of symptoms, without having an understanding of possible emotional underpinnings, can leave a child unsupported and with the chronic condition continuing when it needn’t.

It is important to find the courage to ask a child what is happening in their life and to genuinely enquire about how they feel and where they might be upset. If a child confides then it is important to take their disclosure seriously, to believe them and together with the child, explain that as an adult you can take action to protect them and keep them safe.