Every one of us has tails from the past. And not all injuries can be completely healed even with the most professional psychotherapist. Our task is to be aware of our wounds and learn how to take care of ourselves in such moments.
Each of us in life had events, circumstances or people that caused deep damage to our psyche. The wounds heal, but certain stimuli trigger painful memories in the brain and body.
Even as adults and reasonable, we can “fall out” into trauma and lose control of ourselves for a while. At this moment, physically and mentally, we find ourselves in that terrible painful situation that once happened to us. This is called retraumatization.
Lera, 41 years old:
“I am an adult, educated, conscious person, I have a broad outlook and responsible work,” says Lera. “But when I get carried away into anxiety, I turn into a little panicked child who is just ill and scared. More than anything in the world, at this moment I need to be hugged.
But an anxiety attack usually goes hand in hand with family conflict. My husband pulls away, and this hurts me even more – as if a little one is leaving me in trouble, leaving me alone. And I have to calm myself down, which is not so easy.”
Early and late injuries
“Early trauma is different from late trauma, which occurred after the age of three,” explains practicing psychologist Anastasia Dolganova. – With a late trauma, the child already has self-awareness and speech. This is enough, the foundation is complex, the whole world of internal and external resources lies at its feet.”
The therapy of late traumas comes down in general to symbolization (pronunciation of experience in order to comprehend and live it) and to learning how to use these various resources. With an early injury, the child has nothing. And the younger he is, the more serious this “nothing”. Infantile traumas in the sense of pronunciation and other types of symbolization are unexperienced, since the child does not yet have either self-awareness or speech, the expert explains.
Horror and despair
The traumatized infant simply feels bad: physically, because he is sick or hungry (traumas of early hospitalization, neglect, or early weaning), and emotionally, because separation from the mother causes separation anxiety, which is a combination of horror and despair.
Therefore, in adults with early trauma, there are such attacks of anxiety and helplessness, in which reason and words do not help. Words are useless when someone inside us suffers who does not yet understand them – a baby.
How to calm the inner baby
The baby is comforted by warmth, safety and satiety. Therefore, the anxiety of early trauma can be calmed by:
- physical contact,
- warmth
- satiety (not gluttony, since a full stomach also causes physical pain),
- rhythm.
The latter is not obvious, but important: there are neurological studies that show a link between the mental state of people who have experienced serious early trauma.1, and the occupation of such people by rhythm, singing, dancing, playing musical instruments. That is, if a person is seized by infantile horror and despair, he does not need to talk to himself, but he should go play the piano, listen to rhythmic music or … dance.
“These classes are needed not for joy, but for rhythm,” says Anastasia Dolganova. – Rocking (hammock, swing, rocking chair), warm drinks and physical contact with a loved one are also suitable.
Alas, the latter is not always possible: attacks of such anxiety in adults with early traumatic experience are often provoked precisely by the physical absence of a significant person, separation or the threat of separation (for example, a serious quarrel).
In the latter case, the use of anti-anxiety drugs is fully justified: otherwise, parting even with a bad partner becomes impossible, since anxiety is unexperienced.
Lera:
“Last time, when I was “carried away” into anxiety, I lay down and began to rock myself, cradle like a child. And then… I turned on Rammstein. Not lullabies at all, of course. But their musical rhythm and the voice of Till Lindemann helped me calm down and return to an adult state.
“The inner baby who feels bad does not need to be “worked out”, “raised” or transformed: he needs to be calmed down so that he falls asleep, the psychologist explains. “Then he will return control to the inner adult, who will be able to deal with everything else.”
* The book The Boy Who Was Raised Like a Dog by Bruce Perry and Maya Salawitz is full of examples of such traumas and neurological work with them.
About expert
Anastasia Dolganova – psychologist, author of the books “The World of Narcissistic Victim. Relationships in the Context of Modern Neurosis” and “Everyday Mental Disorders. Self-diagnosis and self-help” (Ves, 2021). Read more on her .