Childhood trauma and child abuse have a much larger spotlight these days. The extra attention is good, although it’s sad how they remain such a prevalent topics. Another reason for the extra focus is that people like me are tired of the stigma that goes with childhood trauma . I’ve realized these past few years, all those horrible secrets from childhood – they are not my shameful secrets. They are not a reflection of me or my intentions. Childhood trauma and the secrets unfortunately do reflect who I’ve become. And it’s time for me to start talking about it.

The raging pain of childhood trauma interfering with adult life:

Sadly, we can’t grow out of childhood trauma – time will not mend these injuries. We need to be willing and courageous enough to take the steps to heal. People who don’t will spend their adult life pretty much like I’ve spent the majority of mine: hurt, angry, and waiting for the next bad thing to happen. Ugh.

The simplified way I see it, there are four intangible components that add extra weight to an adult with a trauma history:

1. A shelf of pain near their soul;
2. An anger shelf right above the pain shelf (the rectangle of rage);
3. Heated exchanges between the relentless and insensitive chatterboxes of the mind; and,
4. An internal fight or flight system that is switched to “READY” by the time I’m halfway through my morning coffee.

These all contribute to an adult always on guard, always in fight or flight mode. And worse, we are often subconsciously far too willing to welcome conflict – that is the single best way for the internal fight or flight system to justify its interloping.

Question: how can a person with a trauma history go from 0 mph to 100 mph in anger so quickly?

Answer: they have been idling at 75 mph since halfway through the drive to work.

I have found that drinking is a great way to suppress and drown that shelf of pain so it will stay quiet, leave me alone without igniting frightening and bizarre thoughts it used to drive into my psyche. I’m convinced now, had I continued suppressing all that pain with booze, I would not be on this glorious path to a fulfilled life – instead, I would be destined to carry a wounded and heavy soul to my grave.

Before I move to discussing healing, I’d like to say that the best way to avoid childhood trauma interfering with an adult life is to not put the child through trauma. Period. Obvious but not obvious enough to some. Everyone has a pain shelf – it develops at some point when we are kids. We all have to take the bad with the good in life. But for a kid that grows up safe, that shelf should have very few jars on it, and those jars won’t be full.

My healing journey:

When I reached 30 (in the late nineties), I’d say I was about 10% healed. Just an arbitrary number – it’s safe to say I was much closer to zero than halfway. But then I had a kid and decided that I better try harder to get past this stuff – I owe it to her not to pass my anger on (I had already decided as a teenager that hitting a woman or a child is anathema to me – never going to happen). During this time I found yoga and therapy, blended with the right amount of medication, can do wonders for healing.

In the early 2000’s, I made the mistake of starting to write a memoir before I was healed enough. Dipping unhealed into those old memories, reliving horrors without some safeguards in place can lead to trouble. Damn it all, I re-traumatized myself. The flashbacks returned, as did my urge to suppress my pain shelf by flooding it with alcohol (I had quit for over a year). I now understand that as booze suppresses the pain shelf by keeping it numb, it can activate the anger shelf, creating miniature (or not so miniature) volcanic eruptions. That’s bad news, given the anger shelf feels like it’s right across my chest, close to the mouth – and also close to the fists – yikes.

The 2010’s is where I had some minor breakthrough experiences. I give most of the credit to EMDR[i], with hot yoga certainly being a key healing enabler. I stopped drinking during this time frame, which had a huge contribution. By 2019 I was probably about 25% healed. On the right track, with a lot of work yet to be done. One of my problems in life is that I’ve often got in my own way: my continuous running from my childhood, avoidance of dealing with all that baggage put me behind the eight-ball when it came to my desire to heal. You cannot get over what you will not face.

Then comes a pandemic: closures and lockdowns, isolation and angst. Everyone has their own horror story of the past few years: so much isolation, angst, and feelings of uselessness. I briefly returned to my old frenemy: the drink. Fortunately, I once again remembered all the good reasons not to drink and returned to abstinence. Lockdown plus work having dried up left me many hours each day for introspection.

The year 2021 brought me deep introspection. I conducted life reviews, practiced yoga and meditation, and listened to healing podcasts. There is no doubt that the year 2021 set me up for the major awakening I had early the next year.

It was January 2022 when I was listening to a podcast before bed, as I always do. There was something special about the way this leader was instructing me to lean back, lean away from the trouble in my mind, because it’s actually a separate entity from me. Lean back, let it pass. The keyword in my mind was detachment: if I can revisit traumatic memories, instead of continuing to relive them in flashbacks, perhaps I can get a better handle on them. That’s exactly what happened. It was a very liberating day that day in January, and soon after I decided it’s time to delve back into that memoir.

I spent the entire year 2022 writing. And healing. And finding therapy and healing in the writing, I can’t say that I didn’t  find angst in continuously revisiting certain deep, dark corners of my memory – I knew it was coming and took the proper measures to manage it. A key difference from the past: when the troubling thoughts come now, I own them, and acknowledge them, and process them by telling them to move along. Like watching a cloud float by until it’s out of sight, I’ve realized that we must carry these feelings through until they dissipate and disappear. Just remain calm and composed and they will disappear. I no longer suppress the troubling feelings, nor do I lose control of my emotions now.

Suddenly my shelf of pain began emptying, as many of the jars of pain were acknowledged, owned, and fully and carefully reflected upon. The jars still on the shelf are emptying, a little bit more each day – the pain shelf is beginning to shrink.

As the pain shelf withers, I can feel my anger shelf starting to weaken and wobble as well. The energy for anger continues dissipating and is being replaced by new feelings of equanimity. Without the steady foundation of the pain shelf to rest upon, the anger shelf is rapidly losing its status. And as both shelves continue to empty and wither, the battle zone in my mind is continuously calling for cease-fires. My flight or fight or flight response is starting to allow itself to not be on maximum all the time – every day the dial turns a little closer to the “Only when necessary” setting.

Here’s a summary of what the most important pieces for me were in healing:

1. Medication
2. EMDR
3. Yoga and meditation
4. Avoiding alcohol
5. Healing podcasts
6. Never giving up

My needs for these strategies and tools will ebb and flow with time – the key is to be flexible and create the optimal combination for the circumstances. I will let go of anything no longer working, and continue to add new healing strategies. Life continues to get better, and when I publish my memoir and help thousands of others heal from their childhood trauma, fulfilment will become on the horizon for me.

I call this a haphazard approach to healing, because it is just that: haphazard. There is no obvious correct next step, no user manual or recipe to fix this – everyone must become aware of and try different strategies for long-term and lasting healing. Healing is out there, but it is not coming to anyone’s doorstep. It awaits right around the corner, for anyone willing to take those first few steps to get started.

About the author:

Cam Scholey, Ph.D., MBA, Fellow CPA is a professional writer and speaker. After a rewarding career in consulting, teaching university, and writing about business strategy, Cam is pivoting his focus to write and speak about struggling with and overcoming childhood trauma. A staunch proponent of child safety, he intends to promote awareness that will eradicate abuse. He is currently completing a memoir that recounts his childhood, emphasizing resilience, forgiveness and the power of the human spirit. The memoir will be published in 2023. Cam can be contacted at camscholey.com.

[i] Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy (Shapiro, 2001) is for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). There are many styles and approaches.