In the TBI and trauma cases, though, the external stresses are negative, not positive, thus the adaptations are negative as well. Teach a young brain that the world is stressful and scary and the brain will remember this, and act that way even when removed to a less scary world.
"Chronic stress induces significant gene expression changes in the prefrontal cortex alongside alterations in adult hippocampal neurogenesis"
>In this study, unpredictable chronic mild stress in mice resulted in a deficit in neuronal dendritic tree development and neuroblast migration in the hippocampal neurogenic niche. To investigate molecular pathways underlying neurogenesis alteration, genome-wide gene expression changes were assessed in the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and the hypothalamus alongside neurogenesis changes. Cluster analysis showed that the transcriptomic signature of chronic stress is much more prominent in the prefrontal cortex compared to the hippocampus and the hypothalamus. Pathway analyses suggested huntingtin, leptin, myelin regulatory factor, methyl-CpG binding protein and brain-derived neurotrophic factor as the top predicted upstream regulators of transcriptomic changes in the prefrontal cortex. Involvement of the satiety regulating pathways (leptin) was corroborated by behavioural data showing increased food reward motivation in stressed mice. Behavioural and gene expression data also suggested circadian rhythm disruption and activation of circadian clock genes such as Period 2.
[1] https://academic.oup.com/braincomms/article/2/2/fcaa153/5912...
The animals in the study, as expected, showed depression-associated and hyperactivity behaviors. This study wasn't looking at any specific thing in a fine-grained sense, let alone trying to establish causation. But "no link" seems like quite a stretch.
Is the world often stressful and scary? Yes. But the lessons that trauma teaches a child do not help the adult manage fear nor stress. For example: a child who has to care for their alcoholic parent can risk growing into an adult that doesn’t know when they’re being taken advantage because they were literally taken advantage of since childhood. A child who was severely beaten at the slightest infraction risks growing up into an adult that cannot handle even minor conflict because they associate being disagreed with to broken bones.
Some have those results. Some have the opposite results and lean into learning how to handle those situations. That is also a very common reaction.
Firefighters, EMTs, Nurses, Paramedics, LEO, smoke jumpers, and many Soldiers of all stripes have the same backgrounds. 80%+ in my experience. A surprising (perhaps) numbers of skydivers and climbers too.
Including the West Point graduates, special forces (officers and enlisted), SWAT members, ICU and ED nurses, etc. that I’ve known personally.
And several CEOs of tech companies.
One that I know who I personally saw beaten (as a child) at the slightest infraction or none at all until I stepped in (as a child myself) to stop it, became a decorated officer in USSOCOM and did multiple combat tours in Afghanistan. And at least two (now) Majors and a Colonel I’ve known since they were kids.
The world is not as simple as it appears.
Most folks who end up in uncommon places did so because they experienced uncommon things and learned lessons from it that most people never will have the chance to learn.
Folks who haven’t learned those lessons tend to not survive many of those places for long.
Childhood trauma is a routine area of clinical specialization because it is so common, and I've never known anyone in that field to hold this position. Anecdotally sure yes plenty of traumatized children become successful adults but very simply and grimly most do not. Extreme survivorship bias at play here, often literally.
And separately I am not sure, in this context, considering what we now know about the behavior of american soldiers in afghanistan, that people being drawn to that environment or succeeding within it is evidence of anything positive about them.
And not like anyone who has gone through these situations is going to hang a sign on them that says what they’ve gone through.
All of them I know have been quite successful however, and if you walk into any ICU or Emergency department and randomly sample a nurse or Dr, at least 80% odds you’ll find they have that background if you can get them to talk.
EMT-B or EMT-P, much higher.
The world is a dangerous and scary place many times, for everyone. Chances are, you’d be shocked if you listened to your local EMS/LEO frequencies at how much even within a few miles of where you are sitting.
Most of the time, society is able to put up a facade so there is a chance everyone doesn’t have to experience it too directly or too terribly themselves, so others have a chance to live a different life.
The sick and injured get treated, the bodies get cleaned up, the threats get dealt with quickly and effectively, etc.
The people that do that, can stare it in the eye and deal with it, and that often is because they experienced it and learned how to cope or even thrive. Usually as a child.
Respect for that is more warranted than what you’re doing. They get enough shit as it is.
They can handle it though, they deal with worse every day.
Part of the problem is that we often focus on what could have been, instead of the wins of what was, no? Part of what makes things hard though, is if we never process/feel the bad things, we can’t move on.
When we process the pain, we can start to let go, and the wins start to come through.
It becomes a past, not a present. We can start to see the truth of what is in front of us, instead of getting stuck in an illusion.
Some learned/were able to earlier, some later. In my experience. We can look at the future more than relive the past.
Some avoid it, and that is often where true evil takes root.
‘Toughing it out’ works in the moment, but adds up over time until we hit our limits. The longer the pain stays in, the more it calcifies. Often, if it’s ‘stuck’ it’s due to something that is very difficult to see due to how bad it is.
No one comes through life without some grief and loss and pain, literally no one. Some get more than others, some handle it more than others.
In the end, we’re all dirt anyway - what matters is what we do with the time we have. I hope you find some peace. It is possible, but it is often not natural.
If you’re still struggling, there may be alternatives that can help. They do often take time and money.
I’m happy to provide some pointers or references if you’d like. No guarantees, but I have had some significant personal relief as have others. It is possible.
I am telling you that no one is better with trauma than they would have been without it. It's a simple message please hear it. I don't need anything else from you.
What I did note is trauma exists, and trauma is nearly everywhere at some point unless someone goes through a lot of work protecting others from it. But also that it’s impossible to protect everyone from it all the time forever.
And that has costs that some have learned to bear better than others, and there are tools that can help if one is willing to engage with them.
It is possible to not be in pain, eventually.
That no one can be better after experiencing it depends a lot on what you mean by ‘better’. There are easier paths, of course.
Society wise, I’ve known a lot of folks that society calls (justifiably, IMO) heros, and have had to trust my life to them and vice versa in situations that most people definitely, provably, can not handle. But that if not handled would cause far worse trauma to other innocent people.
And I’ve found the label appropriate. They’ve also experienced a lot of pain, and none are perfect. Neither am I.
I’ve held more dying men’s hands than anyone should have to. But it was important someone did it, and I was there.
I wish you and anyone else reading this the best of luck, regardless.
Relatedly, does "stress" have the same meaning in what you say and others are saying? It seems reasonable (though I have no evidence or related expertise) that the optimal level of stress is non-zero (for some definition of stress, to the extent that it can be quantified). Why wouldn't the optimal level of stress promote more pro-social, creative, cooprerative, etc. behaviour than sub-optimal stress levels?
Update:
Harvard Medical School article: Understanding the stress response https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding...
Research on effect on neural circuits: https://jneurodevdisorders.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.118...
Harvard article on impact of early childhood adversity, including on brain: https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/inbrief-the-im...
Telomere Effect also goes into epigenetic changes but isn’t solely focused on stress
Before the age of 5 I was hospitalized for falling out of a moving truck and had an ace score of 9, after adoption at 5 I had an ace score of 6-7. I was regularly beaten over the head, yelled at, had food withheld--the whole 9 yards. Almost always related to academic performance because I already had ADHD and PTSD from before adoption.
I now am starting to realize that beyond being easily triggered due to PTSD, I can ONLY function cognitively if I am under stress. It's taken me a long time to figure out if what I'm dealing with is ADHD, PTSD, dissociation, or what--it's hard to pin down. I finally realized that I perform, socialize, play, create and cooperate better if I am angry, scared, worried I'll get fired, or various other social pressures that make people panic. I am useless otherwise. I have come to the conclusion that I am adrenaline deficient because my brain developed in a wash of adrenaline and learned to stay there.
In social situations I come across as aloof or disinterested, absent, withdrawn, and when I'm excited about something or seeking socialization I come across as confrontational, argumentative, or upset when I'm happy and joking. I mostly don't see a point in socializing when I am not perceived according to my internal experience.
The only time I've ever been normal and functional is the 6 months after my mom died, a time when most people are incapacitated due to the stress of grief.
I gotta say as an N=1, having early childhood stressors and head trauma have not exactly made me more pro-social, creative, cooperative, etc. To get that Optimal level of stress requires that I destroy my body with cortisol.
The person you are responding to likely has notable epigenetic modifications that have lasted way past the initial negative environmental stimuli (in proportion to the trauma). It’s not a hopeless situation, there is literature on how to reverse and mitigate that, but it’s important to be aware of.
And not just humans. Pretty easy to tell if an animal has been mistreated. Kittens raised on the street, where they compete with each other for food, are nothing like those born and raised indoors.
Do you really need "hard science" for this kind of stuff?
You are also right that not everyone (human or different animal) reacts the same. Some turn the other cheek, some will break your nose. The scars will always be there, though.
It's all presumed to be one's 'personal responsibility' that they were victims of their own kind.
The onus belongs on society to provide healthy and stable environments for people.
Society never cares about the damage it inflicts until it's time to start talking about outcomes and results, usually after a mass killing or some other major meltdown that ends in murder.
99% of those would be avoided if mankind practiced what it preached.
While society can shift things around a bit, none of these underlying issues are actually ‘solvable’ without far more serious consequences.
Our current thinking and attempt at solving some of the current ‘justice’ issues for instances seems to be precipitating an even larger and more destructive evil.
The reason why you can’t force an organism to care about another of its kind, for instance, has a plausible evolutionary reason that it would be foolhardy to ignore. That others of another organisms kind have an incentive to take advantage of any sort of mechanism to capture the other organism and make it work against its interests.
Selfishness is the only viable defense against out of control selfishness.
Prior solutions create new problems and new pain, precipitating new attempts at solutions which create new problems and new pain, ad infinitum.
The wheel will continue to turn.
Certainly seems that way. The world is led by sociopaths who would rather see dead homeless people than miss a profit goal.
As the wheel turns, people will remember who was, and wasn't, there when things were poor, and abandon them in their greatest hour of need.
You’re getting your lesson reversed.
If no one is strong, there is no one to help the weak.
If one gives all their strength, then they are too weak to help anyone including themselves.
If Ukraine gave in to Russia, for example, then there would be no Ukraine, and a stronger and hungrier Russia.
Weakness breeds predators.
Strength gives options and an ability to actually help others from a place that isn’t predatory. A place that can be win-win.
Never actually helping anyone of course makes new enemies, and isn’t helping anyone either.
It’s a balance.
It's weird that this study is interpreted as changes in gene activation is bad, when it's clearly mostly good. It's like saying that micro-tearing of muscles during exercise is bad, when in fact that's the process which builds more muscles. Sure, some tears of muscle are bad, but it's mostly good, and I assume that the changes in gene expression in the brain are a form of growing and reacting to new situations, not necessarily bad.