I was raised in the 1940s and 50s in Detroit, Michigan –
motor city capital of the world – a blue collar town and a blue
collar family. My dad serviced cigarette vending machines which gave me
free access to all the cigarettes I wanted. So I started smoking at 12.
My mother was addicted to prescription drugs –
tranquilizers, sleeping pills and pain pills when she could get them.
She was anorexic and always had me on a diet. She physically abused me
and my brother. When she was drugged (which was most of the time) she
was emotionally absent which I have learned is neglect. She took me to
our pediatrician every Saturday for years to be weighed in. We kids who
came in on Saturday were referred to as “the fat kids
club.” From the age of 10 on I took diet pills. I ate when my
mother wasn’t looking.
Obviously, my family was dysfunctional. Smoking helped to keep
down my feelings. Food was my addiction. I spent the next 40 years
loosing 10 to 20 pounds – at least 10 to 20 times. I never got
past 140 pounds. 120 was easy to maintain. At one point I went down to
105. It didn’t last. I never exercised. Cutting the grass
occasionally was my most strenuous act.
I married early to escape my crazy home. I hid my insecurities
behind my smoking. My husband treated me in a similar way to my
parents. Three wonderful children later -- through a series of
“accidents” I wound up in the hospital for spinal surgery
where I had a profound near-death experience with what we call the
“life review.” I watched all 32 years of my life again.
Only this time I wasn’t “in” it. I was observing it
with a “Power greater than myself.” The most painful part
of what I witnessed was that I was becoming like my mother and was
about to start treating my children the way she had treated me.
That seems like another lifetime ago. I knew I had to change and
I have spent the next 31 years changing. I went into psychotherapy. I
took personal growth workshops. I started college at 36 and eventually
graduated as a respiratory therapist. Nine years after my near- death
experience I divorced my husband of 23 years. Shortly after that I was
able to become a psychiatric researcher exploring the after effects of
the near-death experience. So many of us near-death experiencers
(NDErs) came from dysfunctional homes that we looked at this in our
research and the stats didn’t lie. 58% of NDErs came from
traumatic childhoods --including physical, sexual or psychological
abuse or just neglect – not having our basic needs met to being
ignored. This made us more easily access altered states of
consciousness. We could move in to realities that weren’t
physical. Psychiatry calls it “dissociation” and makes it
pathological. My colleagues called it “a compensatory
gift.” Our traumatic childhoods taught us how to access other
realities that exist – but not to those that have never
experienced them.
Then I met my now husband, Charles L. Whitfield, MD. His research
continued this theme where our NDE research left off. He has been
treating adult children of dysfunctional families for years and his
observations have been published in ten books and at least 60
scientific articles. His first book published in 1986 Healing the Child
Within has sold over 1.3 million books and has been translated into ten
languages. Medical research over the last 30 years has proven his
observations in over 330 published papers. (See illustration of Adverse
Childhood Experiences and it’s public health effects.)
So with my new information I was able to stop smoking and my yoyo
dieting. I found out from Charlie that I’m not
“sick,” “bad,” “crazy” or
“Stupid.” I was wounded as a child and the wounding
continued until I said “enough.” And got out of my crazy
marriage. What I have – what most of us that have been repeatedly
traumatized, or neglected as children – is post traumatic stress
disorder or PTSD. When we look at the symptoms of PTSD our lives start
to make sense. Smoking keeps the symptoms down. Eating pushes them down
too. Exercise, which I started 5 years ago at the age of 58, relieves
the symptoms better than overeating and helps to cope with giving up
smoking. Now that I’m not withdrawing anymore (I haven’t
smoked a cigarette in 16 years) I have so much energy to get on the
machines at my gym and bike ride or swim. My eating has leveled off
because I’m not holding down my PTSD anymore. I’m
understanding it.
Here’s what Charlie says about PTSD.
“In my experience, I have found post traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD) to be the most accurate, inclusive, and potentially
useful diagnosis to help people who have been significantly
traumatized. It’s accuracy begins with the fact that many of the
common mental disorders are strongly associated with, and in some cases
possibly --or even probably caused by childhood and other trauma.
It’s inclusiveness rests in the fact that its diverse symptoms
can be manifested as several other common disorders, including
depression, substance abuse/chemical dependence including nicotine
dependency and eating disorders, anxiety and panic disorder... And its
usefulness lies in its ability to clarify a common cause of human
suffering as being caused simply by unmetabolized trauma.”
“Trauma occurs when any act, event, or experience harms or
damages the physical, sexual, mental, emotional, or spiritual integrity
of our true self. Simple upsetting or disrupting of it is not usually
enough to cause actual damage, unless it is repeated over time and is
of human origin. And if we are vulnerable, i.e. if our true self is
already wounded or hurt from prior trauma, then we may be more likely
to develop additional or more severe symptoms and signs of
post-traumatic stress when we are exposed to additional trauma. This
would include children who were repeatedly abused and then grew up and
had abusive relationships, combat trauma or other traumas later in
their life. ”
“PTSD may occur across a spectrum of manifestations, from
fear or anxiety, to depression, to easy irritability, to impulsive or
even explosive behavior, to numbness. I believe, as do others, that
growing up in a seriously troubled or dysfunctional family or similar
environment often is associated with PTSD. The PTSD is said to be more
damaging and more difficult to treat if: (1) the traumas occur over a
prolonged period of time, e.g., longer than six months; and especially
so if (2) the traumas are of human origin; and if (3) those around the
affected person tend to deny the existence of the stressor or the
stress. All three are present in an actively alcoholic family and in
similar troubled families.”
“An important part of healing from PTSD is in the process of
remembering what happened in our traumatic experience. This remembering
is not simply cognitive, but is also experiential. As we heal, we
experience it in our now clearer and richer inner life, which evolves
during the recovery process.”
“Central to all of the above is that when we are
traumatized and then naturally and appropriately try to express our
resulting pain, in these dysfunctional systems we are repeatedly
invalidated for doing so. Being invalidated not only blocks and often
destroys our natural mechanisms for healing, but it frequently inflicts
a double trauma on the victim of the mistreatment. Most all of the
invalidations (whether individual or collective) against our genuine
attempts to heal are thus just another kind of trauma - known as
retraumatization.
“PTSD is common among trauma survivors. Screening for this
disorder among people with other high risk disorders for an association
with childhood trauma, such as depression, anxiety disorder, drug and
alcohol problems, eating disorders, nicotine addiction, personality
disorders, dissociative disorders, and psychosis, is important in
documenting … a way to assist them in their process of healing.
Knowing that they are not mentally ill, but that they have PTSD
instead, can be helpful as a way to begin to heal their guilt and
shame. They are wounded, and their painful symptoms are the effects of
the trauma.”
Charlie and I have a private practice in Atlanta, Georgia where we
provide individual and group therapy for trauma survivors and people
with addictions and other problems in living. Most of our patients have
post-traumatic stress disorder from moderately to severely
dysfunctional childhoods. And they come to us because this is effecting
their adult lives in a variety of ways including nicotine addiction and
eating disorders. As they remember and metabolize their traumas they
are able to give up smoking and eventually they learn how to eat in a
healthy way. Many of them, like me, are exercising and loving it.
Charlie and I have just written a book together with another couple called The Power of Humility: Choosing Peace over Conflict in Relationships.
Finally, I have found answers for myself that started in my life review
in my Near-death experience. It is possible to have a peaceful life
– and it doesn’t have to come from my next pack of
cigarettes or food binge.
--------------------------
Article Comments
I'm the author of this article. The illustration on the left is too
small to read. If you go to the blue tab on the top that says "pictures
of health" and click on that, the illustration is shown larger in the
slide show.
I also want to thank The Oxford Health Alliance for this opportunity to
share my story. I hope it helps others to understand why they can't
quit smoking and perhaps even give them new hope that they can quit now!
Posted by Barbara Whitfield on 20th Dec 2006
There is a BBC News story running onthe website today (16 Jan) which links to this topic. See link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6263971.stm
Posted by Marisa Pulaski on 16th Jan 2007
Thank you, Ms. Pulaski for the new study that we can add to the 330
published scientific reports we have already documented in two books,
The Truth about Depression and the Truth about Mental Illness by
Charles L. Whitfield, MD, (Health Communications, Inc, Deerfield Bch,
Florida, USA. 2004 and 04) These studies added together have over
230,000 subjects. If you want to know more please go to our websites
(listed at the end of this story) and click on the articles page for
Charles.
These findings are not new. They have been known (but not proven until
the last few years) for over 20 years in the "Recovery Movement"
especially for "Adult Children of Alcoholics/Trauma." One of the
reasons why this isn't out in the mainstream is because the Drug
Industry and organized medicine and psychiatry would rather support the
use of "anti-depressants" and other psych drugs. And, the
"managed-care" industry doesn't want to pay for long-term psychotherapy
-- which in the long run would cost less money because it directly
addresses the effects of the trauma. Another good source to learn more
about this is the new ACA "Big Book" which can be ordered through our
website www.cbwhit.com.
Posted by Barbara Whitfield on 17th Jan 2007
Barbara Whitfield has once again 'knocked it out of the park' with her
acute and devastating accuracy on the harm caused by invalidation of
truth. This is a critical element of dysfunctional family dynamics,
and, in my opinion, the hardest thing to overcome. The work of Barbara
and her husband Charles stands head and shoulders above the majority of
'self-help' available to the general public. Their keen insight and
understanding puts current 'ivory tower' research into mental health in
its' proper perspective.
Posted by Susan Raines on 6th Feb 2007
Thank you Susan for your kind comments. To understand more about the
"self-help" we are using in our own psychotherapy practice and in our
writings, I have added a brief description on the ideas page called
"Healing From Repeated Childhood Trauma."
Posted by Barbara Whitfield on 6th Feb 2007