Chronic
anxiety and emotional numbing also get in the way of learning
to identify and articulate internal states and wishes. People traumatized as children frequently
suffer from alexithymia - an inability to translate somatic
sensations into basic feelings, such as anger, happiness or
fear. This failure to translate somatic states into words and
symbols causes them to experience emotions simply as physical
problems. This naturally plays havoc with intimate and
trusting interpersonal communications. These people relate to the world through their
bodies. They experience distress in terms of physical organs,
rather than as psychological states.
Childhood Histories
Numerous studies have demonstrated that both adults and
children who have been traumatized are likely to turn their
aggression against others or themselves. Being abused as a
child sharply increases the risk for later delinquency and
violent criminal behavior. In one study of 87 psychiatric
outpatients we found that
self-mutilators invariably had severe childhood histories of
abuse and/or neglect. There is good evidence that
selfmutilative behavior is related to endogenous opioid
changes in the CNS secondary to early traumatization.
Problems with aggression against others have been
particularly well documented in war veterans, traumatized
children and in prisoners with histories of early trauma.
Memory disturbances and
dissociation
Increased
autonomic arousal not only interferes with psychological
comfort, anxiety itself also may trigger memories of previous
traumatic experiences. The administration of lactate, which
stimulates the physiological arousal system, elicits
flashbacks and panic attacks in people with PTSD. Yohimbine
injections (which stimulate NE release from the Locus
Coeruleus) are able to induce flashbacks in Vietnam veterans
with it. Any arousing situation may trigger memories of
long-ago traumatic experiences and precipitate reactions that
are irrelevant to present demands.
