The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma and Adversity—A Transformative Guide to Understanding Childhood Trauma and Health

by Nadine Burke Harris

there is a molecular mechanism behind every natural phenomenon—you just have to look for

Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many

They found that the more symptoms a kid had, the higher his cortisol levels were and the smaller the volume of his hippocampus. After the first measurement of the hippocampus, they measured the same kids again twelve to eighteen months later and found their hippocampi were even smaller. Despite the fact that these kids were no longer experiencing trauma, the parts of their brains responsible for learning and memory were still shrinking, showing us that the effects of earlier stress were still acting on the neurological system.

kids who were struggling in school but being told that they had ADHD or a “behavior problem” when these problems were directly correlated with toxic doses of adversity.

diagnosis of toxic stress doesn’t yet exist in the medical literature.

I had come across some data describing the high number of cases of hyperthyroidism among refugees from Nazi prison

camps. In fact, the term kriegs-Basedow (kriegs means “war,” so kriegs-Basedow is “hyperthyroidism of war”) was coined following the observation of an increased incidence of hyperthyroidism during major wars. Trinity visited the endocrinologist,

that since 1825, researchers have known that Graves’ disease is often correlated with stressful life events,

MRI studies of severely maltreated kids from Romanian orphanages shows dramatic enlargement of their amygdalae.

The other thing that happens when the amygdala is chronically or repeatedly activated is that it starts messing up its predictions about what’s scary and what’s not. The amygdala begins sending false alarms to the other parts of your brain about things that shouldn’t actually be scary, just like the little boy who cried wolf.

Don’t Know Karate but I Do Know C-razy (aka the Locus Coeruleus) This part of the brain is the driving force behind aggressive behavior (sorry, Raiders fans, I’m still looking at you). It works closely with the prefrontal cortex, which is why we see overlap in how they both regulate impulse control. The dysregulated locus coeruleus releases too much noradrenaline (the brain’s version of adrenaline) and can result in increased anxiety, arousal, and aggression. It can also seriously mess with y...

First, the overactive amygdala sends messages to the PFC telling it to decrease its functioning because something scary is happening; you don’t want reason getting in the way of survival.

The second is that the locus coeruleus is flooding the brain with noradrenaline, compromising the ability to override instincts and impulses.

For some, it results in an inability to concentrate and solve problems, but in others it manifests as impulsive behavior and aggression.

This might sound simple, but I cannot overstate this: The single most important thing is recognizing what the problem is in the first place.”

legacy of dislocation.