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

“Honestly, it sounds like Karl was experiencing toxic stress,” I said. “It makes perfect sense that he did so much better because exactly what you did is the treatment for toxic stress. Number one, reduce the dose of adversity; number two, strengthen the ability of the caregiver to be a healthy buffer. Your getting healthy was actually an incredibly important part of the equation. It’s like when a flight attendant tells you to put your own oxygen mask on before putting it on your child. That’s no joke. Your stress response was dysregulated, which made it impossible to help him regulate his. That’s the mechanism that is so critical to understand. You getting out and taking care of yourself wasn’t selfish—it was the exact right thing to do for Karl.”