How to Recognize Subconscious Lies from Childhood Trauma | Dear Tim Series — Letter from "Andy" — Transcript

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1. 0:00Well, welcome again to another episode of  Letters to Tim, where I respond to letters
2. 0:06that we receive from people that watch our  YouTube channel and send in questions about
3. 0:12their life and what they're dealing with. And I  I always struggle with these to an extent because
4. 0:19if I was in a counseling situation, I would  explore what people shared with me initially just
5. 0:26to make sure I understood it just to make sure  that we really were getting a clear picture of the
6. 0:32the real issues here. And I don't have that option  here, but I'm taking what they're saying. And
7. 0:40in many cases, I can tell they've been watching  videos. They've been learning lots of stuff about
8. 0:45complex trauma and they're getting a pretty good  picture of some of their underlying issues. Um,
9. 0:52so I'm making a few assumptions that I hope are  accurate and I hope that my responses are helpful.
10. 1:00So the letter today is from Andy and it reads  like this. Dear Tim, I was born in the mid 1990s
11. 1:09to very young parents who did not plan upon  my arrival. Their relationship was unstable,
12. 1:15often shifting between warmth and coldness  and eventually ended after serious conflict.
13. 1:22My mother left to protect us, and I spent part of  my early childhood growing up in a blended family.
14. 1:29My stepfather wasn't the best partner  to my mom, but he was an okay dad to me.
15. 1:35When I was around 5 years old, I experienced  inappropriate behavior from older relatives.
16. 1:40Later, my mom became ill and took my younger  sister and me to live with my grandparents.
17. 1:46Not long after, my mother passed away. I was  still a child, and losing her changed everything.
18. 1:54My grandmother was short-tempered and  used physical pun punishment when she felt
19. 1:59disrespected or overwhelmed. I grew up afraid  of her and my grandfather never intervened.
20. 2:06My aunt and her husband also lived with us. While  they could be kind at times, they struggled with
21. 2:13addiction, financial instability, and  neglect toward their own children.
22. 2:18I don't remember my grandmother ever standing  up for me when my aunt made hurtful comments
23. 2:25or when conflicts arose with other adults in the  home. Looking back, I know my basic needs were
24. 2:32met. We had food, clothing, a home, and school  schooling. But I don't remember warmth, comfort,
25. 2:39or emotional safety. I don't remember ever being  hugged, reassured, or met with understanding.
26. 2:47Love felt conditional and distant, more  about survival than connection. As an adult,
27. 2:55I struggle with boundaries, especially in  relationships with men. I'm still learning how
28. 3:00to see myself outside of people pleasing and how  to understand what unconditional love actually is.
29. 3:08I often question what a healthy relationship feels  like, first with myself and then with others.
30. 3:16I'm afraid of being betrayed and it's hard for me  to trust or fully open up. I worry that what I say
31. 3:23or do might push people away. At the same time,  I'm learning to let go of relationships that don't
32. 3:30feel safe or aligned, and I'm slowly breaking  old patterns without as much guilt as before.
33. 3:39My question is this. How do experiences like these  affect the brain of a small child into adulthood?
34. 3:47especially when it comes to trust, identity,  boundaries, and relationships. Thank you, Andy.
35. 3:55Again, your experience is so  common to people that I deal with
36. 4:03and you ask some very good questions and you also  really show that you've done a lot of growth and
37. 4:10understanding and self-awareness so far. But  let me just highlight again what I see as
38. 4:17some of the major issues that you grew up with.  And and I would say that you would probably be
39. 4:23in the more severe end of the complex trauma  spectrum. So number one, your mom's pregnancy,
40. 4:32she hadn't planned for it. So they may have  seen you as a mistake. And that's sometimes what
41. 4:37a child picks up on through their neurosception  is that they've always felt a bit unwanted. That
42. 4:44might never have been said to them, but they might  have sensed it somehow. Then there was a lot of
43. 4:50conflict and tension in your parents' relationship  and violence at times and that creates
44. 4:59a ton of lack of safety for a child. Then your  parents separated, divorced and you went through
45. 5:07that rift, that separation, and that creates huge  issues for a child. You did not experience healthy
46. 5:16attachment in your life. You felt trauma bonding.  Um, that was part of your experience. You did not
47. 5:24have stability. You did not have safety. You did  not have security. You went through sexual abuse.
48. 5:31You went through your mother passing  away, the deep loss of your one rock,
49. 5:39and then you had an angry, violent grandmother and  a grandfather who enabled that and didn't stand
50. 5:46up to that. And so grandmother was narcissistic  and you had to live within that. You experienced
51. 5:53lots of criticism, lack of compassion, lack of  emotional needs being met. Then there was a chaos
52. 6:01element due to your aunt and uncle living with you  and all that they were going through and their own
53. 6:08personal instability. Then you felt betrayal.  Nobody defended you. Nobody stood up for you.
54. 6:15You didn't experience warmth, comfort, nurture.  You then therefore experienced lack of trust,
55. 6:25deep shame that you weren't good enough. And so  you had to learn to fawn. You were afraid to be
56. 6:32authentic cuz that would lead to rejection. So  you went through a lot as a child. And then the
57. 6:41loss of your mom to me, that piece of your life  that was your one stable refuge harbor rock,
58. 6:51the little bit of attachment you had was severed.  that to me was just a catastrophic event for you.
59. 7:02So all of those events and what I want, you asked  about the brain, but I want people to understand
60. 7:10those events are so overwhelming to a child that  they affect not just their brain though they
61. 7:17affect that dramatically and we'll get into that.  They affect the whole nervous system. They affect
62. 7:24your whole sense of identity that the problem  is you. You're not good enough. You must be a
63. 7:30zero because you've been abandoned by everybody  in your life. Starting with dad, then mom dying,
64. 7:37on and on. We go through over 80 different  ways that this kind of trauma affects people
65. 7:45in their body, in their emotions, in their nervous  system, in their brain, and how they cope and how
66. 7:50they do relationships. The list goes on and on.  So, let me give you some of them and then branch
67. 7:59into the brain. But most kids who've gone through  what you've gone through experience deep anger.
68. 8:06Then they experience deep shame, identity  issues, who am I? Not feeling good enough,
69. 8:13feeling that if anybody gets to know the real me,  they will reject me and abandon me. That leads
70. 8:18to relationship struggles. That leads to trouble  identifying their emotions and trouble regulating
71. 8:27their emotions. That leads to anxious or avoidant  attachment issues when it comes to relationships.
72. 8:35That leads to hundreds of unhealthy default  settings and default programs in their brain when
73. 8:44it comes to coping, when it comes to relationship,  when it comes to relationship templates,
74. 8:49when it comes to beliefs that they have. All of  that they're not even aware of, but it's running
75. 8:55their life. And those that's really where we  begin to look at how it affects your brain.
76. 9:02Complex trauma isn't just about what's happening  in your comp conscious brain. It's about what's
77. 9:10happening in your subconscious brain, which is  operating 90% of the time, what you do and how
78. 9:17you think and how you feel. And let me just  give you a couple examples of what is going
79. 9:22on in your subconscious brain. What comes out of  complex trauma is a belief that if I am authentic,
80. 9:30nobody will attach to me. Attachment will not be  possible. I will be rejected. I will be abandoned.
81. 9:38The healthy way to go about life is if I want  attachment, I must be authentic with safe people.
82. 9:47That is the recipe to healthy attachment. But to  a complex trauma person, attachment isn't possible
83. 9:56if I'm authentic. What they don't see is because  I'm with unsafe people. So they go into adult life
84. 10:04saying, "I can't be authentic because nobody  will want to attach to me. They'll reject me.
85. 10:08So I was must wear masks. I must play roles."  That operates out of their subconscious. That
86. 10:14sets them up for relationships to fail. That is  just one program, one belief in your subconscious.
87. 10:24Secondly, if I'm neglected, if I'm abused, I must  have done something wrong. It must be my fault.
88. 10:33I must need to change. I must need to adapt. I am  not lovable just the way I am. [clears throat] So,
89. 10:43I must always put my needs down. and put my  authenticity aside. Become what others want.
90. 10:51I must earn love. I must earn love. And the  only way into relationships is becoming what
91. 10:59you want me to be. Fawning that becomes part  of the subconscious, a belief that messes them
92. 11:07up for years to come. And then another one, if I  stand up for myself and say no and set a boundary,
93. 11:15people will not like me. They will get mad at  me. They will not want a relationship with me.
94. 11:20So the only way for people to like me and have a  relationship with me is I can't say no. I can't
95. 11:26stand up for myself. That's in the subconscious.  And so what I want you to see is there's
96. 11:33thousands of beliefs that made sense to a  child who was living with unsafe people,
97. 11:40but now they cause your relationships, your ways  of coping all to be based on lies that cause you
98. 11:48pain and trouble. And so you don't become aware of  those usually until somebody starts teaching you,
99. 11:57until you begin to bring the subconscious to the  conscious. And that's where taking a course like
100. 12:04our lift course where you're going to get lots  of teaching and begin to develop an awareness of
101. 12:10many of these lies that have operated  out of the subconscious is going to be so
102. 12:15important and helpful. And that's why to me  healing for many people is not three easy steps.
103. 12:24One of the biggest most important first  steps is this growth in self-awareness.
104. 12:30Bringing the subconscious to the  conscious where you become aware
105. 12:34of the thousands of lies and distortions  that have been running your life for years.
106. 12:41They made sense to the child. They were the truth  to the child. but they now need to be looked at.
107. 12:48There's another way that complex trauma affects  the brain that many don't realize still bothers
108. 12:54them in adult life and that is hypervigilance.  But hypervigilance. So a child that is
109. 13:00had danger and gets hurt and hurt and hurt. They  become hypervigilant. They're looking for danger.
110. 13:05But then they the brain develops a negative bias.  It is looking for negative. It is not looking
111. 13:12to see things accurately. It will actually read  potential negative into situations because it's
112. 13:18better to be safe than sorry. So now your  brain is actually attracted to negative.
113. 13:25Your brain goes quickly to negative thinking, to  negative conclusions, to worst case scenarios,
114. 13:31to a negative bias that can cause huge issues  for you in adult life. Another way is brain fog.
115. 13:43So what happens as stress elevates is you go  out of your cortex where you're clearly thinking
116. 13:52and processing you go to your lyic system  brain stem the greater the stress becomes.
117. 14:00Cortisol shuts down your cortex  system. It puts you into survival mode
118. 14:08and there you don't think as clearly. It's like  you You get foggy in your thinking, fuzzy in
119. 14:15your thinking, you even can't think of words, you  can't remember concepts, you can't remember tools.
120. 14:22That happens as stress goes up. And so we  call that brain fog. And so people can still
121. 14:28struggle with that in adult life when they're in  higher stress situations is it's like they get
122. 14:36they feel like they're stupid all of a sudden.  They just can't think. Then many people coming
123. 14:42out of complex trauma have intrusive thoughts.  They are going along in life and all of a sudden
124. 14:49you're a loser. You should kill yourself.  The world would be better off without you.
125. 14:55You should harm yourself. Jumps into their head  and they go where in the world did that come from?
126. 15:02It's so important to understand that the healing  brain is a part of the brain. There's still other
127. 15:09parts of the brain that haven't healed. There's  still parts of the brain that are still operating
128. 15:16off of old programming, old messages. And once  in a while, they're going to get triggered.
129. 15:22And once in a while, they're going to  send a message to your conscious brain.
130. 15:26That's not the real you. That's a part of your  brain. That's not your total brain thinking that.
131. 15:31That's a small portion of your brain thinking  that, but it's a phenomenon that still happens.
132. 15:36And it's learning not to feed it, not to argue  with it, not to fight it. Just okay, that part
133. 15:41of the brain is doing its job, but I don't have  to listen to it. And moving on with your day.
134. 15:49Then there's another thing that happens  from complex trauma and that is to stay
135. 15:55in the conscious brain to a child means to stay  in pain. It means to stay in hopeless situations
136. 16:03where they're helpless. So they learn that the  worst place to be is be present in the present.
137. 16:10So we need to not be in the present. So let's  distract oursel. Let's stay busy. Let's do video
138. 16:16games. Let's run around. Let's constantly  do entertaining things that are exciting
139. 16:23because then I don't have to feel. Then I don't  have to be present in the present. So dissociation
140. 16:30is something that the brain does when stress gets  too much, too painful for the conscious brain to
141. 16:38handle. It begins to dissociate and people can  still struggle with that today where they all
142. 16:45of a sudden get antsy. They need to be busy. They  zone out. That's the brain trying to protect you
143. 16:52and that can be a problem. Another thing is that  there's flashbacks. You can be going on in life
144. 17:00and all of a sudden you get a memory, you get a  nightmare, you get a flashback of a painful event
145. 17:07from the past. And those can be challenging  to deal with. But that is part of the brain
146. 17:14healing. That is part of the brain still working  through, sifting through stuff that needs to heal.
147. 17:22So, don't beat yourself up yourself up for that.  Don't overreact to that. Say, "Okay, thank you.
148. 17:29Now I know what I need to talk to my  therapist about. Now I need to know
149. 17:34something that needs my attention." Another part  of how trauma affects the brain is memory gaps.
150. 17:43And so a child in constant danger is a body, a  nervous system that is secretreting cortisol all
151. 17:51the time to give energy to fight or flight. But  cortisol affects memories in the brain. It affects
152. 17:58the brain's ability to bring the emotions  and details of memories together.
153. 18:04And so people can have memory gaps where they  don't remember years of their life, but they can
154. 18:10still have emotional flashbacks that emotions get  triggered and all of a sudden they're panicking.
155. 18:15Or they can have great detailed memories, but no  emotions attached to it. It's like they're reading
156. 18:21a phone book. They just, yeah, that terrible thing  happened and there's zero effect emotionally.
157. 18:27That can happen. And so what you have to realize  is that when you're in safety, cortisol stops in
158. 18:33the brain. The brain can start to heal. Memories  can start to get restored and put back together.
159. 18:42That can take years. Some memories may not  come back. Don't worry about that. Focus on
160. 18:51what you are aware are your issues that  came out of your trauma. Work on them.
161. 18:57You don't have to have all your memories in order  to heal. And then the other final thing that
162. 19:04comes out of complex trauma is complex trauma  because of danger keeps you in survival mode.
163. 19:12That keeps you in a limbic brain fight. I need  to act in the immediate to keep safe. I don't
164. 19:21have time to think long term. I don't have time to  weigh out options. I don't have time to think, is
165. 19:28this a healthy or unhealthy behavior? I might have  to lie now or I'm going to die. I might have to
166. 19:34steal now or cheat now or I'm going to die. It's  all about limbic brain impulses to stay safe. A
167. 19:41child's brain is basically a limbic brain. That's  where a child thinks instant gratification. They
168. 19:48don't think long term. They don't think healthy.  But a child as they go through their teen years is
169. 19:53beginning to transition to learning to think long  term, learning to think healthy. And that's why
170. 19:58the teen years can be turbulent because you're  still limbic brain but cortex is taking over.
171. 20:04A mature adult is listening to the liyic  brain but is their cortex is running the show.
172. 20:12But a person from complex trauma, the  liyic brain is still in the driver's seat.
173. 20:17They still are impulsive. They still think  short term instant gratification. Those can be
174. 20:23huge problems. And if they are in their cortex  and doing well, but they get triggered by fear
175. 20:28or stress, they jump to their liyic brain.  The limbic brain pushes the cortex out of
176. 20:34the driver's seat and says, "I'm taking over now.  I'm going to go back to survival ways of coping."
177. 20:40In that couple minutes, they can do a tremendous  amount of damage. And so learning to listen to
178. 20:47my liyic brain, acknowledge my limbic brain,  but not let it take over, learning to regulate
179. 20:53my limbic brain, stay in my cortex is a huge  skill for people to learn as they begin to heal
180. 21:02their trauma. So those are just a handful of ways  that trauma affects the brain. significant ways,
181. 21:10powerful ways, ways that take a lot of work  and time to heal, but it is possible to do it.
182. 21:19You will probably need help. You will probably  need teaching. You'll need a mentor, a therapist,
183. 21:26people that can give you tools. But it is possible  to do that. And I wish you well on the journey.