Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN) - 1195

Tonight's special guest is Audrey C from Arizona, a child abuse survivor who joins us to about her feelings, her understanding of C-PTSD and of the long term impact her childhood trauma has had on her life. "I experienced sexual abuse by an uncle on a regular basis from the ages of 5 to 14," she writes. "I also had at least one occurrence at the age of 2 (my somatic memory came to the surface during an EMDR session 48 years later!)." Audrey's studied what happened to her. "A main source of terror for me as a very young child, and a memory that did not surface until a trigger prompted me to bring it out in the open in my family, was the absolute horror at experiencing of my uncle being highly aroused, the heavy breathing, etc." She explains, "A very young child cannot comprehend this, and feels that the person is totally out of control. Thus, cortisol levels are running rampant, the amygdala is altered, the setting for later PTSD is established." Audrey still struggles through another part of healing. "The last trigger rendered me totally broken." she says, "I went into freeze mode - which is the very last survival tactic, when fight or flight mode no longer suffices." Two books that have helped her a great deal are "The Body Keeps the Score: brain, mind & body in the healing of trauma" by Dr Bessel Van Der Kolk and "A General Theory of Love" co-authored by Dr Thomas Lewis.