I was having a conversation with a dear friend of mine…you know who you are…about how she experienced trauma as a child by finding her mother unresponsive on the floor as a four-year-old. Even though the first responders were able to bring her mother back, the brush with death at that tender age and a highly sensitive disposition greatly impacted her ability to learn. She told me that when she went to school as a five-year-old, she was anxious about whether her mother would still be alive when she came home from school, making it impossible for her to focus on learning. Her whole life, she has been told that she was dumb, and let me tell you, there is nothing further from the truth than that. My friend owns two businesses and has helped countless people in various endeavors. I’m telling you, she is a brilliant woman who loves to learn, and it makes me sad that she struggles to see that in herself.

Needless to say, I am fired up about her being labeled as dumb by family members and teachers. Yes, I am having a passionate moment, but hear me out…there is a perfectly legitimate explanation for this…trauma impacts our ability to learn.

This blog is dedicated to my dear friend and other survivors who have been told they were dumb when they were surviving brilliantly. I will explore how trauma impacts our ability to learn and what we can do about it.

The Effects of Trauma on Children

Trauma is defined as a deeply distressing or disturbing experience. It is something that overwhelms our ability to cope. Children have a limited ability to cope with overwhelming and disturbing experiences. They are not even born with the ability to regulate their own nervous system, which is why attachment to a caretaker is vital for their survival.

We were all created with pre-programmed coping strategies of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn to help us survive difficult things. Our survival is a biological imperative, meaning our bodies prioritize our safety over everything else. For example, if a bear is chasing us, our bodies will turn off specific functions in our body like digestion, learning, etc. (higher-order functions) to divert power and energy to our bodies to help us escape.

Similarly, a child who witnessed the near-death experience of her primary caretaker…someone who is needed for survival…will naturally prioritize safety (her caretakers, which results in her safety). She might think it is her responsibility to keep her caretaker safe…it’s not, but children have a magical way of thinking when they are young. You can see the logic forming in her brain…if it’s my responsibility to keep Mom alive, how can I do that when I have to go to school? How will she survive without me being there to keep her alive? That is a lot of weight to carry for someone of that age, so, understandably, this heavy responsibility causes anxiety…because now she is in a bind.

Remember, her first priority is still safety, so she will focus on her self-imposed responsibility to keep her Mom safe and NOTHING else. Her body/brain naturally diverts her attention, energy, and focus to the priority of safety… you can’t learn without attention, energy, and focus. Learning is a higher-level function that is switched off in service to survival.

The Effects of Trauma on Learning

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) can cause toxic stress, which can change brain development and how the body responds to stress.

“In the classroom, this may look like a child exhibiting clingy or isolating behavior, passive/quiet behavior, frequent somatic symptoms like tummy aches, headaches, or fevers, regressive behaviors like bedwetting or baby talk, aggressive and/or mean behaviors, or “fight or flight” after a teacher gives a direction.” Kelly Brouse, Elementary school principal; M.A. in Curriculum and Instruction

An article by the Texas Association of School Boards states that “chronic exposure to traumatic events, especially during a child’s early years, can:

• Adversely affects attention, memory, and cognition
• Reduce a child’s ability to focus, organize, and process information
• Interfere with effective problem-solving and planning
• Result in overwhelming feelings of frustration and anxiety.”

Now, I want to pull that thread forward to adulthood. If you experienced two or more ACEs when you were a child and struggled to learn while working so hard to survive, that does not mean you are dumb…it means your brain prioritized your safety over learning. Just because you survived your childhood trauma doesn’t mean that you are not still impacted by the changes to your brain during your developmental years.

“How is it that so many other people with trauma were able to learn so well, and yet for me, nothing sank in?”

There may be several reasons for this. Not everyone is traumatized by the same situation. Some might be highly sensitive (as was my friend’s case), and some might be more resilient than others. Another reason might be that a child’s coping strategy is to flee the situation to a different environment where they have more control over what happens to them.

I experienced that during some part of my learning career…school, then work, became a way for me to dissociate (or put a distance) between myself and the traumatic environment I lived in. Many survivors with unresolved trauma thrive really well in learning or work environments when they are in survival mode, but as soon as the trauma “leaks out” of the container they placed it in, all that falls apart. Such was the case for me. I have been noticing more and more trauma survivors in their 50s experiencing what I went through. It’s almost like our childhood coping strategies have outlived their warranty, and it becomes time to face it…willingly or unwillingly.

What Can We Do About It?

Apply self-compassion. You did nothing wrong. You are not broken, dumb, or hopeless. You were wounded…and maybe you still are. You did the best you could with the tools you had at your disposal. You are a courageous, tenacious, and resilient survivor…so give yourself some credit.

Get to know your learning style. Some people learn better by reading, others by listening, and others by doing. I am a big believer in the Socratic method of learning, meaning, reading/researching while being able to ask questions to a subject matter expert.

Respect and grow your window of tolerance. Our window of tolerance determines how much extra capacity we have to learn new things before we become overwhelmed. We can expand our window of tolerance by pushing ourselves to the point of discomfort but not far enough to trigger us.

We also need to respect our current window of tolerance. For example, when I first started my new role, there was a lot to learn, and I had to come up to speed quickly. I realized that I could only consume a certain number of learning calories (window of tolerance), so I created an onboarding plan that looked like this: cram as many learning calories I could into my brain in the morning when it was freshest and then in the afternoon, I would rest and digest what I had consumed. It worked brilliantly, and I was up to speed in no time.

Reject garbage thinking. Many of us swallowed (hook, line, and sinker) what we were told about ourselves by family members, teachers, and others, even though it wasn’t true. We must assess the active derogatory messages that play on repeat and limit our ability to move forward. We need to call it what it is…a lie and eliminate it from our thinking.

Many derogatory messages playing on a loop in our brains are triggered by responses from past trauma. Tracking these triggered responses allows us to “retrain the algorithm” by calling it what it is. For example, I used to be triggered into a state of perceived powerlessness by many different situations. As I started tracking these triggered responses, I was able to “correct” my thinking by reminding myself that I am no longer powerless because I have choices now. The more you do it, the more worn that neural network will become, and before you know it, that old path will be grown over from disuse.

Here is the link to my FREE trigger tracker worksheet to help you with this exercise. Fair warning: this takes effort and consistency. It doesn’t just happen on its own…you have to work at it.

As always, you do not have to face this journey alone.

Contact me to schedule your free discovery call.

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Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

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Cyndi Bennett

Believer. Leader. Learner. Advocate. Writer. Speaker. Coach. Mentor. Triathlete. Encourager. Survivor.
 
Most of all, I am a fellow traveler on the rocky road called, Trauma Recovery. My mission is to minimize the effects of trauma for survivors in the workplace.