Child abuse changes your brain

If you were abused, you almost certainly already believed this.

If you read the March, 2002 Scientific American article (preview here), you were more convinced.

Now, though, the extremely respectable journal Current Biology has published an article, "Heightened neural reactivity to threat in child victims of family violence," that makes the point quite clearly with some excellent work from a group of top UK scientists. (Thanks to my pal, John Lambshead, for pointing me to this story.)

For an easy to read summary of it, check out this Wired piece, "How Abuse Changes a Child’s Brain." The article opens with this line:

The brains of children raised in violent families resemble the brains of soldiers exposed to combat, psychologists say.

Hell, many of my readers and Dave's already knew that. I sure did. Still, the scientific confirmation is good to have.

This bit summarizes the research:

His team compared fMRIs from abused children to those of 23 non-abused but demographically similar children from a control group. In the abused children, angry faces provoked distinct activation patterns in their anterior insula and right amygdala, parts of the brain involved in processing threat and pain. Similar patterns have been measured in soldiers who’ve seen combat.

The brain changes, of course, are not the only physiological adaptations to abuse (and PTSD of other sorts). As the Scientific American article and its sources made clear, key glands also change, one consequence of which is a heightened adrenaline response.

I do not mention all this to make excuses, because I don't believe any of it provides an excuse for anything I or any other abused person does. We are each responsible for our actions.

No, I'm bringing it out because I want people to understand that the cost of child abuse is high and lifelong, physical and mental, and most importantly, unacceptable.

Sometimes you have to choose the wrench

WARNING: THIS POST WILL CONTAIN SOME OBSCENE LANGUAGE IN A QUOTE FROM A MOVIE AND MY SUBSEQUENT COMMENTS. STOP READING NOW IF THE F-BOMB UPSETS YOU.

Hey, I know some kids read this blog, and I generally try to avoid that language here (generally, but not always) for that very reason. Anyway, I warned you.

Last weekend, at my suggestion we all watched Good Will Hunting, a movie I quite like. Say what you will about Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, this is a strong screenplay and a fine film.

The movie is in many ways a classic SF tale, though no critic to my knowledge called it that: the young man with super powers (in this case, almost impossible brilliance and photographic memory) who can't fit in and has a tortured past struggles to find a place in the world. It's also about being abused, a topic I care about greatly. So, I was a sucker for it. Fortunately, everyone who watched it, inclulding Sarah and Scott, also liked it a great deal.

Second warning: spoiler alert. I'm going to talk about a scene near the end of the movie.

Will (Matt Damon) is talking to his court-assigned therapist, Sean (Robin Williams). They are finally confronting Will's childhood abuse. This exchange (which I transcribed from the film, which is why it doesn't exactly match the online script) occurs.

Sean: The interesting nights were when he wore his rings.

Will: He used to just put a belt, a stick, and a wrench on the kitchen table and just say "choose."

Sean: Well, I gotta go with the belt there, then.

Will: Nah. I used to go with the wrench.

Sean: Why the wrench?

Will: Cause fuck him, that's why.

If you're someone who was abused, you probably had moments like this. You should watch this movie, if only for the bit right after this exchange, when Sean says to Will, over and over, the essential truth that every abused kid needs to understand:

It's not your fault.

It really isn't. You may never be able to believe it in your heart, but it's true: it's not your fault.

As for me, well, if you want to know why anger is so much at my core, if you want to understand me at all, then you need to know this: I always chose the wrench, because fuck them. Fuck them.