My mother was addicted to prescription drugs, tranquilizers, sleeping pills and pain pills when she could get them. She was anorexic and always had me on a diet. She physically abused me and my brother. When she was drugged (which was most of the time) she was emotionally absent which I have learned is neglect. She took me to our pediatrician every Saturday for years to be weighed in. We kids who came in on Saturday were referred to as "the fat kids club." From the age of 10 on I took diet pills. I ate when my mother wasn't looking.

Obviously, my family was dysfunctional. Smoking helped to keep down my feelings. Food was my addiction. I spent the next 40 years loosing 10 to 20 pounds at least 10 to 20 times. I never got past 140 pounds. 120 was easy to maintain. At one point I went down to 105. It didn't last. I never exercised. Cutting the grass occasionally was my most strenuous act.

I married early to escape my crazy home. I hid my insecurities behind my smoking. My husband treated me in a similar way to my parents. Three wonderful children later -- through a series of accidents I wound up in the hospital for spinal surgery where I had a profound near-death experience with what we call the "life review." I watched all 32 years of my life again. Only this time I wasn't "in" it. I was observing it with a "Power greater than myself." The most painful part of what I witnessed was that I was becoming like my mother and was about to start treating my children the way she had treated me.

That seems like another lifetime ago. I knew I had to change and I have spent the next 31 years changing. I went into psychotherapy. I took personal growth workshops. I started college at 36 and eventually graduated as a respiratory therapist. Nine years after my near- death experience I divorced my husband of 23 years. Shortly after that I was able to become a psychiatric researcher exploring the after effects of the near-death experience. So many of us near-death experiencers (NDErs) came from dysfunctional homes that we looked at this in our research and the stats didn't lie. 58% of NDErs came from traumatic childhoods --including physical, sexual or psychological abuse or just neglect -- not having our basic needs met to being ignored. This made us more easily access altered states of consciousness. We could move in to realities that weren't physical. Psychiatry calls it "dissociation" and makes it pathological. My colleagues called it "a compensatory gift." Our traumatic childhoods taught us how to access other realities that exist -- but not to those that have never experienced them.

Then I met my now husband, Charles L. Whitfield, MD. His research continued this theme where our NDE research left off. He has been treating adult children of dysfunctional families for years and his observations have been published in ten books and at least 60 scientific articles. His first book published in 1986 Healing the Child Within has sold over 1.3 million books and has been translated into ten languages. Medical research over the last 30 years has proven his observations in over 330 published papers. (See illustration of Adverse Childhood Experiences and it's public health effects.)

So with my new information I was able to stop smoking and my yoyo dieting. I found out from Charlie that I'm not "sick," "bad," "crazy" or "stupid." I was wounded as a child and the wounding continued until I said "enough." And got out of my crazy marriage. What I have what most of us that have been repeatedly traumatized, or neglected as children is post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. When we look at the symptoms of PTSD our lives start to make sense. Smoking keeps the symptoms down. Eating pushes them down too. Exercise, which I started 5 years ago at the age of 58, relieves the symptoms better than overeating and helps to cope with giving up smoking. Now that I'm not withdrawing anymore (I haven't smoked a cigarette in 16 years) I have so much energy to get on the machines at my gym and bike ride or swim. My eating has leveled off because I'm not holding down my PTSD anymore. I'm understanding it.

Here's what Charlie says about PTSD.

"In my experience, I have found post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to be the most accurate, inclusive, and potentially useful diagnosis to help people who have been significantly traumatized. It's accuracy begins with the fact that many of the common mental disorders are strongly associated with, and in some cases possibly --or even probably caused by childhood and other trauma. It's inclusiveness rests in the fact that its diverse symptoms can be manifested as several other common disorders, including depression, substance abuse/chemical dependence including nicotine dependency and eating disorders, anxiety and panic disorder... And its usefulness lies in its ability to clarify a common cause of human suffering as being caused simply by unmetabolized trauma.

"Trauma occurs when any act, event, or experience harms or damages the physical, sexual, mental, emotional, or spiritual integrity of our true self. Simple upsetting or disrupting of it is not usually enough to cause actual damage, unless it is repeated over time and is of human origin. And if we are vulnerable, i.e. if our true self is already wounded or hurt from prior trauma, then we may be more likely to develop additional or more severe symptoms and signs of post-traumatic stress when we are exposed to additional trauma. This would include children who were repeatedly abused and then grew up and had abusive relationships, combat trauma or other traumas later in their life.

"PTSD may occur across a spectrum of manifestations, from fear or anxiety, to depression, to easy irritability, to impulsive or even explosive behavior, to numbness. I believe, as do others, that growing up in a seriously troubled or dysfunctional family or similar environment often is associated with PTSD. The PTSD is said to be more damaging and more difficult to treat if: (1) the traumas occur over a prolonged period of time, e.g., longer than six months; and especially so if (2) the traumas are of human origin; and if (3) those around the affected person tend to deny the existence of the stressor or the stress. All three are present in an actively alcoholic family and in similar troubled families.

"An important part of healing from PTSD is in the process of remembering what happened in our traumatic experience. This remembering is not simply cognitive, but is also experiential. As we heal, we experience it in our now clearer and richer inner life, which evolves during the recovery process.

"Central to all of the above is that when we are traumatized and then naturally and appropriately try to express our resulting pain, in these dysfunctional systems we are repeatedly invalidated for doing so. Being invalidated not only blocks and often destroys our natural mechanisms for healing, but it frequently inflicts a double trauma on the victim of the mistreatment. Most all of the invalidations (whether individual or collective) against our genuine attempts to heal are thus just another kind of trauma - known as retraumatization.

"PTSD is common among trauma survivors. Screening for this disorder among people with other high risk disorders for an association with childhood trauma, such as depression, anxiety disorder, drug and alcohol problems, eating disorders, nicotine addiction, personality disorders, dissociative disorders, and psychosis, is important in documenting a way to assist them in their process of healing. Knowing that they are not mentally ill, but that they have PTSD instead, can be helpful as a way to begin to heal their guilt and shame. They are wounded, and their painful symptoms are the effects of the trauma."

Charlie and I have a private practice in Atlanta, Georgia where we provide individual and group therapy for trauma survivors and people with addictions and other problems in living. Most of our patients have post-traumatic stress disorder from moderately to severely dysfunctional childhoods. And they come to us because this is effecting their adult lives in a variety of ways including nicotine addiction and eating disorders. As they remember and metabolize their traumas they are able to give up smoking and eventually they learn how to eat in a healthy way. Many of them, like me, are exercising and loving it.

Charlie and I have just written a book together with another couple called The Power of Humility: Choosing Peace over Conflict in Relationships. Finally, I have found answers for myself that started in my life review in my Near-death experience. It is possible to have a peaceful life -- and it doesn't have to come from my next pack of cigarettes or food binge.

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I want to thank The Oxford Health Alliance for this opportunity to share my story. I hope it helps others to understand why they can't quit smoking and perhaps even give them new hope that they can quit now!

Posted by Barbara Whitfield on 20th Dec

There is a BBC News story running onthe website today (16 Jan) which links to this topic. See link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6263971.stm

Posted by Marisa Pulaski on 16th Jan

Thank you, Ms. Pulaski for the new study that we can add to the 330 published scientific reports we have already documented in two books, The Truth about Depression and the Truth about Mental Illness by Charles L. Whitfield, MD, (Health Communications, Inc, Deerfield Bch, Florida, USA. 2004 and 04) These studies added together have over 230,000 subjects. If you want to know more please go to our websites (listed at the end of this story) and click on the articles page for Charles.

These findings are not new. They have been known (but not proven until the last few years) for over 20 years in the "Recovery Movement" especially for "Adult Children of Alcoholics/Trauma." One of the reasons why this isn't out in the mainstream is because the Drug Industry and organized medicine and psychiatry would rather support the use of "anti-depressants" and other psych drugs. And, the "managed-care" industry doesn't want to pay for long-term psychotherapy -- which in the long run would cost less money because it dire ctly addresses the effects of the trauma. Another good source to learn more about this is the new ACA "Big Book" which can be ordered through our website www.cbwhit.com

Posted by Barbara Whitfield on 17th Jan

Barbara Whitfield has once again 'knocked it out of the park' with her acute and devastating accuracy on the harm caused by invalidation of truth. This is a critical element of dysfunctional family dynamics, and, in my opinion, the hardest thing to overcome. The work of Barbara and her husband Charles stands head and shoulders above the majority of 'self-help' available to the general public. Their keen insight and understanding puts current 'ivory tower' research into mental health in its' proper perspective.

Posted by Susan Raines on 6th Feb

Thank you Susan for your kind comments. To understand more about the "self-help" we are using in our own psychotherapy practice and in our writings, I have added a brief description on the ideas page called "Healing From Repeated Childhood Trauma."

Posted by Barbara Whitfield on 6th Feb