A short Q&A video in which Dr. Karol Darsa answers viewer questions about trauma. Topics covered include epigenetic (intergenerational) transmission of trauma, bullying and its potential to cause trauma in children (including social-media bullying), living with the lasting imprint of trauma, and fainting as a psychological response to trauma versus fainting from neurological causes like epilepsy. The speaker mixes biological, emotional, and practical/clinical perspectives and ends with a brief promotion of her audiobook and treatment center.
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Foreign. Hi, I'm Dr. Carol Darza, author, trauma psychologist and founder of Reconnect Trauma Treatment center in Los Angeles. Welcome back. Okay, so this is the second series of answering questions. If hopefully you watch my other videos, I welcome you to send me questions and then I read them here and give you some answers about it. It has to be trauma related, since that's my specialty. So this time my first question is, can you talk about epigenetic trauma? Is it possible for my father's trauma to be transferred to me? Okay, before I can answer that, let's talk about what epigenetic trauma means. I actually have a definition I'd like to read. The idea is that trauma can leave a chemical mark on a person's genes, which then is passed down to subsequent generations. Is that possible? Yes, it is. And we are not talking about this transfer like when a mother is pregnant and is depressed and then it goes through the womb. Yes, that's definitely possible. But we are talking about if your parents or grandparents are traumatized even though you didn't live that trauma, such as, for instance, Holocaust is a. Is a very big common issue that when they did research about this, they talked about Holocaust, how that gets transferred. It is definitely possible they are finding that there's biological reasons for that, which is basically the trauma gets stuck on the cellular level and it goes from one person to another one. But I also believe it really goes down emotionally. So imagine if, if your grandma is a, for instance, a Holocaust survivor, so the way that she's going to raise your parents is going to be, of course, impacted by that because she is traumatized by having lived such a horrific event. And then that's going to get passed. Even if she's never mentioned it and if she's never said anything about this experience, still the way that she parents will be impacted. And then, so then your parent takes that and with that imprint, then it gets transferred to you. So it is possible it is a harder one to work on because it's not a direct event that you can work on, but I think just the awareness sometimes can take the blame away because sometimes we act a certain way and we don't know why we are the way that we are. And yes, that can definitely happen. Second question. This is a thing that unfortunately happens a lot at schools, especially with social media. So can getting bullied at school cause trauma for my child? And what can I do? Well, the bullying can happen in a social media level. It could happen physically. And yes, it actually is a very traumatic event, especially if Your child is afraid of their well being. Like they are physically being hit. They're afraid they're going to get hurt or even die. That can cause a lot of trauma. In fact, unfortunately, in the last maybe 10 years, there's been some cases of children who even committed suicide or attempted suicide based on being bullied at school or at school. Social media. Children care a lot about what their friends think, especially if they're teenagers. This is a normal thing for that age. They do care a lot about it. And so when they're hearing negative feedback or being labeled as, I don't know, fat, ugly or a certain race, they can be quite impacted by that. What can you do? First of all, include authorities the moment you become aware of such a thing. Go to the school, talk to the teachers, talk to the directors. If you know where it's coming from, include the parents of that child that's bullying your child. Because sometimes parents of the bullier are not even aware that their children are behaving a certain way. So if the parents get involved, there's much more chance for something to be done. Now, your child might say, don't tell anyone because they are afraid they're going to be bullied. Why much more. But you might even have to eventually include some authorities, like police or professional counselors for such a manner. But you have to take matters into your hand as an adult, even if your children say, I don't want you to do such a thing. All right, third question. Since we can't change the past, how can we get out of the mentality that says this trauma will be with me until I die? But this is a very unusual question. First of all, let me clarify something. You are right. This trauma will be with you until you die. But it all depends on what that means. It's no different than having a scar. So when I was a kid, for instance, I fell and I had still a little scratch on my knee. It never went away, but it doesn't mean I can't use my knee. So trauma is like that as well. It could leave an imprint on you psychologically, like in your body. Right. But it doesn't mean that you can't live a fulfilled life. It's just that if you know that it's there, you can actually do something about it. When we work with trauma, our goal is not to delete memories or to make you feel like it's never happened. It's just you stay aware of what happened, but you move into such acceptance and such peace that even though it's happened, you are able to function despite it. In fact, the more you know what happened, the better it is for you to stay honest, for you to stay aware and conscious of who you are and where you're coming from. So don't panic about it. Don't try to get rid of it. Because I have had that many times with clients. They just say, I just want to forget that it happened. If you push against that, it's. It's really like rowing against the current. You can't push against what. What's natural. When something happened, it happened. Just work on it and be in acceptance of that. You'll have much easier time this way. Our last question comes from another person who says, what is the reason for fainting after a psychological trauma? And how is it different from fainting due to epilepsy? Okay, so I'm going to start with epilepsy. That is a biological neurological condition. So you could faint from having epilepsy. And of course, you would have to be under the care of a medical doctor, and they have certain regimes or certain medications and certain treatments that you have to follow in order to stop that fainting. Now, that has nothing to do with the psychological trauma, because although it's not that common to faint after a trauma, it is. It is definitely possible. When a trauma happens, we have three reactions. Flight, fight, or freeze. So freeze can be in such a way that it means basically the person is completely shutting down or they become catatonic. Like, they don't say anything. You just, like, see them, but there's nobody there. Or they can really faint. So they can lose consciousness either immediately in that moment, or it could be even an ongoing chronic problem that is actually. This is gonna sound funny when I say it's like something positive, which means it's a defense mechanism. That means the person is overwhelmed in that moment and they can't bear the pain of what's happening. When that happens, they have a system that gets in line right away and says, shut down, shut the curtains, close everything. And so we can kind of recover. And then the person faints, basically. So don't panic, but if it happens next to you, you might need to call 91 1, even though I'm telling you not to panic. Calling 911 is just for the medical support. That doesn't mean that they will stay like that forever. Of course you don't want the person to fall, but that also probably means that they need more professional help so that they can really overcome. This might be a sign of ptsd, not just trauma but a post traumatic stress disorder which when a trauma turns into more of really chronic diagnosable disease. Thank you again. I want to remind you ask me more questions. I love answering questions like this. Just please stay in the topic of trauma. My As I mentioned last time, my audiobook is out so you can download it and listen the whole book while you're driving. I have good tools and exercises about how to deal with trauma in there. Thank you for watching. And remember that trauma equals disconnect and healing equals reconnect. Stay connected.
