Understanding and Overcoming Trauma (Part 1 of 2)

We know in the human life that there is going to be hurt. None of us will be outside of that. There will be.

It's what we do with that. And it's an opportunity to see that God really is not only walking beside us, but God is with us. And so my encouragement when there's been hurt, part of the hope of it is understanding God's presence in your life. There's no faith here. You're going to need to walk forward believing by faith that God's word is true.

He is with me. And there is a redemption site. There's a site where I grow stronger. There's a site that I feel like God is using me now. There's no pain is wasted. I'm Jeffrey Jantz and he's our guest today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.

Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller. John, trauma affects so many people and sometimes we don't even know it, but research shows an estimated 70% of adults in the United States have experienced a traumatic event. It might be divorce, maybe abuse of some sort, maybe a global pandemic.

I don't think anybody got away from that one. So we all have experienced in the last few years traumatic events. Even through the heavy things though that we deal with, God is with us.

Sometimes even as Christians that's hard to believe. You know, Lord, if you're really there, how come I'm going through this? And today we want to talk about Isaiah 41, 10 kind of expand on that thought that God says to us, fear not for I am with you. Be not dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you.

I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Man, that's a promise.

And the question is, do we believe it even when the chips are down? And man, I find those words very encouraging. And I'm looking forward to talking to one of our favorite guests.

Yes, indeed. Dr. Greg Jantz. Yeah, and he's the founder of The Center, A Place of Hope in Edmonds, Washington. It's a renowned treatment center for depression. He's also the author of a number of books, and we'll be talking about one that is full of great insights and encouragement. It's called Triumph Over Trauma, Find Healing and Wholeness from Past Pain.

Stop by the show notes for all the details. Well, Dr. Greg, it's great to have you back. It is very good to be here. And what a topic that we have. Oh, yeah, this is an important one. Let me ask you, you know, Focus, we track the response that we're getting by subject matter.

Right. So typically, depression, anxiety, marital strife, financial strife, sexual issues and marriage all kind of tend to be at the top of the list. What are you seeing with your work? What we're seeing now, and we have folks who are seeking help from all over, used to be a year ago anxiety, and people are caught something related to anxiety. And now the word really is people are calling up and they're saying, I've been traumatized, or I have so much trauma in my life, or I am so easily triggered by everything going on in the world. I feel overwhelmed. That's what we're seeing.

Greg, let me play the opposite side of that. I mean, some of us, I think, you know, not to always be gender specific, but a lot of men are like, yeah, whatever, pick yourself up and go. I mean, we talked about trauma, and we're going, another trauma victim, but it is true. I mean, trauma impacts us and describe for us that phenomena about kind of those that feel trauma and those that maybe, you know, have some kind of super shield and they seemingly are above it all. And then what are some of the definitions of trauma?

If I could pack that all in. Well, let's talk about it. So trauma is something probably shocking has happened. Maybe it's happened more than once. And it's really robbed you of any sense of safety. You don't feel emotionally safe. Probably you don't feel physically safe. And when we don't feel safe emotionally, we start to do things that sometimes are really self-destructive.

And I really want to honor and respect because I know there's those listening. Trauma, just hearing that word can be a trigger because you've been so hurt and the hurt can go so deep, you know, it affects our whole being. And so just to talk about it or even hear the word trauma can be unsettling.

Yeah. And the field of psychology has specific and detailed clinical definitions of trauma. We're not going to be able to get into that today. So I want our listeners to be aware that there's a whole lot of differing definitions of this term. But give us the lay people that definition of trauma. We might have had some significant loss. We lost a loved one, could have been through an accident, could have been some tragedy that happened. You lost a loved one. It could be that for years you were on the receiving end of emotional abuse and it was repeated trauma. And today you feel like I don't matter.

I don't have any value. Maybe you even feel like there's no way God could love me. I've been so hurt and traumatized.

You have a story in the book about Daryl. And I think what this points to is that idea of how trauma brings about hopelessness. And I mean, that's something for me, even as an orphan kid, I never felt hopeless. I always felt like, hey, there's tomorrow. I remember being five years old when my parents divorced and it was like, boy, they don't do this very well.

I really didn't own it. And I just count that as God's grace. There's God's grace. Sometimes there's a shield upon us that we're able to weather repeated traumas. So talk about Daryl.

What was your situation? OK, Daryl. Daryl was a young man, I believe, sixth grade. His parents took him to a flight show and he was intrigued by these biplanes from I think it was World War One. And Daryl was so excited about flying. And one of the things that happened was he got his license. I think he was 18, owned his own plane.

He's 25. But then he's with his best friend and he crashes the plane and the plane is on fire and they get him out. But his friend is lost and his friend was taken in the crash for so long in Daryl's life. That trauma caused him to, well, reject God. The trauma, he felt responsible for his friend's death. So sometimes we've had trauma. We may feel responsible for what happened. And then coming to a place, how do I even forgive this situation?

How do I forgive myself? So in this case, trauma was carried for a very long time. He stayed away from the love of his life, which was flying until much later. But he had to come to a point where he realized forgiveness. He had to forgive himself. And truly, it was a mechanical failure.

It was nothing he had done. But still feeling that responsibility. You know, that's got to be difficult as a therapist and you're with somebody and rationally you're saying it's a mechanical failure.

Why are you owning this? And you can say that, but it doesn't compute for him. Right. He still can't get out of the guilt of... Well, because we get into the what if only.

If I had only not taken him, if I had only... And you get into self-blame and then you blame yourself for everything that happens in life. And so we start to become a victim. Right. And so in that regard, Darrell is an example, but many people generally, what does healing look like generally?

Okay. Well, it means I really have to look at the truth of what happened. We have coping mechanisms. Maybe for a while I turned to alcohol or I turned to secret eating or I just isolated. I felt I couldn't trust people anymore. And I start to do self-destructive behaviors. Well, there comes a point I have to look at this and go, what I'm doing now is not working. And I honestly have to say my life is miserable.

This is not working. And so a healing point will be acknowledging the truth. Okay, this happened and I'm no longer going to do self-destructive behaviors. I am going to find a way to walk through this. I think that can feel overwhelming for the person who has been a victim of sexual abuse and significant trauma, for the person that has been through the unspeakable abuse to think about how do I really face this. And trauma ignored creates more trauma later. Yeah. It's always worth walking through it.

Part of it, it's a fog. Yes. You don't necessarily connect your today's actions to yesterday's hurt and pain.

Right. The reason you react to something today. What are some of the truths about trauma? Okay, there's some significant truths about trauma. Time will not heal it. I know, I wish that was different.

Boy, how many parents say that to their kids? Well, time will heal your loss of a boyfriend or whatever it might be. Trauma undealt with will create more trauma because we will go on a course of self-destruction. We are going to carry this trauma wherever we go.

We're going to carry it into relationships. So the truth is trauma can affect intimacy in my relationships. Trauma can affect my ability to trust other people. And here's a big one, trauma can affect my ability to feel that God loves me. Yeah.

And that I actually have value in God's eyes. So trauma, think of it this way, trauma distorts reality. And it can take us down a really destructive path.

And I'm just saying today, because of working with thousands of folks through the years, you don't have to move on that path of being a victim. You do have to walk through this. Sometimes we need help walking through it. Yeah. Yes. And there is a healing that happens, I'm going to say, really from the Lord's, from God's intervention, from the Holy Spirit, there is a spiritual healing that can happen for us. You know, Greg, I haven't said it quite this way, but when you looked at the predictability of being able to find your way out of being traumatized.

Yes. Doesn't that point to creator, that he created us in his image, he gave us the brain. And there's ways that you can study this as a scientist, like in psychology, especially with the undergirding of being a Christian. And you can help these people out of their darkness. I can tell you, I know that we have a psalm that tells us that he heals the broken hearted and he mends their wounds. I can tell you, I've seen that to be true over and over. In your work, obviously, emotional wounds and wounds of mental instability. Yes.

Yeah. Let me ask you again, I kind of leaned in that direction, but this idea that, you know, just muscle your way through it, pick yourself up by your bootstraps. These are words that I have used because I felt like that's what I had to do. And, you know, this actually, even for Jean and I, this can be a difficulty because she, I remember she looked at me and said, you know, Jim, not everybody can do that.

That was the first time I felt a sense of fear in our marriage. Like, are you kidding? Not everybody does this? This is the only way I've learned how to cope with it, is get up and go.

Yeah. I, you know, both are true, I would think, but speak to that dynamic of the person that just, okay, here we go, let's go. Well, and we need to keep that get up and go, because also there is the Lord's going to be with me as I walk through this. I am going to walk through it, but I need to understand this did have effects on my life.

I may not see all those effects, but it did affect me. And we've got to be willing to look at that. There's something called post-traumatic stress disorder, right? And military deals with this all the time.

Yes. And there's times when you were, something terrible happened in your life. You had a significant loss or there was abuse and you did, you just kept going, kept going. But later on in life, suddenly you notice I'm having flashbacks.

I'm dreaming about this. I'm feeling anxious all the time. I'm wanting to escape through excessive drinking or some escape, some escape. Yeah. No, I mean, that's so true in that, in that regard, when you look at the lack of emotion, perhaps, you know, that can become another difficult thing in marriage because a person that does feel that kind of get up and go, you can begin to wall off emotions.

And that's dangerous too. Yes. I can cut off emotions, which can affect my ability to be intimate and close with another person. I could have a deeper relationship, but I am going, so we build this self-protection.

We do build a wall and that's just for survival. Psychology has a term called dissociation. Right. So I dissociate, I disconnect from the reality just so I can function. Right. And that's a protective mechanism probably. It is. But not to be engaged forever.

But we can't stay in that forever. Correct. You felt, I believe it was connected to your work all those 40 years ago. Yes.

As we celebrate your sinner's birthday. Yes. But there was a point where you experienced depression over, I think, running this thing, right?

Was that the connection? Well, I do have a personal story and I know what it's like to walk through traumatic events. I was a young person, so excited about my work. Felt like God called me to do this, but I made some helping mistakes.

I said yes to helping all the time. That's that six days a week of counseling and you're so immersed in what you're doing. And after a while, I began to break down. After a while, I began to have some of the same symptoms of somebody I'm working with.

Yes. Depression. So there was a point where I really felt like I missed my calling. I've, I've got to do something different. And I walked through some dark days, but I also know the other side. It was worth going through because now the Lord used that painful experience. No, I had to redesign my life. I had to understand self-care and boundaries and taking care of marriage relationship and taking care of those relationships.

I had to learn a lot, but I can tell you now I have greater empathy and understanding for others going through it. Well, it's hard to say no. It is. Yeah. And I had good intention. Yeah, sure.

Really good intentions. Right. But it's tough. And you know, no matter the vocation, it'll take everything you give it. Yes. It'll take your family.

Yes. And your marriage. And you know, that's right.

That's never healthy. It's hard to burn out, to be depressed, to suffer. And if we can be of help here at Focus on the Family, we have caring Christian counselors. Our number is 800, the letter A in the word family.

Reach out and schedule a time for one of those counselors to give you a call back. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Our guest today is Dr. Gregory Jantz. And this excellent book that we're just really scratching the surface of so far is called Triumph Over Trauma, Find Healing and Wholeness from Past Pain. It's an excellent resource. Get a copy from us today.

The details are at the website. Let's get into a little bit of the brain chemistry. We get so wonkish in this. We throw around these, you know, these chemicals that help us or hurt us in our brain. Cortisol is one.

Yes. What is cortisol? Why does it exist? And if we have too much or too little, what's going on? So if you think about being stressed out for a period of time, maybe it's chronic stress. And it takes energy just to breathe. You're so stressed out. Your adrenal glands have been pumping a chemical called cortisol.

And it's pumping and pumping. And eventually it makes its way to the brain. Now, we need a little bit of cortisol, but not a lot.

And then it begins to affect those other chemicals. You've heard the word serotonin. Having healthy serotonin in our brain, which by the way is made in our gut, it travels from our gut through something called the vagus nerve, gets to our brain and that serotonin has to do with sleep, has to do with mood, serotonin too little, you're going to feel depressed. So serotonin and then the other feel-good chemical, the way God made us, is dopamine. And dopamine actually is activated even when we exercise. Dopamine is necessary just to feel good. Yeah.

Okay. Trauma disrupts brain chemistry. Trauma can actually, in repeated traumas, can alter brain chemistry.

Yeah. And so there is one other part of the brain, the amygdala, back here, and it controls emotion and it will get overstimulated with trauma. And your moods may seem up and down and you can't seem to regulate your mood. And then God made this prefrontal cortex right here in the middle of my forehead. That's where I'm supposed to make good decisions. Trauma decreases blood flow to that part of the brain.

Huh. And so you may have trouble making decisions. You may feel anxious all the time.

Emotions may seem up and down. And this is all because trauma can and does affect the brain. In the book you mention an example of Monica.

I'm sure you've changed all these names so we're not outing anybody if anybody's concerned. But Monica, the description there is how that brain trauma affected her everyday thinking. What went on with Monica? Yes, with Monica, and right, not the real name.

Right, of course. But Monica had had a significant abuse and loss in her early growing up. And she had a daughter and she became hypervigilant to anything to do with her daughter.

Anything. Like, is my daughter okay? If she couldn't text her and get an immediate response back. So she created a lot of anxiety that was really overprotective even with an adult married daughter. Still worried about her. And that was really back because of early trauma for the mother, for Monica. And so it can carry over to present day relationships. We lose track of healthy boundaries. She became overly involved.

And if she didn't hear back from her, she had to get in the car and go find her. So that's the extent that this can carry you. What's that? They call that now catastrophization or something. You know that it's always catastrophe. When you look at external inputs with that and you look at the dark success of that on social media, cable news. It's like they have figured this out and they're tapping that constantly in our brain chemistry to be anxious. Because it keeps you engaged with what they're trying to pitch.

Anxiety will keep you engaged in an endless news cycle. Right. Absolutely.

And the mechanism there, it is sophisticated. Absolutely. But that's what they're doing, right?

Yeah. And we have a new term in the psychology field called foreshortened future. So we have a generation of folks who have been traumatized. Two-thirds of kids will report being traumatized by their 16th birthday. Two-thirds.

Okay, now remember trauma can mean a lot of different things. So what's happening is they have a foreshortened future. What does that mean? I don't see a positive future. Right. We have a lot of apathy. We have a lot of depressed kids. Their future doesn't look good to them. And so this is why we're seeing kids 16, 17 who are getting diagnosed early on with depression, anxiety. Even addiction is dropping to earlier ages.

Yeah, that's so sad. As Christian parents, let me just work in that parenting tactic. What is a way every day that we could help our children, especially our teens, kind of feel there's a future and talk about it positively? One thing Gene's been really good, because I come home loaded with information.

I mean, I'm talking to everybody, people in D.C., people at the state level, especially around the political arena. And I get home and I'm going, oh, you wouldn't believe what's going on in California. And then we go through it. And Gene was like quietly going, you know what, I don't know that that will be good dinner conversation with the boys. And it's a good reminder. And she's a good filter for me to say, let's talk about that quietly, just the two of us.

But that's one example of what not to do is to raise all these fears that we might have in front of our kids. And we need to ask ourselves occasionally, what's the main thing that I'm talking about most of the time? That's good. Most of the time, am I talking about the negative?

And believe me, there's lots of negative and a lot of it's true. So it's easy to go that way. But the other vantage point is, can I see how God's at work? Right. And can I see it? A better question.

Yes. And every day, honestly, if we look, oh, God is at work. We're seeing it every day. And we need to keep a list of God's at work.

And God's at work in our teenagers. Keep in relationship with them. Definitely. Let me ask you, how does trauma negatively impact the soul and derail the dreams?

Oh, okay. So trauma changes how I see myself. I'm no longer worthy.

A word that could come to mind is I feel shame. I feel like I'm ruined. Trauma has made me defective. Trauma has put a black mark on my life and I don't have a good future. I'm getting what I deserve.

That's the kinds of things that are coming to mind. And so the damage to the soul is you don't see that God still loves you. And there's still a plan for you. And the plan for you is good. I can't explain why all this happened to you. I know trauma and the effects are real.

I know the pain is real. But it doesn't define your future. No, it's really, really good. I'm thinking of shame and the power of shame in our culture.

Yes. It's inordinately over empowered. If we take what social media is doing to our youth, it doesn't make you feel any better by yourself, right? No, because it thrives on keeping you off balance.

Keeps you off balance. And ultimately, it's not adding to your self-esteem or your self-worth, it's taking from you. And some of the things that are being pushed on you through social media are lies.

They're lies about you. Yeah, when you look at John 10-10, I always think of it in a physical context, where that scripture says the thief comes, speaking of the evil one, the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Yes. I'm always thinking of that in terms of physical things. But emotionally, he's probably wreaking even greater havoc in that steal. Steal our joy, steal our contentment, steal our hope for the future. If I don't have hope for the future, I don't have joy for the present. So, well said. Yeah. Right at the end here, Greg, let me ask you to give that person, this is really a difficult question, I get that.

Yes. Because you don't have the context for what they're going through. But for the person listening or watching on YouTube who's going, oh, you guys are describing me, I'm in that traumatized position. And it was years ago, but I've never dealt with it. What are some things that they can do to break that cycle to say, okay, I heard something on Focus on the Family today, I need to do something. What is it that they might do even before they call for help? Well, one of the things, I would get a journal, some blank paper, and I would write down and just pause for 15 minutes, write out the effects of trauma in my life, and just write for 15 minutes.

Wow. And then stop writing after 15 minutes, because you could probably go on. But look at that and just write it down, because I want you to see the reality. And sometimes when we start writing, other things will come to our mind, come to our mind.

And whatever you wrote down, the effects do not have to stay the same. Your future can change. And there is hope for you.

Hope comes when we have a plan. So now you're writing it down. This is what it's done to me. And now probably I do need to, and John mentioned about calling the Focus counselors. I do need to reach out and take the next step. Well, listen, Dr. Jantz has mentioned it.

We've all mentioned it. Start with a call to Focus on the Family. We're here for you. The donors have supplied enough resources for us to have a very good counseling staff here at Focus, and they'll start that process. They'll pray with you, and they'll listen to your story, and they'll be able to guide you into other resources. And obviously one of the great resources we have is Triumph Over Trauma, Find Healing and Wholeness, From Past Pain, from Dr. Greg Jantz.

And it's a great place to start. If you can send a gift of any amount, we'll send you a copy of Greg's book, as our way of saying thank you. If you can't afford it, we'll trust others. We'll cover the cost of that, and we'll get it into your hands. Just call us. Our number again, 800, the letter A, and the word family, 800-232-6459.

Or stop by the program description for all the details. Greg, this has been so good. Can we come back next time? We'll keep going and talk more about the material in the book. And there's so much good stuff here.

We're just scratching the surface. It's precious time as we talk about this topic. Let's do it. We'll plan now to join us next time for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. On behalf of the entire team, I'm John Fuller inviting you back then, as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. We'll talk with you, pray with you, and help you find out which program will work best. Call us at 1-866-875-2915.