Aibu to worry? Gabor Mate: children swimming in subconsvious

[CantSleepWontSleep23]

Gabor Mate says that my children are swimming in my subconscious. And to make it clear as possible. I’m really not sure my subconscious is something I want anyone swimming in. And no idea how to make it clear.

Also a brief skim says that ADHD is some sort of trauma issue?

Should I be worried and trying to do something about this?

He also uses ayahuasca and shamanism to treat addicts. You’re allowed to disagree with his thinking, you know.

Take it all with a pinch of salt, it's just one man's opinions.
He's popping up everywhere these days, cashing in on the money by pretending to have all the answers and playing on people's fear.

Read ‘The book you wish your parents had read and your children will thank you if you do’ by Phillipa Perry - it’s way more down to earth and practical

Oh yes! I'm reading this at present. It's excellent.

Sounds like woo bullshit and a very simplistic view of ADHD.

I loathe the Phillipa Perry book - so condescending and self righteous. A well-meaning friend gave it to me, luckily he hasn't asked my thoughts on it!

Isn't that what psychologists think though. Loads of important stuff is in your subconscious and comes to the surface in dreams.

He believes a lot of physical pain is due to unprocessed trauma - trying to push down emotions. Eg back pain with no physical cause might be due to childhood suffering you haven't dealt with etc.

Slightly different view here. I have ADHD but definitely came from a traumatic childhood. My son also has ADHD and had a nurturing loving non traumatic childhood.

I have no doubt whatsoever that my ADHD issues are a product of trauma.

Likewise some children from traumatic environments are being diagnosed incorrectly with ADHD rather than complex trauma.

The difficulty is that some children from traumatic backgrounds WILL have ADHD but we do them a disservice by not looking at the impact of psychological trauma on the developing brain.

So Gabor Mate is interesting and not necessarily wrong

That's interesting. My DM and I have noticed how my DGM gets really bad back pain every December until mid-January. It started a couple of years after one of my uncles died at Christmas time. She's obviously in real pain but the source seems to be emotional rather than physical. She also gets bad back pain whenever there is a referendum she feels torn about how to vote on and has to spend polling day in bed.

That's interesting about back pain.

I actually know someone who suffered and once something very awful from childhood was spoken about and prosecution occurred her back pain lessened massively.

Not completely gone but I asked her if she thought there was a correlation.

There are books written by her daughter,
Flo Perry,
Philippa’s maternal ministrations made manifest

Atttachment disorders can present like adhd and/or asd.

So there is a tentative link but I'm a firm believer that they are not one of the same.

You can have attachment difficulties and be ND.

But neurodiverse behaviours can be caused by trauma - but where it's trauma related these are often overcome with treatment.

I work with very traumatised young people and it's really not a simple either/or.

This is why services need to be improved to spend the time and effort required to investigate the trigger and treat/support the underlying cause and actually meet need.

There is definitely a link between mental and physical pain. We shed tears when we are sad, so there are likely to be other physical manifestations of our emotions.
A lot of doctors consider fibromyalgia to have its basis in emotional issues.
I believe we inherit emotional trauma from our parents too, how we process/adapt to that is dependent on how our parents parent us.

It's All In Your Head by Suzanne O'Sullivan is a very good read on the link between emotional and physical pain.

The premise of The Body Remembers - Babette Rothschild,
describing PTSD, sensory, dreams and pain, if unresolved,
trauma releases into the body.

Dreams as a means of alerting us to something we have suppressed
in our subconscious which we need to deal with soon,
also a way of sweeping out old messy stuff we don’t need any more.
This of course helpfully leaves space for new anxieties

Thank you for this

One word of warning on this though. I had a rather traumatic childhood, and since reading one of these books, my go-to assumption is that any pain or symptom is probably psychosomatic, so I ignore it. (I have ASD as well, so my thinking on this tends to be a bit all or nothing). Anyway, I assumed that back pain must not be physical and it turned out to he a kidney stone that had got infected.

Utter bullshit

Read " the body keeps the score"

Every Family Has a Story by Julia Samuel is also good on generational and hidden trauma.

My brother has ADHD and was not given the start in life that he needed. I think he was caused by not getting his needs met, ie relational trauma.

I never heard of these things he uses to treat addicts.

Gabor Maté was born in Budapest during WW2, his grandparents were killed in Auschwitz when he was a baby, other family members were in concentration camps, and his mother had to give him to complete strangers as an infant for months to keep him safe. It’s not surprising he’s interested in psychic wounds and traumas inflicted before our conscious memory begins, and on inherited traumas.

This. It's a brilliant read and I sent it to the 4 corners of my family when I finished with it.

cPTSD often has symptoms that overlap with ADHD and many people (women especially) have been diagnosed with one when they have the other. Both are separate diagnosis, can exist on their own or together and neither causes the other.