Early life stress 'changes' genes

bbc ^ | 8 November 2009 | Victoria Gill

[JoeProBono]

Mice that are abandoned as pups have behavioural problems later on

[pallis]

You’ve got to love this stuff. I had the proverbial alcoholic father that I didn’t know until I was teenager, and a mother from hell that terrorized my every waking moment, and my jeans are okay.

[wastedyears]

That would definitely explain some things...

[wastedyears]

I had the third grade teacher from hell.

Ever experience green skies, and every time someone yelled, you’d hear thunder? Yeah, she’s evil.

[JoeProBono]

[ReneeLynn]

But humans aren’t mice. We have brains that make us aware of ‘traumas’ from the past so that we are able to overcome them if they are adversely effecting us.

[panzerkamphwageneinz]

Well, now we know the shooter at Fort Hood was a mouse.

[SunkenCiv]

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[Melian]

I don’t think it’s stress actually that changes us. We can handle many kinds of stress, but abandonment or abuse by a parent seems to alter us. That stress is very damaging to children.

I had bone cancer at age 5, my leg amputated at age 7, and lots of other stresses and stuff by others, but my parents loved me and each other. I turned out okay.

I’d be the first to say I’m different, but in the end I believe we have the life we create for ourselves. I’m fairly normal in most ways. ;o]

[FourPeas]

Interesting. Thank you for posting this.

[thecodont]

I had bone cancer at age 5, my leg amputated at age 7, and lots of other stresses and stuff by others, but my parents loved me and each other. I turned out okay.

Emphasis added. God bless you.

[Melian]

Well, thank you! But I am convinced that if your parents love you, each other, and the family, everything will be okay.

I had good parents. I am convinced that’s the great divide between those who survive well and those who are stunted and damaged. I was lucky, in more ways than one.

We should be teaching parenting in school. We now have a second generation that grew up in a world where half the parents were inept. I think that’s why so many look to government to parent them!

[siamesecats]

I tend to agree.
Stress changes people, I worry every single day about something, usually something totally out of my control.
Seem to be stuck in a cycle I can’t ever get out of.

[hennie pennie]

>>>> "...stress changes people" <<<< Recently, there were reports that veterans who experience PTSD have a significantly higher chance of develooping dementia or alzheimer's disease later in life. Stress changes the brain.

[coconutt2000]

Now I wonder what evolutionary advantage that would have... Preventing the offspring of less socially successful and less stable adults from achieving social acceptance and therefore passing on what might be defective genes?

I wonder...

[bmwcyle]

Obama and Clinton could be part of this study.

[Hegemony Cricket]

Did we go to different schools together? My third grade teacher was satan’s sister - I’m quite sure of it.

[wastedyears]

I was in third grade from 1993-94, so if you’re 24 and grew up in NYC, maybe.

[Bellflower]

I was only 3 but still remember when my dad was fun and nice bringing us candy when he came home. My mom would give us a “picnic” on the living room rug as we waited, excited for him to come home. I remember how he threw popcorn up in the air and caught it in his mouth as we laughed yelled daddy do it again.

He was ambitious, to bring more income in for his family he worked doing some painting for Chrysler after his regular hours. My loving dad became brain damaged and was suppose to die the night his scaffold broke and he fell several stories and recieved an embedded stone in his brain. He lived but was never the same.

Overnight he turned from an extremely loving dad into a real mean and nasty dad. I have some memories of how mean he became. I remember him sitting us on the washing machine and demanding that we speak correctly. My sisters and I had a lisp at that time. When we couldn't speak like he wanted us to he hit us. He thought this would make us speak right. I remember we would go hunting for my older 5 year old sister after school. She often ran away. I remember finding her once underneath a street hiding tucked into the culvert hoping no one would find her and bring her back home.

My Aunt says when my dad came with us to my grandparents he took something up into the attic for grandma and once he was up there I begged them shut the attic door and lock him in.

There was no payment from Chrysler whom he had worked for and he wasn't able to work at that time. Things became very hard at that time. He was very mean to my mom who nearly had a nervous breakdown and finally left him for our sake. She was nearly skin and bone and a nervous wreck when she finally left him. She believed marriage was until death due us part and it took an awful lot for her to leave him.

When she left him it was quickly when he had gone out. She packed our bags and we left on a train. At that time people were uneducated about how to help children through hard times. My mom decided never to speak about our father to us again. She later said that she was afraid that if she said anything about him that it would not be nice. She did not want to talk our father down to us so she never spoke about him.

To me, even though he was mean and abusive, he was still my dad. And for me he disappeared in a moment and it was as though he never had existed. My whole life I lived with an ache in my heart. I thought it was normal. I could actually feel the pain. It wasn't until I became an adult and became a Christian that The LORD let me know that that ache was not normal and that He wanted me to be healed. He let me know that it was because I was still grieving for my dad, who for me had simply disappeared without a word. At that time I called him up and started to have conversations with him on the phone. The constant deep hurt that was within my heart finally disappeared.
I really believe that the scars from my early childhood have molded and shaped my life in ways that I do not even know. When I was a child I felt, as I can only discribe, shattered. I felt like pieces of me were somehow scattered all over the universe. So yes, I do think that early trauma and a parent who simply disappears can somehow shape a person's life and make living and fitting in much more difficult.

I thank The LORD for the healing He has given me as an adult since I became a Christian at 19. I cannot say that my problems were genetic but they were very real for me.

[pabianice]

“Paging Comrade Lysenko. Will Comrade Lysenko please pick-up the white courtesy phone...”