Clare's Reviews > What Happened to You? & What I Know for Sure By Oprah Winfrey Collection 2 Books Set

Wow, a very easy read about how much of our childhood makes up who we are. I listened to the book so I heard both Oprah and Bruce Perry narrate it felt as if they were just having a conversation.
It starts out with Oprah telling her story of growing up with her grandmother...a very abusive upbringing where she was whipped so that blood stained her clothes then chastised for allowing that. All the time they were a God fearing, church going family. She describes herself as a 'pleaser' becuase of this.
Bruce Perry goes on to share his immense research about childhood trauma and how he has treated the most severely abused children.
What I walked away with was the following:
At birth a child needs to know that his/her needs are being met...I'm hungry-feed me, I'm cold-warm me, I'm hurting-hold me. In the first two months, if these needs are not met the child immediately forms behaviors and opinions as to how life works. Perry goes on to say that a child whose first two months of life who had all their needs met then goes onto being abused has a much better chance of a normal life then one that was neglected the first two months of their life then went onto having a loving upbringing.
A child needs to really have some form of community. A mother cannot be there for the child 100% of the time and also has their own needs so a child needs to be able to go to the father, uncle, sibling, church, school, friends or neighbors to get everything.
When a child is abused all different senses are engaged so a trigger may be the smell of the abuser's aftershave, the tone of a voice, positioning of how a person stands or approaches you.
When a child or actually any person, needs to be able to digest how they want to move forward with it. When Bruce Perry worked with the Waco children who survived and were brought up being taught that everyone outside of their community is the enemy they had to first just be there and be a part of their life. Let the kids eat, play and then allow them to approach the doctors. Bringing up their trauma to them when they are not ready to talk about it is far more detrimental than previously known. The patient needs to do it at their own pace.
You can never change the past, it is real and it has happened. The only thing you can do is to move forward, “Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different, it's accepting the past for what it was, and using this moment and this time to help yourself move forward.”
Great book, I didn't give it 5 stars only because I had hoped it touched a bit on some some less traumatic experiences.