Review of Gabor Maté’s book “The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture”
A Comprehensive Book About How Life Experiences Affect Our Health
““Trauma is not what happens to you but what happens inside you””
Go grab this book right now. You might as well buy two or more copies so you can give them to family and friends.
I heard about The Myth of Normal from my sister who is also a mental health professional. I had also seen therapists on social media recommend it so it was on my “to read” list for about one year.
I wish I had read it sooner.
I am an audiobook fiend and found it on the Libby app through my library (shout out to one of the best library systems ever: Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library). After waiting a few weeks I finally got my turn to listen to it. Half way through the book, I went ahead and bought myself a hard copy. Now I am trying to decide how many copies I am going to buy and give to others. It’s that good y’all. Dr. Maté can have all my money as gratitude for writing such a comprehensive book about the body mind connection.
Dr. Gabor Maté and his son Daniel Maté co-wrote “The Myth of Normal” as a way to help us understand the brain/mind and body connection. We often associate illnesses that affect our bodies to be separate from our minds, but they are often connected. And more and more research is backing this up.
There are so many gold nuggets of information throughout the book, but I will highlight a few stand out quotes and share my thoughts about them. Hopefully this will inspire you to read the book in its entirety - because this is just a tiny drop in the deep well of information from “The Myth of Normal.”
“One of the things many diseases have in common is inflammation, acting as kind of a fertilizer for the development of illness. We’ve discovered that when people feel threatened, insecure—especially over an extended period of time—our bodies are programmed to turn on inflammatory genes.”
Every single chapter had me reassessing what I thought I knew. For instance, there is a connection between auto-immune diseases and traumatic experiences. What?!?! This blew my mind. But it also hit home.
My grandfather had rheumatoid arthritis (RA) which is an auto-immune disease in which the immune system essentially attacks the lining of joints. For my grandfather, it was most noticeable in his hands. Women are more likely to be diagnosed with RA than men and it usually appears in middle age. The research suggests that traumatic experiences that are not expressed (not processed or addressed) are linked to developing RA or other auto-immune disorders.
This profile fits my grandfather. While his life story was not told to me as being “traumatic,” as an adult and therapist I have put the puzzle pieces together and I am confident he had a traumatic childhood. His father was likely physically and verbally abusive and both of my grandfather’s sisters died in childhood.
Unfortunately, my grandfather’s experience of being verbally and physically abused was not uncommon in his era. I imagine he was told not to show uncomfortable emotions like sadness or grief, as most people were. He learned to adapt and bury the emotions. The theory is that because he could not safely express himself, his immune system developed RA.
Dr. Maté shares an anecdotal story of a woman diagnosed with RA, but after addressing her own childhood trauma, she found relief and managed her RA with no medication.
I read that and imagined how different my grandfather’s life could have been if he were given the opportunity to share his thoughts and feelings about his childhood experiences. He may have been able to live a fuller life without surgeries and medications to treat his RA.
“Work pressures, multitasking, social media, news updates, multiplicities of entertainment sources—these all induce us to become lost in thoughts, frantic activities, gadgets, meaningless conversations. We are caught up in pursuits of all kinds that draw us on not because they are necessary or inspiring or uplifting, or because they enrich or add meaning to our lives, but simply because they obliterate the present.”
Oof. This quote really hit home for me. How many times have I tried to stop using screens mindlessly, especially social media? It seems to be a daily battle for me. I often find myself purposefully logging onto social media to check something, but then getting sucked in. I try to use my own advice to limit social media, but dang. Sometimes it’s just so hard.
Our current culture “rewards” over productivity: working 40+ hours per week, our children are signed up for a sport and a club and arts enrichment, brunch with friends, family dinners, side hustles, home renovations, etc. We are told that we should want more and do more. But really….that gives us less. Less time for ourselves. Less unstructured time with our loved ones and just being present with them.
Because we are so busy and pursuing “more,” we are drained and end up disconnecting completely from the present and being mindless. If we did less, we could be more present and more mindful.
“Trauma is in most cases multigenerational. The chain of transmission goes from parent to child, stretching from the past into the future. We pass on to our offspring what we haven’t resolved in ourselves. The home becomes a place where we unwittingly re-create, as I did, scenarios reminiscent of those that wounded us when we were small.”
Have you ever had an automatic reaction to your child that was essentially your own parent’s words coming out of your mouth? I most certainly have. More times than I care to admit.
Even with my best intentions, my own therapy, and reading about trauma and parenting, generational trauma is still present in my life. I repeat patterns of behaviors, thoughts, and feelings of my parents that I -swore- I would not repeat. But those moments happen.
For example, in my childhood leaving the house on time as an entire family was stressful. One parent would usually be running behind and the other parent would be yelling at everyone. As a child this caused a lot of anxiety about running late.
Now that I am the parent and I find that we are running late, I notice my anxiety skyrocketing. When I am not regulated, I easily slip into old family patterns of yelling to try to get my child to move faster so we are not late. And guess what happens? My child becomes dysregulated, which ultimately slows us down further and we’re both angry/frustrated/crying as we get out the door.
When I stop and notice, I can take a deep breath (or 10) and remind myself that I am in control of the situation and it is okay if we are running late. When I do this, I stay regulated and so does my child. And we may still be late, but we are leaving calmer and more regulated. And that’s a win.
This is a somewhat mundane example, but it shows how even when we are trying not to repeat patterns from our own childhood, it does happen. The important part is being aware of our triggers (running late), noticing what it does to our body (heart rate increases, muscles tense), and how we feel (anxious and can escalate to frustration or anger).
Generational trauma is becoming more known and understood by the general population. If you think there might be generational trauma in your life, I would highly recommend reaching out to a therapist to help you identify these patterns and how to stop the cycle of trauma for yourself, your children, and your descendants.
When you see and understand generational trauma in your life, you can make changes. You will not be perfect. Past generations’ behaviors, thoughts, and emotions will slip into your life. But you will be making steps forward for yourself and the next generation.
“What if our intention, as parents, as educators, as a society, was to raise children in touch with their feelings, authentically empowered to express them, to think independently and be prepared to act on behalf of their principles?”
This quote encapsulates Conscious Roots Counseling and our work. Each of us specialize in different ways to help children and families.
Megan works directly with children, teens, and young adults to help them understand their thoughts and feelings and how to process them. Megan also works directly with parents of the children she works with to help them support their children. She uses Synergetic Play Therapy to work with children and loves teaching parents how to incorporate principles of Synergetic Play Therapy in their parenting.
Rebecca specializes in working with individuals with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) or parents of children with T1D. Rebecca supports parents as they navigate T1D with their child and the emotions that arise for themselves and their child. We want children with T1D and their parents to be able to express their emotions freely so they can focus on managing the physical symptoms of T1D, and reduce the ancillary stressors.
I (Jenny) love working with parents who want to stop the cycle of generational trauma. I have been trained in EMDR and “Healing Our Core Issues” to help adult clients recognize the trauma patterns in their lives and how to reduce them. When parents are able to work through their own trauma experiences, they reduce the likelihood of passing on trauma to the next generation. They are able to teach their own children ways to express and process emotions.
The Myth of Normal covers many areas of physical, mental, and emotional health that one blog post cannot cover. But I highly encourage anyone wanting to understand their own overall health to read this book. It will give you insight on yourself and those around you. And the more we understand ourselves and our loved ones, the more likely we are to end the cycles of trauma in our lives and help future generations live healthier lives.
