Complex Trauma Documentary

What is Trauma?

The estimated costs of major trauma are between £0.3 and £0.4 billion a year in immediate treatment.

Mental health problems represent the largest single cause of disability in the UK. The cost to the economy is estimated at £105 billion a year – roughly the cost of the entire NHS

Dr Gabor Mate says ‘’trauma is the invisible force that shapes our lives. It shapes the way we live, the way we love and the way we make sense of the world. It is the root of our deepest wounds’’.

‘’trauma is not what happens to us, it is what happens inside of us because of what happens to us’’.

My name is Ed Lofts I’m 7 times world kickboxing Champion and I have over 25 years of experience teaching children and adults Martial arts. I was also a community organiser and listened to people's worries and concerns in my hometown for several years.

Ever since I was a small child I used to point out behaviours which I thought to be odd, first within my own family and then outwardly in other families around us. Something wasn’t quite adding up with the explanations I was being given.

After around 20 years of investigation into the topic, while trying to help a loved one I stumbled across Complex Trauma. Suddenly answers started falling into place for questions which had puzzled me for years. The UK trauma council are investigating the role complex trauma plays in our lives - social, emotional, psychological, neurobiological and relational areas and how they are impacted. In short, it does answer a huge amount of the behaviours people find so hard to explain like not being able to say ‘’no’’ or find our voice, all the way through to substance addiction or destroying good relationships by lying for no reason.

I then looked at the work of Dr Daniel G Aman, MD. Although he is a fully qualified child and adult psychiatrist, he's also a self-proclaimed maverick. He runs clinics which perform spect-CT scans on the brain, showing which areas lack the correct volume of blood flow.

We all know the body needs blood to function, if we are cut or wounded, we bleed. If we are hit hard enough, we bruise. Marathon runners can ‘’cheat’’ and use extra blood to create better function of the cardiovascular system. So why would the brain be any different?

Here is what happens to a human arm after just 20 minutes with no blood flow.

Pain. Lack of function and loss of control. This is extremely dangerous do not try this, if this goes wrong there is a chance you can lose the arm entirely.

So how does this all fit together?

What types of things can cause blood lack of blood flow to areas of the brain?

Substance abuse & addictions such as smoking nicotine or marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, amphetamines, or opiates. This is also interesting as 98% of addicts have been shown to suffer from complex trauma.

What else causes a lack of blood flow to the brain? Physical, mental or emotional abuse, things like bullying at work, domestic violence, having controlling family members who gaslight and manipulate others, and narcissistic abuse… just to name a few.

One interesting point that has come up throughout my investigation is that something has always been missing. But not missing how you would think. It's missing because there wasn’t a name for it in a way that the English language uses terminology. I could see something I didn’t have a name for. Like Dr Gabor Mate says ‘’ trauma is the invisible force that shapes our lives.

After Finding an astonishing video by Tim Fletcher on Youtube the last piece of the puzzle fell into place, Neglect.

Neglect is, just or only or nothing, its minimization at its finest, something which didn't happen, and if it didn't happen, how can it affect us? It was hiding right there in plain sight the whole time. You can’t see, nothing, unless you take away everything else. Then nothing becomes everything.

What didn’t happen is exponentially more important than what did. Because we don’t know what didn’t happen, Why do we inherently long for it? this creates an internal dichotomy.

I think people that suffer from complex trauma can tell, I think they can feel it, like a hollowness or hole that can’t be fulfilled but draws everything downwards intending to complete itself. It's not grey or dark it’s just the absence of any light, awareness or hope and feels never-ending. It causes us to look externally for something or someone in our environment that can help. But we always look for the quick & easy fix, because for a time this keeps the acceptance of the truth, at bay. What truth? The mentally & emotionally painful one, we are actually living a lie, not being our authentic selves.

Then it gets hungry once more, it comes back with a larger appetite ready to engulf or consume any other happiness we have, it causes silly mistakes which ruin relationships, feelings of unworthiness, mistrust, suspiciousness, fake smiles, masks and self-sabotage.

Then because it’s just so uncomfortable to confront, we feed it again with the pain of hurting the people we love, and it grows but backs off for a while. Ignored, as the busy pace of life helps us try to outrun it. This becomes our default solution but that thing, that behemoth becomes an insatiable parasite that controls our feeling and choices, and we eventually mistake it for who we are. Adopting the core belief that we are bad, sick, disgusting worthless, and unlovable, we are not fit to be rescued and we abandon ourselves and any hope of redemption or joy.

We then behave accordingly, taking our frustrations out on the people closest to us or we isolate and blame everyone else. Pushing all that is good away from us so we don’t spoil life for them just like we have done with our own.

So, I have complex trauma, I’m always looking for a fight & I have finally identified the real enemy. I’m not running anymore, and I’m not scared, I’m going to raise £35,000 to film a documentary about the 60 ways complex trauma affects people's lives, the behaviours, the pain it causes and the tools needed to overcome it. If you’d like to help and follow my story please make a donation