{"id":516921,"date":"2022-11-14T16:21:56","date_gmt":"2022-11-14T13:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/gabor-mate-go-ahead-blame-your-childhood\/"},"modified":"2022-11-14T16:21:56","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T13:21:56","slug":"gabor-mate-go-ahead-blame-your-childhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/gabor-mate-go-ahead-blame-your-childhood\/","title":{"rendered":"#Gabor Mat\u00e9: Go ahead, blame your childhood"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3405dda5521\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3405dda5521\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/gabor-mate-go-ahead-blame-your-childhood\/#%E2%80%9CGabor_Mate_Go_ahead_blame_your_childhood%E2%80%9D\" >&#8220;Gabor Mat\u00e9: Go ahead, blame your childhood&#8221;<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h1><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"%E2%80%9CGabor_Mate_Go_ahead_blame_your_childhood%E2%80%9D\"><\/span>&#8220;Gabor Mat\u00e9: Go ahead, blame your childhood&#8221;<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h1>\n<div>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Gabor Mat\u00e9 has<\/span> had an unusual life. Long before his rise to ubiquity as a medical <span class=\"s2\">maverick\u2014and a darling of the podcast cir<\/span>cuit\u2014Mat\u00e9 left Hungary for Canada with his Holocaust-survivor parents in 1956, and later spent more than a decade working as an addictions specialist on Vancouver\u2019s Downtown Eastside. In recent years, the 78-year-old <span class=\"s2\">Mat\u00e9<\/span>\u2019s groundbreaking work linking trauma and disease has risen to global prominence\u2014and made him a late-in-life literary juggernaut.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">In his newest bestseller, <i>The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture<\/i>\u2014co-written with his playwright son, Daniel\u2014Mat\u00e9 sets out to show how unhealthy the West\u2019s medical system, and even its pop-cultural pursuits, really are. Canadians have spent the past two years trying to get back to a pre-pandemic normal, a state that many believe to be not only possible, but worth returning to. Mat\u00e9 insists they\u2019re wrong. Here, he unpacks his thoughts on our hurting world, Canada\u2019s wounded politics and the true meaning of trauma.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><b>This obsession with \u201creturning to normal\u201d has been a constant since the start of the pandemic. What does \u201cnormal\u201d really mean?<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">In medicine, normal has a specific meaning. There\u2019s a normal range of blood pressure beyond which we can\u2019t live\u2014<br \/>if it\u2019s too low, we die, and if it\u2019s too high, we die. In this specific context, normal equates to natural and healthy. Part of what I mean by the <i>myth<\/i> of normal is that we assume the conditions of broader society are healthy simply because we\u2019re used to them, even when they\u2019re not healthy at all. When people get sick, their diseases can sometimes be normal responses to abnormal circumstances.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><b>People seem to be a lot more willing to talk about trauma these days, especially on <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">social media<\/a>. Do you think that has translated into a greater understanding of what trauma actually is?<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s3\">As with so many other aspects of Western<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> culture, the understanding is there, but on a very superficial level. We use the word \u201ctrauma\u201d quite a lot, but often in<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ropriately\u2014like, \u201cI had a fight with my partner and I was traumatized,\u201d or, \u201cI saw a movie and it was traumatic.\u201d No. It was just sad or painful. On the other hand, we don\u2019t see how ubiquitous and deeply impactful trauma is in the greater scheme of things.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><b>We\u2019ve clarified what trauma is <i>not<\/i>. So what is it?<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The term itself comes from a Greek word for \u201cwound.\u201d What\u2019s the nature of a wound? First of all, when you touch one, it really <span class=\"s2\">hurts. Wounds can be physical, but in this context, we\u2019re talking psychological. These kinds of injuries ultimately lead to a dis<\/span>connect from yourself.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><b>How has this manifested in your own life?<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">I remember coming home from a speaking <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/trip-and-travel\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"10\" title=\"Trip &amp; Travel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">trip<\/a>, and my wife wasn\u2019t at the airport to pick me up. That triggered in me a deep embodied memory of my mother giving me to a stranger when I was 11 months old. All of a sudden, this hurt of abandonment got kicked up. People who are traumatized <span class=\"s2\">tend to be stuck in very childlike re<\/span>actions. So I reacted to my wife like I was an 11-month-old baby.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1241737 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/WH_1850bnw-copy-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2750\"\/>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><b>You see trauma everywhere, as the root cause of many social troubles.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">Scientific literature is clear that trauma con<\/span>tributes to physical ailments. A Canadian study showed that men who are sexually abused as children have triple the rate of heart attacks\u2014and not because they smoke or drink. In this country, about half of the women who are in jail are Indigenous, even though Indigenous people make up just five per cent of the population. There\u2019s an epidemic of children being diagnosed with learning disorders and behavioural problems. Trauma also shows up in people\u2019s hatred. So yes, from my perspective, it shows up everywhere.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s3\"><b>You practised medicine on Vancouver\u2019s Downtown Eastside for more than a decade. <\/b><\/span><b>What did you see there?<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Addictions was my work for 12 years\u2014everybody there was severely traumatized and unsheltered. The average health-care provider doesn\u2019t have a clue about that.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s4\"><b>We seem to be in an especially divisive political moment\u2014I\u2019m thinking, specifically, of the convoy in Ottawa last January. The old rules of politeness seem to have slipped away. Is that trauma-related too?<\/b><\/span><span class=\"s5\"><b><br \/><\/b><\/span>It\u2019s fashionable to dismiss those truckers as yahoos, but they had a point. I\u2019m not talking about their tactics. That situation could have been resolved in a more peaceful fashion. I mean, did they have a reason to feel aggrieved? Their upset wasn\u2019t all because they were inveterate right-wing lunatics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><b>What do you make of the public response to that incident?<\/b><span class=\"s6\"><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">It\u2019s easy for people who are living comfortable, middle-class existences to overlook the anxieties of people who are living closer to the edge. The fact that we can\u2019t see each other\u2019s humanity is, to me, a manifestation of social trauma. It\u2019s a cause of it as well.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s3\"><b>Western countries pride themselves on their health-care systems. It seems Canada\u2019s is collapsing. What do you make of the current crisis?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">There\u2019s nothing current about it. The system has been underfunded for decades. COVID was just the straw that broke the camel\u2019s back. The health-care workers themselves are, of course, stressed and often traumatized individuals.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><b>Were you?<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">When I was a workaholic doctor, that behaviour was driven by my trauma. Nobody in medical school ever taught me about that.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><b>Didn\u2019t the rigours of medical school make all that stress worse?<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">If you even indicate that you\u2019re stressed by the harshness of medical training, you\u2019re considered a wimp. I often think of a former <\/span>colleague of mine. She was an obstetrician. One night, four babies died on her shift, and she was told to suck it up and return to work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><b>Can anything be done to make things a bit easier for would-be doctors? We need as many as we can get.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">What if we introduced an understanding of mind-body unity into medical training? And what if we also were compassionate toward health-care workers, instead of imposing bureaucratic demands and impossible routine working conditions on them? What if we introduced self-care as part of their training? These things are not conceptually difficult or expensive, but they would change things.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><b>You obviously spent a lot of time with your son, Daniel, when you wrote the book with him. What was that like?<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Daniel was indispensable. I needed his skill with words to help me articulate some of my ideas. But it was difficult at times. Some personal stuff got triggered. It was a growth experience for both of us.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><b>What, if anything, did you learn about your own health during the writing process?<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">At one point, I got really anxious, and my blood pressure started rising. I was actually measuring it. It reached a range where, had it stayed there, I would have needed medication.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><b>What was that about?<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">I was identifying with the book to such a degree that, when the writing wasn\u2019t going well, I believed that it reflected something about me as a person\u2014that if I didn\u2019t finish the book, there was something wrong with me. If the book failed, <i>I<\/i> would have been a failure.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><b>Surely, you of all people can talk yourself through that.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">I was still quite capable of stressing myself out by overidentifying with this one activity. Once I realized that, my blood pressure came down. I learned that I need to not just talk about things, but to embody them as well. For the sake of my own health.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async defer crossorigin=\"anonymous\" src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a> articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/general\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">General category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/the-interview\/gabor-mate-go-ahead-blame-your-childhood\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Gabor Mat\u00e9: Go ahead, blame your childhood&#8221; Gabor Mat\u00e9 has had an unusual life. Long before his rise to ubiquity as a medical maverick\u2014and a darling of the podcast circuit\u2014Mat\u00e9 left Hungary for Canada with his Holocaust-survivor parents in 1956, and later spent more than a decade working as an addictions specialist on Vancouver\u2019s Downtown&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":516922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Gabor-Mate-1-766x431.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[136300,103541,72875],"class_list":["post-516921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-mind-body","tag-the-interview","tag-therapy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}