I Have Something To Say

A couple years ago, I hit a serious wall.  I was emotionally and physically exhausted, but didn't understand why. Sure, I was a mom, wife, graduate student, and ran a business, but this exhaustion went much deeper than my chronic state of busyness and hypervigilance. Sure, I knew I had a rough childhood and had gone no contact with my parents ten years prior. I got on with my life. I made many positive and deliberate changes so I didn't repeat their patterns, but I hadn't fully unpacked just how vast that black hole of childhood trauma was. For me, awakening to the impact of my childhood trauma has happened over many years, with thousands of tiny steps toward recovery. But one day, the truth of it hit me so hard, I had to drop everything to process it. I had no choice because my body and brain simply gave out. I had to grow or succumb. I chose to grow. I threw myself headlong into the task of really looking at my issues. You could say I was hypervigilant about trauma ...

It seems the deeper I journey into the healing and recovery process, the more I find that much of our cultural and conventional wisdom does not help trauma survivors. All the trite platitudes and sayings that might help someone having a garden-variety bad day can actually become giant triggers for someone living with trauma. Let's assume everyone wants to live a healthy, pain-free, abundant, and productive life. There are hundreds of motivational books and centered on "fake it til you make it" principles, which encourage people to think positive, let it go, don't sweat the small stuff, etc. They may have helped some people. Judging by book sales, they have probably helped many. Yet, for many trauma survivors searching for relief, these books and motivational coaches don't help. In fact, many, like me, feel more depressed, broken, and impossibly disconnected after reading them. Here's why. Trauma survivors are often highly motivated people. Many are cond...

Even though I had all the classic symptoms and psychological traits of someone who has been abused, it took me a long time to understand and own what happened to me. For many years, I thought that it wasn't that bad. After all, there was no physical evidence, at least not in the way a bruise or a broken arm communicates the obvious. I had no dramatic story that could someday become a Lifetime Movie. There was nothing particularly off about my abusers that an outsider would pick up on. If you met them, you would think they were normal people. The abuse I experienced was rarely grandiose, though my abusers were. Instead, it was the cumulative effect of many years of subtle lies, manipulation, and devaluation. It was in the form of gaslighting and emotional neglect. It was the quiet but consistent denial of my boundaries and personhood. It was the kind of abuse that is so under the radar, no one sees it. If I were to try to describe it to others, they would give me too familiar d...

You were lied to on the playground.  "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." Neuroscientists and psychologists have proven in spades that words hurt most of all. But first, let's establish that abuse of any kind is horrible, heinous, and deserving of attention and care. The impact of physical trauma ought never be minimized in order to shine a light on psychological trauma. Not only is all trauma valid, all perceptions of trauma are valid. Two people can experience the same event and have drastically different outcomes. One's experience isn't more or less valid than another. If it hurts, seek help. Physical trauma is visceral. There is hard, objective evidence of abuse. Most people don't question its validity. It's cut and dry. "If he hits you, you should leave." If you are beaten or shot in a senseless crime, no one will try to convince you it didn't really happen. Children who are physically abused are ...

A while back, I heard a bit on NPR about the ACE study, which can be found on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention site, here .  ACE stands for Adverse Child Experiences, and it studies the long term physical impact of early childhood traumas. The findings link between childhood trauma and adult chronic diseases, particularly obesity, headaches, depression, and autoimmune disease. A quick summary of the findings, pulled from this site include: childhood trauma was very common, even in employed white middle-class, college-educated people with great health insurance; there was a direct link between childhood trauma and adult onset of chronic disease, as well as depression, suicide, being violent and a victim of violence; more types of trauma increased the risk of health, social and emotional problems. people usually experience more than one type of trauma – rarely is it only sex abuse or only verbal abuse. The test includes a short list of questions and score...