When Being Trauma-Informed Is Not Enough

I cannot agree more with this perspective. As a and educator and survivor I am passionate about helping other educators understand how trauma can affect learning in the classroom, but how do we empower these little survivors (especially if they haven't shared their story)? I really would love to see the day when survivors young and old can connect. We have school assemblies and presentations on mindfulness, stranger danger, drugs and bullying...but what about a presentation on teaching our students what trauma does to the brain where actual survivors can reach out and talk and give hope and possibly encourage our youngsters who are suffering in silence to come forward and seek help. Especially during times like we are seeing now, where media does a good job at silencing and even berating people who come out and talk about their internal battle with shame and loss of certain memories due to trauma. What kind of message are we sending to our young people if they don't witness this world lifting one another up.  I'd give anything to see more commercials about giving survivors hope, validation and a voice...than the next commercial about an anxiety or depression and how happy it can make you. We are at a crucial breaking point in society where drug addiction, hurting & shooting others (because hurt people hurt others), and suicide has reached unbelievable levels. No amount of equipping people with guns and/or drugs to band-aid the underlying problem of the effects of trauma are going to solve this. We need to CONNECT and SEE each other in a world of such disconnect. We need to give each other hope, lift one another up and validate the pain we are all feeling. Otherwise, we are at a stand still....just watching lives gets ruined and end on the daily news because we are too darn afraid to face the underlying problems head on and openly TALK about it.

Michael: I love your line that survivors are Perfectly-Adapted to a Damaged World. And - when I speak publicly I introduce myself as a woman who survived the childhood sexual abuse of incest. In that I'm defining my experience instead of my experience defining me. At the same time - it's a mouthful and I do use the shorthand of "incest survivor" a lot. That's because - my experience is still so hidden in the culture and I want others to see they are not alone in their experience - we were isolated when it was happening and we get isolated by the culture holding us back from saying what we went through. 

Michael Sirbola posted:

Culture is Biological! We need to stop referring to persons suffering from CPTSD, PTSD, Schizo-affective, Borderline & Bipolar Disorders as "SURVIVORS" which implicitly risks victim-blaming them as being damaged and transition to seeing them as being evolutionarily PERFECTLY-ADAPTED to a Damaged World. Onward!

Michael: Interesting! I hear you and think it’s an interesting point. I don’t think of survivors as a damaging or victim bling title though. I feel it’s descriptive. I did survive adversity and that’s not guaranteed. It is adaptive. And I’m a survivor.  For me, both are true. But I appreciate your perspective. It made me pause! And the emphasis on diagnosing problems and root issues rather than symptoms!

Cis 

Culture is Biological! We need to stop referring to persons suffering from CPTSD, PTSD, Schizo-affective, Borderline & Bipolar Disorders as "SURVIVORS" which implicitly risks victim-blaming them as being damaged and transition to seeing them as being evolutionarily PERFECTLY-ADAPTED to a Damaged World. Onward!

With all my heart I love Echo-Parenting. Sharing this everywhere I am!

Tina:

i can feel how weary you are. I can’t argue that feeling. 

As a survivor, I want to say you were one of the first & loudest survivor advocates who I heard talking about ACEs. It was encouraging. 

I am sorry for the toll of not just ACEs but systems that often do more harm than good and seem to and often actually do retraumatize those with the most pain, ACEs, and challenges. I need people like you, Louise, Rebecca Lewis Pankratz, Renee Boynton Jarrett who do survivor led and co led power with and power sharing. There are in roads and people to learn from and who guide. 

It is still an uphill battle though and the need to rest or pause or re examine how to best serve kids is real. Those are good and horribly hard questions. My hope is we creating what we needed, what we know would have helped and that we ask far more often what people need most. And then listen.  Too often in medical sectors as well as others that question isn’t asked at all me. That, to me, is the most important question. And kids can’t speak for what they need always, but adults who were once kids with ACEs can, and you’re one of the few people who has done that. I’m sorry it’s so hard and there seems so little to do for kids and families WITH kids and families. 

I’m following this thread to learn of others that do it, attempt it, and can speak to how it works. I know Dr. Claudia Gold is also doing great work that’s really huge on listening and empathy and tangible support - not edupuking with referrals. You’re not alone. I hope you Keep sharing what you’re doing, seeing, learning, feeling. Cis

Tina Marie Hahn, MD posted:

This is why I don’t feel like I can be a doctor anymore. 

We take hurting children and tell them that something is wrong with their brain.   We tell them to take these two antipsychotics, this SSRI and this alpha-2 blocker. These are the only tools we have. We have become glorified pill pushers. Yes it is harsh but think about it for a second and you will know I’m saying the truth. 

In doing so we tell a child who has a trauma adapted brain, that it (they) are broken.   

It is no different then when I was given cyproheptadine for my crushing migraines after my grandmother was killed.  That liquid did nothing to end these headaches and my traumatized brain and body became more and more adapted to an insane world and less and less able to cope with sanity.  

I cannot do this to children. I feel like a monster abusing them in this way.   My soul feels like it is breaking. 

I hope you will all forgive me.  I don’t know how we continue in medicine this way? 

Thanks for this write up Louise. I needed to hear someone say what I have been thinking. 

Tina, you are such a bold, truthful advocate for your fellow trauma survivors. We need more of your voice. Silencing survivors is allowing the abusers to win. Not on my watch!  

Hi Tina, just wanted to say that I felt really sad after reading your post - please do not stop being a doctor, you are doing and have done amazing work. And most of all you will continue to have a positive impact on children, families and generations to come. You have influenced  medical colleagues to what is really going on  for traumatised children and families and will continue to do so. We need more people like you, not less. In your life you have been through so much and you have succeeded in turning  your experiences into doing something so good, please don't underestimate your huge contributions to making a real difference to so many. 

And remember to look after you,

Best wishes, thoughts and prayers,

Colette

This is why I don’t feel like I can be a doctor anymore. 

We take hurting children and tell them that something is wrong with their brain.   We tell them to take these two antipsychotics, this SSRI and this alpha-2 blocker. These are the only tools we have. We have become glorified pill pushers. Yes it is harsh but think about it for a second and you will know I’m saying the truth. 

In doing so we tell a child who has a trauma adapted brain, that it (they) are broken.   

It is no different then when I was given cyproheptadine for my crushing migraines after my grandmother was killed.  That liquid did nothing to end these headaches and my traumatized brain and body became more and more adapted to an insane world and less and less able to cope with sanity.  

I cannot do this to children. I feel like a monster abusing them in this way.   My soul feels like it is breaking. 

I hope you will all forgive me.  I don’t know how we continue in medicine this way? 

Thanks for this write up Louise. I needed to hear someone say what I have been thinking. 

Tawyna Hughes posted:

How can you go about getting trained in this topic?  My agency is upstate NY and we have been working on being trauma informed, but now we want to take the next step of empowering the families we work with.  Does anyone have training leads for us?  We are a not for profit community action agency so there is not much funding, but we are a passionate crew!

Hi Tawyna!

We are a training agency - happy to talk to you about how we can help. Ask for Jenny or Sofia at 213-484-6676. The infographic is free to download on our website. As you can tell, we are pretty passionate too and we love to bring this information to the families we work with so that they can be the experts on their own lives. 

Louise

Tawyna Hughes posted:

How can you go about getting trained in this topic?  My agency is upstate NY and we have been working on being trauma informed, but now we want to take the next step of empowering the families we work with.  Does anyone have training leads for us?  We are a not for profit community action agency so there is not much funding, but we are a passionate crew!

Hi Tawyna, Please check with these folks and feel free to use my name:

MHEP, INC – Mental Health Empowerment Project - https://mhepinc.org/

Director - Amy Colesante - mhepinc@aol.com

NYAPRS - https://www.nyaprs.org/  - The New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services

Harvey Rosenthal - Director - HarveyR@nyaprs.org

Eileen Crosby - Office Mgr. - EileenC@nyaprs.org

MHEP, does a Trauma Informed training and one for peers also. NYAPRS has several options. If no luck, please let me know and I can direct you to some others.

I also present a Trauma Informed Care/practice for organizations and peer support, but there is $$$ involved. The NY agencies may have funding to allow them to come in to your organization. Same for some others based nationwide, if you can obtain funding/grant, etc.

Take care, Michael

How can you go about getting trained in this topic?  My agency is upstate NY and we have been working on being trauma informed, but now we want to take the next step of empowering the families we work with.  Does anyone have training leads for us?  We are a not for profit community action agency so there is not much funding, but we are a passionate crew!

Well said Louise!! Thank you!! I am grateful for the inroads that have been made in trauma informed and trauma PRACTICING care. But for the most part, it is the same old, same old for too many, and I speak from personal and professional experience as one who has presented around this country on TIC. Tomorrow finds me presenting at a conference here in NH for TIC to medical and behavioral health practitioners; I'm to share of my own experiences on the above...it still digs up hurts and the ever-present knowledge that for many practitioners, it still is business as usual.

Take care, Michael Skinner

Thank you Louise for this great posting and bravo to you and your organization. As an incest survivor activist it does my heart so much good to read your perspective. I lead writing and mindfulness workshops for sexual abuse survivors working in the field and so many say they still can't be "out" in their organizations. What you're promoting and how you promote it is helping to pry open our institutional closet doors.

THANK YOU!

Donna

This is a great read!  This is very right on ".. if the information stays with the professionals and is not used to empower survivors, then haven’t we missed the point?

What a lovely read. Thank you.

We didn't embed the infographic, but you can find it free to download at our website.

Louise:
YOU KNOW I LOVE you and all Echo does. Thanks for keeping the focus where it belongs and for reminding us all that survivors matter, that survivor wisdom and survivor perspective are actually required, and that we can't forget the point of becoming trauma-informed -

to transform all of us - and our systems.

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you! Thank you!

Cissy

P.S. I hope either of the Trauma Centers in Boston (which now has a .org and and a .net) will have outpatient services available to survivors soon and center survivor wisdom, voices, and perspectives in however they run, going forward.

THANK YOU for this post, Louise! I am sharing it widely and this is such a vital and fundamental issue if we want to create healing organizations. When we mean healing we must mean it for our staff AND our clients/patients/ students... there is no US and THEM -- there is a big WE!  

This article encompasses much of what I have been thinking about and studying lately. Excellent post, with much food for thought. As a nurse, I find it fascinating that there are many of us with high ACEs, but this has not been studied nearly enough. This line makes so much sense:

The irony is that many service professionals are survivors themselves.

Thank you for breaking down the barriers between us and them because it really seems like it is a big WE.