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By Gracie McKenzie, Illustration: Shutterstock, March 14, 2022 T he U.S. has the highest rate of gun suicide in the world — and suicides account for more than half of the total number of gun deaths nationwide each year. It’s because of these statistics that we at The Trace consider covering suicide central to our mission of understanding gun violence in America. Research shows these deaths are not inevitable, and that most Americans would act to support someone they know is at risk. But...

By Gina Caneva, Photo: Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times, Chicago Sun-Times, March 13, 2022 A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine stepped into our suburban high school’s library, sat down and took a deep breath before slumping her shoulders and opening up her laptop. I could tell that something was bothering her. I know the look of helplessness mixed with defeat all too well. Eighteen years ago, when I was a teacher at Corliss High School on Chicago’s South Side, I had that same look as I stood in the...

By Alexandra Frost, Photo: Francisco Moreno/Unsplash, March 13, 2022 As COVID-19’s Omicron variant waned and we took a second to catch our breaths, another anxiety-inducing and devastating event began: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine . People in the area have suffered unspeakable traumas while trying to hunker down or flee their home country , and the world has looked on in terror and exhaustion. If dealing with an ongoing pandemic and the rippling effects of an overseas war seems like too...

If we’re practicing a trauma informed approach, it makes a change in attention easier for the folks we’re serving.

By Donna Ferguson, Photo: Kirill Kudryavstev/AFP/Getty Images, The Guardian, March 13, 2022 I t was freezing cold the day Neil Laybourn saw a man in a T-shirt sitting on a high ledge on Waterloo Bridge and made a split-second decision that would change both their lives for ever. “It’s hard to pin down what it was that made me stop… but it would have played on my mind if I hadn’t,” he said. “That’s not how you live your life is it? You don’t just walk past when you see someone in need.” On...

By Monica Dean, Meredith Royster, and Mike Dorfman, Image: Screenshot from article, NBC 7 San Diego, March 8, 2022 Advocates are casting doubts on how California officials look into child deaths, fearing that inconsistencies across the state are leaving some tragedies uncounted. They say a clearer picture could prevent future deaths. For one great-grandmother, this problem is deeply personal. “You’ve got to track what is happening to these children,” Adrienne Arnett told NBC 7 Investigates.

By Cynthia Tucker and Frye Gaillard, Photo: Spencer Grant/Getty Images, The Guardian, March 11, 2022 In 1974, the great southern journalist John Egerton wrote a prescient book entitled The Americanization of Dixie: The Southernization of America. In a series of connected but self-contained essays, he made the point that something fundamental was changing – both in his native south, and in the country as a whole. But even Egerton seemed not to be sure exactly how things would unfold. He was,...

By Gillian Brockell, Images: Library of Congress; Onondaga Historical Association; Samuel J. Miller; the Art Institute of Chicago; Wikimedia Commons; David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University, The Washington Post, March 13, 2022 Some are exquisite condemnations from learned and accomplished men who escaped their enslavement. Some are brief queries, shots in the dark, dictated by illiterate women. One is brilliant sarcasm, humorously calculating and requesting...

So far, in this series, we have discussed narcissistic and childhood abuse and how codependency can become a problem for survivors. However, physical and emotional abuse is also rampant in our society and tearing the future lives of our children apart. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), emotional abuse is experienced by 11 percent of children and 50 percent of adults, although the exact figures are hard to measure. This article will focus on emotional and...

Elaine Miller-Karas, co-founder of the Trauma Resource Institute, is shown on the second row, far left, leading one of the daily EdCamp Ukraine sessions in which the Community Resiliency Model she co-created, is shared with the people of Ukraine at no charge and in support of their mental health and wellbeing during the Russian invasion. As fellow empaths and leaders helping to create and move “what else is true”, it should come as no surprise that the Trauma Resource Institute is virtually...

Codependency causes people to feed off each other’s emotions and to lose their ability to care for themselves. Codependency is a cruel dance where one person needs the other who needs to be needed. Thus, you end up with one adult being the giver and the other the taker. Sexual abuse in childhood can leave people vulnerable to forming codependent relationships and complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Is there a way to heal from codependency after childhood sexual abuse? That is what this...

In 1994 Dr. Porges proposed the Polyvagal Theory, a theory that links the evolution of the mammalian autonomic nervous system to social behavior and emphasizes the importance of physiological state in the expression of behavioral problems and psychiatric disorders.