Growing is the Essence of Story

I was at a Wellness Summit yesterday called CNQR (Courage Normalize Question Recovery) pronounced "Conquer".  Kevin and Margaret Hines are sponsoring the day and the movement.  The question raised is why the story isn't more powerful in certain circles and what is it about story that saves lives.  So as I listened, I thought of a famous poet and master story teller: Robert Bly.  He teaches men about coming into manhood through story and rites of passage.  Well, I remembered something someone said to me about wanting to die really being about wanting to grow up at the same moment.  I think this is the major catalyst of a recovery/survival story is that it gives the individual opportunity for growth.  At the same time others are witnessing the growth, which gives a rich learning environment.  

But Robert Bly says something really important too, he says a man that is not admired by another man is a man that is hurting.  Well, story gives a window for admiration from the audience.

There are other key elements I found in listening that include: defining oneself or creation of identity, space for healing, sharing of hope, removing isolation, empowerment, taking back power from an overwhelming experience, connection, creation of meaning, and creation of relationships that in turn create community.  This is the power of a story!  

I know now this is why writing my book was such a powerful personal journey...

Book List that Inspired My Journey of Life

* 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (for getting it together)
* The Dance of Intimacy (for getting it together)
* Conscious Living (creating the life you want)
* Trauma and Recovery (understanding trauma)
* Emotional Intelligence (understanding the brain)
* Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (facing trauma in the body)
* Trauma Proofing Your Kids (raising a child)
* What Color is Your Parachute (finding your skills for work)
* The Artist's Way (developing art skill)
* Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (developing art skill)
* Deep Play (for the relationship)
* The 5 Languages of Love (for the relationship)
* The Happiest Baby on the Block (for new moms)

There are more, but this is a good start.

Environmental Influence on Suicide

When an individual is in a rigid or chaotic environment, where when the presence of a threat is possible and when is unknown, the result is a person becomes vigilant.  Vigilance results in concrete thoughts, another words a person's brain gets stuck and access to the abstract thinking center gets cut off.  As environments get harsher, there is movement to different stages of limbic thought.  The last stage is terror that results in reflexive thought.  I think the role of environment on the brain in suicidal behavior is important to recognize, as I study a table about children's brain development in Dr. Bruce Perry's book - The Boy Who Was Raised By a Dog.

Harsh environments cause a person's brain to create states of terror.  One can trigger early states of terror in a persons life by a touch, loud noise, yelling, etc.  So, it seems to makes sense that the same would hold true for professions where bodily harm is highly possible.  These professions would include things like police work, construction, the military, and perhaps human trafficking rescue work.  Being able to relax the brain in harsh environments should be a focus, if we want to assist people in extending their lives.  With relaxation, folks can begin to strategize more and access their thinking brain to engage creative vs stereotypic or rigid problem solving.

The threat of cultural collapse, as in historical trauma, could be a highly threatening environment also.  

That's all the thought I have right now.  Off to play therapy with my son.  If you are suicidal and want to engage in therapy or just connection, one can start the journey by calling 800-273-TALK.

Peace, 
Carol

My Courage to Live

I can remember very well my father's response when I was living a life I hated at age 21 about counseling.  He said you can not call the insurance company, my job is not going well and that will cause me to be fired.  I had lost everything I cared about for a man.  I dropped out of school, because he said so.  I took risks that I wouldn't ordinarily take and allowed him to abuse me spiritually and psychologically.  I drank to cope with the daily rage that I felt inside about my situation.  One day was so bad that I just started screaming and could not stop, as a reflex reaction.  I was absolutely miserable.  Then he left me.  When he left, I felt like I had absolutely nothing to offer to life.  Somewhere inside I found more rage and I focused it on getting help.  I reached out to the insurance company told them I was suicidal and got a counselor that week.  We worked for months and in time my life changed.  I started reading books for healing and inspiration, I asked other family members to help me, and I went back to school.  Eventually I took medicines that lifted my mood a bit.  I talked about thoughts and restructured them with my therapist.  I said goodbye to people and places that I felt were dangerous and I didn't want to be in over time.  In time I found peer support that enhanced my self esteem and general self-confidence in my abilities.  The thoughts lingered here and there, coming in and out like an automatic thought even when well.  I have learned that the thoughts get louder and more detailed, when my life is not going the way I want it to.  When I'm happy with my environment and my medication they disappear all together.  Digging in and finding community through creative arts and advocacy has really given me wings.  I wish you well on your journey in finding your wings, you deserve them and it just takes time with baby steps in the direction you want your life to be in.
A great step in starting a journey of life is to connect with counselors by phone by calling 800-273-TALK (The Suicide Prevention Lifeline).

 

Sometimes We Cry and We Can't Name Why...

Today my son cried at a cartoon that seemed really to remind me of a situation he went through as a child before he could talk.  I asked him if he remembered one of his friends from that time and he cried even harder.  He couldn't name why he was crying.  We store some memories of our development in the reptilian brain, the part of the brain that has no words.  It is our primitive reptilian brain and where our earliest memories are stored.  I said sometimes we cry and we don't know why, but it doesn't mean its not really important to cry.  It was an awful chapter in his life.  I thought he didn't want to go to the sitters house, because he didn't want to be separated from me.  I thought after talking with the pediatrician that his sadness at separation was all developmental.  The clue should have been he was always happy before. We didn't learn the truth until a couple of years later after taking to someone who reported abuse to us.  I can't change that time in his life.  I thought he was better off in a home, because he got so sick in daycare.  He wasn't.  Abuse can be prevented by ensuring your child is not left alone in the care of other adults.  Something I learned from the darkness to light campaign to prevent abuse.  I'm just glad we made it through together.

Women and Work

As a woman in the workplace, it has always befuddled me when other women don't like me.  Today I have some clarity after talking to an executive.  We were discussing the general hierarchy of life, how men dominate the workplace usually.  That's not unusual, well except at my job where the executives are primarily female.  We were discussing racial inequities in the workplace and how people protect the status quo.  That wasn't unusual to my ears.  What was really interesting was that she said women attack other women, because they are not male.  Well, this was new to me.  I would think the first instinct of a women would be to support and build.  When this doesn't happen, I have been taken a back.  Like way back.  It makes me quiet and anxious.  So anxious that I try to make myself somehow different, taking that micro-aggression personally.  So, as a woman that has questioned the status quo in the hiring process in general; I wonder how I can push female co-workers to recognize their own biases?  Maybe some environments do this naturally, because I love the way it feels in the workplace I'm at.  It feels equitable and fair.

13 Reasons I Won't Watch...

So I told her I wouldn't be watching 13 Reasons Why and she proceeded to tell me how she was forcing herself to watch it.  She then began to describe with little affect the way that she died in graphic detail to me.  In that moment, I thought do you know that I have lived with serious suicidal thoughts at one time in my life?  Do you know that I purposefully refraining from watching because of that.  I felt little tiny step closer to death just listening and it made me a little angry.

I don't watch violent programming on purpose, as a trauma survivor it is deeply upsetting.  As a woman, why are we so obsessed with broadcasting violence against women?  I can't watch.  I won't watch.

Why won't I watch?

1. I want to live.
2. I want to celebrate my life.
3. I want to survive.
4. I want to celebrate survival, each and every day.
5. Survival is cool.
6. Survival is glamorous.
7. I deserve love.
8. I am love.
9. I am loved and if love fails, there is millions of more people waiting for the chance to love.
10. I love my life, and I didn't always, but I have surrounded myself with the life I deserve.
11. I'm not going to let anyone stop me from living the life I deserve.
12.  I'm a seasoned survivor, it wasn't always that way, but the more I read, the more I learn, the better
       I live.
13. I don't need to watch drama to get through life, life has enough drama in itself.

Its okay to love life, seems strange that I would have to say it...and you don't have to watch!

And don't forget the Lifeline, if your putting all of life together and you just need help making sense of things: 800-273-TALK.  There is nothing wrong with talking to professionals, I have and found them to usually be helpful in gearing up for facing life.  And keep talking, because it is through connection and relationships that we heal.  Peer Support can also be a great place to start really talking, learning, and carving out the life you want.

Recovered Memory is at the Heart of Debate

I feel great energy around my hands I told him.  I haven't been able to draw hands since I was a child.  You could if you practiced he said.  I said when I was in my twenties, I wrote a letter to myself.  My therapist had me draft it with my left hand.  I said in that letter that my mother sexually abused me.  Did she?  I don't really think so.  I mean the topic was never explored with my therapist, I didn't tell her.  I definitely have memory of being sexually abused by my grandfather, but not my mother.  My mother was hostile and intrusive.  She was controlling and bitter, but I don't remember feeling that "ick" about her.  My current therapist told me a story of an induced memory and we closed the topic that this was the heart of great debate.  So, I'm trusting that gut feeling on this one.

 

My Family Garden

I ate a sugar pea pod from my mother's garden and my stomach turned.  The experience reminds me of my experience of family growing up.  We looked great on the outside, but inside was just toxic.  There were wonderful experiences too - horseback riding, ballet, jazz, piano lessons, and vacations.  They tried so hard, but at home there was so many arguments.  There were family reunions and I'm not sure I learned much from my extended family; hate speech on one side and sexual abuse on the other. As a caring person, I suffered.  These beginning layers only taught me how to find some really toxic friends and partners.  It took years to unlearn the negative thoughts, self hatred, shame, and guilt. How much has this foundation affected my experience of living a truth others can't sense?  I am really pondering the layers underneath my visions, voices, and sensory experiences that have haunted me.  My initial reaction to hospitalization was shock no one was recognizing my experience as a crime victim; and now 14 years later I'm feeling that emotion again.  I'd filed it away, but with one taste of her garden I'm there again.  Time to reread my book "Falling Into Peaces" and reflect:  Falling-into-Peaces

I was one of the few that made it.

My story of human trafficking is one of escape, but I believed I escaped because I was an outsider always flirting with the flame, but never getting too close.  I had dreams, dreams of becoming a psychologist that I held tight to.  I worked one or two days a week, then went to school.  I was miserable but I had a dream to hold on to.  My therapist recently said that they had never met an x-club dancer that wasn't a addict.  Well, I was there for a while drinking to stay stuck but I moved beyond with therapy and eventually an antidepressant.  What I'm trying to say is that not everyone is so lucky.  They break you down bit by bit slowly till they have you as property.  I can remember this clearly as new management came into the Gold Club.  First it was "you need to lose weight".  Then it was referring to us as "f-ing whores".  Then its "dance on stage or this billionaire that is having a party and see if he likes you".  Then its "get in our limousine".  Something clicked I refused and I was fired.  This is a story I forget frequently, due to the trauma of the build up.  I went to the state of Georgia Dept of Labor and they took their side.  How long till we realize the gravity of these clubs?  How long till we recognize the women being slowly brain washed into submission?  Well, I'm not suing anyone, I just want to say it because really no one is.  I just had to say it.  This is not my story of where or who is responsible for my human trafficking experience.  There is more to say, but this is as much as I can.