How Trauma Informed Care Saved My Life
[Music]
today
i’m going to take you on a journey
a journey where dreaming of standing on
a stage and sharing my story
is the reason i’m alive the journey
starts
with the birth of complex ptsd
in 1986 a baby girl came into the world
her family called her addie and they
loved her very much
soon siblings joined daddy
casual spankings for the kids soon turn
into more violent forms of punishment
as shared by the national center for
ptsd
complex ptsd is a term used to describe
a cluster of symptoms
that includes emotional difficulties and
somatization
or the physical presentation of mental
pain
and while complex ptsd often begins in
childhood
it usually doesn’t end there and it
isn’t limited to experiences that happen
in childhood let’s rejoin addie
on her journey and learn a little bit
more about its development
addie soon decided that she would
definitely be leaving home as soon as
possible
the opportunity soon presented itself at
16
she met the 40-something-year-old
neighbor when he brought his puppy into
her backyard
when her parents discovered the
situation they asked the authorities for
help
and a prosecutor told her mom to get
over it
it happens all the time not knowing what
else to do
they had addie adjudicated which is when
you’re arrested as a minor
and she spent 30 days in a juvenile
detention center
the experience was horrifying
that was the final straw for addie and
solidified her decision
to leave her family because she no
longer felt safe with them at all
the day after her 18th birthday she left
home and married that man
and he turned out to be terrifying at 28
weeks pregnant addie went into early
labor
thankfully she and her baby girl made it
full term
when her daughter was two she told addie
daddy hurt me
in spite of begging the courts they
still sent
her daughter back into that unsafe home
and inevitably the nightmare began again
a couple of years later
something happened to addie at that
point and she broke
there was a huge sensation of shattering
in her head
and in her chest and she felt like her
pieces were lying on the ground
all around her addie was never the same
again
she was 25 years old and complex ptsd
had grown up
as you may have gathered by now addie is
the nickname i went by during childhood
in spite of securing my daughter’s
safety through the courts in 2014
my health began to deteriorate quickly
from the point of the shattering i began
to experience insomnia
intense body pain and major irritability
on the outside everything looked fine i
was working full time
successfully in my career i was in
school full time
and i was a homeowner with a fenced-in
backyard i had it all
except for my sanity finally the
extraordinary pain began to overflow
and began to show up as outbursts of
extreme anger at work
and at home i tried to tell people about
it a few times i would say things like
i’m drowning
and the most common response was just
keep going
i went to the doctor once and told him
about all the intense body pain i was
experiencing and
he told me that i was getting old
and to stretch more i was in my mid-20s
i continued to try to hide behind my
supposed success
until one morning
i found myself screaming at my daughter
until i could feel the veins
throbbing in my temples and then i heard
myself tell her
that i didn’t want her anymore
that was the day i decided that in order
to save her future
i would need to end mine i needed to die
and in order to do that i needed a plan
i set up my last will and testament and
one day after my daughter left for
school
i grabbed my car keys and started out
the door to drive my car
over a cliff
when i heard the voice
and it said you promised
i slid to my kitchen floor and sobbed
because i had indeed promised
the second time my daughter had been
hurt i made a vow
that would never stop speaking up to
change the way the systems
had contributed additional pain to our
lives
it was time to stand up and be fearless
i envisioned myself standing on a stage
inspiring others and helping them
through
that was the why that saved my life and
soon i made a phone call
to an integrative health center that was
when i discovered trauma informed care
which is the
howl that saved my life the woman on the
other end of the phone was warm and kind
and she got a practitioner on the line
right away who was amazing
and made an appointment for me the very
next day
they understood that even after abuse
has stopped
survivors often walk around in this
world feeling completely
unsafe and that in order for healing to
even begin
safety has to be established first
trauma-informed care
is a way of treating people that assumes
that they’ve been through trauma from
the beginning
and is actively striving to avoid
re-traumatizing them by creating an
environment of safety and recovery and
healing
trauma-informed care began to help me to
understand how my childhood experiences
related to my adult struggles
the adverse childhood experiences study
or aces for short
tells us that people with a score of 6
or more
out of 10 are likely to die
19 years earlier than the average person
with a score of 10 it’s a good thing
that i’m into proving average is wrong
yet this journey isn’t over for me yet
in the past five years
in spite of intensive trauma-informed
care i’ve lost a job due to having
outbursts at work
and after sharing about complex ptsd
with a manager
i’ve been diagnosed with two autoimmune
conditions
and i still struggle with fear and trust
issues when building interpersonal
relationships
my high a score had predicted all of
these issues
trauma informed care practitioners use
aces
to help survivors understand the
relationship
between their childhoods and their adult
struggles
trauma informed care has taught me to
return to myself
over and over again and bring me back to
the present
to regulate my emotions better
and most of all to feel safe more
frequently in our world
that’s what all those deep breaths and
hugs and the shuffling of my feet
has been about during this talk and what
allowed me to give it to you today
my trauma-informed coach has taught me
about these techniques
he helped so many people like me and yet
you’ve probably never even heard of a
trauma-informed coach
the good news is that i have made it
quite far on this journey
and in 2018 i graduated magna laude
from college
i’ve become an advocate a fierce
advocate for women who’ve been through
what i have been
and best of all i’m a better mom
when i started feeling safe again in
this world i found the courage to become
fearless
i started reaching out to people and
last year
i was able to meet some amazing safe
people who introduced me to the tedx
delton women’s stage
where i was an audience member last year
one of my friends took this picture of
me at that time
feeling safe in the world makes a
difference
and changes everything for survivors
the national center for ptsd tells us
that over 70 percent of adults will
experience at least
one traumatic event in their lives this
means that it is imperative that we
learn to recognize
and respond to trauma in survivors
and all of us
how many suicidal people are walking
around in this world feeling completely
lonely
when trauma-informed care could be the
answer
how many people full of anger are trying
to overcome abusive past and just
don’t know how or where to find the help
how many people in mysterious pain
might find that their childhoods
contributed
and that there is an answer in
trauma-informed care
the adage is true in order to change the
world
we must be the change
take action today and start to
understand what trauma-informed care is
better yet be trauma informed
there are organizations available who
teach individuals
professionals and systems how to behave
in a trauma-informed fashion i
urge you to take action it is so
needed in our world today especially
this year
together let’s demand a trauma-informed
world
for all the moms and the dads and the
systems
who never meant to pass it on let’s
demand trauma-informed care
for all the addies in our lives
thank you
you