Trauma is everywhere but so is resilience

[Music]

years ago

a woman came to see me for help with an

abusive marriage

she was an emt who worked for a local

ambulance service

she was smart and strong and emotionally

tough

as with other clients and violent

relationships i took her through the

standard services

a dangerousness assessment and a safety

plan

these always led to the same

recommendation

to leave everything behind and go to a

shelter

she didn’t like that idea few

victims did the closest shelter

was more than a 40-minute drive away and

she had to be able to

respond more quickly than that at her

job

she had a different plan a plan that

didn’t involve

losing her job and adding a financial

crisis

to her marital one her plan

involved money something still seldom

emphasized in counseling

she reckoned that in about six months

she could get her own apartment

and start divorce proceedings if she was

careful about saving her money

in the meantime she’d work as much as

possible

and steer clear of her husband as best

she could

and that’s what she did a very

impressive woman now

when i look back to my encounter with

her the surprising aspect is not her

pragmatic determination

nor her commitment to making her

community safer

even in the midst of her own crisis

rather the surprising part is how poorly

my psychology training prepared me

for that moment she found a course of

action that

even today few psychologists would

recommend

psychology still doesn’t recognize how

common such experiences are

or all the ways that people respond to

them

that’s resilience all the things we do

and all the help we get from others to

overcome

trauma i wrote those words over a year

ago

when this tedx university of the south

event

was originally scheduled for march 2020

before the pandemic interrupted it

in the original version of my talk i

next planned to gesture to the audience

and ask them to consider how many in the

room had experienced trauma

even before the pandemic i knew that the

answer

was probably all of us

now trauma is all around us with people

dying from covet every minute

and that doesn’t even include the trials

of health care workers

or the vulnerability and anxiety we’ve

all experienced the pandemic has added

to our dose of trauma

which is the cumulative lifetime burden

of all the adversities we’ve experienced

that dose will remain with us even when

the pandemic

is over it’s hard to talk about trauma

but now more than ever we need to

back when i was in graduate school the

only place i heard much about trauma was

the student lounge

the cliche shared there was that

everyone gets clinical training

to figure out their own families

that was certainly one of the reasons i

was there

i grew up in a home with depressed and

alcoholic parents

who likewise grew up in similar homes

where they too

experienced a lot of trauma even today

many in my extended family struggle with

substance abuse

and that often contributes to cascades

of other traumatic experiences

for a long time even years after grad

school

my past made me feel different from

other professionals

however thanks to better data i now know

i’m not unusual most people in the

united states

and around the world experience trauma

which includes not only

family dysfunction but also bullying

discrimination and other adverse

experiences

outside the family including pandemics

as a psychology professor i’ve been

studying these issues for more than 20

years

on and around this mountain my team and

i have interviewed more than 4

000 people and we found that more than 8

in 10 experienced victimization

which includes such things like child

abuse and community violence

if you count other losses such as the

death of a loved one

then the number was north of 98 percent

even before the pandemic sooner or later

everyone experiences trauma or

speaking as a parent the sometimes even

greater challenge of watching loved ones

suffer

even in countries with incredible social

safety nets

like canada and sweden you see similar

numbers

no society has figured out how to

eliminate trauma

now i’ve been told that’s a pretty

bummer message

but i think that that’s the wrong way to

look at it because if trauma is common

then so is resilience take that emt

i learned from her and so many others

that there is extensive untapped wisdom

about coping with trauma once you

realize how common trauma is

it seems even stranger that we avoid

talking about it

psychologists are as bad as anyone about

this maybe worse

my professors hardly ever spoke about

trauma

or if they did they talked about it as

if it was a rare and extreme

experience may be true for vietnam vets

but not the rest of us i can’t recall

a single professor or clinical

supervisor

ever disclosing a traumatic event from

their own past

and because they never talked about

anything bad happening to them

they also never shared what they did to

cope with the bad things

that must have happened even today

health professionals seldom publicly

acknowledge

their own trauma but i often wonder

what would therapy look like if it was

based on the ways

that therapists cope with their trauma

instead what i learned in my clinical

training is the importance of acting

like you have your life completely

together

now there are some good reasons for this

you don’t want to seek psychological

help

from someone who looks like they’re on

the verge of a breakdown

i totally get that you don’t even want

to watch a ted talk from someone who

looks like they’re on the verge of a

breakdown

so here i am today practicing many of

the skills i learned

i look pretty put together don’t you

think i did my hair

and this is a new dress but you can take

that too far

if you pretend that you’ve never had a

hair out of place in your whole life

you can lose empathy for those who are

in crisis

they become the other even worse

our perfect professional personas make

it harder for our clients to see

pathways to resilience

because it looks like you must avoid

adversity to create a good life

perhaps because of this pretending

psychologists used to treat resilient

people

like unicorns remarkable and rare

but it turns out that resilient people

are like squirrels

we’re everywhere any group includes

people who have overcome trauma

and many of the most accomplished people

in the world

have significant trauma histories

instead of pretending

that our lives are perfect we should be

wearing the traumas we survive like

badges of honor there’s so much we can

learn

from people who have experienced high

doses of trauma

but still manage to create good lives

so i shifted the focus of my work to

understanding the wisdom of resilient

people

by this time i had come to this mountain

not far from where my parents grew up

rural appalachians like trauma victims

are often described in highly negative

and stereotyped terms

but as far as i was concerned i thought

this mountain was a great place to study

surviving

and even thriving after trauma many

communities in this region

don’t have a lot of financial wealth but

they have

other more important kinds of wealth

using focus groups interviews and

surveys

my team and i work to identify the

underappreciated strengths of resilient

people

if you create a safe space then people

are willing

and even eager to share their stories

i met a 16 year old boy who was bullied

a lot when he was younger

his solution was to join the football

team

where he eventually rose to be a

co-captain

work work work is what he told me day in

and day out

when i met him he and his teammates were

at the weight room on a hot summer’s day

the rest of the school was deserted but

there they were

working together no one bullies him

anymore

and he found his purpose mentoring other

students

i found that a sense of purpose is the

most

important ingredient for resilience he

also found two other

important ingredients a healthy routine

and a supportive group of peers people

around here

also use humor to cope one focused group

of parents

joked so much about mistreating their

kids

that i worried that an outsider reading

the transcript would think they were

disclosing

real child abuse but they were laughing

so hard

along with my interns and me that i

didn’t have the heart to ask them to

stop

those parents had all experienced a lot

of childhood trauma

and they could have bragged that they

were proud to break the cycle

instead they cracked jokes that

powerfully communicated

the contrast between their own

childhoods

and the lives they had created for their

families

thanks to them we now ask about humor

and have found that is another

key resilience skill save money

exercise join an organization

crack jokes to lighten the dark times

connect to something larger than

yourself whether it’s parenting

supporting peers or making your

community safer

perhaps these are familiar to you

because they’re what many people do to

overcome trauma

these are the kinds of things i did to

overcome my own traumatic experiences

including being here today where i’m

working on my purpose

to help reduce the burden of trauma the

science is finally starting to catch up

to this community wisdom

showing that exercise volunteering and

many other activities

help with depression and anxiety just as

much as psychotherapy and drugs

purpose and stability and connection

can help us create good lives despite

all the unavoidable pain

think about the people you know yes

those are faces who’ve suffered trauma

but those are also faces of resilience

our traumatic experiences are important

parts of who we are

they never really go away and we must

come to terms with acknowledging them

however trauma is not the most important

thing about you

the most important thing is what

happened next

what you did to make it to today

it took scientists a long time to

appreciate the importance

of trauma dose the wear and tear on our

bodies and minds

that happens when bad things pile on and

add up now science is finally starting

to realize

the dose is important for resilience too

you can pile on and add up the good

stuff

whether it’s your own strengths or the

help you get

from family friends and community

the latest science suggests that higher

doses of good things

can counteract even large doses of

trauma

in the post-pandemic era this insight

will be more

important than ever when i look out on

this room today

i see strength resilient fellow speakers

and organizers who helped make this

event happen

despite the pandemic if you are watching

this

i hope you appreciate what you’ve done

to make it to today

and that you will take a chance and find

a safe space to share your story

because i believe that only sharing the

truth about trauma

and the ways we overcome trauma is the

path to a better world

there are a lot of your fellow squirrels

out there and i think they would be glad

to meet

the whole you thank you