The Ticking Time Bomb of Unprocessed Trauma

By itself, trauma is devastating. Trauma originates outside of the victim who receives it, yet it is passed to the victim, who bears the aftermath and the consequences. This is unfair to say the least. Sometimes trauma occurs as the result of a natural disaster, or a as a direct result of war. Most often, however, trauma originates from an abuser, an individual whose bad decision(s) affect(s) the victim for the rest of her life (and sometimes his or their life).

The victim, who did not cause the trauma, but as a result of being in the recipient role of the trauma, must shoulder the burden of that trauma for the rest of her life (see parenthetical citation above for all pronoun references). This plays out in the daily aftermath of the trauma in intrusive memories, visceral flashbacks, obliterating nightmares, and surges of overwhelming emotions. Each occurrence shreds through the victim like a hail of bullets strafing their flesh and vital organs. Sensory overload is a common side effect. There are often accompanying physical and mental health symptoms as well, depending on the age of the victim as opposed to the age of the perpetrator. None of these are fair.

But wait, it gets even worse.

The abuser, whose decision to act on their own urge and perpetrate the abuse often gets away without consequence and can abuse again and again. Abusers often silence their victims, passing the blame to the victim as if they caused the trauma, and with shame as an alibi, the victim accepts this transaction without realizing in that moment (or perhaps in treatment or recovery much later) that the responsibility lies with the abuser, not the victim. This is a secondary layer of abuse, wrapped around the initial abuse that can grow into a quagmire of confusion, anguish, and deception that makes recovery from trauma incredibly complicated.

There’s even worse news.

Trauma attacks the victim. In her body, this presents as physical symptoms. In her mind, this also presents as mental health outcomes the victim would not otherwise have incurred. And, according to the seminal study of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) by Kaiser Permanente of more than 17,000 participants, exposure to ACEs have direct correlation to these physical health and mental health outcomes in the lives of trauma survivors. For more details and specific data on this topic, see www.acestoohigh.com or www.acesconnection.com. Both websites provide access to the 10 question ACEs study (what the victim survived) as well as the 14 question resilience study (how and why the victim survived) to better understand how ACEs impact the victim. Dr. Nadine Burke-Harris’s TedTalk is another incredible source of understanding for how ACEs affect victims of trauma (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95ovIJ3dsNk).

Now for the worst news of all: The Ticking Time Bomb.

The victim of trauma suffers greatly in the aftermath of abuse. It can last decades for the victim. An entire lifetime. But trauma doesn’t stop at the physical or mental health level. It actually goes down to the cellular level. According to The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine (www.nicabm.com) , a pioneer of experts in the trauma treatment and recovery field, trauma that is unprocessed will actually attack the survivor in the DNA of their cells. Read that again.

In their Treating Trauma Master Series, NICABM details how unprocessed trauma attacks the victim in their DNA, resulting in the very physical health and mental health outcomes cited earlier. In addition, this can lead to a shorter lifespan, when untreated, and unchecked. Specifically, this occurs in the coating around DNA, the telomere (see below for further explanation). The reason this can be so devastating to trauma survivors, has to do with self-preservation. In order to survive trauma, a victim often responds with a fight, flight, freeze (there are two types: brain freeze and numbing), or fawn response.

The brain goes haywire. The frontal lobe goes offline. The left and right hemispheres can sever, requiring treatment and recovery work that reconnects the severed halves. Trauma can impact the nonverbal part of the mind, requiring nonverbal/nonlinguistic treatment to heal those particular aspects of trauma (see EMDR, tapping, art therapy, dramatic arts therapy, neurofeedback/biofeedback, music therapy, etc. for appropriate avenues to address these areas of recovery from trauma). The fight or flight response also has chemical responses in the brain: the amygdala floods with adrenaline, while the hippocampus floods with cortisol.

This essentially shuts down the memory system of the victim. The amygdala must be restarted by grounding tools (which use the senses to reboot this part of the long term memory system), and the hippocampus becomes flooded by the cortisol, causing searing bits of memory, disconnected from the timeline of an individual’s life history, rather than a seamless “video recording” of the trauma events. The hippocampus acts like the news reporter, collecting the who, what, where, when, why, and how of memories. When flooded, the hippocampus is unable to anchor such details to the long term memory system, causing the trauma memory to store in the body instead of the mind, until it is fully processed.

Our bodies are designed to heal themselves while we sleep. Approximately every seven years, the body replaces all 15 trillion or 75 trillion cells (depending on whether one measures by weight or volume) during the repair process. This occurs while we sleep. That is why 8 hours of sleep per night are so essential to the health and wellbeing of individuals. When that individual is a survivor of trauma, their sleep is often disrupted by a plethora of side effects such as insomnia, hyposomnia, sleep apnea, sleep paralysis, nightmares, and related symptoms. This further underscores how the aftermath negatively affects a survivor of trauma, and complicates her treatment, healing, and recovery. In fact, for most trauma survivors, just getting started in these processes is exponentially challenging, as victims of trauma often believe they do not deserve treatment, healing, or recovery.

During the process the body uses to heal itself, at the DNA level, the two strands of DNA unravel, create a copy of the cell, and ravel back together. The telomere, a coating on the outside of the strands of DNA, hold the two strands together, keeping them from breaking apart in the unraveling and raveling back together process. One can visualize the telomere like the hard-plastic cover at the end of a shoelace. Those caps keep the shoelace from unraveling. Similarly, the telomere coating the DNA hold the DNA strands together, keeping them healthy and alive. Trauma attacks the telomere. The direct affect of trauma attacking the telomere, is that they become shorter, and eventually, this can cause the DNA to break apart during the unraveling/raveling back together process. What occurs then is alarming: the cell where the DNA breaks apart gets sick and dies. This is the specific reason why the victim of trauma suffers both physical health and mental health symptoms. They are caused by the trauma attacking the telomere, and those cells where the physical health and mental health symptoms occur.

Trauma only attacks the body when it is unprocessed. Thus, the ticking time bomb of unprocessed trauma can be diffused. This is good news for the trauma survivor, but one which must lead to eventually facing and processing the trauma, the very thing the victim of trauma strives to avoid at all costs. Unbeknownst to the trauma survivor, until now, is the fact that avoiding the processing of trauma actually leads to further consequences for the victim.

Survivors of trauma have incredible levels of resilience. When life knocks the trauma survivor down, she gets back up. An adage states: “Fall down Seven Times, Get Up Eight.” This is true for trauma survivors. It is an adaptation. Similarly, suppressing the traumatic memory allows the victim to survive the trauma, at first. Initially, this is considered an adaptive response to trauma. Dissociation is one example. This can also lead a survivor of trauma to consider addiction as a viable option to stuff or avoid facing the traumatic memory. However, repeating this adaptive response to trauma over time actually becomes maladaptive. What initially helps the victim to survive, develops into a barrier that gets in the way of her treatment, recovery, and healing.

This is where mindfulness becomes a key factor to begin the healing and recovery process of treatment for a trauma survivor. By staying present to the surfacing traumatic memory, and dealing with it in the moment it occurs, the survivor learns to do the opposite of suppressing and avoiding the trauma. This causes that trauma memory to become processed. Once processed, it no longer attacks the telomere, and the victim of trauma can reduce the negative outcomes of a reduced lifespan, physical health, or mental health outcomes.

In his book, Waking the Tiger, Peter Levine details how somatic experiencing can support the processing of trauma memories. Examples include the tools of Felt Sense and Pendulation, two specific tools utilized in the healing and recovery of traumatic memory. For further details, please check out Heidi Hanson’s blog on Resiliency Building Skills to Practice for Trauma Recovery (http://www.new-synapse.com/aps/wordpress/?p=1825) as well as her blog on 13 Benefits of Pendulation (http://www.new-synapse.com/aps/wordpress/?p=542) and finally, her blog post on the use of Felt Sense (http://www.new-synapse.com/aps/wordpress/?p=63) which can be effectively used to treat depression, anxiety, and other related trauma symptoms.

Please note: Sensorymotor Psychotherapy has further application for the trauma survivor with Pat Ogden’s Window of Tolerance tool, available on the NICABM website in multiple formats.

In conclusion, trauma is a horrific experience for the survivor. Walking out the aftermath of symptoms and consequences the victim did not deserve in the first place is challenging enough. But left unprocessed and untreated, trauma attacks the survivor, delivering even more debilitating consequences. Once the survivor of trauma has reached a point of recovery where they are partially healed, and able to begin the difficult work of turning and facing the unprocessed trauma, she would be wise to act on that sooner than later, utilizing such tools as pendulation to process the trauma, and move it from its suppressed location in the body, to the long term memory, where it no longer plagues the survivor on a regular basis. It is there, she can attain a level of recovery where she has her life back, and she can function without daily intrusive thoughts, memories, and physical or mental health symptoms.

Healing is possible. Recovery is possible. Finding the right treatment for the trauma survivor is personal and best led by the trauma survivor herself. It’s time to diffuse the ticking time bomb of unprocessed trauma. You deserve healing and wholeness. You never deserved the consequences your abuser/perpetrator passed off on you, like the world’s worst version of hot potato. You deserve to be free of the consequences of trauma. It’s time to cut the wire.

THINGS WE HAVEN'T SAID is now available!

If you've been following the publication journey of THINGS WE HAVEN'T SAID, an anthology of 25 survivors of Sexual Assault, you probably know this has been a long 2 years. However, the end has come: Things We Haven't Said has been published as of March 13, 2018 and will be available everywhere books are sold.

One thing especially important for books such as these, which may otherwise be missed by some readers, is to post your honest reviews as soon as possible on as many sites as possible. Your review may help other readers find books they might otherwise miss out on. Thank you very much for your support!

As you follow the links below, please note the website stores where reviews are lacking, and share your review there so other readers can find books you recommend they read. Again, thank you very much for this critical support.

Amazon especially promotes books with 50 or more reviews. Early word can help us reach more readers and help more survivors. Remember, proceeds are being donated to www.rainn.org and to the Voices and Faces project, at www.voicesandfaces.org

Here's a listing of those sites who currently list THINGS WE HAVEN'T SAID for pre-order:

1. Amazon:

http://a.co/1n2HzJf

2. Barnes & Noble:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/things-we-havent-said-erin-moulton/1127174051?ean=9781942186342

3: Book Depository:

https://www.bookdepository.com/Things-We-Havent-Said/9781942186342

4: Books-A-Million:

http://www.booksamillion.com/p/Things-We-Havent-Said/Erin-Moulton/9781942186342?id=7194907940153

5: Indiebound:

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781942186342

6: GoodReads:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28956909-things-we-haven-t-said

Please note that the majority of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to:

www.RAINN.org

The contributors have donated their time, their talents, and their poems, stories, and essays to speak up and speak out on the issue of sexual assault. In light of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, survivors have stepped out and choose to remain no longer silent about sexual abuse, sexual trauma, rape, incest, and sexual assault. By remaining silent, power remains with the abuser. By speaking out, survivors regain their voice, and begin to heal. Each of us who have contributed, myself included, have experienced healing as a result of speaking out. It is our hope that readers will also find hope and healing from their own Sexual Violence experiences.

For many survivors, it's hard enough to face the truth that sexual assault has even occurred, let alone, speak up about it. Unfortunately, many are ill-equipped to handle such trauma and the very real aftermath from which survivors suffer daily across years and decades. Obviously, there is a huge need for such a resource as this one, detailing from fellow survivors themselves the ways we have learned to heal and move forward in our treatment and recovery. Many families, even those with the best of intentions to support and help survivors heal, have no idea what to say or how to even begin the healing process. Thus, a book like THINGS WE HAVEN'T SAID, provides such a resource for teens and adults to slowly process their experiences and co-journey with other survivors who have made progress toward healing on their recovery journey.

Please consider purchasing a copy for yourself, your loved one, your children, the people you love, and for your community crisis center, your local women's shelter, your local churches, and your local libraries. We appreciate each and every one of you, and welcome you to share the word so others know there is hope, there is a resource, and when you purchase this book, know that you are making a difference, and the majority of your purchase will be donated to www.RAINN.org and www.voicesandfaces.org

Thank you!

Book Review: THE LAST TO LET GO by Amber Smith

The Last to Let Go by Amber Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is such a careful and articulate unraveling, by the time you are fully entangled within the pages, you won't mind tugging at the next page like a loose thread until you reach the end, a kind of letting go. Beautifully written, painful, powerful. A jagged, glittering trail of bruises and tears. Must read. Dani and Brooke are my favorite characters, followed closely by Caroline.

View all my reviews

My Blog Posts for Survivors of Trauma and Abuse

The Smell of Smoke: Surviving the Aftermath of Trauma


For Survivors: Icebergs, Recovery, and the Importance of Using Your Voice

Survivor Resource: Intro to THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.

What If REcovery Is Not What You Need To Survive? The Role of DIScovery and UNcovering in Trauma and Abuse Healing

10 Truths I Learned as a Result of my Abuse

30 Essential YA Titles Perfect for SAAM 

A Survivor of Child Sexual Abuse Speaks Out: Being Silenced Again

What If REcovery Is Not What You Need To Survive? The Role of DIScovery and UNcovering in Trauma and Abuse Healing

*****Trigger Warning*****

What if recovery is the wrong word, the wrong approach, the wrong lens to view the treatment and healing process? This question brought me to at least attempt to process this thought all the way through and blog about it so you have the opportunity to join the conversation, which I hope you'll do in the comment section below. Let's begin.

First, let's start with the question, what is recovery anyway?

The definition gives us a few inroads and insights to begin from, but it doesn't really get at what recovery is, or hopes, or attempts to be for a person in the treatment and healing process. The first definition, "a return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength," implies that there is a right state of health or wellness, and there is a wrong state. This sounds very much like a victim of abuse must choose whether they are on one side or the other. Thus, a person who is in "recovery," carries with himself or herself a stigma that they are not well, and further, that they are in fact in a wrong state of wellness. Victim blaming, anyone? Ouch. That one stings a bit.

The second definition, "the action or process of regaining possession or control of something stolen or lost," suggests that a trauma that has occurred has somehow robbed the victim of his or her innocence, and he or she should strive to "get back," what is rightfully his or hers to own. The heart or intent of this sentiment is at first a nice thought: surely, every child has a right to retain his or her innocence, right?

We have a right to be a child when we are children, and not be thrust into the very adult world of child sexual abuse, where our childhoods are essentially robbed from us, right? Every survivor of child sexual abuse knows this just isn't true. We know what that horror feels like every day that follows from the moment our sexual abuse first began. But the truth is: the world isn't a safe place where children retain their right to be innocent and free from the weight of being thrust forward into adulthood. We don't all chase butterflies, or toss copious amounts of glitter on things, or frolic with unicorns. So the idea of regaining something I never had seems ludicrous to me. I never had that fantasy or fairytale childhood. It didn't exist for me. Instead, I found myself forced to make the very adult choice to take the bullet and comply with my abuser's sexual demands in order to spare my siblings from this horror, not realizing the world isn't fair, and my abuser had no intention of holding up his end of the bargain. I cannot regain what I never had. Sure, I was robbed. So for me, that happened when I was only four years old. As I approach my own treatment and healing from child sexual abuse, I am no longer certain recovery is the right approach. Another way to state this is recovery may not be the right word.

Recovery has been described as many things. It can be a road, a pathway, a journey. It might also be a reset button, a reboot, a do-over, a new beginning. All of these "definitions," give insight and perspective on what recovery could be, but in many ways, it falls short. For the survivor of trauma, recovery just doesn't add up to the promise of giving us back what was stolen from us. It doesn't even come close.

So where does that leave us? It's such a common feeling for a survivor to not fit in with "normal" people. We are outsiders. We don't belong. We are the quintessential square peg trying to fit into a round hole. We just don't. Fit, that is.

For a survivor of child sexual abuse, recovery just isn't a good fit. For us, we need something that meets our unique healing and treatment needs. This led me to the following thought:

What if REcovery was more like DIScovery and UNcovering our TRUE SELVES?

Give that a minute to soak in. Feeling okay? Are you ready to move forward? It might take a few moments for you to fully absorb what I'm saying here. Let me try another way: I'm going to break each of these down a bit further to help clarify:

REcovery is supposed to equal getting back what was taken from you. This seems legitimate as long as you had something prior to your abuse that was taken, apart from your right to live an abuse-free life, that you can "RE," or RE-COVER, or get back.

What if you could, instead, DIScover, or not focus on getting something that was lost or stolen back in the first place? What if, instead, you could choose to do what YOU want to do with the cover. For me, "cover" represents the aspect of abuse that is hidden or covered up.

When you work to regain yourself, you pull the covers off, and reveal the secret. This step can be very triggering, and should not be attempted without the help and support necessary to fully go through this process. If you are considering this step, don't do it alone. Make sure you are ready, and you have professional support with a licensed professional, preferably one who is trauma-informed, and can attend to your unique therapeutic needs.

Before I can get to the final step in the "cover" process, I need to veer off from the main topic for a bit. You see, our abuser took all his or her responsibility for the abuse they inflicted on us, and placed the blame entirely on our shoulders. We tried to resist this, but over time, they wore us down. Eventually, we succumbed to their repeated statements (gas lighting) and treatment. They told us we were nothing, we were worthless, it was our fault. Then, they treated us as if we were nothing, as if we were worthless, and as if it was actually our fault.

To truly understand the process that took me from REcovery to DIScovery to UNcovering the TRUE SELF, check out "The Lying Triad and it's Dark Guard," by Bobbi L. Parish, MA on YouTube:

This brings me to the UNcover part: that the true task is to 1: Uncover the secret of the abuse, rip the cover off of the secret, and expose it for what it is. By taking the lie off of ourselves, we reveal what has been hidden all along: the lie our abuser gave to us, (that you are broken, deserving of your abuse, and essentially the Lying Triad and the Dark Guard Bobbi was talking about,) in order to avoid facing any consequences for abusing us, is finally given back to our abuser, and our TRUE SELF is seen for the first time. 2: The second task is to seek to fully know and embrace the TRUE SELF and allow the TRUE SELF to regain his or her power back.

If we as survivors are ever to regain anything, it is the truth of our TRUE SELVES. And this very important part of our healing journey can only be achieved if we move from REcovery to DIScovery and eventually arrive at UNcovering what has been hidden by our abuse: our TRUE SELVES.

If you've read this entire blog post, from the bottom of my heart to the tips of my toes and the top of my head, I thank you. I appreciate you hearing me out. You may not agree with anything I've said here. You might agree with some parts of it, or all of it. I invite you to join the conversation. Sound off in the comments below and let me know what this brought up for you, how you connect or disconnect from this concept about the recovery process. Healing from trauma and abuse have unique aspects that are not the same as other treatment and healing processes.

It is my hope that this can be the beginning of a conversation about those needs for true recovery and healing to happen in the survivor community. If you have an idea for a blog post in response to this one, I hope you'll post a link in the comments below and I look forward to reading your reactions, comments, and posts.

I will close with a checklist for recovery, "Guiding Principles of Recovery":

For Survivors: Icebergs, Recovery, and the Importance of Using Your Voice

 

I don't know what your recovery pathway looks like compared to mine, but I've been walking mine out for nearly 40 years. In those four decades, I've made some progress, have experienced fallouts and fallbacks, and I've discovered things about myself I would never have known had I not done the hard work of digging below the surface and asking the hard questions. I also had to sort through a lot of difficult things, and there were times this was triggering for me. However, at the end of the day, I can look back and honestly say that it is ENTIRELY worth every pain, every trigger, and leaning into that pain and allowing myself to fully experience that as honestly as I can has made all the difference.

I can't answer for you whether this is a good way to go about walking out your pathway, but I encourage you to take the risk, or at the very least, allow yourself to consider the possibility that you can. Read on if you'd like to know more. As I often say, take whatever is helpful, and toss out the stuff that doesn't work for you. My solutions may not work for you. When you try something that doesn't work, shrug it off. That's just a sign you're not there yet, you're not ready for that yet, or it's just not right for YOU. That's okay. Be you. Be where you're at and do the best you can with where you're at. It's that simple. Or, it can be, if you let it.

 

 

 

The beginning of this process may be a bit off-putting for the person in recovery. As is very often the case, once you start digging, you tend to uncover more and more, and very soon you may become overwhelmed with what you dig up. It can be helpful to know beforehand that this is a very normal part of the process. After all, we aren't 2 dimensional beings. We're very complex, far more than we often give ourselves credit. That may ping onto that false belief you're holding onto that you're broken, unworthy, or an outsider. I'll come back to that later. For now, just know that's a lie, and you are worthy, wonderful, and just as valuable as everyone else.

 

 

 

It's high time you stop believing your abuser, turn those tapes off from replaying over and over in your mind, and replace them with positive thoughts, affirmations, and mindfulness. This will lead you to wellness, which is a much healthier place to exist. You've beat yourself down for far too long, in fact, you may have even taken the shovel out of the hands of your abuser, and done the burying of yourself on their behalf. Stop it. Enough of that. It's time to unbury some stuff and get to the truth of your actual identity. See yourself the way the rest of the world sees you. Look in that mirror. You might be surprised. It will take your breath away.

 

 



What you may find, beneath the surface of your true identity, is a person far more complicated than you have even risked thinking about. You probably think very little of yourself, or when you're in the early stages of recovery, it's much easier to believe this is true. Well, let me say it: It's a lie. Untrue. Not even close. You. Have. Value. You. Are. Amazing. You are beautiful and wonderful, and never let ANYONE, even yourself, tell you otherwise.

Let that soak in for a minute.

Think of yourself as an iceberg. This might also match how your feelings have become over the years. That's okay, too. You might have shut them off, become numb, and isolated. This is all very similar to an iceberg. But, there's more to it: You survived. You're still here. You win. Not your abuser.

It's okay to be an iceberg, but when you're ready, I encourage you to explore your emotions and let yourself feel again. I know it's a risk. It may also be painful, I'm not going to lie. IT may hurt like hell. But if you don't let yourself feel anything, you will miss so much more.

There are good things in the world.

There are positive feelings, wonderful feelings, things that are indescribable, and worth experiencing. But if you're numb to your feelings, if you're living in that dissociative state, you'll miss so much of your life, and you might not be able to get that back. Don't put the power with your abuser. Take it back. Own it. It's yours. Let yourself feel. Slowly, carefully, and you'll be able to suffer through and process the pain, and you will also have the joy of knowing what it means to truly be alive. You'll experience the good things, too. You deserve that. You always have. You may have just forgotten or believed those lies. The good news is, you don't have to anymore. Start today. Begin afresh. Unwrap the gift of feeling and experiencing your life right now.

There are many great resources you can use in your recovery and healing journey. One of my favorites is to find a great book that helps me to process some of these thoughts and feelings and reflect on how they were added together to become behaviors. Here are two suggestions for you:

              

 

Jasmin Lee Cori is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and abuse survivor. She writes bluntly and honestly about the recovery process, and gives so many great examples and word pictures that helped me immensely in my own recovery process. You'll love this resource. Check out, Healing From Trauma, and comment below once you've had a chance to read through it.

 

Bessel Van Der Kolk is THE resource for trauma research over the last forty years. He's survived a concentration camp and his own trauma and loss, while helping others, particularly veterans, understand and walk out what it is like to unravel the mystery of trauma and find a way out towards healing. In particular, The Body Keeps the Score, helps the reader understand that trauma does not store in the mind and body (and spirit) the way other memories do. This was hugely illuminating for me. I highlighted this book like crazy. Get your own copy so you can do the same. I'd recommend that for both of these resources. Click the covers or the highlighted text to follow the link to buy your copy today. I wrote a blog about my experience of reading The Body Keeps the Score. You can check it out here.

 

 

 

Of course, beginning to search for the pathway that works best for you and your recovery is easier said than done. What may work for one survivor may not work for another. Your pathway of recovery may be very different from mine. They might have similarities, as there are common threads in the process of recovery for most survivors, but your healing pathway is likely as different as your story and your experience. What you've lived through is unique. Equally true is the unique facets that make up all the complicated layers that make you you.

 

 

 

To illustrate this point, let's first consider the layers, the facets, the dimensions that make you the unique individual that is wholly YOU. At the very least, you have a body, a mind, and a spirit. There are three dimensions you possess that are as unique as your DNA. Check out the wheel above and consider what layers or dimensions make up who you are. When you consider your recovery pathway, it's important to note that your recovery involves ALL of these unique dimensions. It's not just a body thing. You can't just take a pill and move on. There's more to it.

 

Medication management may be an aspect of your recovery. That's okay. It may only need to be there for the time it takes you to work through all the stuff below the surface. (See the iceberg image above). You've also got to consider how your trauma or abuse experience impacted your mind, your mental health, and whether you have a diagnosis, or diagnoses that you need clinical help with to gain the skills and strategies you need to fully process and recover.

 

Another area with great significance in relation to your recovery is your support system. Do you have any supports? Are there family members or friends who know you completely, who know all that happened to you? Have you been able to share your experience with at least one other person? If not, consider what you need to make that happen. Plan it out. Make it a goal, and work toward that goal, when you're ready.

 

If you don't have supports, you can look for local support groups, and even groups which meet online. I know I have found private chat life coach groups, Twitter hashtag groups which meet weekly, and private Facebook Groups that vet members through a screening process to weed out trolls and abusive people looking to hurt survivors. It's sad this even happens, but it's also unfortunately true. So, guard yourself. You don't need to be hurt anymore than you already have been.

 

So what do you think your pathway to recovery looks like? Here are a few examples:

 

 

 

 

This is the model of recovery I used as a roadmap to healing. I began as a victim, then moved to survivor, then I developed my recovery skills through Adaptor and Thriver, and finally, I've been working to become an overcomer. Now that I am in this stage of recovery, I am also looking at where I came from (undiagnosed PTSD or cPTSD) to where I am at now in posttraumatic growth (PTG) with the added skills of resiliency, mindfulness, and wellness. These have helped my recovery and have transformed me from the person on the far left to the man I have become on the far right. As an added bonus, I have found a way to help others in their recovery, as a certified clinical mental health counselor.

 

 



 

Another model of recovery may look like the one above. It's not a straight line, and this is important to note: Your path of Recovery may look more like an upward spiral than a straight line. When you fall down six times, get up seven. You'll keep making your way up, up, up out of the dark cellar of your mind and your abuse or trauma experience, and you'll reach a point of light and recovery that is optimal for your healing journey.

 

 

 

 



As I said earlier, at the very least you need to attend to your body, your mind, and your spirit when developing a road to recovery.

Resiliency is a critical factor useful to develop the skills and strategies of healing and recovery. Use the list above to support your recovery goals.

Above, consider these mindfulness-based aspects of recovery which can contribute positively among other resiliency factors.

 

 

 

Finally, consider that your pathway to recovery may not look like anything listed here. It could feel very much like youv'e wiped out on the surfboard of your life, and you're just beneath the surface, not yet tumbled out of the pull of the wave of your trauma and abuse experience. I encourage you to find your own pathway, and develop your skills, coping tools, and recovery strategies that will adequately equip you in your recovery journey. Know that you are not alone. Know that you matter. You are loved. And you can find yourself among the wreckage, you can activate your voice and advocate for yourself and for your recovery. Take the next step today. I hope this post has been an encouragement. I welcome your comments and reactions below.

 

If you haven't seen my other posts for survivors, check out this Survivor Resource: The Smell of Smoke: Surviving the Aftermath of Trauma here.



Survivor Resource: Intro to THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.

 

 

 

THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE: BRAIN, MIND, AND BODY IN THE HEALING OF TRAUMA by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. is a seminal work in the study of trauma and its grueling, relentless effects upon the body. Having just reviewed the preface, I am already hooked and cannot wait to read and post about my findings for the survivor community. If you have experienced any kind of trauma, you know it does havoc on multiple areas of your body. As the title suggests, these areas include:

• The Brain: trauma does not store itself in Long Term Memory (begins in the hippocampus and stores in various places in the cortex), instead it bangs around inside the brain as it pleases. Engagement in activity that is similar to the trauma can elicit unwanted flashbacks which feel like it is happening right now.
• The Mind: can be impacted by the intrusion effects of trauma which include: spontaneous or cued distressing memories of the traumatic event, recurrent distressing dreams in which the content or emotions are related to the event, dissociative reactions in which the individual feels or acts as if the traumatic event(s) are happening again, psychological distress when confronted with internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble the traumatic event, or marked psychological reactions to reminders of the traumatic event(s) (Barlow, Clinical Handbook of Psychological Disorders, 5th Edition). The Dual-Representation Theory proposed by Brewin, Dalgleish, and Joseph (1996), suggests memories are made up of Verbally Accessible Memories (VAMs), which "contain some sensory information about emotional and physical reactions, and the personal meaning of the event," while "Situationally Accessed Memories (SAMs), "cannot be accessed deliberately and is not easily altered or edited as more explicitly accessed VAMs," but "SAMs compromise sensory (e.g. auditory, visual, tactile), physiological, and motoric information that may be accessed automatically when a person is exposed to a stimulus situation similar in some fashion to the trauma, or when that person consciously thinks about the trauma, which are experienced as intrusive sensory images or flashbacks accompanied by physiological arousal" (Barlow, Clinical Handbook of Psychological Disorders, 5th Edition).
• The Body: "We can now develop methods and experiences that utilize the brain's own neuroplasticity to help survivors feel fully alive in the present and move on with their lives." The three avenues are: 1. top down, by talking, (re-) connecting with others, and allowing ourselves to know and understand what is going on with us, while processing the memories of the trauma; 2. by taking medicines that shut down inappropriate alarm reactions, or by utilizing other technologies that change the way the brain organizes information, and 3. bottom up: by allowing the body to have experiences tha deeply and viscerally contradict the helplessness, rage, or collapse tha result from trauma." (Bessel Van Der Kolk)

Prologue: Facing Trauma

The following are some of the more profound quotes I found while reading through the prologue of THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE:

"Traumatic experiences do leave traces, whether on a large scare (on our histories and cultures) or close to home, on our families, with dark secrets being imperceptibly passed down through generations." (Bessel Van Der Kolk)

"It takes tremendous energy to keep functioning while carrying the memory of terror, and the shame of utter weakness and vulnerability." (Bessel Van Der Kolk)

"Feeling out of control, survivors of trauma often begin to fear that they are damaged to the core and beyond redemption." (Bessel Van Der Kolk)

"The key to healing was understanding how the human organism works." (Bessel Van Der Kolk)

"Research from these disciplines (neuroscience, developmental psychopathology, and interpersonal neurobiology) has revealed that trauma produces actual physiological changes, including a recalibration of the brain's alarm system, an increase in stress hormone activity, and alterations in the system that filters relevant information from irrelevant. We now know that trauma compromises the brain area that communicates the physical, embodied feeling of being alive." (Bessel Van Der Kolk)

 

 

Preview of upcoming review for the remainder of THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE:

 

The following are a series of slides which enumerate the main themes explored in THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Study:

 

Much of trauma can be attributed to three main areas of exposure: abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction, as explored in the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Study.

 

 

 

To take the quiz yourself, click here.

 

While you're at it, check out this powerful TedTalk on the ACEs Study:

 

 

*Please note: Your score does not define you or your ability to recover or exhibit resilience. I should know. I scored a 10/10 on the ACEs. Yet, I have somehow survived those traumas. The following are the common risk factors and areas where survivors may struggle to manage their traumas:

 

 

 

I welcome your comments below. What has your experience been like? How is it similar or different than what has been described here? Now what? Now that you have read this post, what is your next step?