Full Circle Fridays|Week 20: Trauma Informed Care

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I want to make sure that Survivors understand the importance of trauma-informed care, practices, and businesses. There is also another important factor when considering therapeutic care which is called “trauma trained”. This is what I want to share with you today to be sure that you have the best possible options of finding people and professionals that will gently and responsibly care for you and your specific needs.

Trauma Informed Care (also called “Trauma Responsive” or “T.I.C.”) is a model of caring for clients, students, patients, employees, or anyone under your advisement with not just the standards of dignity and respect. This practice goes deeper by changing the lens in which is looks at other humans and what they might be going through. This approach is assumptive that others have been through traumas and is willing to acknowledge the aftereffects that an individual may be suffering.

The six guiding principles according to the CDC are: safety, trustworthiness & transparency, peer support, collaboration, empowerment & choice, and recognizing cultural issues and differences.

A business or school, for instance, stating they are T.I.C. means they are equipped to acknowledge any trauma impact and to work hard to not re-traumatize someone in the aftermath of any incidents that need T.I.C. to be implemented. Some examples of this would be how an establishment’s guidelines are set to handle discipline issues, behavioral crises, or the uncovering of substance misuse. This also looks like creating an inclusive environment welcoming everyone, leadership being examples of vulnerability when mistakes are made, using calm and clear communication of desired behaviors, allowing everyone to set their own healthy boundaries, not labeling, giving ample notice before making changes that affect the company’s population, making sure there is an open door waiting for anyone who would like to seek services or crisis management or discuss their stress-related matters, and considering different cultures so as to make generalized statements.

Looking for trauma-informed doctors, legal aid, insurance carriers, childcare, schools, and workplaces can be the difference in your overall wellbeing and your continued healing journey. Imagine making huge strides in your trauma recovery, only to be re-traumatized by a doctor who doesn’t know how to approach a weight-related issue with trauma informed care to discuss the possibility of disordered eating or triggers around your weight. If you are working diligently in your personal childhood trauma healing but have so much work-related stress that you start to breakdown, you would want an HR team that you can feel safe to discuss your issues with and to figuring out how to implement changes to improve your wellbeing so you can remain an effective employee. Without this, your boss may see some behavior that seems like you are not “giving work your best effort” and end up letting you go without even knowing what you are dealing with. It’s important for someone stepping out of a domestic violence situation to have compassionate childcare so that there is room for some flexibility in dealing with the parent pick up for instance — as well as being empathetic to your child’s behaviors which may be stemming from the disruptive home life.

A step beyond trauma informed care in business practices, I believe it incredibly important to find therapeutic support that is actually trauma trained. This would be your therapist, coach, psychiatrist, and anyone else in charge of your mental health care. There is a clinical difference here between going to a therapist who has trauma informed care guidelines as a standard of administration, practice, policies, and consent versus a therapist who is specifically trauma trained in helping you with your trauma history and mental health and wellbeing.

As trauma survivors, as often as you can, you want to find trauma responsive businesses. It would the same as finding grocery stores that have a wide organic section or buying from vendors with cruelty-free products as some examples of circumstances that honor a person’s goals and desires in their life. For you, a trauma informed gas station may not be important, but your workplace or community co-op that you visit regularly would be very helpful. For your clinical needs like therapy, ‘trauma-trained’ is the key words you are looking out for. As a trauma-trained coach, I would love to help you surround yourself with people who can be sensitive with you along your journey. If you need advice, support, or person- or region-specific resources, feel free to reach out. I look forward to helping you with this and any of your trauma recovery needs.

Full Circle Fridays|Week 13: Medication

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First thing to say is a disclaimer. I am not a physician or medical provider. I am not recommending any kind of self-diagnosis or self-medication. I will never recommend trying anyone else’s prescription drugs or the use of street drugs or any kind of illegal activity surrounding this topic. This is merely a base of information for trauma survivors and an attempt to help bring light to psychiatric issues as well as remove any stigma in discussing this. If you believe you have a diagnosable condition or need a psychiatric evaluation for medication, please contact your medical provider, therapist, health insurance company, or send me a message on the “connect” tab of my website for more info or help pursuing this. With all that said, this topic may be triggering or sensitive to certain listeners/readers, so take care of yourself after this.

Trauma has a number of after effects including but not limited to: relational, emotional, neurobiological, biological, sexual, psychosocial, intergenerational, and psychological. There’s no way around this. Trauma changes you — inside and out. There’s no way to tell whose trauma is going to wreak havoc on the body and get stuck in the GI tract, where someone else might suffer sleeping issues, another has structural changes to the brain, where another person becomes extremely avoidant of other people, and then some survivors have a psychiatric disorder or diagnosis. There is no shame in whatever happened to you because of your trauma. Your trauma or abuse was not your fault. None of it — in no way, shape, or form. What happened to you and how your system responded to it is nothing to have a stigma about. A childhood abuse survivor may have a hyper-aroused, overactive nervous system that ends up presenting after years and years as an autoimmune disorder. The truth of the matter is — the body and brain can only handle so much stress, traumatic events, and abuse. You were not meant to go through what you went through. While some have an autoimmune complication from their trauma, you may have a psychological complication from yours. It’s as simple as that.

Here, I can only offer you support and encouragement to not be afraid or ashamed to ask your medical provider to get you the help that you may desperately need. Psychiatric issues like anxiety, depression, personality disorders, DID, bipolar, and OCD are all manageable chronic conditions. Finding a medication that works for you to help treat the symptoms while you work on therapeutic interventions, somatic treatments, and rewiring the brain is very important. For some survivors, unashamedly, they need to be on medication for the long haul. There is no right or wrong way to your care. We often talk about the proper regimen for each survivor. Something that may be a lifesaver to one may be a triggering intervention for another. There is no black and white answer to your situation. Each trauma survivor has their own needs, has to make their own attempts at progress, and will find their own path eventually. What we know to be true is that generally speaking many psychiatric drugs take time to work and also often take many tries to find the right match for each person. This is something we must be patient about, and it’s very normal to get discouraged from time to time during the process.

Because trauma can alter the brain and damage the way the nervous system functions, mental health struggles are a very common problem among survivors. Psychotropic medications can help untangle addictions, calm hyperactivity, improve depressive symptoms, regulate hormone levels in the brain, and normalize thought processing, etc. It’s also VERY important to add a disclaimer that psychotropic drugs can trigger or increase suicidal ideation. Please make sure you are totally honest with your medication provider about how you are feeling once you begin a new type of medication. Be truthful with all of your symptoms in your body and mind so that the physician can help weed out medications that may not be worth risking trying for you as well as to increase the ability to find the medication(s) that will work best for your conditions. Please be sure to show up to each follow up appointment and list any new or worsening symptoms. Talk with your therapist or coach if you are starting to feel unwell, having any unpleasant side effects, and/or are experiencing any suicidal ideation. The more professionals that are involved in your care, the more people who are able to help you in any crisis and to help you as you regulate on these medications.

This episode is way too limited about all the things that a survivor needs to know about psychological aftereffects from their trauma. This is just a basic overview to shed some light on what might be going on with you personally and where to start to get help. This can be overwhelming if you’ve never yet been formally diagnosed with any psychiatric conditions. Please reach out to someone to start investigating this. If you don’t have anyone, please send me a message, and I’ll try to resource you in any way I can. You are not alone, and there is help available to you. I can promise that.

Full Circle Fridays|Week 1: Agency

*Author Note* If you prefer to listen or watch instead of or along with -
Check out the YouTube video and/or the Podcast audio.

To round out our week one – where on Mindful Monday I discussed the duality of life and on Wellspring Wednesday I explored how each person has to discover their own regimen for well-living – I thought I’d come full circle today with the word “agency”.  This topic goes beyond trauma survivors today, as it’s applicable to all people no matter your circumstances.  I shared on Monday the complexities of the opposite nature of life and how this can actually be useful to recognize that we have options and availability by not being stuck in one path of thinking.  Wednesday, I spoke on how each person can use these options to design a systematic regimen of self-care to live their possible life – even after trauma. 

When you look at the information that’s out there – I often find myself feeling overwhelmed with the seemingly contradictory science behind self-improvement.  I read a lot of books and listen to even more podcasts.  As someone with many biological after-effects of trauma myself, I have to limit my intake of “health and wellness” education.  In one morning, I could listen to a podcast where this brilliant scientist and world renown author might be on one of my most trusted host’s shows talking about what to eat, when to eat it, how to fast, for how long, and why.  I could flip to the very next podcast in queue only to find an equally qualified, totally believable, passionate health guru unwittingly totally debunk the prior guest with all kinds of similarly researched “must follow” diets and fasting rituals.   You’ve all heard these things … one website says a glass of wine is actually good for you and another says any alcohol in any form at any time is taking years off your life.  One site swears to completely have a breakthrough with intermittent fasting, and yet still another will tell us ‘intuitive eating’ is the new health craze sweeping the nation.   One says plant-based is the only right way, and another scientist literally only eats meat for a month.  Sometimes these “contradictions” make my head spin.  The truth is, we still don’t understand enough about the body, the mind, and certainly not the soul enough to have ANY completely conclusive answers to literally anything.  For instance, I have to take food specific info completely with a grain of salt (pun intended) due to my health conditions and a rare GI disease.  I have had to figure out specifically what works for me no matter what my podcasts tell me to try – like what I was saying about discovering and designing your own best life your own way on Wednesday.

So what does this have to do with “agency”?  I want to challenge you to explore your personal agency today.  I don’t want today to be a concept to try or a book to read … I want today to be about you evaluating your own choices.  Maybe you need to account for another person’s abuse and how you got to where you are today.   You can take an inventory of how you handle your day-to-day life, and you can judge yourself (kindly) about what you would like to be different in this New Year.  2022 is primed for taking ownership of your own self-agency.  You can direct your own steps – everything from learning to follow your own intuition to actually reading a book someone recommends.  No matter where you consume wisdom, advise, self-help tips, and the like – it all starts with understanding the nature of your own agency.  The more in control you feel of your own choices, by giving power to yourself rather than to your abuser, the more you are going to be free to exercise within that power.  I want you to know that personal agency is something no one can GIVE you and no one can TAKE from you.  Abusers ultimately want more power and control and so they are trying to steal yours.  Please, don’t let them do this.  One of the first steps a survivor takes to move into survivorhood from victimhood is to recognize and acknowledge their trauma.  Once you can fully understand what happened TO you, you can start taking back the power of what you are going to DO with what happened to you.  You can move forward and accomplish goals in your trauma recovery journey by recognizing that you are in the driver’s seat of your life. 

As a coach, it’s my work to help you read the map, create goals to getting to destinations, remind you to buckle up, assist if the car breaks down, sing along to the radio with you, read the manual to find a replacement part, keep you company, point out the speed limits, and other ‘passenger seat roles’.  I can’t sit in your driver’s seat though.  I can only remind you of your own agency, support your choices, encourage your ideas, and bum along for the ride of your lifetime. 

You are the agent of your journey.  You are truly the only one who can manifest any kind of change.  In fact, you are the only one who can decide when you even want anything to change.  You control your daily environment – no matter how stuck or lost you may feel.  That power you hold within your agency is the magical cure to allow yourself to dream again, to seek out the options and opportunities of life, to reclaim your inner child, to heal, and to grow.  There are many things in life that you can compare and contrast, and even more things that seem like total contradictions.  You have the influence and the impact to determine what’s best for your healing, how to go about pursuing it, and who to allow along for the ride.  Buckle up; it’s go time.