Brock Turner is Not the Problem

Chapped, rough lips covering my entire mouth.  Hungry, wet tongue slamming into the back of my throat.  My chest heaving, gasping for air that is hard to find.  A cold hand forcing it's way up my shirt.  Awkward, hard fingers frantically pulling at my bra to grope at my breast.  His hot, ragged breath in my ear. The gravel from the concrete digging into my thighs.  The tree in front of me, preventing me from seeing the world and the world from seeing me.  Tears spilling from my eyes.  My body betraying me, unable to move - unable to even speak - completely rooted to the ground in shock and fear.

I thought we were just playing hide and seek?  Why is he doing this to me?  Can't he see that I don't want this??

Eventually, the only thing I am aware of is the dark sky and the moon above.  I can vaguely feel his mouth and hands on me and I am aware of the hot tears running down my face, but all that is really clear is the moon.  I focus on that full, white moon for what seems like an eternity until I am jolted out of my trance (what I now can identify as dissociation), back into reality when I feel him trying to shove his hand down my pants.  Suddenly my body is working again and I am running away from the driveway, from the tree, from him.  Running as fast as I can to wherever I will be safe.

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I was 11 years old that night my friend's older brother turned a childhood game of hide and seek into a nightmare.  And that is to say nothing of the sobbing, turned to anger, turned to total despair that I felt later that night.  Or the rumors that started at my school, first that he raped me and then that that we had consensual sex.  Rumors that followed me around and haunted me.  Or the awful, embarrassing conversation where I told my parents what happened.  Or the years after that where I was absolutely terrified of actually being raped and couldn't be alone at night on the streets without experiencing intense anxiety and near panic attacks.  

But I am one of millions.

We've all heard endlessly about Brock Turner, the Stanford Rapist, and the brave survivor who held him accountable.  You can't go anywhere without reading something about it, including this.  Don't get me wrong.  I (obviously) have tremendous empathy, compassion and admiration for the survivor in all this.  She went through something awful, she has been wronged over and over again and she keeps fighting.  Rock on sister.  We stand with you.

And I'm really grateful that this awful incident has at least created a dialogue about sexual assault.   We need to be having these conversations.  And finally Turner...nothing can be said about this person that hasn't already been said.  Something is seriously wrong with him.  He IS a problem, without a doubt.  But he is not THE problem.

Why do I say that?  Well let's think about this story for a second.  At it's most basic, a man sexually violated a woman, he did not feel remorse for what he did and/or he minimized the seriousness of what happened and/or attempted to make her partly responsible for the assault and was not punished appropriately.

How many women have a story just like that?  

How many of us can say that happened to us?  

How many men can identify with this story if they are being honest with themselves?

THAT is the problem.  THIS IS EVERYONE'S STORY.

Statistically speaking, women are sexually assaulted ALL. THE. TIME.  Every two minutes according to some estimates.  Every two minutes.  Think about that!!  And every assault is horrible and deserves the rage of everyone in our society.  Of everyone in the world.  But how many of these millions of cases have received our rage the way Brock Turner has??  Very, very few.

Why are men so quick to protect Turner?  Because they can identify, but have never talked about it.  They've never had their crimes against women plastered all over American media, but it makes them think about what that would be like.  It makes these men think about all of the times they have been with a woman sexually when it was questionable to do so.  It makes them think about the time/s when they did assault someone, but got away with it because she didn't accuse him.  Or she did, but he denied it and shamed her instead.  Or he was accused, but not charged.  Or he was charged, but not convicted.  How many men have a story like this??

And the rage that women are expressing is profound.  It is justified and makes perfect sense and it is intense.  And my guess that is that it is partially fueled by their own anger about THEIR OWN STORY.  For women who have been raped and always labeled it as such, they can identify all too well with Turner's victim.  But this story is also causing women who never identified as a sexual assault survivor to re-think their sexual experiences.  They are looking back at their history and remembering things that men have done to them and instead of thinking about that event as simply "this weird thing that happened", they are thinking about it assault.

BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT IT IS.

The details don't matter.  How many women have been sexually violated in some way and they were forced to suffer instead of their perpetrator.  How many?!?  THIS is the problem people.

And we're not talking about it.  Which I get.  Sexual assault is a horrifying, isolating, and often times shaming experience.  It is intensely private and personal and ought to be the woman's choice about who, when and if she shares this experience with others.  She should not be pressured or cajoled into disclosing.  At least THIS should be on HER terms.  But part of the reason it feels so scary to tell people is because she (oftentimes rightly) assumes that she will be blamed for it.  Or at least questioned.  Made to feel like she had some role in it.  How many people would sign up for that??

We need to change the culture folks.  Enough is enough.  But how do we do that?  More on that in my next post.  But for now, let's just keep standing in solidarity with this brave, brave woman who said everything she needed to say to her perpetrator.

What would you say to yours?

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Dr. Colleen Cira is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, trauma and anxiety expert, clinical supervisor, writer, speaker, wife and Mommy of two little ones.  She has a practice in Chicago's Loop and Oak Park.  To schedule an appointment with her or her staff, please visit: http://www.cirapsyd.com/

THIS is The Way You Should Be Parenting

That sounds ridiculous right??  That there's one way to do something so insanely complicated??  The idea that there actually are right answers??  And yet, we read those kinds of posts and articles all the time and hear it just as frequently.  This is the same...but pretty different too.  Let me explain...

I was feeding my 1yo dinner when she started to get really upset.  In a matter of minutes, she was screaming and real tears were pouring down her face.  I checked all of the usual suspects, but couldn't figure out what the problem was.  I scooped her out of her high chair and brought her into the bedroom to nurse and as she lay, her little body curled up on my arms, I wiped her tears off her cheeks, ran my fingers through her silky hair and quietly assured her that she was Ok.

Then it occurred to me: I wasn't supposed to say that she was Ok when she was upset.

Hadn't I read that a million times??  And I get it.  You don't want to invalidate or minimize your kids feelings and by telling them they're Ok when they are clearly not, you might be doing just that.  So I get that.  As a psychologist and a person, that makes sense to me.

But how many other things are we told?  We're not supposed to tell our kids they're smart or that they did a"good job" because we're rewarding an outcome instead of their effort.  We're not supposed to tell our children that they are cute or pretty because then they will learn to value their outsides more than their insides.  We shouldn't tell our kids that we're proud of them because now our children feel responsible for our "parental pride" (this was an actual statement...ugh).

And what about all of the other decisions that we are led to believe are life altering for our kids??  We should be working.  Or not working.  Breastfeeding.  Or not breastfeeding if it's too stressful (happy mommy, happy baby after all).  We should sleep train.  Or we shouldn't sleep train.  We shouldn't let our kids sleep in our bed...ever.  Or co-sleeping is the only way our children become securely attached.  So. Many. Rules.

So can I just call bullshit??

I mean, let's just call a spade a spade.  Are some choices technically better than others?  Yes.  Not many, but some are.  Research is able to make some of that muddy, treacherous water slightly more clear.  And yet...  Does any of it really matter in the long run?  I'm gonna go ahead and say not really.  None of that stuff is going to make THE difference about whether or not you raise a relatively happy, healthy, well-adjusted kid.

You know what does make a real difference?

The love behind all of those decisions.

Because here's the thing.  My baby isn't going to remember that I told that she's Ok when she was crying.  And that seems obvious because she's a baby.  But even my 3.5yo won't remember when I occasionally tell him he's Ok when he's crying.  Nor will they remember or care that they had fettuccine alfredo out of a bag tonight for dinner (It's frozen!!  And pre-packaged!!  And FATTY!!  The horror!!).  My oldest's life will not hinge on the decision of whether he should start kindergarten in 1.5 or 2.5 years.  Or that he was sent to school even though he had a double ear infection (relax, he was well medicated and in perfect spirits).  My youngest will be no better or worse off if she winds up taking a bottle past the recommended 15 months.  Or if she is nursed to sleep every single time I am home and available.  Here's what they will remember and what WILL make a difference.

The tenderness of my voice.

The kindness in my eyes.

The softness of my hand on their little cheeks.

The cuddles under mountains of covers.

The joy and thrill of being chased and tickled.

They won't remember the words I say to them and they certainly won't even know about .001% of the crazy, non-stop decisions that are constantly being made on their behalf, for the sake of their wellbeing.

But they will remember the love.  And that IS all that matters.

Does that make sense to you?  Do you agree?  Disagree?  I want to hear about it on my Facebook page!

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Dr. Colleen Cira is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, trauma and anxiety expert, clinical supervisor, writer, speaker, wife and Mommy of two little ones.  She has a practice in Chicago's Loop and Oak Park.  To schedule an appointment with her or her staff, please visit: http://www.cirapsyd.com/

Broken Can Be Beautiful

Broken can be beautiful.

Does that sound strange to you?  Do you believe that it's actually true or that I'm just trying to spin something?

Initially, it sounded strange to me too, but it doesn't take more than a minute or two when I really think about what that means, for it to make perfect sense to me.  If you haven't already read my last post, read it here and then carry on with this one.  It'll all make more sense that way.

So let's be honest: brokenness does NOT always look or feel beautiful.  Sometimes that looks like we are a sobbing mess on the kitchen floor.  Sometimes that means that we're screaming at someone we love.  Sometimes that means we are pushing those away who want nothing more than to be close.  Sometimes we are so scared of getting hurt or someone actually seeing us that we stay isolated. Sometimes the depths of our despair is so powerful and heavy and dark that we feel like we can barely move under the weight of it.

I get that.  I've lived that.  I've been there.

But here's the thing: if we try to avoid suffering our whole lives, then we run around barely experiencing anything at all.  Life IS suffering.  At least some of the time, it just is.  There is no way around that.  Similarly, if we try to avoid showing anyone our true self, which is marred and scarred and flawed, then we run around barely knowing anyone...or letting anyone know US.

There are a lot of people who have known me for a long time....who were still shocked at my last post.  They never knew the extent to which mine and Meredith's battle against cancer affected me.  Affects me NOW.  Most people had no idea.  Why?

I don't talk about it.  Ever.

Talking about it serves as a reminder that it actually happened.  Talking about how it continues to affect me makes me feel crazy.  I'm not supposed to say that because I'm a psychologist and in my world, "crazy" is a dirty word.  I don't think other people are "crazy", ever, regardless of what they are struggling with or what they have been through.  I'm able to see other's problems very objectively and understand how they developed and see how they make perfect sense.

But that doesn't stop me from thinking that I'm crazy.

So I don't talk about it.  And to be fair, it's not like I'm dying to talk about it or thinking about it all the time.  I think about my identity as a cancer survivor on a pretty regular basis.  And I see Meredith's picture sitting on my nightstand every night before I go to bed.  But I don't think about our whole war and I certainly don't think about how the after-effects of that battle continue to play out in my life.  I don't think I could function very well if that was omni-present 24/7 (even though it kinda is).  But even when I have an intrusive image of something terrible happening to me or my kids and I know it connects back to Meredith, I tell almost no one.  My husband knows.  I just told one of my dearest friends last week as I was gearing up to write these posts.  But that's about it.

But how silly is that??  Feeling pain is only human!  Feeling upset after something upsetting has happened only makes good sense.  And the "upset" will show up differently in different people, but pain is pain is pain.

We cannot avoid suffering.  

And I don't think we should even want to.  Only when we experience deep despair can we truly experience profound joy.

Every day I get a chance to bear witness to people's flaws, quirks, struggles...to the parts of themselves that are broken.  And these struggles and their courage to talk about it is incredible.  Perfection bores me to tears.  Romance novels can shove it.  Disney movies - eff off.  I want the raw...the brutal truth...the good, the bad AND the ugly...the struggle.  THAT is amazing and inspiring and sometimes it is simply beautiful.

And maybe even my brokenness is too.

Inside My Childhood War

It was October 16, 1996.  I am 15 years old and sitting in an assembly at my high school chatting with my friends when the nurse finds me and tells me that my Mom is here and needs to talk to me.

Meredith is dead.

I hear my Mom’s words before I ever make it to the nurses station. Before I see her bloodshot, teary eyes. Before she actually says the words out loud and makes them real.

“Honey, Mere died this morning.”

Instantly, my world split open and I fall, swallowed up in the crevice. I don't remember anything else about that day after that moment.

I stumbled numbly - the shell of a person - through Meredith's wake, giving her eulogy, and then finally her funeral. When we were at the cemetery and it was time to leave, her coffin mere feet away, above ground for those final moments, the loss was so powerful, I literally doubled over in agony. A searing pain exploded from the pit of my stomach and chest that was so unbearable I thought I might die myself. Collapsed on the floor and completely inconsolable, grief wracking my body, tidal wave after tidal wave in an onslaught that seemed never-ending. I could not bring myself to leave her side.  It was some of the most traumatic pain I’ve ever experienced, my teenage self having no idea how to manage the intensity of those feelings.  

How does anyone bury a 15 year old?

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Meredith and I fought in a war against cancer together.  Our first tour of duty was in the Winter of our 7th grade year, when Meredith lost both her Mom and Grandmother to cancer within weeks of each other.  A few months after that, Meredith herself was diagnosed with a rare and severe bone cancer that took every ounce of her strength and courage, almost dying several times throughout her battle.  It wasn’t until the end of our 8th grade year that she finally started to recover.  After that we got a few months of reprieve, but in December of our freshmen year, we were deployed again when I was diagnosed with cancer.  A much less severe cancer than Mere’s (Hodgkin's Lymphoma to be exact), but cancer nonetheless and Meredith helped me until I was in remission in the middle of that Summer.  Our final tour commenced just a few weeks after my recovery before our sophomore year, when Meredith got sick again and this time succumbed to the disease.

For 3 years straight, all Meredith and I did was fight for our lives or help the other fight for hers.  

Our very young lives that were still silly and childlike despite our illnesses, were constantly peppered with facing our own, and each other’s, mortality; a white noise in the background that was impossible to get rid of and equally impossible to ignore.  We had the same oncologist at the same hospital.  We helped each other through hair loss, friendships lost (what teenager wants to deal with cancer??), and school dances missed.  Through chemotherapy, radiation and stints in the ICU.  Through wig-vs-bandana decisions (being bald in junior high and high school is NOT fun, for the record). We were the only ones capable of understanding what the other was going through.  And we both fought courageously.  

The problem is that my fellow soldier died...and I survived.  

Just saying those simple words all these years later still makes my eyes well up with tears that eventually spill over.  It’s unconscionable.  She shouldn’t have died.  She had been through so much already.  She never fell in love.  She never learned how to drive a car.  We were supposed to be roommates in college together.  She was going to be a veterinarian. It shouldn't have happened that way.

And why her and not me?  The survivor’s guilt I felt - correction, still feel - is the most illogical sounding concept, but haunts me endlessly nonetheless.  I have always lived for the both of us without even fully realizing that’s what I was doing.  Always striving to be the absolute best person I can be because I feel like I owe that to her.  She wasn’t able to become an adult, to go on and do the great things I know she was capable of doing.  So I need to do that for her.

And not just because she didn’t get to, but because I feel like I need to prove that I deserve to be here.  I push myself SO HARD because some deep, dark part of me feels like I need to earn my keep.  That if I let myself slide even for a second, death will come for me again and this time I will not evade it.  Or even if I do, someone I love will pay dearly...again.

I know that sounds ridiculous.  

But that’s exactly how it feels.

Most people can recognize that they are anxious because their stomach turns, they get a pounding headache, they catch their thoughts spiraling out of control.  Me?  During a particularly difficult week, I was driving on the Eisenhower to have a play date (and a Mommy date ;)) and had a horrible image of getting into an accident, my car flipping over multiple times with my babies and I inside.  Intrusive images of something terrible happening to me or the people I love - that’s how I know that my anxiety is up.  Those horrific images serve as a reminder to me that screwing up or simply falling short of my enormously high expectations means that I should be punished.

The point is this: there are times when I feel SO BROKEN.  Despite the almost 20 years that have passed, despite the therapy, despite the money I raised for cancer research in Mere's name (more on that later), despite loving relationships that affirm my goodness, despite amazing children that reflect my goodness, despite a career that I LOVE and excel at...this nagging feeling of not being enough persists.  Which makes me feel even more broken.  And at times, the feeling of brokenness is so intense and real and isolating, it can seem as though I am the only person on the planet who feels this way.  Yet I know from my role as a psychologist that I am not alone in this feeling.

And you aren’t either.

There are times when we all feel broken...we all feel unworthy...we all feel undeserving...we all feel like it’s an up-hill battle and we don’t have the energy/courage/will to keep climbing.  There are moments in our life when we ALL feel that way.  

To feel broken is simply to be a human who is still breathing.  And being a human who is still breathing is a truly wondrous thing.

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Dr. Colleen Cira is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, trauma and anxiety expert, clinical supervisor, writer, speaker, wife and Mommy of two little ones.  She has a practice in Chicago's Loop and Oak Park.  To schedule an appointment with her, please visit: http://www.cirapsyd.com/

Here's Why I Feel Comfortable Sharing My Story With You

Well..."comfortable" is the wrong word.  Even simply writing the title of this article makes me acutely UNcomfortable...like I'm violating a very significant law of the Universe.  I was trained, as most psychotherapists, that you do not disclose personal information about yourself to your clients.  This is "the rule" for lots of really good reasons, but mainly because it's not about the therapist.  It's about the client.  I 100% agree with that and I am nothing if not a rule follower so that's what I have done.

That being said, when the question of should therapists disclose personal information is posed, I think the answer is a bit more complicated.

In the therapy room, I am pretty tight-lipped about my life.  Again, for lots of very good reasons, but mainly because it's not about me.  And I believe that and that has worked really well.  That being said, I don't refuse to answer when someone asks if I'm married, how far along I am in a pregnancy, etc because those things are visible.  And I don't respond in a super vague, potentially awkward way when someone is simply making perfectly acceptable small talk.  I value being authentic more than I value 100% non-disclosure so in these incidents, I feel perfectly comfortable being brief and honest...and that has served me well too.

But what about here, blogging, which is representative of this digital world in general?  Which arguably has become almost as expansive and possibly important as the "real" world we actually live in?  Some might say the same rules apply...but I disagree.

Social media, specifically, and the internet in a more broad sense, has made everything so PUBLIC and accessible, which is exactly why it makes some people nervous.  People who are moe private squirm at the idea of their stuff being out there for all the world to see.  While other people LOVE having an audience whenever they want one.  And then there's everything and everyone in between.

While I'm not an exceptionally private person, the idea of how having your "stuff" out there can feel scary absolutely resonates with me.  Raw honesty - whether it's a blog post, a sensitive picture or a Facebook status - makes us feel very vulnerable.  I experienced this vulnerability all of the time during this last year that I've been writing online.  But really, I've disclosed very little of substance.

I write about my struggles with parenting.  But that's everyone on the planet - certainly not a revelation.  I've written about how I can experience anxiety.  Again, that doesn't feel like anything extraordinary.  I've written about how I am a cancer survivor, which is dipping my toe in the water of disclosure a bit more, but still...I take pride in that.  And it's certainly not a secret given my active role in the cancer community.  My point is that none of what I have disclosed feels like much of a risk.  Not really.  I haven't taken any risks of this nature because I still have it in the back of my head that I shouldn't do that.  I still worry too much about what my colleagues will think.

But I'm done with that.

I spend most of my days encouraging people to be their authentic selves.  To worry less about what others think of them.  To embrace every experience they've ever gone through and figure out how to learn from it.  To not sequester certain experiences or parts of themselves to underground dungeons, never to be seen or heard from again.

And yet, that's what I've been doing on this blog.

Living my life - WRITING about my life - as if I don't have a past.  Or at least pretending like certain aspects of my past aren't still a part of me.  Or that this isn't the place for them.  But that's just not true.  And I'm done pretending like that's the case.

So from here on out, I'm just going to be honest about my life.  Not just for the sake of being honest - I don't want this blog to be the Colleen show.  But if I think that somebody can possibly learn something, or be inspired, or question their own behavior, as a result, then I'm going to be forthcoming and straightforward about my experiences.

Now why on earth does that sound like such a big deal??

What do you think?  If you read something deeply personal about your therapist online, would it make you feel more connected to them?  Uncomfortable?  Something else entirely?  I want to know!  Fill me in on my Faceback page.

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Dr. Colleen Cira is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, trauma expert, clinical supervisor, writer, speaker, wife and Mommy of two little ones.  She has a practice in Chicago's Loop and Oak Park.  To schedule an appointment with her, please visit: http://www.cirapsyd.com/

To Lose Our Shit...Or Not. That is the Question.

I did it!!  I finally did it!!  I responded the way that I wanted to - parented in a way that I feel good about - when my child was acting like a monster.  It's a freakin' Christmas miracle.  Let me set this up for you...

So I don't know what hell was up my 3.5 year old's butt this morning, but the moment he started speaking, I knew it was going to be bad at some point.

First the dramatic breathing.  Mamas, you know what I'm talking about.  It's a combination of a sigh, a groan and a whine all at once with a little fake hyperventilation thrown in there just for good fun.  Whenever that's the first sound I hear out of his room, I can practically hear the imaginary bomb start to frantically tick.

Then the slow, fake cry.  "Mommy...(crying sound, crying sound without any actual tears or actual distress)...I'm still tiiiirrrrreeed".

We're into full blown whining now.

And at this point, it doesn't really matter what I do, but I try anyway.  I try talking quietly, in a soothing voice, letting him know that he can stay in a bed a few minutes longer and wake up slowly....

"NO!!"

Hmmm.  Ok.  "Buddy, that's not very nice, but it sounds like you are pretty sleepy so I'll just let you take a minute.  Maybe a little space will help".

"I don't WANT space!?!?"

"Would a hug help?"

"No!"

Ok so I'm done for a hot second.  I'll let him mellow.  Maybe he'll pull himself together in a few minutes.

Twenty minutes later he is still in his room laying in bed and none of my attempts to diffuse have been successful.  Well I won't give you the rest of the story as a play-by-play, but suffice it to say that it got ugly despite my best attempts to work through it rather than provoke a full blown melt down.

He screamed, he threw his precious lovey (which makes me INSANE!!), he refused to eat (initially) even though that almost always makes him feel better.  I mean...he just pushed every button imaginable.  And typically, after he's been at this level of shenanigans for this long (we're going on 30 minutes of it folks), I would've lost my shit in some way.  I would've engaged in some power struggle.  I would've broken down and yelled.  I would've punished, which just would've escalated the situation and made it worse.

But then I remembered...

I remembered that children cannot calm themselves in the middle of a meltdown.

I remembered that the only way children learn to soothe themselves is by experiencing other people soothing them.

I remembered that he didn't WANT to feel this way - behave this way - he simply didn't know how to do anything else.

I remembered that he wasn't giving me a hard time (well...), but rather he was HAVING a hard time.

I remembered that he was only 3.5 years old and something was really wrong that he didn't have the brain power/faculties to articulate.

But most importantly, I remembered that I was his Mommy.  And he needed me.  And if he couldn't count on me during a dark time, who could he ever expect to count on??

So I sat with him on the kitchen floor and hugged him and kissed him and cuddled him.  I let him curl up on my lap as though my knobby legs were a couch.  I told him that I loved him endlessly.  I stroked his beautiful hair and face.  And I had the pleasure of watching the stress, sadness and anger drain out of him, like some poison that was slowly being extracted.  I watched his breathing slow.  I watched his skin turn from bright red to alabaster again.  I watched the tears stop forming and falling.

And pretty soon my little bug was back.

Now, to be clear, I am under no delusion that simply because I was able to do this today does that mean that I will never have a moment of parenting that makes me feel guilty.  I know I will yell again.  I know I will punish at the wrong time, in the wrong way, for the wrong reasons.  I know my patience will falter.  Because I am human.  And he needs my humanness too so I'm gonna try not to beat myself up too much for that either.

But today?  Today was just glorious.

What's your biggest parenting win lately?  Had a revelation about how you affect your kid's behavior?  Tell me about it on my Facebook page!

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Dr. Colleen Cira is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, trauma expert, clinical supervisor, writer, speaker, wife and Mommy of two little ones.  She has a practice in Chicago's Loop and Oak Park.  To schedule an appointment with her, please visit: http://www.cirapsyd.com/

You May Have Experienced Trauma (And Don't Even Know It)

Sounds like a funny thing to say right?  I mean, you would know if you experienced trauma.  Right??
Not necessarily so.

So let's start at the beginning.  When I use the word "trauma" lots of things probably come to mind: war, rape, a tornado, a car accidents.  Am I hitting some of them?

And you are right!  Those things are often traumatic for folks that experience them.

We in the psych world call those events "Big T trauma".  It's a terrible name, but all that it means is that these are things that happened ONCE.  Except war.  War is obviously not a single incident trauma, but the powers that be threw it in there.  Don't ask.  But regardless, anything that happens one time is single incident trauma and therefore Big T.  And some of the folks that I work with come in for these sorts of reasons.

But FAR more of the folks that I work with have a different kind of trauma history.  They often have something called "little t trauma".  Again, terrible name, because while the name implies it, one is not better or worse, easier or harder.  But little t trauma is basically bad stuff that happened a lot.  For instance, a childhood filled with abuse and/or neglect.  Witnessing or being a victim of domestic violence.  Being diagnosed with a major medical illness or disability.  All of these things can also be traumatic.  But you probably could've guessed that too.

Here's the part that might surprise you.  There's a subset of little t trauma called "relational trauma".  This is where people hurt other people...but not necessarily with their fists or bodies.  A relational trauma survivor might be someone who...

• Endured a contentious divorce
• Has a history of physical/sexual abuse and/or neglect
• Had a parent/caregiver/family member who struggled with a medical illness 
• Had a parent/caregiver/family member who struggled with a mental illness or personality disorder
• Had a parent/caregiver/family member who struggled with a substance abuse/addiction
• The death of a loved one
• Experiencing sexism, racism, homophobia, etc

Are you surprised that any of those things can be traumatic? Are you reeling or confused because you see yourself in any of those examples? If so, how do you know if those experiences are still following you around and impacting your life NOW?

When we experience any kind of trauma, our body and brain respond in predictable and NORMAL ways. This may include:

• Difficulties with regulating your mood:
• Feeling mild to severe sadness more often than not
• Explosive or inhibited anger
• Chronic anxiety and/or panic attacks
• Unstable sense of who you are
• Sense of helplessness and/or powerlessness
• Frequent feelings of shame, guilt and self-blame
• Sense of being totally different from others
• Feeling numb or empty
• Relationship difficulties
• Feeling the need to isolate and withdraw
• Disruption in intimate relationships
• Difficulties with trust
• Ending up in the same relationship patterns that you know aren’t good for you, but you can’t figure out how to get out of them
• Memory/Consciousness difficulties
• Cannot remember major parts of childhood, including but not limited to, traumatic experiences
• Can remember in vivid detail your traumatic history and it comes into your mind when you least want/expect it to
• A sense of not being fully present in your life

Ok, so this is a lot of information to digest, especially if you are seeing yourself in this post so let's re-group for a second. Trauma is more than war and rape. Trauma is also when people do bad things to other people, with malintent or not, and it causes people to respond in similar and predictable ways as is detailed above.

So what if this is you?

If you experienced some (or several) of the traumatic experiences that I discussed above and you currently struggle with your mood, sense of self, relationships or memory, **treatment can help.

This does not mean that you are crazy. This simply means that you are having a normal reaction to something abnormal. That is all.

And you are not alone.  

According to a study done by some of the most highly respected trauma researchers out there, 60.7% of men and 51.2% of women reported experiencing at least one trauma in their lifetime (Kessler, 2000;Kessler et al. 1995; 1999).  

Ok so let's stop here for now even though there is a lot more to talk about.  How has trauma affected YOU?  What have you done to overcome it?  I want to hear about it on my FaceBook page!

**If after reading this, you want to talk to someone about potentially getting into therapy, feel free to visit me at my website to schedule a complimentary phone consultation or schedule an appointment.  

The Most Effective Stress Reduction Technique EVER

Yes, I said it.  The most effective stress reduction technique EVER.  AND it's natural, easy and free.  Don't believe me?  Read on.

Diaphragmatic breathing.  What on earth is that, right??  It’s a fancy term for deep breathing using your diaphragm.  Why is it important?  Let’s try an exercise to help figure that out:

Lay down if you can, but if you can’t, sitting works.  Put one hand on your chest and one hand on your stomach.  Now breathe as you normally do and try to notice a couple of things: Do either of your hands move?  If one of your hands does move, is it the one on your stomach or the one on your chest?  If you’re a busy, chronically stressed out person, my guess is that one of two things happened: neither of your hands moved much at all OR your hand on your chest moved.  So why does this matter?

It matters because how you breathe affects how you feel.  When you’re stressed out, scared, angry, etc., you take shorter, quicker breaths into your lungs.  When you take shorter quicker breaths into your lungs, you set off an entire stress reaction in your body.  Your heart rate increases, you might sweat, it’s more difficult to focus.  And it’s all of these physiological reactions that make you feel even more stressed.  For more details about this process read this.  Its one big cycle.

The good news is that you can interrupt this cycle by changing how you breathe.   Here’s how: when you're starting to feel stressed out in an unproductive way, immediately start taking low, slow, deep breaths into your stomach, NOT YOUR LUNGS, by gently inhaling and exhaling through your nose.  If you’re alone or so inclined, go ahead and put your hand back on your stomach; you should feel your stomach fill up with air and rise up lifting your hand.  That’s how you know that you’re doing it right.

Check out this video for a quick *video demonstration if that's more your thing:

The magic of this technique is that it’s as far from magic as you can get…its pure physiology.  But it requires practice.  So pick a time of day when you're typically pretty chill, lay down somewhere and focus on your breathing.  Even if you only practice for 5 minutes every day, after a few months of really consistent practicing, you can completely re-wire your nervous system and lower your overall levels of anxiety.  Pretty damn cool huh?  The more you practice breathing using your diaphragm, the more natural it will become and the less stressed you‘ll feel.

It’s nice when we can make our bodies work for us rather than against us right?

*I realize that I chose to post that video and it's mostly good (fun accent right??), but they are WRONG about breathing out of your mouth.  Far better to exhale through your nose.  If this is too uncomfortable for you, you may breathe out of your mouth, but exhale the air as if you are blowing through a straw with pursed lips.  If you open mouth exhale too much it messes stuff up (too much carbon dioxide blah blah) so...inhale AND exhale through the nose no matter what the nice Brit lady says ;)

Have your tried it yet?  What was it like?  How did it go?  Tell me about it on my Facebook page!

I Ain't Afraid of No Ghost! (Or Maybe I Am...)

We've been talking a lot about the monster within lately, when you feel like a monster and what happens inside your body and brain when you're feeling that way.  And most of what those posts have discussed is the experience of being angry.  Which is big.  But what we haven't talked about yet and really need to is FEAR.  

All of the same stuff applies in terms of the nerdy brain structures (limbic system and amygdala), chemistry (adrenaline and cortisol) and bodily reactions (increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, shortness of breath, etc), but we interpret all of these things much differently because instead of wanting to kill someone (not truly of course), we're terrified.  And perhaps not even sure why.  So let's talk about that....

The other day I was scrolling through Facebook when I stumbled upon a video.  For any of you who use Facebook, I don't have to tell you that the videos in your feed start to play without audio as soon as you scroll by them.  So this video started of people waiting in some kind of line in some kind of store and suddenly a woman is carrying what appears to be a very young child who is totally limp in her arms.  

Confused (and alarmed), I began to read the description of the video, which said, "A 2-year-old girl in a Perth IGA became unconscious and stopped breathing Sunday. The store’s a CCTV camera shows the girl’s mother, Amy Collard, coming toward a cashier line from the aisle carrying her daughter’s limp body."

A small voice in my head that felt very far away and muffled said, "Stop reading!!  Stop watching!!", but it was almost like I couldn't change my behavior.  I could feel that tiny, far away part of me starting to freak out a bit, but it was like watching a train wreck: I could not take my eyes off this video.  Within a minute or two, this toddler's lifeless body is thrown onto the check out station for a man to begin CPR on her.  I think it was at this point (although I don't really remember which happens quite a bit when you're freaking the eff out), that tiny voice got louder and forced my fingers to turn off the screen on my phone.  And once my phone was off, I started to realize what was happening.

I was starting to have a panic attack.

My breathing was rapid and shallow, the start of hyperventilation.  My heart was beating out of my chest.  I was crying and wasn't even aware of it.  I began to experience tunnel vision, where it feels like your range of vision is getting more narrow by the second.  I felt hot and flustered.  

And again, that small but helpful voice buried somewhere under the panic reminded me that this is simply the start of a panic attack and all I needed to do is breathe.  

So I did.  

I closed my eyes and focused all of my energy on taking slow, low, deep breaths through my nose and within a couple of minutes, the panic reaction ended.  

Whew!  Crisis averted.  Now what the hell happened??

Well we know what happened literally speaking.  My brain was super freaked out about this horrifying video (the girl is just fine btw, thank god!!!) and flipped shit.  Amygdala took over and I was totally unable to be rational about the situation and instead had to initially ride out my reaction until I realized what was happening and could circumvent it.  

And why did my brain flip out about this?  Well that's pretty easy too: I have two young children and while there are few things that I seriously worry about regarding them, the one thing I worry about quite a bit is their health and safety.  So seeing a child the age of my oldest lifeless for no goddamn reason in the middle of a perfectly normal day in a perfectly normal store shook me up.  Bad.  

Makes sense.  But if you've ever had a panic attack, you're probably curious about what you can learn from this.  So here we go:

1) Know your triggers.  For me, anything that reminds me that something awful could happen to my children is going to trigger me.  It's a soft spot for me.  Which is good to know because knowing that, I can mentally prepare myself when I anticipate that I might hear, see or be reminded of that.  And awareness is half the battle.

2) Know your brain and body.  Do you have any idea what is going on in your brain and body most of the time?  If not, start observing.  Get your doctorate in YOU.  In fact, take a moment right now and check in with yourself.  What's on your mind?  What kinds of things are you thinking about?  What emotions are you feeling?  What's happening in your body?  Do you feel physically relaxed?  Are you muscle tense and bothering you?  Once checking in with yourself become habit, you'll be able to notice what could turn into really intense feelings before they actually get intense.  

3) Once you notice something is amiss, BREATHE.  Slow, low, deep breaths through your nose.  Look for a detailed post on that coming up, but for now know that slow, low, deep breaths will short circuit a panic/anxiety response.

4) If you're really freaking out, it will help to focus on something other than the upsetting thoughts.  Breathing wouldn't have done me a whole lot of good I just kept picturing that little girl's lifeless body or thinking about something bad happening to my own kiddos.  So pick a spot on the wall or floor and stare at it hard.  Or come up with something to say over and over again like "all I need to do is breathe" or "I'm going to be just fine".  

Now if you have panic attacks on a regular basis, worry about having more of them or change your behavior significantly because of them (hard time leaving the house, avoid potential triggers, etc), then this article isn't getting it done and you might need treatment.  Feel free to visit me on my website if you're interested in scheduling an appointment to learn how to get rid of these emotional roller coasters.  

Do you know what your triggers are?  What makes you irrationally angry or super scared?  Tell me about it on my Facebook page!

The Monster Within Part II - Understanding Your Monster

Ok, we can agree on the fact that we all feeling like losing our sh*t every now and then and it's, by definition, can be quite ugly sometimes.  I hope we can also agree on the fact that feeling like were losing our shit doesn't make us monsters, it simply makes us human.  Fine, fine, you say, but it SUCKS.  It feels terrible, sometimes we act terrible because of the feelings and then we feel even more terrible because of how we acted.  Wah wah.

BUT by understanding what's happening inside our bodies and brains when we're melting down, we put ourselves in a position to better manage our emotions when we're feeling our most monstrous.

So let's nerd out about this for a second.  Very generally speaking there is an animal part of our brains (limbic system and more specifically, amygdala) and a human part of our brains (prefrontal cortex).  The animal part is ALL FEELING and even more specifically, mostly rage and fear.  It doesn't understand time, place, person, CONTEXT.  Just feelings.

So when your toddler screams "no" at you for the 15,367th time that day or your husband walks out of the room in the middle of an argument (and you're a bit sensitive to loss), the amygdala is the part that goes CRAZY.

Remember the scene in Titanic where the water gets into enough compartments of the ship that it activates the alarm because the system has determined that it's going down?  (Don't tell me you haven't seen Titanic and don't tell me you don't love it.  Lies!!).  Horns are sounding, lights are flashing and all panic and anarchy ensue?  Well THAT is what is going on in your brain (and then body) when it feels threatened.  Seriously.

Crazy huh??

Let me refer you back to the examples that I gave.  Your toddler and husband being shits are not in fact mortal threats (though YOU may be a mortal threat to them if they keep it up ;)).  But try to tell your amygdala that.  If you are really scared or really angry, regardless of whether you could actually get dead or not, your brain goes into full on fight/flight/freeze mode, where you are literally ready to duke it out, run like hell or play dead.

Your body is being flooded by stress hormones (adrenaline and cortisol primarily) because your brain has determined that you might die.  So your blood is pumping, your heart is racing, you're possibly sweating, you might feel hot and flustered, you might even be shaking.  It's that intense (you probably already know that).

So does this sound like the ideal set up to make good decisions??  For you to be on your best behavior?  To talk to your loved ones or boss in a healthy and constructive way?

Hell no!

The part of your brain that's in charge of doing all that good stuff doesn't have enough blood to make it work!  The limbic system has taken over and you have turned into nothing more than a wild animal backed into a corner.  Physiologically speaking that is.

The take home?  This is NOT, I repeat NOT, the time to discipline your child, finish the argument with your husband, give your boss a piece of your mind, etc.  Because it will not end well, I promise.  This is when you will act like a monster while your body is being operated by the animal brain and then you will calm down, begin to operate under your human brain again and feel like a monster because of how you behaved.  And if you're anything like me, you'll beat yourself up about it and rake yourself over the coals for god knows how long.

So do yourself (and your kid and your husband and your boss) a favor: take a minute to calm down.  Let the blood get back to the places it's supposed to be.  Again, maybe you need to run, or swim or do something really physical to release the energy.  Or maybe you need to rest: meditate, nap, read, etc.  Figure out what that looks like for you and do it.  And whatever you decide that is, make sure it includes a lot of deep breaths...but more on that later.

Is there a time when your animal brain has taken over?  Does this help you understand what's going on in those moments?  Let me know on my Facebook page.