Despite childhood trauma’s disadvantages, kids can recover after childhood trauma and live perfectly healthy, successful lives. They need help. They need a support system and people there to help them navigate it, but childhood trauma is not, as we often hear a life sentence.
I wish we would talk about this more. Survivors could use the reminder.
We would do well with more of this question and a deeper analysis of “says who” and less outrage. They won’t make it easy for us to do that, so we will have to do it for ourselves, and we’re going to have to teach the next generation.
Otherwise we will continue to see social media eat away at our mental health instead of being a tool that could help it by providing us with a community of people with shared interests.
I came across this review when someone shared it on social media, and it got picked up and passed around a bit. The review is from the Foster Talk page, which is aimed at Foster families and intersects the topics here when we talk about childhood trauma. Ruth Willets shared this about the book, which might be of interest to many of you who have teens and kids who have experienced trauma, or maybe even some young adults who could use some help understanding what trauma does to us.
Saw someone share this yesterday and, after some time looking through it, decided it was definitely worth sharing. It’s from Lauren’s Kids page, and it has a ton of information about what they are calling the four “R’s”
Recognize
Report
Respond
Recover
It’s not just saying I believe you when someone tells you they are struggling with depression or anxiety. It’s all of the subtle ways we show them that we don’t believe them. The “But you don’t look”, the “you’ll be fine”, the toxic positivity, the refusal to change your own behavior in supportive ways, etc., do just as much damage. They send the message that we don’t believe what you just said is serious enough to warrant doing anything differently.
Is that the message you want to send someone who trusted you enough to admit they are struggling with you? That their struggles aren’t valid enough for you to do anything differently?
Not acknowledging the humanity of anyone is what should not be acceptable. Trying to will an entire subset of humanity out of existence because they make you uncomfortable or some religious leader has told you that they are dangerous is not acceptable.
People die from suicide when there is so much pain that they see no path forward. The solution to that is to connect with them, to show them a path forward that involves being in community with people who accept and support them. Anything less than that is a willful decision to let people die.
If that’s what your beliefs tell you to do, you need better beliefs.
