Sharing – How to heal through life writing
This is an interesting way to think about writing, whether you do it publicly like Uddipana did, or just write for yourself.
-
-
Sharing – Receiving a hug or engaging in self-soothing touch reduces cortisol levels following a stressful experience
I think this is interesting. Obviously, during a pandemic and as survivors hugging someone else may or may not be all that realistic, but the fact that this study seems to indicate we can get similar results from self-soothing touch is an interesting idea.
-
Sharing – Parents protesting ‘critical race theory’ identify a new target: Mental health programs
Maybe, most importantly, these parents seem to think they know better, that the mental health of their kids is something they can handle on their own. We know that isn’t true. We know the number of teens who have considered suicide is much higher than the number of parents who think their teen has. That doesn’t suggest that what we’ve been doing is working, it suggests that having mental health resources available at school is a net positive for everyone.
But that fact appears to be no match compared to stigma and conspiracy theories.
-
Sharing – The ACEs Questionnaire Is Missing These Types of Trauma
When I think about Monika’s point, and my own look at the numbers, I repeat what I said back then, when looking at one individual, the ACE survey is never the whole story. There are lots of childhood experiences that go unaccounted for, there are individual levels of resilience that are not accounted for, and there are early interventions that are not considered. One traumatic experience equals one traumatic experience in the final number, regardless of whether that experience was immediately followed up with support and maybe even therapy, or if it was ignored and maybe even repeated. There are numerous factors beyond simply answering more than 4 questions yes and assuming you’re an addict, or not answering enough questions yes and assuming you aren’t. It is much more complicated than that.
The ACE information is important though because it points us back to that childhood trauma and says “what happened to you?” when treating an individual for depression, or addiction, so that we can include that in our healing. What we want to be careful with is turning it into a blunt instrument when there is still so much not being accounted for within it.
-
-
Sharing – Other People Don’t Think You’re a Mess
The key is to have some compassion for yourself, similar to the compassion you might have for someone else in a vulnerable situation. When you can do that, suddenly what the other person does isn’t as important, you’ve given yourself grace, and acceptance.
As childhood abuse survivors, of course, this is tricky. Self-compassion is not generally one of our strengths. How could it be? All our lives we’ve been told that bad things happen either to bad people, or for a reason, and we’ve had something horrible happen to us, so we must be broken in some way to have had that experience. Didn’t we all think that way at one point or another? How could we not?
