Posts Tagged: trauma

Sexual Trauma: Why Trump’s Locker Room Talk Matters

Posted October 14th, 2016 | Michelle Hollomon

After all, Donald Trump was only saying things that women have heard all their lives, so why does Locker Room Talk matter? Sexual Assault affects one in four women, and with it comes trauma, shame and fear.

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When I first watched the Washington Post video of Trump, I felt sick. I felt slimed. I felt triggered. Because I study and treat the symptoms of trauma, I knew that his words were having a traumatizing effect on my body. My body was repulsed, sickened like it had been injected with a poison. When I heard Donald Trump talk about using his celebrity and power to force himself on women and grab their genitals, I shuttered. Donald Trump used his power, celebrity and position to degrade and even force himself sexually on women like a predator. It took me back to times when I was the object of that kind of language and treatment. Maybe you too.

Locker Room

Past Trauma

You know what I’m talking about: boys who called a girl a sexual name. Or the man at the bar touching you when you walk by. Or the teacher leaning too close. We’ve all had these moments that send chills up our spine and a knife through our gut.

When women hear, see or experience degrading sexual banter or behavior, they can be triggered to re-experience the trauma of past sexual assault. If you feel slimy, it’s because you’ve just been slimed.

What is Sexual Assault?

Sexual Assault is a crime of power and control referring to sexual contact or behavior without the victim’s consent. Maybe hearing Donald’s sick banter made you remember times where you were the victim of this kind of treatment. Locker Room Talk doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and we are seeing that as more women speak out (Temple Taggart and others.) If there is Locker Room Talk, there is undoubtedly degrading behavior to follow.

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Here’s Why Locker Room Talk Matters

It’s Assaultive: language that tears women down, minimizes them into an object of chase, or separates them into their body parts is an assault on women’s value. Hearing Donald trump talk that way about women and women’s anatomies can be re-traumatizing for those who’ve been sexually assaulted.
It’s silent permission: when someone with power, fame, money or control talks this way, our culture becomes desensitized and accepts it as normal.
It’s Sexually Violent in Nature: Using force, power, celebrity or even the element of surprise to grab, touch, fondle, push, rub, kiss or bump a woman sexually is violent and threatening in nature. Yes, Violent.
It Objectifies Women’s Bodies: calling a woman’s anatomy vulgar names in a demeaning way separates her humanity from her parts. The woman no longer is a woman (human) as much as she is an object to be owned, used, or dismissed. Objects, unlike humans have no inherent value other than what they can provide their owner.
It’s Devaluing. Treating, talking about, referring to women as less than the full and valuable humans they are is wrong, sexist and archaic.
It’s Shaming. Shame has a way of making a person feel like there is something inherently wrong with them on the inside. Locker Room Talk shames the woman into feeling less than, deserving of abuse treatment, and unworthy of anything better.
It’s Triggering. Hearing it may trigger you and even re-traumatize you. It makes us remember the times we were talked to like that. In my case, hearing Trump say those words took me back to a time when a powerful male with influence and followers, talked about me like that. The heart races, the cold sweat comes, shallow breathing, panic feelings, and flash backs- these are all signs of being triggered from past trauma.
It’s Debilitating. Locker Room behavior rattles a woman to the point where she starts doubting herself. In attempts to make sense of it, she may ask herself things like, “What did I do to cause this? Why did he pick me? What should I have done differently?” Locker Room Behavior and Sexual Assault causes the victim to feel falsely responsible. Victims feel guilty as though they had a part in it.

Sexual Assault is Traumatizing

The women coming out now who are describing their sordid and unwanted sexual interactions with Donald Trump, report being walked in on while undressing, and kissed, groped and touched without consent. When someone forces himself into your space, making you feel emotionally, physically or financially trapped into conceding, you feel powerless. Your power, your privacy rights, your boundaries have been violated.

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Locker Room Talk is not victimless. Unwanted groping, kissing, touching and leering is more than just awkward and uncomfortable- it is traumatizing. Getting away with something because “you can” shows a disregard for other’s needs and value. It shows Trump’s lack of moral center and conscience for how his actions affect others. We call that sociopathic behavior in my profession. We call that pathology. We call it dangerous.

If you’re with a man who minizizes Trump’s lewd acts and language, be aware of ways he may be minimizing you too. If you’re with a man who excuses locker room talk as “boys will be boys,” it’s ok to be alarmed, and mad, and sickened. These feelings are a message from your body that you deserve better.

What Resilient People Do to Cope with Relationship Shock

Posted June 9th, 2015 | Michelle Hollomon

“I know this is hard for you to hear. It’s hard for me to say. But it’s time for me to make this decision. I want out…”

Or…

“I’m just not in love with you anymore…”

“There’s someone else…”

“I’m sorry to tell you this, but he’s gone. He died this morning…”

Words like this coming from someone close to you are devastating. One moment, you’re life is predictable, and the next you are reeling through time and space without direction or an end in sight. Last week we talked about the Relationship Shock Wave that comes out of no where and turns your world upside down.

A Relationship Shock Wave like secret financial debt, secret affairs, secret sexual abuse, or unexpected death can put you in a child-ego state of powerlessness. You may feel as powerless, small and confused as a child. But the truth of the matter, is that you are an Adult. You are strong, and smart and capable. This Relationship Shock Wave may put you into your child-ego state of helplessness, but you don’t have to stay there. Here is a helpful comparison.

Child Ego State

Compulsive and reactive – “Have to” language
Your fate is controlled by others
You’re only as important as the bigger people say
You know insufficiency, lack, and emotional poverty
You don’t know enough to affect real change
You don’t have enough to change my circumstances
You’re not big enough for people to listen to me or take me seriously.

You may have a “flooding” experience when a Relationship Shock Wave occurs. The shock reminds your body and unconscious of something you’ve been through before like a trauma, abuse, abandonment, upheaval. The body feelings and trauma feelings come back in a wave and overwhelm you. The Relationship Shock puts you in a younger, powerless ego state and you feel helpless. This is normal to feel this way at first, but don’t let the flooding stage debilitate you.

The truth of the matter is you are not that little person any more. You are a big person now, with big person power. You have choices today that you didn’t have back then. You have experience and capabilities and resources that you didn’t have back then. You are stronger now.

Let the Truth of the matter pull you back to reality- the reality of your adult ego.

Adult Ego State

You accept Personal Choice and Responsibility
You use “Want to” language instead of “have to” language
You destiny is up to you
You’re as important as YOU say you are
You believe in abundance, sufficiency, and emotional health
You know enough of what you need to know, and you will know what you need to know, when you need to know it
You have enough of what you need for now, and you’ll have enough when you need it next
You’re big (smart, pretty, resourceful, skilled) enough for the task that’s required of you right now.

Everyone gets stuck in feelings from the past, and there is nothing like a Relationship Shock Wave to trigger flooding. However, resilient people, like yourself, work hard to enter back into their strong adult ego state. You’ve done hard things before, and you can do hard things again.

The Truth of the Matter is that this time around, you know you’re not alone.

What Resilient People Do to Overcome Relationship Shock

Posted June 1st, 2015 | Michelle Hollomon

How do resilient people move through Relationship Shock? They master specific skills that help them recover.

When you experience a Relationship Shock, you may feel scared to death., petrified, frozen in fear, trapped, damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

These are words that describe how you might feel when bad things happen: like finding out your husband cheated, or wants a divorce, or finding drugs in your teenager’s room, the sudden death of the grandma who raised you, or getting a call from your dad you haven’t heard from in 17 years. Shocking news can sucker punch you, leaving you with no breath, no worldly idea what happened, and no direction to go next.

This Frozen Feeling is shock and bewilderment. It can render you powerless to make necessary choices and take necessary action. But you can be resilient when hard times hit. Resilient people are able to take any problem and turn it into an opportunity to grow, to live, and to give. Here are some steps to Moving Through a Relationship Shock Wave.

Get moving– Get out of bed, out of your chair, and move. When you’re mind can’t think straight because of the mental tailspin you’re in, then move your body. Walk, run, move. Movement releases the pent up fight or flight energy your body produces to survive. You have survived, you are a survivor, now it’s time to release the endorphins and stress hormones and move. Get the heart rate up, pound the pavement, let the body convince the mind that its strong and capable.
Concentrate on what you do know, not on what you don’t– there are many things about your shocking circumstance you don’t know. Don’t let your questions rule the day. Questions come from a powerless place. Statements come from a place of power. State to yourself the Truth of the Matter and let your mind settle on it. The more mental energy you give the questions, the crazier you will feel.
Conquer denial with grieving what’s gone. You lost something. Something died. Maybe it was your trust, your innocence, your safety, your security or your relationship. You had it, but now it’s gone. Grieve it. Take account, line by line of what you’ve lost and grieve it all the way through. To pretend that you never lost it, or deny that it’s gone, or that it’s no big deal, sinks you further into denial. Your grief goes underground where it has the power to fuel addictions, depression and panic. Grieve what you lost, and let it go.
Accept Reality – Your reality after your Relationship Shock Wave can never be the same as your reality before the Relationship Shock Wave. Your reality is different now. You’re different now. Don’t paint the past like it was perfect, because you and I both know, it wasn’t. Set your mind to accept the new reality because it is IN REALITY that you will find your power. Accept the situation AS IT IS, not as you want it to be, or how it was, but AS IT IS.
Find Gratitude for WHAT IS- Because you are still here, be grateful. Because you have survived the Relationship shock, five thanks. Record, honor and accept what has been lost. The loss is significant. But so is what is left behind. When you grieve the loss, and accept reality fully, you will find gratitude for WHAT IS.
Choose Love over Fear- Fear is a leach you don’t even feel until it has drained you half dry. When you become aware of being anxious over all you can’t control, choose LOVE instead. Choose to be loving toward yourself. Choose to receive Love from God. Choose to reach out to loving people. Quiet your mind with Love.

Your situation is temporary, and the pain you feel will not last forever. Resilient people move through the stages of grief and trauma one step at a time, knowing each step makes them stronger, not weaker.

How about you? What have you done to recover from grief, trauma, divorce or loss? What has helped you be resilient in the face of difficulty and tragedy?

“Love Casts Out All Fear”

Surprising Pathways to Healing from Trauma and Pain

Posted May 19th, 2015 | Michelle Hollomon

When you think of recovering from traumatic events or a painful past, does creativity come to mind as a method of healing? Creativity is something most of us do when we have extra time- and extra time seems to come almost never. We set goals for work, we drive kids to practice, and we make food for dinner (or get something on the way) but prioritizing creativity doesn’t cross our minds in life’s hustle.

But it Should. Especially when healing is needed.

If you are recovering from a divorce, or adjusting to an empty nest, or working through childhood sexual abuse, or rebuilding after bankruptcy, or recovering from chemo, you have encountered trauma. You have been dealt a blow that affected your body, soul and mind, and you need extra care and attention.

That care and attention may come in surprising ways. I’ll show you.

PTSD results in tightened muscles, shallow breathing, racing thoughts, rapid heart rate and hyper vigilance. Contrarily, creativity directly affects those symptoms by relaxing the body, deepening the breath, focusing the mind, slowing the heart rate and calming response triggers.

Creativity helps you deal with your trauma through the back door of the brain. When you create, you don’t have to think about painful memories or traumatic events. You can give your brain a break, and just let it create. The creative energy does the healing for you. Here are some examples that work:

Play Without Competition- Play for playing’s sake. Blow bubbles, roll play-dough, play games, play with children and play by yourself without competition. No winners, no losers, no competition, just play. There is so much about our current day lives that demand our A Game, (work, parenting, surviving!) that PLAY is forgotten. Work some play time into your schedule, and don’t stop until you laugh.

Creativity Without Judgment– Making things is good for you. You are made in the image of God, the Master Creator. If you don’t CREATE, you will feel incomplete. But when you create something, make sure you don’t judge yourself for it. I volunteer in an art class for children, and once they are given a compliment for completion, some will say, “Well, it’s not very good.” Where do they learn to judge their art so critically. Say to yourself what I say to these children, “Well, I like it. I like it because YOU made it!” When you create something, be careful not to judge it poorly- that steals the creative juices. Just let your creation be. Let it have its day. Let it have its space in the world. Its valuable because YOU are.

Art, Poetry, and Photography for the Soul, not for the Wall- Often, people won’t create unless it’s for an audience, a purpose or to show others. So here is a challenge- buy an art journal, a writing journal or a picture portfolio that is PRIVATE, and just for you. Write for yourself, create for yourself, experiment and explore for yourself. Don’t judge your creativity as valuable only when it is used for something beyond yourself. Some creative work is ONLY for you and should be a gift back to yourself. I think of God creating the universe, the billions of stars, the things humans have never seen but imagine, yet those ancient, far away creations were made and still exist, like a private portfolio just for Him.

Memorial Making– You may need a way to honor your past, your memories, and your inner child. Collect objects, symbols and important words to build, create, collage or organize your feelings. This is important work. A while ago, a friend of mind was having difficulty grieving the death of his daughter. He wanted to “just get back to life” and couldn’t even let himself cry. He decided to build a memorial for her by hand. Shovel, stone, brick, and grit- he painstakingly created a small memorial where he could go to remember her. This moment by moment building project allowed him the time to grieve and let go. You may want to make a memorial to your innocence, or to the person you were. It doesn’t have to be big, it just has to be meaningful. This kind of project can help you let go of the pain of trauma, and accept the goodness your future holds.

This is a little memorial marker that Sweet and Sassy made in the rocks.

Gardening- Gardening is a process that requires patience. Sometimes we get inpatient with ourselves when we are not recovering, rehabilitating, or healing “fast enough,” as if our recovery should follow our instructions for speed. But gardening, with its seasonal requirements, makes us slow down our expectations, dig our hands into the dirt, and nurture delicate life. When we nurture someone or something else, our desperate insides receive the nurture too. We slow down our expectation for ourselves and receive nurture from God and nurture from ourselves.

This is my garden box in the back yard that Mr. Dashing made for me out of one of our old doors. Sweet and Sassy picked the plants and placed them where they wanted. I’m the one who does the watering. 🙂

With each Creative media, whether art, building, playing or planting, slow down enough for it to replenish you. Use your creative time to push back the demanding outside forces, and nurture the life within you. Give creativity a chance to console you, heal you and revive you. You may experience a kind of life cycle with your creation- a degeneration and death of things that must go, a season of dark, and then a spring of new life. Ride your creativity all the way through, employing faith that you are worth the time, money and effort it takes to create, to heal, to flourish.

Just start creating with what you have at home. I created the pictures in this blog with my phone camera and a free app called Aviary. I create these pictures for fun, for this blog, and to bless the world with beauty and words. But mostly because it’s just fun!

How about you? What have you created that has given you healing in return? What creative project or playful activity has given you happiness and health? I’d love to hear from you for more ideas!

What to Do When Bad Things Happen

Posted May 10th, 2015 | Michelle Hollomon

In light of the recent devastation to communities in Houston, Florida, Puerto Rico and now the tragedy in Las Vegas, I wanted to offer help to those affected. Truly, all of us are affected when bad things happen in our world, just some of us are closer to the tragedies than others. For those of you who are pained by the recent events but not sure what to do or how to feel about them, please read the following example and tips that I wrote awhile back.

Stacey’s Story

“Everything is pretty terrible actually.” I ran into a friend at the store, when this tumbled out of her mouth. She had recently been in a car accident and sustained a concussion. As an employee and student, she had to get extensions from her boss and instructors for deliverables and assignments. She said, “I just can’t concentrate. I can’t focus. I can’t get anything done. My life changed in an instant. I’ve been sidelined.”

I was so sad to see this beautiful young woman struggle like this. She was always a real go-getter, a runner, a successful sales person, and now she was stopped in her tracks. Stacey verbalized what she felt as a victim of brain trauma, but she could easily be describing what people everywhere say about trauma in general. Her story is much like injuries to the soul- what I call Soul Holes. Whether you’ve experienced trauma to the brain, the body or the soul, trauma hurts. It affects your functioning, your confidence, and your relationships. Loss, divorce, abuse, theft, assault, bankruptcy, natural disasters all can have traumatizing effects.

She could easily be describing what people everywhere say about trauma in general.

What Trauma Does…

To your Brain: Trauma impacts new learning, focus, concentration, and memory. You may not be able to function after the trauma at the same level you functioned before the trauma. Healing takes time and a lot of effort.

To your Relationships: Trauma affects your ability to trust, cope, and form healthy relationships. Bonding may be more difficult for you because you are wary of something bad happening consciously or unconsciously. Your brain is so occupied with survival, that things like affection, intimacy, and empathy essential to healthy relationships, don’t come naturally.

To your Emotional Health: Trauma disrupts your ability to self-sooth, control your feelings, and your ability to distinguish between safe and unsafe people. Everything inside feels messed up and unstable. You question and doubt yourself and the people around you, and possibly even trust people and places that shouldn’t be trusted. Your flight or flight responses could be locked into over drive leaving you emotionally spent and confused.

To Your Body: PTSD results in tightened muscles, shallow breathing, racing thoughts, rapid heart rate and hyper vigilance. Contrarily, creativity directly affects those symptoms by relaxing the body, deepening the breath, focusing the mind, slowing the heart rate and calming response triggers. Trauma has been linked to heart disease, obesity, addiction, pulmonary illness, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, and chronic pain disorders.

To Your Paradigm: Trauma affects the way you see the world and yourself. You may not see the world as a trustworthy place to grow, in which to take risks and thrive. You may not see yourself as having the ability, the confidence, the worth-whileness to accomplish good things in the world.

trillium

Just like the Trauma Flower.

The Trillium is a perennial that grows in the lush forests of the Pacific Northwest. It’s usually found in the wild protected by a canopy of pines and maples. It loves the ample rain fall and blooms in the spring. It’s so special to see on a hike through the forest it just makes you want to pick it. But picking the bloom traumatizes the plant. Picking the bloom retards its growth because the corn is unable to gather enough nutrients from the sun for next year’s bloom. Once traumatized, the flower may never bloom again.

The Trillium is our very own Trauma Flower. It reminds us when our bloom is plucked, we must be very careful to restore ourselves for future blooming. If we don’t take care of the trauma after-math, our insides start to die. Without plenty of attention, healing and nurturing, we can’t be restored to health.

sun through trees

What Will Help You:

Getting Safe: Doing whatever it takes to make your world safe and secure. Your body and soul need rest, recovery time and patience. You may feel effects from the trauma for weeks and months after the traumatic event. This is normal. However, getting yourself physically and emotionally safe is paramount for healing to occur.

Having Choices: Victims of trauma will feel like their choices were taken away, and the trauma was forced upon them. Whether by accident or by will, you went through something in which you had little to no choice. You will need the ability to make choices about your recovery, your resting period, and your healing to feel powerful again.

Being Empowered: If you were traumatized by someone or something, you felt a loss of power and control. You still may feel that way. You may not be able to control your stress level, your emotions, your anger or your drug or alcohol use. You need help to bring back a sense of empowerment. Setting boundaries with the help of safe people will get you back to a state of Empowerment.

Do Something: Those who do something fair better in the long run than those who do not. For example, those who donate money, volunteer to help, give blood, call a friend or relative, make a plan, or organize a crisis response feel less helpless and more confident. The feeling of being able to help someone else through a bad situation can be powerfully healing. Today, in response to the Las Vegas mass shooting, I published this blog and made an apple cobbler for my family. Bringing comfort to the people I care about makes me feel more in control and less helpless when bad things happen.

Having Help and Collaboration: You won’t be able to recover fully on your own. You will need the help of healthy people, experts, people who’ve been there, and people who care. Even though trauma can leave you feeling isolated and ashamed, reach out to helpful people. Allow safe people to help you make decisions about your recovery and your next steps. Opening up to trustworthy people is a wonderful first step in getting “yourself back.”

Having Reliability and Predictability: Trauma can leave your inner and outer world disorganized with lots of loose ends and unfinished business. You can’t expect to get your life back in order right away. Give yourself time and routine. As much as possible, set your calendar with routine and predictability in mind with plenty of margin for rest and self-nurture. Accomplish one small thing a day and congratulate yourself for the movement, no matter how small it is.

Take Heart

What Stacey Did Right:

Asked for Help: Once she learned she wasn’t thinking clearly, she immediately asked her superiors for extra time to complete projects.

Was Patient with Herself: She didn’t expect herself to recover right away. Sure, that would be nice, but she was listening to the doctors about what was realistic to expect. She, like the trillium may need to wait a few seasons before her bloom returns. She understood that growth and healing were happening behind the scenes, even if there was no evidence of it yet.

Talked About It: Though my friend and I hadn’t caught up in awhile, she didn’t hide her recent struggles. She opened up about the real circumstances she experienced. She even saw a counselor to help her prioritize the things that were now important for her.

Didn’t Pretend it Didn’t Happen: My friend could have been tempted to deny the negative affects of her trauma and pretended she could carry on business as usual, but she didn’t. She knew it is always better to face reality than to hide from the truth.

Wasn’t Ashamed: My friend was experiencing weakness, real struggle, and even a sense of failure. But she decided that she wasn’t going to be ashamed of her struggle, she was going to bring it into the light and talk about it.

I know it’s hard.

There are many of us out there that wish we could talk about our trauma as freely as my friend talked about her head injury. Some traumas like abuse, bullying, betrayal, or significant loss are just not that easy to talk about or get help for. I totally get that. I’ve struggled with things in my life that I felt were so taboo to talk about.

But talking about them is exactly what will bring us healing.

Trauma loses its power when its brought into the light. Pain doesn’t seem so big when it’s brought out of hiding. As we feel the pain of trauma in our own lives, and see the pain of trauma in others, let’s give ourselves the space needed for healing, and the will to move forward in a positive direction.