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Trauma & Resilience
I did an online course in trauma-informed peer practice and I watched a video that was supposedly about personal resilience. In it, they interviewed a few people who had undergone horrific events that then went on to live great lives. Ostensibly, they were great examples of personal resilience in the face of tragedy.
One of the interviews really struck me. They talked to a guy who had had his leg blown off by a landmine while camping in Israel, who then went on to found an organization for other amputees. That’s great, but I don’t think he is truly an example of resilience in the face of trauma. In fact, while the incident was obviously shocking and painful, I don’t think his experience was trauma at all.
Judith Herman (1992) and others have defined trauma as “the inability to cope” with an event or situation. It’s the internal response, not the external circumstances, that trauma is made of. It doesn’t matter how someone else would feel about the event— if it overwhelms YOUR ability to cope, it’s Trauma with a capital T. This is key. This is my thesis here.
If you aren’t having symptoms that affect your mental health in some way, then it wasn’t truly trauma. (Obviously you don’t have to be DIAGNOSED/DIAGNOSABLE, but you WILL have some kind of post-traumatic reaction.) It doesn’t matter what happens—if you immediately stand up and dust yourself off, it wasn’t trauma.
For review, here are the symptoms of post-traumatic stress. People who have undergone trauma, and therefore have overwhelmed their ability to cope, will experience at least some of these problems.
- intrusion (unwanted upsetting memories, nightmares, flashbacks, emotional distress after exposure to traumatic reminders, physical reactivity after exposure to traumatic reminders)
- avoidance of trauma-related thoughts or feelings, or external reminders
- negative alterations in cognition or mood (inability to recall key features of the trauma, overly negative thoughts and assumptions about oneself or the world, exaggerated blame of self or others for causing the trauma, negative mood, decreased interest in activities, feeling isolated, difficulty experiencing positive mood)
- alterations in arousal and reactivity (irritability or aggression, risky or destructive behavior, hypervigilance, heightened startle reaction, difficulty concentrating, difficulty sleeping)
These are the types of reactions that “resilient” people avoid. However, what makes the difference? My argument is that it is not a matter of personal “character,” or even “positivity” or “optimism.” It’s societal and it’s privileged-based. How “well” someone reactions to bad situations and events depends on three main factors:
- How early in their lives the trauma/traumatic stress started
- How much other stress they’re under (for example, from microaggressions related to oppression)
- What sort of supportive allyship they have during the event and its aftermath
The guy who got his leg blown off by a landmine experienced anxiety, stress, dissociation, and shock at the time of the event. But that isn’t enough—he was able to cope. He had the benefit of (what I presume to be) a relatively well-off childhood (since they mentioned that his father was the president of a hospital in Massachusetts). (Note: Interpersonal abuse can still happen in well-off families, of course, but he was free of some of the inherent stresses of poverty.) He stayed in a hospital in Israel with other people (soldiers) who were injured in combat. Through them, he had a support system. When he recovered physically, he came home and resumed a NORMAL life, and then—seeking deeper meaning—he decided to start his organization.
He didn’t grow up in a war-torn area and step on the landmine—he was on vacation from his peaceful home in Massachusetts. His traumatic event happened his junior year of college at Brown University, not at age five. And he had the support system of the soldiers who knew what it was like to lose a body part and still be kickin’. The recovery had little to do with his personal moral character, and much more to do with his circumstances that helped him cope so well. He had NO symptoms of post-traumatic stress, as they made sure to note in the segment that he went back to his life at college and continued just as he had been, sans leg. And he was praised for it on national TV. This is not a matter of semantics. Examples of positivity culture like this, that explain reactions to trauma as a matter of personal character, are actively HARMFUL to people recovering from traumatic events. While of course healing can and will almost always happen after a traumatic event, if you don’t react “badly,” it’s not trauma.
This is not gatekeeping, either. I’m not out here saying to survivors, “Your trauma wasn’t really trauma. You’re not suffering enough.” I AM saying, in the face of untraumatized professionals and other gawkers , that personal resilience in the face of trauma is out of our individual control. It’s not something negative about our character if we don’t react “well” to bad things. It just means we’re more vulnerable, in a way influenced by societal conditions and systems of privilege.
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MENTAL HEALTH JOURNEYS ARE LONG TERM.
Please remember that no matter where you are in your recovery/reclamation/journey towards healthier functioning, these things take time.
If you rush, you will get discouraged. If you expect immediate improvement, you will probably be stymied. Start with baby steps and harm reduction. Make one good choice, and then another. It starts out hard but it gets easier the further you go.
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Making Good Choices on the Regular!
Recovery/reclamation (my preferred term for improving your brain) is about making good choices consistently.
Maybe don’t worry about making the perfect choice because, unfortunately, then you might get stuck.
When you are confronted with a crossroads, make it a habit to take a breath (easier said than done) and make a good choice instead of a bad one.
You cannot magically stop yourself from being mentally ill. It’s just not gonna happen. But you can minimize your symptoms by, for example:
- eating consistently and in reasonably healthy ways
- prioritizing healthy relationships over unhealthy ones
- going for a walk when it’s nice out
- meditating or doing stretches when it’s nice out
- avoiding self-sabotage in general
Taking that pause definitely takes practice, but you can always do baby steps! Start with making a good choice when it’s easy and move on to when it’s harder!
I have made a lot of bad choices. Just in general. But they were the best choices I knew how to make at the time and I am still truckin’ and makin’ good choices as much as possible, just like I always have been. I’m just better at it now!
Addendum: Sometimes bad choices feel like good choices. You can be on the lookout for this if something feels too good to be true. Real happiness and healthiness (in the brain and in relationships) feels steady-good and sometimes hard but ultimately worth it.
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Poem: “engulF–d”
Trigger warning for sexual assault.
engulF–d by a curtain of flamingo-print
heavy across my air–
I Swallow The Worm.
hands pressing mine by the wrists down into my lap–
my pose so polite exceptmy head, leaned all the way back to Avoid,
But i would never say it with my mouth.
i don’t have words for a lot of things that wiggle inside of me.
i swallow the worm instead,
adding another wiggle. (i have nightmares about these)
the chair squeaks once with the weight of two bodies on it.
i contemplate the ceiling
with his tongue scraping my teeth.everyone (everyone) can see us. there is a grumble of disgust from somewhere. i can see nothing but open eyes, an inch from mine. i look away. it is a nice day outside.
i am no longer pristine
in appearance. i am
significantly rumpled
and oh my! i appear to have misplaced my hands.
everyone notices. -
My Introduction to CBT
While I have been a proponent of the related Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) for years, I always scorned Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). The basic premise of CBT is that thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are all related and interdependent. It’s very hard to change your feelings directly, so instead, practitioners of CBT focus on changing thoughts and behaviors. Those things can, in turn, influence and ideally clear up unpleasant and unhelpful feelings. For example, if you feel like a failure, it may help you to think “I have achieved so much” and behave in ways that challenge you to achieve even more.
At its worst, CBT is a demand to “just think and behave differently,” as if it is that easy. When thought replacement and Behavior Activation are the only focus of a professional who thinks they understand CBT, the entire process can feel invalidating, unhelpful, and victim-blaming. This was my experience of CBT until very recently— I felt that since I have an extreme need for validation, CBT was my worst enemy.
Recently, however, I gave CBT another try, and guess what? It worked— immediately. The key is that this time around I am validating my feelings before I restructure them. For example, “It’s hard to feel like a failure, but I have achieved lots of things and can do this!”
Here’s a link to a short online course you can take to introduce yourself to CBT: https://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/cbt-self-help-course-step-1/
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Using Numbers When Talking About Your Feelings
Something that has helped me and the people around me, when talking about feelings, is to use numbers as much as possible.
“I’m a little bit mad at you” can often sound like “I’M SUPER MAD AT YOU AND I HATE YOU” to people who struggle with black and white thinking. Instead, you might say “I am 15% mad.” It puts how mad you are into perspective by quantifying it.
There are a variety of situations in which using numbers can help you describe your emotions more accurately.
Other examples:
- “I’m sorry I yelled at you about the milk. I’m 1% mad that you left the milk on the counter and 99% hurt that you forgot to pick me up from work.”
- “You haven’t done anything wrong. You are 100% okay in my book.”
- “This is 10/10 important to me so I’d like you to keep it in mind.”
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How to Help Someone Who’s Mentally Ill
Many people want to “save” or “rescue” others from their mental illnesses. Unfortunately, no matter how much you may wish for someone to get better or just be different, you can’t make them do that. You can’t force anyone to do anything, even if you feel it’s in their best interest. It’s both immoral and impossible.
What you CAN do, however, is concrete actions to make their lives a little easier. (Having less stress in one’s life overall often leads to improved mental health.)
It may help to imagine that the person you want to help has the flu. They don’t need you to panic, but they probably feel awful and could use a little assistance. Maybe you could cook them a meal that they can reheat, or you could make a dent in the dishes piling up in their sink, or you could take their kids to the park to give them some time to recuperate. In particular, you could help make therapist/doctor visits easier (give them a ride if they need one?) or set up systems to help them remember to take their pills (if that’s a problem).
Note: It may be tempting to give someone a listening ear. This can be VERY helpful, but only if you’re genuinely not trying to save or rescue them. Focus on the practical things you can do to help rather than trying to insist that someone confide in you. If they want to talk to you, they will.
Remember to ask for consent before attempting to help (make sure to respect a “no!”) and also maintain your own boundaries. “You cannot pour from an empty cup,” and trying to take on more than you can handle will harm you as well as the person you’re trying to help.
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Exposing Exposure Therapy
Exposure therapy has become completely misunderstood as it has entered the mainstream, even by some involved in mental health.
Many would expose a person to their trigger, with or without consent, and just hope that they eventually stop freaking out and realize it “isn’t so bad.” This approach often involves a loss of trust and feelings of control over the situation, and usually ends in dissociation and pretending that the trigger is no longer activating.
Instead, exposure therapy must involve a mental and emotional reframing of the trigger, and also must be completely consensual. For example, dead/dying or abused animals were a huge trigger of mine. I’ve been working through that by voluntarily joining a Facebook group that focuses on death and “vulture culture,” including animal bones and preserved wet specimens. By reframing the trigger as fascinating instead of horrifying, I have empowered myself, and I am capable of remaining calm when faced with it.
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How to Work on Your Mental Health
If you are struggling with mental health problems, the obvious answers are therapy and medication. But what if you need more than that? How can you work on your mental health independently?
Here are some habits and ways of thinking that I’ve found to be very helpful in my recovery. Give them a try and see what works for you!
Get in the habit of problem-solving.
Problem-solving is in itself a huge topic, but it’s one of the most important aspects of working on your mental health. How do we problem solve mental health specifically?
- Identify a problem. Start small! You’re not going to fix your entire life in one day.
- Define the problem in as much detail as possible. Journal about it (see below) or make a note in your phone, whatever works. For example: “I drink too much on the weekends because I feel lonely.”
- See if maybe you can find the root cause of the problem, because knowing that might help you find solutions. Delve into the past. “I started drinking in college because I felt it would help me connect with people.”
- Define your goals as they relate to the problem. Maybe you already have a list of goals, but you need to be specific to the situation you’ve decided to problem-solve. Working on your mental health is a larger goal, but maybe you want to “drink no more than two beers on weekend days.”
- Brainstorm solutions. Come up with whatever fixes you can and write them down. You never have to show anyone this, so if some of them are ridiculous, that’s okay!
- Experiment. Test your solutions until you find one that sticks. “If I hang out with friends somewhere other than a bar, I won’t drink as much.” Maybe you went camping…. and drank just as much. Okay, back to the drawing board! Try a different solution and see if that one works. Repeat as many times as you need to.
If you need help problem-solving, don’t be afraid to recruit a friend! Ask someone you trust if they would be willing to help problem-solve your mental health, and then ask for their continued consent each time you have something to problem-solve. Hopefully the two of you together can find fixes that stick!
Journal about your mental health.
For some people, freewriting works wonders. It doesn’t do anything for me. Instead, I journal about my symptoms (emotional and physical) and what I was thinking about each day.
Find the type of journaling that works for you and do it. Not only is it good for you in the moment, but if you make it a habit, you will have lots of data to look back on in future problem-solving endeavors!
Regularly eat reasonably healthy food.
Note: I think a lot about how we treat our bodies is fucked up, so you will NEVER see me recommend a strict diet or intentional weight loss.
Getting quality fuel for your body can make a huge difference to your mental health. However, it’s not nearly as complicated as many would make it out to be. Eat things that nourish your soul as well as your body. For more information, check out Intuitive Eating resources like this one.
I tend to not eat enough— both in frequency and amount— and I don’t fare well when I am not fed. I get dizzy and depressed. Therefore, I do have some food rules. I try to feed myself about every four hours, and strive for a variety of food groups each day. (I use the old-fashioned 90s food pyramid as a guide.) I also make sure to eat some kind of carbs with every meal, because they help you feel full longer, as well as extra protein, because I’m a shitty vegetarian and often vegetarians don’t get enough of that. Of course, I also eat fruits and vegetables whenever I feel like it. That’s it— those are my dietary guidelines!
Spend some time experimenting and see what foods nourish you the best!
Eliminate stress wherever you can.
In college, I prided myself on showing up on time to my classes 15 minutes after waking up, having skipped breakfast and any sort of self-care. That’s no way to live! Ten years later, I wake up two hours before I have to be at work. I drink coffee leisurely (my favorite part of the day) and allocate enough time afterwards to make myself a reasonably quality breakfast. This is just one way I have changed my life to eliminate extra, unnecessary stress.
Reducing stress wherever we find it will take some of the weight off our mental load. Even if the source of stress really isn’t that big a deal, lowering your overall stress levels will do wonders for your mental health.
Obviously, not every source of stress could or should be eliminated. You have to weigh the pros and cons as well as your priorities. Maybe you’ve identified that grocery shopping is a big source of stress for you, so you shell out a few extra bucks to get ingredients delivered by Instacart. That’s probably a worthwhile accommodation. On the other hand, maybe your job is also a source of stress because of the pressure of deadlines, but you also love it! I don’t recommend quitting your job, at least not before you have a better one lined up!
Learn to self-validate.
Mental health is a community effort, and often those with the “worst” mental health have been failed the most by their communities. That said, not relying on others to validate your feelings can be a great improvement.
This is one I’m still working on. I often struggle with feeling like I need other people to validate my emotions. Therefore, as soon as I have any feeling, I will text my loved ones and gauge how I should feel based on their reactions. It proves that I don’t trust myself to know how I feel and what needs to be done. Instead, I’d much rather be able to validate myself, so I am not reliant on other people to process my emotions.
For more information about self-validation, check out this link.
Make time for the things you love and build mastery at them.
Make a list of the things you love the most, and then do them. For example, maybe you’re like me and you really love to write. What kind of writing do you like to do? What subjects do you like to write about? Consider listing both a broad heading (”Writing”) as well as specifics (”writing nature poetry”). Is there anything else you need to make a part of your schedule for this to happen? (Like being out in nature?)
Building mastery is a related DBT skill that involves setting reasonable, reachable goals to build up your confidence as well as your skills. Maybe you could make a goal to write one index card a day, or just take a walk. Make sure that you congratulate yourself for each thing you accomplish!
Rest effectively.
Resting effectively can be tough. It doesn’t count as true rest if you’re laying down but you’re worrying about all the things on your mind. It might help you to have a designated Relaxation Zone— like your bed or a couch in your basement— where you turn off all your worries. Alternatively, or in addition, you could try a guided meditation to help your brain relax.
This is another one I’m working on, because I tend to hold myself to very high standards and feel like I shouldn’t be resting, even when I really need it.
Avoid mind-altering substances.
Everyone has their own opinion and their own comfort level in regards to substance use, and I’m not saying that you have to agree with me in order to truly be dedicated to healing. However, I have found that I am much happier when I am not doing substances. Substances tend to be unpredictable— you might have a good time on one day but a bad time another.
(Hint: you may want to consider replacing any substances you do with the non-inebriating forms of them. I am a big proponent of non-alcoholic beer and CBD cigarettes, and regularly use both of them when I feel like letting loose.)
Obviously, this doesn’t include prescribed medications— those are important, and you should continue to take them. If you don’t want to take them anymore, you should make a plan with your medical professional to taper safely off of them, because withdrawal can be really terrible.
For more information, check out these links:
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On Creativity and Healing
As I have said before, freewriting doesn’t work for my mental health. Instead, I decided a few months ago that I wanted a structured journal to keep track of my moods and symptoms. (I have a separate Bullet Journal, which I use for planning, habit-tracking, and tasks, and then I have my more-recently-started “symptom” journal in a different notebook.)
I highly recommend symptom journaling so that you know where your headspace is at. Tracking your symptoms and/or moods can help you find patterns that you may otherwise miss. Our emotions (especially when we struggle with mental health) can feel gigantic and like they last forever, when in reality they change like the tides and can often be very different from day to day. That doesn’t mean, however, that there aren’t downward or upward trends! Seeing those trends can help us do damage control (in the form of self care) or even just enjoy good moods while they last. I feel much more in control of my life when I journal briefly about my symptoms.
To do a daily symptom journal, I split two adjacent pages into three sections. Each of the six daily sections in my symptom journal has about five lines devoted to it, which allows me to elaborate a little while still keeping the entry brief enough to be useful at a glance. (I almost never run out of room.)
Things I write about daily:
- How I felt that day. Obviously not all my emotions are symptoms, but I write about them all in my symptom journal anyway. Giving myself a little bit of room to be descriptive allows me to record causes of my mood (“had nightmares and woke up very dissociated”) or complexities (“had some anxiety in the afternoon but felt okay for most of the day”).
- Any physical symptoms or problems I had. Maybe my knees hurt, I had a stomachache because I ate too much curry, or I slept badly. (Often I write that I forgot to eat. Oops!)
- What I did to solve/help any symptoms/problems (physical or mental) and how well my strategy worked. Maybe I took ibuprofen for my knee pain, but it didn’t really do anything. Or maybe I was depressed but I felt a little more energetic after a nap. I don’t always have anything to write in this section, but I think it’s really important to track how your experiments go!
- What I thought about that day. This is one of my favorite sections. It’s my chance to write about what was going on in my mind, which (to me) is always interesting! It also gives me a sense that I’m moving forward in my life. For example, maybe I thought about what to write on my blog and came to the conclusion that I should write about journaling, or maybe I thought about what to build with a certain material in Minecraft. Often, I’m thinking about recovery strategies I want to integrate into my life, and when I journal about them, I don’t lose any potentially brilliant ideas!
- My happiest or best moment of the day. (It doesn’t have to break through the depression barrier to be the happiest moment of the day, since it’s all relative.) Often, this will be spending time with my boyfriend.
- Any information my alters have told me that day. Since it’s hard to keep track of multiple people in the same brain, I have a section devoted to that. For example, [LITTLE] told me the other day he doesn’t like green beans, so as a system we’ve decided to not force ourselves to eat the green beans languishing in the freezer.
Every Sunday, I do a weekly summary for each of the sections. I draw an extra page with my usual six sections, and write about how the week went and my happiest moment!
Some other ideas you may want to try if you pick up a similar journaling habit:
-Gratitude journaling. This was not helpful for me, but many people swear by it.
-Therapy summaries. If you go to therapy, you can write quick summaries of what you talked about at your appointments. You might also record your homework for next session, if that’s something that you and your therapist have decided on.
-Rate your mood out of 10. I really struggle to rate my mood, because it feels so much more complex than a number. Maybe I had a good morning but got depressed in the evening, or I was anxious but hopeful. However, this works for a lot of people, and having quantitative data on your mood can be really helpful when dealing with mental health professionals. (You may want to use color-coding instead!)
Write Mind 