"When I discover who I am, I'll be free."

(Ralph Ellison)

If you’re new to the world of developmental trauma and you’ve read my previous articles I’ve hopefully convinced you by now that chronic childhood stress is a thing, and people can wrestle with its noxious aftermath all their life.

Thankfully there is now good evidence pointing to several interventions that help survivors bounce back from a traumatic childhood. Individual solutions depend on each person’s circumstances, but here are some of the things we know they work.

Nervous system rewiring

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk calls it ‘limbic system therapy’. Because trauma lives on in the victim’s hyperactivated or shut down nervous system, healing cannot happen without engaging the body. Yoga, neurofeedback, sensorimotor psychotherapy, mindfulness based interventions, breath work, music, meditation, tai chi - the list goes on - are all powerful means to turn down the internal alarm bells, release tension, and restore the balance between the emotional and the rational brain. Body work in trauma recovery is primarily targeted at regaining a sense of felt safety.

EMDR

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a groundbreaking psychotherapy model specifically designed to alter the way trauma survivors access and process traumatic memories. Scoring high in peculiarity as well as effectiveness, EMDR is slowly crossing into mainstream as mental health professionals are discovering that EMDR works well for a multitude of issues, from anxiety and behavioral issues to personality disorders.

Psychoeducation

Psychoeducation is basically a fancy word for learning what’s going on with a person who is tackling a mental health challenge. For a long time doctors and therapists held their cards close to their chest, and patients or clients were expected to comply unreservedly with the treatment they were assigned. Today psychoeducation is recognized as a critical ingredient in mental health treatment for a wide range of conditions, including trauma recovery. People seeking improved mental and emotional health and their support networks (families, friends, co-workers) appear to benefit greatly from simply knowing more about the condition in question, treatment options and rationale, prognosis, and all they ways in which they can support recovery.

As someone who’s been feeling for trauma recovery in the dark for years, I’ve experienced the power of psychoeducation directly. When I started reading about trauma I couldn’t stop. Being able to finally solve the puzzle of my various symptoms - from recurrent nightmares and irritability to chronic fatigue and difficulties understanding language in busy environments - was a huge relief. Realizing that everything I was experiencing actually made sense and was lived by others as well was liberating, normalizing, destigmatizing. I was suddenly in a position to see beyond symptoms and make informed decisions about my mental health.

We are not machines that can be brought to a workshop to be fixed. We play an active role in our healing process, whether we’re intentional about it or not. When client and therapist share the same understanding of a problem they can build a genuine and powerful healing alliance. Trauma treatment requires buy-in, and psychoeducation facilitates that.

Psychoeducation is the reason I created this blog. My mission is to put information and reflection tools in the hands of developmental trauma survivors and their allies, so they can recognize the root cause of their struggles and navigate their recovery from a place of agency, wisdom and compassion.

And finally… love

Love cures all wounds, and not even childhood trauma can resist it. Deep, safe connection with others - be it romantic partners, close friends, teachers, extended family members - goes a long way. Long before I had any clue who I was and who I wanted to become I was repeatedly lifted by some amazing people I was blessed to cross paths with in life. Their incomprehensible-to-me warmth, generosity and kindness that they insisted to direct at me despite my hedgehog-like demeanor and emotional ineptitude have left a deeper mark on me than any trauma ever could. You know who you are, and I love you back tenfold.

Please share this with anyone who might find it helpful, and I hope you check in here again next week.

Thanks for tuning in,

Adina