Maple Ridge Counsellors EMDR Therapy

Last week we looked at stress – what it is and how to manage it.

This week let’s talk about traumatic stress.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Awareness Day is coming up on June 27.

This day aims to reduce stigma, lower barriers to seeking help, and raise awareness for the issue. The date June 27 is significant and I’ll link some more information below if you’re curious to know more.

In honour of this day, I want to talk about the importance of a survivor’s autonomy and right to have choice and control over their stories of trauma. I want to speak about the importance of this as a trauma therapist, and as a trauma survivor.

I often hear of well-meaning friends and family members urging a loved one who has experienced a traumatic event to “just talk about it and you’ll feel better.”

I have experienced this first-hand, too.

I won’t deny there is truth to this idea. Those well-meaning loved ones don’t have it all wrong.

Processing and integrating the trauma story are important steps to healing, for sure. Experiencing enough safety within the context of a relationship to share about your story is powerful medicine too. But that quality of safety is crucial, and there has to be a reasonable degree of readiness.

These steps need to be done cautiously in time, and on the survivor’s terms in order to be truly healing. A felt sense of safety is key. And we don’t feel safe when we don’t have power and control over the process.

When we face a traumatic event we are left feeling helpless, powerless, and out of control. That’s precisely what makes it traumatizing.

To have choice and control over how you share your story, or whether you share it at all, can help to re-establish a sense of autonomy, security and power needed to heal and regain proper functioning.

It is most ideal that survivors (or victims, or however they choose to identify) have control over how and with whom their stories are shared – this includes law enforcement, if reporting is a possible course of action.

***Of course there are exceptions here if you are under obligation to report to keep a vulnerable person safe; please act according to appropriate protection legislation***

Otherwise, please don’t try to influence someone to report anything to the police if they are not willing and ready to do that.

Refraining from encouraging police involvement may seem controversial… maybe it is… but taking away someone’s power -- even if it’s meant to be supportive -- can be seriously re-traumatizing.

In many cases, this reexperience of loss of control is more traumatizing than the initial event. Taking away someone’s power again reinforces their brain’s perceived lack of control and inability to establish safety in an already vulnerable time.

And since safety is the key to healing trauma, we definitely don’t want to reduce it!

In order for the reprocessing and integration of traumatic memories to be effective one needs to be ready with an established foundation of safety and stabilization. That is, one needs to be skilled at soothing oneself, as well as to have a relatively safe and stable environment that will allow for space to heal. And typically, these things take some time to establish in therapy. .

You wouldn’t expect someone re-learning how to walk to be able to run a marathon. And you wouldn’t attempt to treat a burn victim while they are still inside a burning building.

First you need to ensure the environment is safe and conducive of healing, and then you need to set the person up with foundational skills for managing the healing process. If the person then feels ready to unpack the story, this is when it can be done safely.

Of course, the vast majority of people encouraging someone to open up about their stories likely have the best of intentions.

If you have unknowingly taken someone’s power away, please offer yourself some compassion. You mean well, you want to help, and that’s lovely. Thank you for being a caring human!

And if you have stumbled and unknowingly taken someone’s power away, then you have an opportunity, right here and now, to learn and grow. And that’s pretty cool!

The best thing you can do for someone on this healing journey is to hold space for them and allow them to recover on their own terms. On their own timeline. You can offer them support and resources. You can let them know you care about them. You can ask what they need.

But please don’t tell them what they need to do. Because what we need to do is be in control, and you telling us what we need to do, takes that away, and ultimately hinders our healing.

I feel strongly that normalizing and humanizing experiences of PTSD is an integral piece of the fight against stigma. And I so want to be a part of that by sharing my own story.

Yet, a part of me feels very unready to do that this publicly.

And that’s ok.

I will lead by example and honour this moment in my recovery. I will meet myself where I am at right now with love and compassion.

I look forward to the day that I am able to share with you honestly about my experience of PTSD. But I am not there yet, and I am deeply appreciating the control I am creating by choosing to keep it between my therapist and me for now. And I appreciate you respecting that. Maybe you can even celebrate it with me.

If you know someone who has experienced a traumatic event, please support them by letting them know you care and want to help. Then simply ask them what they need. But please, do not impose on them that they need to be talking about their experiences on your time line.

They don’t.

Trauma Survivors Own the Rights to Their Stories