Session 113: Recognizing & Managing Trauma

Published Jun 26, 2019, 7:00 AM

The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.

In this week's episode, I am joined by Cha’Ke’Sha Spencer, LPC, CPCS. Cha'Ke'Sha and I discussed how experiences can be traumatic even when we don’t think they are, some of the common symptoms of trauma, how working with a therapist can help manage trauma, and she shared her favorite resources.

 

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Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr Joy Hard and Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me for session one of the Therapy for Black Girl's podcast. This week will be digging into trauma, what it is, how it's caused, and how you can manage it. But first let's show some love to our sponsor. Support for today's episode comes from natural Sious. Natural Sious is the world's first vegan, high performance hair caroline that delivers the results of twelve products and only three. It's designed to reduce time spin on hair care and it's proven to save up to eighty percent of time on washday. Natural Sious was founded by innovator Gwen Jamir who is the first and only African American woman to hold a patent on a natural hair care product. These products are great specifically for busy women with curly and coily hair also known as forci hair, and they are all natural. These products have become my go to products and I love the way they leave my hair to tangled and moisturize and they have definitely cut down significantly on my wash day process. So if you want to cut down on the amount of products you use and get some time back in your busy schedule, I definitely recommend you try them. You can find the Naturalisious Products and over twelve hundred Sally stores nationwide, or you can buy them online at sally beauty dot com. Use our exclusive promo code five five five five five five at checkout to save ten percent off your purchase. Now let's get back to our episode. For this conversation, I was joined by Shakisha Spencer. Chakisha is a licensed professional counselor in Georgia specializing in working with adult survivors of childhood trauma and those dealing with feelings of depression, anxiety, and being overwhelmed. With eighteen years of experience in the mental health field. Jakisha has worked in several settings, including intensive residential, in patient, hospital, crisis centers, and private practice. She's facilitated several trainings and workshops and has been a guest lecturer and adjunct professor. Jakisha is the owner of Grace Anthony Counseling, LLC, a private practice where she provides mental health and behavioral health services to residents of the Atlanta metro area. Chakisha and I discussed how experiences can be traumatic even when we don't think they are, some of the common symptoms of trauma, how working with the therapist can help manage trauma, and she shared her favorite resources. If you hear something while listening that really resonates with you, please share with us on social media using the hashtag TBG in Session. Here's our conversation. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Shakisha. I'm happy to have you here. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I'm excited because you know, I think we hear a lot about trauma these days. You know, it's kind have been in a lot of different places, and I think some people are confused, like what does that even mean? Like have I had a traumatic experience and I just don't even know it. Like, what is trauma? Like? Does it mean I had to have a car as it did? What are we talking about when we are describing things as trauma? Sure? A great question. So in the simplest term, trauma is to find as an experience that causes emotional distress, right, So a lot of us have experiences that cause that. The difference I think with different types of trauma is something that affects your life. You may have an intense emotional response too, and so I like to break it down. A lot of clinicians also like to break it down in two different categories, big T trauma or little key trauma. And the easiest way to describe that is big T trauma is things that most of us recognize as something that was traumatic, right. Domestic violence, natural disasters, a car accident, death of a loved one, especially if it was a sudden death, or if it was by means of suicide or murder or neglect some people don't recognize. But medical trauma is the thing as well, right, And that could be anything from you have a complex trauma related to multiple medical issues that you may have, or there may have been a surgery that didn't go well, and your continuously recovery. Experiencing terrorism, and of course abuse physical, sexual, mental, emotional, and a lot of people don't group this in there, but spiritual abuse as well. So those are all the big trauma ways. I said that my big t trauma. The other is think that most of us don't think about as trauma. Losing your job is kind of a big deal. If you are an adult, you've been in your fields for years and all of a sudden you get fired, especially if you feel like that firing is unjust, that could be very traumatic. Moving from one job to the next job, moving period, whether it's moving states to moving into a new house, can be very traumatic as well. Recently, I lived in a house for ten years and it's the only home that my children ever knew, and I moved last year, and we have to think about how could this potentially affect any of us because this is the only space that we've known for such a long term. Anything from the four definitely, infidelity, sometimes legal issues, being charged with the crime that you didn't do, or doing the crime but didn't want to get caught I can always be traumatic as well. Work stress, financial issues, and then other people don't necessarily think about vicarious trauma, which is not necessarily of experiencing the trauma yourself, but either witnessing that trauma or being close to someone who's had a traumatic. Okay, Shisha. So I'm wondering, is there uh distinction between when you would call something like a move or a layoff or something. Is there a distinction between when you would call that a trauma versus a stresses great question. I would say it depends on the circumstances. So let's say, if it's a move, it's a stressor to move, period. Right, most of us almost none of us like to move. We're very comfortable in our faces. We create atmospheres where we can still say, but if the move was abrupt, or if the move came at an unexpected time, meaning I just lost my job and I also was told I'm being evicted at the same time, or because I've been out of work all this time and now I have to move, or I have to move from the only place I've ever known and moved back in with my mom, and the circumstances surrounding that are already traumatic. So those would be traumatic experiences related to moving, Thank god you. So it really is more about the context about what's going on as opposed to just whatever the thing is exactly. Again, using just as an example, we all cognitively recognize that death is going to happen. It happens to all of us. We realize we experienced that. But this is a different between somebody passing away that you're really close to, is somebody being taken from you or snatched from you circumstances beyond you? Got it? Okay, So again about the context, right, Okay, how do we know something has actually been a trauma for us? So sometimes there can be symptoms such as anxiety such as depression or sadness, shame and guilt. A lot of type of trauma responses manifesting nightmare. Sometimes it's physical too that a lot of people don't realize that. It can be nausea, It can be dizziness, having trouble sleeping or eating. Whether it's I'm having a hard time staying to sleep and I keep waking up in the middle of the night, or I just can't sleep at all, I'm eating too much or too little. Sometimes symptoms to trauma related to your g I issues having an up at stomach of course, abusing drugs to alcohol, but there are also trauma responses that we don't necessarily realize as possible trauma responses, and I can get into some of that as well. Yes, please, Some of the things that I've seen in my practice particularly has been things like being super busy. A lot of people have somebody who's always been do that. French is always on the go, that never sits down. It's always up and move, and sometimes that can be related today anxiety, but that anxiety may be related to fear, and the spear be could be directly connected to past trauma. A lot of that sometimes is related to avoid it. I don't want to sit and have to deal with how I feel. I don't want to sit and think about things that have happened to me, because if I sit down, that means I'm gonna think about it. If I think about it, I have to feel it. If I feel it, I need to do something about it. And doing something about it it's too painful because I don't want to face that, and so instead of that, I'd rather just say it's busy as possible. But sometimes being a busy bee can be a good thing, but sometimes it's a way of avoiding. Other way is that it's manifests itself. Is people who seem to like have it all together. Everything seems perfect right, but there's sometimes have these maths that they have on and feel like nobody really sees or understands the struggles that I'm having up underneath all of this awesomeness that I'm showing to the world, but it shows up a little bit different. Meaning everybody thinks that everything is great, but you are continuously and unhealthy relationships over and over and over again. And there's a pattern of that because you're afraid of abandonment or you're afraid of being alone, giving so much of yourself that you neglect yourself and you're so busy focused on everybody else. A lot of people struggle with self care. So those are some other ways. Yeah, So I just want to stay here for us. Second sinking Shia, because I think some of those things. So one, I'm really glad you shared that because I think most people would not recognize that as being in response to maybe a traumatic experience. But I think the other thing that is important to pay attention to related to that is then how you can then become rewarded for that behavior. So you're the person who's a busy bee. So people keep putting you on committees and they want you to do all of these things or you know that kind of thing, and so in some ways it's almost reinforced for you not to take care of the traumatic experience because look at all these accolades I've now gotten. Because this is the response that I developed, absolutely very very true. Sometimes we're so busy taking care of everybody else, that's the one person that we continue to say no to is us. And it seems to make sense, right, I'm doing all these accomplishments. I have all these great things going on. I have all of these accolades and all of this wonderful attention, and I'm meeting all of the professional and sometimes personal goals that I've set for myself. But I am a mess, right, So my health is failing in some ways. I've been carrying the same extra fifty pounds that I don't want to carry a relationship with my kids or my husband or my mom or whomever. Isn't the way that I really wanted to be. And I just keep calling things onto the plate because I am avoiding dealing with really tough stuff, and so all of that can be definitely related to trauma because most of us don't want to have to deal with painful experiences of our past. Yeah, and so would would makes us avoid that Shikisha like, why why are we so avoiding to want to kind of deal with these painful things that have happened to us? Yeah? I think there are a couple of reasons. One of the main ones, I think is again, because we'd like to feel good, so we do lots of things to make sure that we feel better, but some of us don't might to sit in pain. And what I mean by that is not sitting pain for the sake of sitting in pain, but to be really aware and be really mindful of painful experiences that we have and be mindful of how those experiences affect us, have affected us, and are currently affecting us. That's part of the challenge. And I missed the other part of your question. I was asking why is it so difficult for us to actually approach these painful feelings? So we want to avoid pain, we want to feel good, but sometimes in our pursuit of avoiding pain, we do things that are untealthy for us. I am a firm believer that sometimes the reason why we it addicted to substances alcohol and drugs is because we are avoiding really unpleasant feelings or really unpleasant experiences. And so sometimes people that are addicted to things, For people that over indulgence things, it doesn't start out as an over indulgence. Nobody, you know, socially drinks and eventually says I think I'm gonna become an alcoholic. Most of the time it's the one glass of wine on the week is and then your job gets more stressful, or people are piling more things onto you, or you don't want to have to deal, and so it becomes before you know it, it's a blottle Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and then it creeps us to Thursday, you know what I mean. So a lot of time, you know, people don't want to avoid because the pain is just way too difficult. The reality of it is way too difficult. And then if I own it, I'll have to do something about it. Sometimes doing something about it is just as hard. Yeah, And I think a lot of people also get stuck in that they don't know what they're doing something about it is, right, like, what what do I even do to make myself feel are about this? And of course you know, I think this is where therapy comes in. Um So, can you can you share how therapy can help somebody work through trauma? Absolutely, you have somebody and of course I'm a fan of therapy alty every day, but you have somebody who is non judgmental, who is in your corner, who is your number one cheerleader, but also an accountability partner. Therapy can be really really helpful to help you work through some of the past feelings, how to um connect those past feelings to some of the hurt that you're going with through currently, to make sure that you don't repeat the same patterns, the same patterns that you have been doing over and over and over again. And so sometimes the stigma related to mental health and stigma related to therapy can be a hinderant. Sometimes we also think, oh, I have a support system, I have my church family, I have my my regular family, I have my friends, I have my girls, and so I don't necessarily need to go to therapy. But there's something that all of those things combined can be helpful. I don't want to say yes, therapy can help you in ways that your friends can't, which is very true, but having a full support system can be way more beneficial if you had one thing or the other got you. And so I'm curious, Shikisha, if another thing that stops people is this idea that, oh, well, that's not that big of a deal, right, So why would I go and talk with the therapist about that? Like if we go back to the example of you know, having to move because like you got a victor, or because you lost your job and can't afford your home anymore, people may not interpret that as a traumatic experience, and so then feel like, why would I have to go to therapy? Right? Well, sometimes we've been taught, especially in the African American community, to suck it up to keep it moving, that we have trials and tribulations and our resiliency comes through getting over, getting packed, working through these issues. And while part of that is true, we hadn't been taught that these issues do affect us and we need to talk about them and work through them as well. And so yes, to other people, it may seem like moving is not that big of a deal. Or the abuse that I suffered as a child. It shouldn't affect me. Now I'm good, I get over that. But have you really worked through that or did you compartmentalize it in a way where you don't think about it anymore. That's not the same as healing. That's another level of avoidance. That's sleeping stuff under the rug. That's not addressing it. But that's not necessarily true healing. And also helping other people understand why things are important to you. Right, and so if if I have this move or if I change this job and now I'm in a more stressful situation, some people may not understand why that's important. But that's again why therapy can be super helpful, because you have somebody who get it. You have somebody who will understand, and they're not putting their own perceptions and interpretations in the way that can make you feel like your thoughts shouldn't matter, or that you're feeling should be minimized. Yeah, like really making it so that your experience feels valid because I think sometimes you know, your friends, I think friends and family sometimes they just really don't want to see you hurt, and so you know they will say stuff like, Oh, that's not that big of a deal. You'll be fine, you'll find another job or you know whatever, but not realizing the impact that it could have had on you. So then you can talk with the therapist who really helps you to sit with like, oh wow, that is a really big deal. Mm hmmm. And I think sometimes that can be an aha moment for clients to realize, one, my experience matters, It's okay for me to want to be validated and the things that I have to deal with, and that these things were hard for me, So what do I do with that now? How do I work to do that now? A lot of times we don't weren't even given the space to even think in those terms, So that can be really helpful. Yeah, you know, you you kind of mentioned this already, like just the whole idea that you know, there has been so much a history of struggle for black people. Well that's not our entire history, but it is a part of our history, you know, And that so you're always having to go You're kind of sometimes used to things not going well, and so you're kind of just going, going, going, and you don't realize like how culative, you know, all of these things can be for you exactly, And that kind of goes back to what complexx FROMA is right. It's an exposure of multiple traumatic events, and so we don't think about that from our lifetime. If we had a parent who had a mental health issue that was undiagnosed or that we didn't recognize was a mental health issue. But people in the neighborhood that we grew up at knew someone's wrong with your mama, right, and so they teased us all the time. And then we had to take care of our siblings because you know, your parents couldn't necessarily do it because they were dealing with their own stuff. And then we grew up and realized, I'm always taking care of everybody else. I took my need second. But I'm also really smart. I've got all these degrees, I got really awesome things going for me. But everybody how these things on me. You can trace all of that complex trauma back to the beginning, and so you know, realizing we have to take a moment and learn that our journey is awesome, but there's some healing that needs to be done that helps us get all these great things that we have. But we never really dealt with the underlying traumatic experiences that we've had, and so now we're dealing with the aftermath and don't know what to do with it. So how light somebody even recognize that shakisha? Because I think, you know somebody who is doing well at work, you know, the personal life is going great, you know, you know, just a lot of things going on well in their lives, but they do have that history. What would even make them say like, oh, I need to talk with someone about like this stuff in my childhood. Sometimes And I'm not saying everybody has to go to therapy of course to deal with these major issues, because that isn't always the case. Therapy can be helpful at any point. But sometimes I think we know there are areas of our life that just isn't working well, or that we've tried to quite to get it together, and it's just it's just not happening right. And so um, I know, I use the weight loss um example earlier. If I've been carrying around this extra fifty hundred fifty pounds and I keep trying to do these crash diets and none of this is working. Have we ever sat and really thought about is this literal weight that we're caring or is it emotional weights that we're carrying? And if it's emotional way, where does that come from? And if I'm stressed eating, where is the stress coming from? And where did I learn those habits? So again, it's not just about I have this weight and I have to deal with being unhealthy because of that, and I don't like it. I don't like the way I look and that was causing all these self esteem and self worth issues all of that, But where does it trace back to? And so sometimes it can be issues like that, and it can be simple stuff. I don't know about simple as the right word, but what other people would minimize, I'll put it that way. Whereas you have this unhealthy relay ship with your husband who has constantly put everything on you, and he goes to work, he provides for the house, but you don't have an intimate relationship with him, And what I mean by intimacy is emotional instancy. But you just keep it moving because it's gonna be okay. It's not a big deal. He provides for us when we go out, and people think that everything's okay, but you're inherently unhappy. Well, have you ever really thought about where that comes from? How can I allow people to do things to me that are not okay? Why do I allow negative things to happen to me and people to treat me in certain ways and have feel helpless and feel I have no control over that? Where does that trace back to? And sometimes it could be related to past trauma? Got it? Okay? So what kinds of things? What happened? Tikisha? If we don't deal with these traumatic experiences, whether we recognize it or not, like, what might our life look like if we don't actually do the work to do the healing around this? Yeah, I think will be constantly unhappy, and I think we'll wear kind of this mask and pretend that things are better and things can be good, but things can be really good if we were healed. Things can be great, but they can be awesome if we really took out the time to really address some of the past stuff that we've been doing this And are there signs because you you talked a little bit earlier about um, how compartmentalizing is not healing and so you know, are there as signs that somebody would know that they feel like, Okay, I've really done this work, Like, how might life look differently if you do actually do the work. Yeah, I think you'd be in a much better emotional space. I think you'd have really good boundaries, you know, know it's a complete sentence, and learning how to choose yourself instead of choosing everyone else, having really good boundaries with family, friends, and your work life, being able to take care of yourself, practicing really good self love, recognizing your self worth that adating yourself when other people doesn't seem to validate you. I think those are all really good ways for us to say, I feel like I'm in a really good space. I am content. I know really from within that I'm in a really good space. You know, therapy is are always helpful, you know, to help us get to this place. But when you're able to have a level of peace and contentment within your soul, I think you you found your own nirvana. So, Jokisha, I know that there is also like this research that talks about how people who have had traumas in the past often end up being targets for a future traumatic experiences. Can you talk a little bit about kind of what drives that, because I think so we may kind of has to kind of get around this because I often see like these conversations on social media about kind of you attracting trauma into your life. That always kind of makes me uncomfortable because in some ways it feels like a victim blaming. But they're is some there is some research that kind of backs up the idea that like you might find yourself in multiple traumatic experiences by virtue of having the first traumatic experience. Yeah, I would agree that there's some validity to that, but I agree with you. I feel like, you know, we determine our own destiny. I will say though, that if you don't recognize that a traumatic experience has affected you in one form or another, it does set you up to have people in your life who are not good for you, or to have multiple experiences in your life for your decision making affected by your past trauma. And so, you know, I really encourage folks to do the work, you know, not just being in therapy, but do your own soul searching and do your own healing journey as well to figure out how has my path impacted what's going on with me? Because you know, positive energy attracts positive energy, and sometimes it's not just the energy. But it's I'm looking at people who have hurt me, and I'm always choosing people who continue to hurt me, you know what I mean. So if I've been in a really unpleasant relationship, if I've been a domestic violent survivor, if I've been an abuse survivor. Sometimes we get into relationships with people who do not have our best interests at heart. But that's because we don't have feelings of self worth. We think that we do. We know that we love us, but we don't love us enough to choose better for ourselves or to continue to put ourselves in a situation that's unhealthy. So I could see that as as a way that trauma to reach trauma to the speech. Yeah, and I guess I'm trying to figure out, like where is that line of kind of victim blaming versus, you know, kind of being aware of how your trauma maybe causes you to make decisions that may not be in your best interests. Yeah, and that's a fine mind at least, I feel like right to try and kind of figure that out. How do I figure out the difference between I'm constantly choosing different other traumatic experiences because of my past trauma or I'm trying to do things in a really healthy way and things are working out for me. I would say one of the great ways to do that has become really self aware, to be mindful of how you feel, what you think, how other people make you feel, how other people make you think, and being really self aware. Once we are aware and we know how the world around us affects us and how we affect the world around us, we can be really cognizant of who we decide to let inside of our world. Got you, okay? Yeah? And I do think it is important, you know, if nothing else, for people to recognize that trauma definitely impacts your decision making. And I think especially trauma when we're very young and still impressionable, because a lot of things then just become the way things have always been done, and so we don't recognize that everybody's experience is not like that. And so you know, when you make decisions about future partners and you know, maybe jobs and all of these kinds of things, you're making it from the lens of a place that has been impacted by trauma in a way that may be different for someone who has not had that traumatic experience. Absolutely very true. I absolutely agree. Yeah. So, Jakisha, what are some of your favorite resources to recommend for people who are, you know, either working through traumatic experiences or wants to learn more about like how trauma impacts their lives. One of the ones that I always recommend, it's one of my favorites, is The Body Tis Forbid That whole than the Culte. It is one of my favorites. It talked about how the mind, the body, of the spirit are all interconnected, and how even when things happened to us a long time ago, the body remembers kind of like if you are in a car that it happened at an intersection and you tempt up every time you get to a soft sign um. That's because the body remember that they're a traumatic experience, been at that point. So the book really talked a little bit about how you can kind of work through that. One of my favorite. Yeah, I feel like it's a great, like comprehensive one and one that like lots of people can kind of relate to. I agree. So, where can people find you if they want to hear more information about your practice or what you got going on. Yeah, you can find me at Grace Anthony Counseling on Facebook and I G. And what's your website, Grace Anthony Counseling dot com. Okay, very simple, keep it very easy for people, yea. And of course that information will be in the show notes for anybody who wants to be able to be able to access that later. Well, thank you so much for chatting with us today, Shakisha. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so grateful Shakisha was able to share her expertise with us today. To learn more about her or her practice, visit the show notes at Therapy for Black Girls dot Com slash Session one thirteen, and don't forget to share your takeaways with us ether on Twitter or in your I G stories using the hashtag tb G in session. Don't forget to show some support for our sponsor for this episode, Natural Licious. You can find the products in over twelve d Sally stores nationwide, and you can also get ten percent off your purchase online by going to Sally Beauty dot com and using the promo code five five five five five five at checkout. A huge thank you again to think if It The Gottman Institute and ziny Me for their sponsorship of last week's Black Girl Clinician Collective Retreat. We had an amazing time in Charleston, So if you're a black woman therapist in private practice, make sure you visit the show notes at Therapy for Black Girls dot com sash session to add your name to the list for updates about next year's retreat. If you're looking for a therapist in your area, don't forget to check out our directory at Therapy for Black Girls dot com um slash directory. And if you want to continue this conversation with other sisters who listen to the podcast, come on over and join us in the Thrive Tribe, which is the Facebook group for our community. You can request to join at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash Tribe and be sure to answer the three questions that are asked to gain injury. Thank y'all so much for joining me again this week. I look forward to continue in this conversation with you all. Real soon we will not be having a new episode of the podcast next week because I will be kicking it in New Orleans for essence, so I hope that I will be able to see many of you I will be presenting at the Convention Center on Friday and then on Saturday at the Wellness House, so please let me know if you're going to be in New Orleans for Essence. I would love to see as many of you as possible. So we won't have a new episode next week, but we will be returning the following week. Y'all, take you care of yourselves much

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