From Invisible Scars to Healing: The Path of Post-Traumatic Growth
Glad you’re back for this week’s new blog post!
I just read an email from Everytown Gun Safety. Tia, the author, detailed how they have dealt with PTSD as a result of being in the hotel when the shooter opened fire at the music festival in Vegas, October 2017. The description was painfully detailed.
Reading this set off a wave in my body where my breath almost stopped and a gripping in my belly, and tears.
I have been so busy staying grounded and in service to my kids and community, sometimes I forget I live with this too.
Some of you don't know this about me.I was involved in a mass shooting...by way of impact to my kids, by way of impact to their development, the changed landscape of my community and my own nervous system.
Even now reading this feels like I’m reading and writing about someone else.
In 2018, the local HS in Parkland, FL lost lives due to a mass shooting. We can focus on the numbers, but they aren't a real number of impact and aftermath, so much aftermath. The wave of impact this one event triggered is the long lasting impacts of gun violence.
This was my community.
My kids community.
My home.
My neighbors.
The aftermath, PTSD, shows up in a desire to feel safe in every interaction...like...
...going to teach a yoga class and the studio door is unlocked;
...being the only employee in an office serving active users with no exit door;
...being unsupported in projects that require a team to cross the finish line, so ya push forward on your own and get burnt out fast…
…constantly hitting a wall of perceived impassable challenges, because your nervous system goes into flight/freeze mode for protection when things become…unsafe and finding solutions is near impossible.
PTSD is not what the media makes it look like.
It's more subtle than a shut down and depressed episode, hiding in bed.
It's hyperactivity and sleeplessness.
It's moving with a sense of urgency.
It's an overwhelming moment that is labeled "panic attacks" where you need to rage, cry and let the emotions flow, while your loved ones simply look at you in wonder of why a small situation garners a huge response.
It's an underlying vibration of a need for safety that never comes.
When it’s an activated state, it honestly feels like you will never be safe or “normal” again.
Ever.
And these moments happen lightning fast.
A song.
A scent.
An image.
A siren.
A random email…
So now what?!
Can you relate to this?
Triggers, trauma triggers specifically, bring us back in time to the moment of when the trauma occurred.
Some would say, “It’s just a memory, what’s the big deal?”
The deal is, your nervous system bypasses your conscious brain activity and believes the body is re-experiencing the trauma…again.
So an area of your brain “takes the wheel” and guess what…you don't’ get it back until your nervous system does what it needs, numbs, eats, acts out, sleeps… until your subconscious self feels safe again.
These “needs” aren't always in your highest good, either.
I know.
Your tools to help you feel safe again, are what we call your coping mechanisms.
At this point, I’m obsessively grateful for this knowledge.
It’s been about 25 minutes since I read the email and felt the emotions.
They moved through my belly.
Noted the sounds of sirens driving by while writing this.
Felt the clenching slowly begin to soften as I was writing, breathing deep and tuning into my tools for regulation.
Even my ESA (she is so sweet!) came in noting the energy shift.
She sits by my feet, while I write this.
This short journey lasted only minutes for me, although not completely gone.
The familiar clenching is still very present and it now resides in my chest.
While walking through this, I recognize the privilege and access to this incredible insight.
I’m resourced and educated, even though my subconscious takes hold OFTEN!
We teach this work at Connection Coalition during our “CoCo Weekend”.
It’s just one of the core principles of what we share; tools for self regulation.
The stories are plentiful these weekends. No one shares their own stories unless they feel safe enough and it’s relevant. The breakthroughs are abundant…every single time!
No one escapes these moments that our system takes over to protect us, by the way.
Just yesterday my sister cried about all the fear we lived under, everyday for years through the pandemic. We did not know if we would all live. So many loved ones did not. She was watching a TV show that depicted the personal stories of fear and loss we all experienced.
All of us.
So I could say MANY of us are living with unresolved emotions from the pandemic.
Is it time to talk about it though?
Is it time to name it yet?
Is it actually safe to assume, each of us are possibly moving through life with PTSD, the post pandemic epidemic?
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that one can develop after exposure to a traumatic event.
When we name these moments, viscerally connect with them, we have the opportunity to grow through the moments.
Some will call this resilience; the ability to return to normal after a difficult situation, to bounce back from the big things.
Resilience is a big ask…really big. In all truth, the “return to normal” feels like a mystery, a fog some days. The normal I once knew is gone.
A sense of safety is gone.
A sense of what was normal teen angst was replaced with panic attacks, dysregulated eating, increased substance use…I could go on.
What was once normal will never be again.
The pandemic created a massive divide in how we moved through it.
Not to mention the civil unrest at the same time…that’s a blog for another time.
So..in moments of recognizing this potential truth of possibly living with PTSD, you have a choice.
Do you keep the angst, the frenetic energy, the anxiety bottled for only YOU to know, or do you seek regulation?
I talk and teach ( so does the team at CoCo) often about nervous system regulation because “when you know better you do better”. It comes out in yoga classes, conversation and of course the widely popular, weekend training.
Connection Coalition has graduated in person over 5200 people(and counting) who have learned these tools for self regulation since 2008.
Teachers
Social Workers
Nurses/Doctors
Yoga Teachers
College Professors
Psychologists
Guidance counselors
Mental Health Agencies
We stopped counting when we learned over 32k youth and outreach work recipients were receiving benefits from the education and outreach training we have shared through the years.
I will continue to advocate for teaching these tools to youth, especially.
I have raised my twins with these tools and while we all live with PTSD, we also exhibit Post Traumatic Growth; “Post-Traumatic Growth is the positive psychological change that some individuals experience after a life crisis or traumatic event. Post-traumatic growth doesn’t deny deep distress, but rather posits that adversity can unintentionally yield changes in understanding oneself, others, and the world. Post-traumatic growth can, in fact, co-exist with post-traumatic stress disorder.”
PTG was ever present when there was yet another shooting in our neighborhood in CA this time. One of my adult kids was in the close proximity.
The store was shut down, sirens, swat team, helicopters, new stations…all of it…again.
But this time, we talked about it. We talked about all of it. The situation, the emotions, the actual experience, thoughts. The emotional intelligence exhibited around this event is the epitome of post traumatic growth.
The twins both grew up in the same home with a trauma informed parent, continuously using the tools for self regulation learned and tirelessly taught since 2011.
If I never teach another group of middle or highschoolers again, I know this work lives on in the youth we taught the bliss breath; the school teachers that share mindfulness moments with their kids after a shooter drill; the case workers that are sharing simple movement and breath practices with post incarcerated clients, the domestic violence survivor that created her own nonprofit sharing the gifts of feeling safe in their body and so many more.
Both can exist together, PTSD and PTG.
It’s the tools you use to come back to your regulated state of warmth, possibility and hope for humanity that matter the most.
To learn more about joining CoCo for a weekend training, visit www.theconnectioncoalition.org
About the author:
Jodi has been an integral part of Connection Coalition, a trauma informed outreach organization since 2011 as a Board Member, Volunteer; Executive Director; Programs Manager and Volunteer wrangler. She has built communities, facilitated transformational training experiences, retreats, yoga teacher training and public speaking engagements. She lives in the NorCal area surrounded by fur, family, and as much nature as possible!