“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
“If you want what you’re saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody’s life. Your own, first.”
Maya Angelou
“A memory without the emotional charge is called wisdom.”
Dr. Joe Dispenza
Hello,
“I love you, won’t you tell me your name?” These words by the legendary musician Jim Morrison are as relevant to our healing journey, in this day and age, as they were back then. Want to start on your healing journey now? Don’t just tell me your name; tell me your story. What happened to you?
“Each one of us has lived through some devastation, some loneliness, some weather superstorm or spiritual superstorm, when we look at each other we must say, I understand. I understand how you feel because I have been there myself. We must support each other and empathize with each other because each of us is more alike than we are unalike.” M. Angelou
Why Telling Your Story and Being Heard is the Beginning of Healing
“The first step to healing is accepting your story. Then there is a tipping point where your story becomes bigger than you and takes a life of its own. This happens when you not only embrace your story but share it, using it to help others. This process is the true beginning of the healing process. It allows you to separate what happened from who you are. At the same time, reconnecting parts of yourself you have ditched because of shame.
Most of us want to rip out our chapters. There are things that have happened that are lined with shame, guilt, and regret, things that were beyond our control. And we don’t want anyone to know. We want to forget, ignore, and push away. Because if people knew these things about our story, that would mean we are defective in some way. But the truth is by not embracing our story fully, everything that has happened to us, “good” or “bad”, we are denying ourselves. This is a form of self rejection. Whenever we are rejecting ourselves, we are preventing the healing process. Your story is the most powerful thing you will ever own. You can use it to heal you.” John Kim, The Angry Therapist
Storytelling Is An Act of Bravery
“When you share your story, you embrace the courage it has taken to live through it.
And eventually, when you share your story and what it has taught you, you give others hope and courage to find meaning in their own struggle. And inspiring hope and courage in others is one of the essential characteristics of a great leader.” Alaura Weaver
I Was Sexually Abused as a Child for Years—Here’s How I Reclaimed My Power
“It’s really scary to verbalize what you’ve gone through. But sometimes you have to practice. You have to say it over and over with no one listening. Then you say it to one person. You make a decision to say it to another. And another. Soon the shame you feel talking about it goes away.
I love the honesty of what women really are. Many times, we have to hide who we are as women to be accepted in the world. I talk openly about how my dad sexually abused me as a child because I believe we are more powerful when our secrets are not hidden. Part of my father’s power over me and my family was because of secrets. If you put your secrets out into the world, there’s nothing people can hold over you.
It’s not going to be easy. But a good story usually isn’t easy.” Satine Phoenix
Maya Angelou
"We cannot change the past, but we can change our attitude toward it. Uproot guilt and plant forgiveness. Tear out arrogance and seed humility. Exchange love for hate – thereby, making the present comfortable and the future promising."
"Forgiveness. It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody. You are relieved of carrying that burden of resentment. You really are lighter. You feel lighter. You just drop that."
"If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?"
Monica
Being able to share my stories and not feeling shame or guilt or fear of what people may think of me have given me a sense of peace and freedom from the past.
As M. Angelou said, "You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one’s own self."
I know that I am healed when I am the victor of my stories and not a victim of my stories. Furthermore, I'm more than just a survivor. I am a powerful Phoenix, and I've risen from my ashes. Similar to M. Angelou's life's mission, "My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style." And that's how my stories will continue to unfold...
https://learningtoforgive.com/9-steps
Forgive for Good
9 Steps
1. Know exactly how you feel about what happened and be able to articulate what about the situation is not OK. Then, tell a trusted couple of people about your experience.
2. Make a commitment to yourself to do what you have to do to feel better. Forgiveness is for you and not for anyone else.
3. Forgiveness does not necessarily mean reconciliation with the person that hurt you, or condoning of their action. What you are after is to find peace. Forgiveness can be defined as the “peace and understanding that come from blaming that which has hurt you less, taking the life experience less personally, and changing your grievance story.”
4. Get the right perspective on what is happening. Recognize that your primary distress is coming from the hurt feelings, thoughts and physical upset you are suffering now, not what offended you or hurt you two minutes – or ten years – ago. Forgiveness helps to heal those hurt feelings.
5. At the moment you feel upset practice a simple stress management technique to soothe your body’s flight or fight response.
6. Give up expecting things from other people, or your life, that they do not choose to give you. Recognize the “unenforceable rules” you have for your health or how you or other people must behave. Remind yourself that you can hope for health, love, peace and prosperity and work hard to get them.
7. Put your energy into looking for another way to get your positive goals met than through the experience that has hurt you. Instead of mentally replaying your hurt seek out new ways to get what you want.
8. Remember that a life well lived is your best revenge. Instead of focusing on your wounded feelings, and thereby giving the person who caused you pain power over you, learn to look for the love, beauty and kindness around you. Forgiveness is about personal power.
9. Amend your grievance story to remind you of the heroic choice to forgive.
The practice of forgiveness has been shown to reduce anger, hurt, depression and stress and leads to greater feelings of hope, peace, compassion and self confidence. Practicing forgiveness leads to healthy relationships as well as physical health. It also influences our attitude which opens the heart to kindness, beauty, and love.
https://medium.com/@angrytherapist/why-telling-your-story-and-being-heard-is-the-beginning-of-healing-e8d728d98384
The Angry Therapist - IG: Author of "I Used To Be A Miserable F*CK"
Why Telling Your Story and Being Heard is the Beginning of Healing
“The first step to healing is accepting your story. Then there is a tipping point where your story becomes bigger than you and takes a life of its own. This happens when you not only embrace your story but share it, using it to help others. This process is the true beginning of the healing process. It allows you to separate what happened from who you are. At the same time, reconnecting parts of yourself you have ditched because of shame.”
“Your story is the most powerful thing you will ever own. You can use it to heal you.”
I spent nearly a decade in coffee shops writing stories about other people. I created protagonists and cheered them on their hero’s journey as they stayed their dragons and made the return changed. Forever. I gave them capes. Meanwhile, I was pushing a mail cart in my own life. Not literally. I was running a restaurant bar / club. It was flashy and scenic and people thought I was “successful”. But I was living a false version of myself, seeking approval and validation and exchanging my truth for membership. Deep inside I was unhappy and lost. Or more accurately, hurting.
It wasn’t until my divorce, when I started from scratch that I embarked on the road to rebirth. Sometimes you can’t remodel. There are too many rooms that are fucked up. The house needs to be torn down and built again. I changed careers. I found CrossFit. I made a new batch of friends. But my healing didn’t come from therapy or self help books. It didn’t come from fitness. It didn’t come from friendships. It came from the choice to share my story. Becoming a therapist, connecting with my body, and finding my tribe of course contributed to my growth. But it was embracing my story that created soil for healing.
Most of us want to rip out our chapters. There are things that have happened that are lined with shame, guilt, and regret, things that were beyond our control. And we don’t want anyone to know. We want to forget, ignore, and push away. Because if people knew these things about our story, that would mean we are defective in some way. But the truth is by not embracing our story fully, everything that has happened to us, “good” or “bad”, we are denying ourselves. This is a form of self rejection.
"Whenever we are rejecting ourselves, we are preventing the healing process.
So healing means to fully accept your story. As you accept your story and begin to embrace it by sharing it with others, your story becomes powerful, bigger than you because you can now use it to help others. I believe this is the process that heals. It’s in your acceptance of your story where you’ll find acceptance in self
Your story is the most powerful thing you will ever own.
You can use it to heal you.
I did.
-Angry"
The Angry Therapist - IG: Author of "I Used To Be A Miserable F*CK"
Why Telling Your Story and Being Heard is the Beginning of Healing
“The first step to healing is accepting your story. Then there is a tipping point where your story becomes bigger than you and takes a life of its own. This happens when you not only embrace your story but share it, using it to help others. This process is the true beginning of the healing process. It allows you to separate what happened from who you are. At the same time, reconnecting parts of yourself you have ditched because of shame.”
“Your story is the most powerful thing you will ever own. You can use it to heal you.”
I spent nearly a decade in coffee shops writing stories about other people. I created protagonists and cheered them on their hero’s journey as they stayed their dragons and made the return changed. Forever. I gave them capes. Meanwhile, I was pushing a mail cart in my own life. Not literally. I was running a restaurant bar / club. It was flashy and scenic and people thought I was “successful”. But I was living a false version of myself, seeking approval and validation and exchanging my truth for membership. Deep inside I was unhappy and lost. Or more accurately, hurting.
It wasn’t until my divorce, when I started from scratch that I embarked on the road to rebirth. Sometimes you can’t remodel. There are too many rooms that are fucked up. The house needs to be torn down and built again. I changed careers. I found CrossFit. I made a new batch of friends. But my healing didn’t come from therapy or self help books. It didn’t come from fitness. It didn’t come from friendships. It came from the choice to share my story. Becoming a therapist, connecting with my body, and finding my tribe of course contributed to my growth. But it was embracing my story that created soil for healing.
Most of us want to rip out our chapters. There are things that have happened that are lined with shame, guilt, and regret, things that were beyond our control. And we don’t want anyone to know. We want to forget, ignore, and push away. Because if people knew these things about our story, that would mean we are defective in some way. But the truth is by not embracing our story fully, everything that has happened to us, “good” or “bad”, we are denying ourselves. This is a form of self rejection.
"Whenever we are rejecting ourselves, we are preventing the healing process.
So healing means to fully accept your story. As you accept your story and begin to embrace it by sharing it with others, your story becomes powerful, bigger than you because you can now use it to help others. I believe this is the process that heals. It’s in your acceptance of your story where you’ll find acceptance in self
Your story is the most powerful thing you will ever own.
You can use it to heal you.
I did.
-Angry"
https://entrepreneurs.maqtoob.com/how-to-get-personal-without-making-people-uncomfortable-c5d516a7f825
Storytelling Is An Act of Bravery
When you share your story, you embrace the courage it has taken to live through it.
And eventually, when you share your story and what it has taught you, you give others hope and courage to find meaning in their own struggle.
And inspiring hope and courage in others is one of the essential characteristics of a great leader.
A Survival Story
I have a client who is a brilliant woman with dreams of doing more. Growing up, she was a bright little girl whose inner light dimmed after a relative sexually violated her. She was silent about her abuse for decades because she feared the damage such a revelation could do to her family and her career prospects.
She got an excellent education and was ambitious in her career, but she never seemed to advance as quickly as her colleagues. At first she blamed her bosses for overlooking her because of her gender and her race. And while it’s true that being a black woman in the corporate world put her at a disadvantage, she also recognized that there was more to the story.
She realized she had allowed the untold story of her childhood sexual abuse to define her. She had been living her life as a victim: a victim of abuse, a victim of racism, and a victim of sexism. She had become someone who let others decide the direction she should go next. And she realized that she needed to change this story before the story trapped her in a pattern of unrealized dreams.
So she shared the story of her abuse with some trusted friends — friends who had earned the right to hear it. And through telling her story, she finally understood the deeper meaning of it: she wasn’t a victim at all — she was a survivor.
Better yet, she was a warrior.
Tell Your Story With Care
Telling the story of your painful past will probably feel like tearing the scab off a wound at first. That’s why the first time you tell it, it should be to someone who has earned your trust — someone you’re confident will understand how vulnerable and nervous you feel about sharing, and how much courage it’s taking you to tell it. Someone like a therapist, a spouse, or a close friend.
But the act of telling your story will more than likely reveal the larger meaning it has for you to share with others — meaning that you might not have anticipated.
Your Story Means More Than You Think
Before my client told her close friends her story, she had it in her mind that the larger meaning was “I can’t move forward in my life because people keep treating me like a lesser being.”
Hope + Empathy = Compassion + Confidence
After my client shared the story of her abuse for the first time, she realized the larger meaning of her story is “Even after being sexually abused, even after being treated like a lesser being, I’m still here — and I’m going to move on to do great things.”
Storytelling Is An Act of Bravery
When you share your story, you embrace the courage it has taken to live through it.
And eventually, when you share your story and what it has taught you, you give others hope and courage to find meaning in their own struggle.
And inspiring hope and courage in others is one of the essential characteristics of a great leader.
A Survival Story
I have a client who is a brilliant woman with dreams of doing more. Growing up, she was a bright little girl whose inner light dimmed after a relative sexually violated her. She was silent about her abuse for decades because she feared the damage such a revelation could do to her family and her career prospects.
She got an excellent education and was ambitious in her career, but she never seemed to advance as quickly as her colleagues. At first she blamed her bosses for overlooking her because of her gender and her race. And while it’s true that being a black woman in the corporate world put her at a disadvantage, she also recognized that there was more to the story.
She realized she had allowed the untold story of her childhood sexual abuse to define her. She had been living her life as a victim: a victim of abuse, a victim of racism, and a victim of sexism. She had become someone who let others decide the direction she should go next. And she realized that she needed to change this story before the story trapped her in a pattern of unrealized dreams.
So she shared the story of her abuse with some trusted friends — friends who had earned the right to hear it. And through telling her story, she finally understood the deeper meaning of it: she wasn’t a victim at all — she was a survivor.
Better yet, she was a warrior.
Tell Your Story With Care
Telling the story of your painful past will probably feel like tearing the scab off a wound at first. That’s why the first time you tell it, it should be to someone who has earned your trust — someone you’re confident will understand how vulnerable and nervous you feel about sharing, and how much courage it’s taking you to tell it. Someone like a therapist, a spouse, or a close friend.
But the act of telling your story will more than likely reveal the larger meaning it has for you to share with others — meaning that you might not have anticipated.
Your Story Means More Than You Think
Before my client told her close friends her story, she had it in her mind that the larger meaning was “I can’t move forward in my life because people keep treating me like a lesser being.”
Hope + Empathy = Compassion + Confidence
After my client shared the story of her abuse for the first time, she realized the larger meaning of her story is “Even after being sexually abused, even after being treated like a lesser being, I’m still here — and I’m going to move on to do great things.”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/owning-pink/201211/the-healing-power-telling-your-story
Lissa Rankin, MD: Creator of the health and wellness communities
The Healing Power of Telling Your Story
"One of the reasons I began blogging is because I had a story to tell, one I intended to live out loud, on a public stage, recording along the way the journey of how I had lost my mojo and how I would get it back. Making this one decision to tell my story transformed my life forever...
Why?
Because telling your story—while being witnessed with loving attention by others who care—may be the most powerful medicine on earth. Each us is a constantly unfolding narrative, a hero in a novel no one else can write. And yet so many of us leave our stories untold, our songs unsung—and when this happens, we wind up feeling lonely, listless, out of touch with our life’s purpose, plagued with a chronic sense that something is out of alignment. We may even wind up feeling unworthy, unloved, or sick.
Every time you tell your story and someone else who cares bears witness to it, you turn off the body’s stress responses, flipping off toxic stress hormones like cortisol and epinephrine and flipping on relaxation responses that release healing hormones like oxytocin, dopamine, nitric oxide, and endorphins. Not only does this turn on the body’s innate self-repair mechanisms and function as preventative medicine—or treatment if you’re sick. It also relaxes your nervous system and helps heal your mind of depression, anxiety, fear, anger, and feelings of disconnection.
You Are Not Alone
If I could sum up everything I’ve learned from over four years of blogging, it would boil down to one thing—you are not alone.
So many of us are tormented by the insane idea that we’re separate, disconnected beings suffering all by our little lonesome selves. I say this from experience. That’s exactly how I felt when I started blogging, as if I was the only one in the whole wide world who had lost her mojo and longed to get it back. Then I started telling my story—and voila! Millions of people showed to tell me they had lost their mojo too—or even more inspiring, that they had once lost theirs and since gotten it back.
How had they gotten their mojo back? By telling their story.
The Power of Storytelling
When we tell our stories and others bear witness, the notion that we are disconnected beings suffering alone dissolves under the weight of evidence that this whole concept is merely an illusion and that millions of others are suffering just like us. They say misery loves company, and it’s true! The minute you discover that someone else is suffering just like you—or even better, that they’re celebrating their wholeness just like you—that sense of disconnection eases and you start to glimpse the truth—that we are beings of vibrating energy, connected on the energy internet through processes like quantum entanglement, with overlapping consciousness that connects us to a divine Source and to the Inner Pilot Light of every being on this planet (and perhaps others.)
You Ready To Tell Your Story?
We all have within us a story to tell, a song yet unsung. Is it time for you to tell your story?"
Lissa Rankin, MD: Creator of the health and wellness communities
The Healing Power of Telling Your Story
"One of the reasons I began blogging is because I had a story to tell, one I intended to live out loud, on a public stage, recording along the way the journey of how I had lost my mojo and how I would get it back. Making this one decision to tell my story transformed my life forever...
Why?
Because telling your story—while being witnessed with loving attention by others who care—may be the most powerful medicine on earth. Each us is a constantly unfolding narrative, a hero in a novel no one else can write. And yet so many of us leave our stories untold, our songs unsung—and when this happens, we wind up feeling lonely, listless, out of touch with our life’s purpose, plagued with a chronic sense that something is out of alignment. We may even wind up feeling unworthy, unloved, or sick.
Every time you tell your story and someone else who cares bears witness to it, you turn off the body’s stress responses, flipping off toxic stress hormones like cortisol and epinephrine and flipping on relaxation responses that release healing hormones like oxytocin, dopamine, nitric oxide, and endorphins. Not only does this turn on the body’s innate self-repair mechanisms and function as preventative medicine—or treatment if you’re sick. It also relaxes your nervous system and helps heal your mind of depression, anxiety, fear, anger, and feelings of disconnection.
You Are Not Alone
If I could sum up everything I’ve learned from over four years of blogging, it would boil down to one thing—you are not alone.
So many of us are tormented by the insane idea that we’re separate, disconnected beings suffering all by our little lonesome selves. I say this from experience. That’s exactly how I felt when I started blogging, as if I was the only one in the whole wide world who had lost her mojo and longed to get it back. Then I started telling my story—and voila! Millions of people showed to tell me they had lost their mojo too—or even more inspiring, that they had once lost theirs and since gotten it back.
How had they gotten their mojo back? By telling their story.
The Power of Storytelling
When we tell our stories and others bear witness, the notion that we are disconnected beings suffering alone dissolves under the weight of evidence that this whole concept is merely an illusion and that millions of others are suffering just like us. They say misery loves company, and it’s true! The minute you discover that someone else is suffering just like you—or even better, that they’re celebrating their wholeness just like you—that sense of disconnection eases and you start to glimpse the truth—that we are beings of vibrating energy, connected on the energy internet through processes like quantum entanglement, with overlapping consciousness that connects us to a divine Source and to the Inner Pilot Light of every being on this planet (and perhaps others.)
You Ready To Tell Your Story?
We all have within us a story to tell, a song yet unsung. Is it time for you to tell your story?"
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/sexually-abused-child-years-reclaimed-191201603.html
I Was Sexually Abused as a Child for Years—Here’s How I Reclaimed My Power
I am Satine Phoenix. I am a storyteller, a community leader, and a champion of positivity and inclusivity. This is my story. This is about the power of a woman telling the truth.
Every year on my dad’s birthday, I publicly call him out for molesting me when I was a child. It went on for nine years.
This is a truth I no longer keep secret, and one I talk about in LA Woman Rising, Nana Ghana's new documentary, which profiles 50 women as they wake up in the morning. What Nana has done is remarkable.
Here's why: I love the honesty of what women really are. Many times, we have to hide who we are as women to be accepted in the world. I talk openly about how my dad sexually abused me as a child because I believe we are more powerful when our secrets are not hidden. Part of my father’s power over me and my family was because of secrets. If you put your secrets out into the world, there’s nothing people can hold over you.
People have tried to shame me since I was little. I once told a friend about what my dad was doing to me. My friend told a teacher, who called the authorities. But that wasn’t the end of my story. My mother told me that if I pressed charges, I would be the one responsible for destroying the family. So I didn’t.
In my 20s, I did a lot of fun, crazy things. I became a stripper, and then I got into porn. And people would try to shame me for that. But now that I say these things out loud, I’ve found my own personal power.
I have my voice, and I shouldn’t be ashamed about what I've done, and especially what has been done to me. When you’re a kid and learning about your sexuality, and that normal experience is taken away from you, you keep looking to find it. I had to figure out who men were, and what men meant to me, where they were in my universe.
It wasn’t until I was 28 that I discovered what real platonic love was. He was my roommate at the time. He was so kind, and never took advantage of me. When I got to see that, I found out how good and trusting people can be.
As I discovered that platonic love, I no longer thought I was just an object to be used sexually. I had experienced all of my fantasies, and I was done. My 20s were for experimenting and exploring. Once I hit 30, I said that my life had to be different. I couldn’t stay in porn forever. I did it, and I have no regrets.
That’s when I decided to make the transition back into my art. The idea of this was easier than the application. I’m a classically trained artist but I had dropped out of art school. I had to learn how to draw again. It was starting from zero—no one knew I was an artist.
It wasn’t just art that I was into. It’s story. I’m now the co-author of a non-fiction book, The Action Heroine’s Journey, the co-author of three graphic novels, and I make my living telling and teaching stories as owner of my production company, Gilding Light. I’m teaching people how powerful it is to be the person who overcomes the darkness, and moves forward in their life.
After a lot of soul-searching, I’m now writing a book about how Dungeons and Dragons helped me through my trauma when I started playing in 1988. Nine years of trauma is hardcore. I think it makes sense that I created a character who was so strong, all she wanted to do was fight the monsters.
This year, I won’t be calling my father out on his birthday. Instead I'll be doing one of the most incredible charities of my life, Lost Odyssey: The Book of Knowledge. It’s a live Dungeons and Dragons experience that benefits The Autism Society of America, and I am so honored to be involved. I don’t want to taint this event at all—not even a little bit.
But I will call him out at some point. It’s like a balloon, it needs to be released.
It’s really scary to verbalize what you’ve gone through. But sometimes you have to practice. You have to say it over and over with no one listening. Then you say it to one person. You make a decision to say it to another. And another. Soon the shame you feel talking about it goes away.
It’s not going to be easy. But a good story usually isn't easy.
I Was Sexually Abused as a Child for Years—Here’s How I Reclaimed My Power
I am Satine Phoenix. I am a storyteller, a community leader, and a champion of positivity and inclusivity. This is my story. This is about the power of a woman telling the truth.
Every year on my dad’s birthday, I publicly call him out for molesting me when I was a child. It went on for nine years.
This is a truth I no longer keep secret, and one I talk about in LA Woman Rising, Nana Ghana's new documentary, which profiles 50 women as they wake up in the morning. What Nana has done is remarkable.
Here's why: I love the honesty of what women really are. Many times, we have to hide who we are as women to be accepted in the world. I talk openly about how my dad sexually abused me as a child because I believe we are more powerful when our secrets are not hidden. Part of my father’s power over me and my family was because of secrets. If you put your secrets out into the world, there’s nothing people can hold over you.
People have tried to shame me since I was little. I once told a friend about what my dad was doing to me. My friend told a teacher, who called the authorities. But that wasn’t the end of my story. My mother told me that if I pressed charges, I would be the one responsible for destroying the family. So I didn’t.
In my 20s, I did a lot of fun, crazy things. I became a stripper, and then I got into porn. And people would try to shame me for that. But now that I say these things out loud, I’ve found my own personal power.
I have my voice, and I shouldn’t be ashamed about what I've done, and especially what has been done to me. When you’re a kid and learning about your sexuality, and that normal experience is taken away from you, you keep looking to find it. I had to figure out who men were, and what men meant to me, where they were in my universe.
It wasn’t until I was 28 that I discovered what real platonic love was. He was my roommate at the time. He was so kind, and never took advantage of me. When I got to see that, I found out how good and trusting people can be.
As I discovered that platonic love, I no longer thought I was just an object to be used sexually. I had experienced all of my fantasies, and I was done. My 20s were for experimenting and exploring. Once I hit 30, I said that my life had to be different. I couldn’t stay in porn forever. I did it, and I have no regrets.
That’s when I decided to make the transition back into my art. The idea of this was easier than the application. I’m a classically trained artist but I had dropped out of art school. I had to learn how to draw again. It was starting from zero—no one knew I was an artist.
It wasn’t just art that I was into. It’s story. I’m now the co-author of a non-fiction book, The Action Heroine’s Journey, the co-author of three graphic novels, and I make my living telling and teaching stories as owner of my production company, Gilding Light. I’m teaching people how powerful it is to be the person who overcomes the darkness, and moves forward in their life.
After a lot of soul-searching, I’m now writing a book about how Dungeons and Dragons helped me through my trauma when I started playing in 1988. Nine years of trauma is hardcore. I think it makes sense that I created a character who was so strong, all she wanted to do was fight the monsters.
This year, I won’t be calling my father out on his birthday. Instead I'll be doing one of the most incredible charities of my life, Lost Odyssey: The Book of Knowledge. It’s a live Dungeons and Dragons experience that benefits The Autism Society of America, and I am so honored to be involved. I don’t want to taint this event at all—not even a little bit.
But I will call him out at some point. It’s like a balloon, it needs to be released.
It’s really scary to verbalize what you’ve gone through. But sometimes you have to practice. You have to say it over and over with no one listening. Then you say it to one person. You make a decision to say it to another. And another. Soon the shame you feel talking about it goes away.
It’s not going to be easy. But a good story usually isn't easy.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-hari-depression-causes_us_5a6a144de4b0ddb658c46a21
The Real Causes Of Depression Have Been Discovered, And They’re Not What You Think
According to a research done by a remarkable scientist named Dr. Vincent Felitti that was funded by the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, childhood trauma caused the risk of adult depression to explode. If you had seven categories of traumatic event as a child, you were 3,100 percent more likely to attempt to commit suicide as an adult, and more than 4,000 percent more likely to be an injecting drug user.
**********
One day, one of Dr. Felitti’s colleagues, Dr. Robert Anda, told me something I have been thinking about ever since.
When people are behaving in apparently self-destructive ways, “it’s time to stop asking what’s wrong with them,” he said, “and time to start asking what happened to them.”
**********
But it was what Dr. Felitti discovered next that most helped me. When ordinary patients, responding to his questionnaire, noted that they had experienced childhood trauma, he got their doctors to do something when the patients next came in for care. He got them to say something like, “I see you went through this bad experience as a child. I am sorry this happened to you. Would you like to talk about it?”
Felitti wanted to see if being able to discuss this trauma with a trusted authority figure, and being told it was not your fault, would help to release people’s shame. What happened next was startling. Just being able to discuss the trauma led to a huge fall in future illnesses ― there was a 35-percent reduction in their need for medical care over the following year. For the people who were referred to more extensive help, there was a fall of more than 50 percent. One elderly woman ― who had described being raped as a child ― wrote a letter later, saying: “Thank you for asking ... I feared I would die, and no one would ever know what had happened.”
The act of releasing your shame is – in itself – healing. So I went back to people I trusted, and I began to talk about what had happened to me when I was younger. Far from shaming me, far from thinking it showed I was broken, they showed love, and helped me to grieve for what I had gone through.
If you find your work meaningless and you feel you have no control over it, you are far more likely to become depressed.
As I listened back over the tapes of my long conversations with Felitti, it struck me that if he had just told people what my doctor told me – that their brains were broken, this was why they were so distressed, and the only solution was to be drugged – they may never have been able to understand the deeper causes of their problem, and they would never have been released from them.
The more I investigated depression and anxiety, the more I found that, far from being caused by a spontaneously malfunctioning brain, depression and anxiety are mostly being caused by events in our lives. If you find your work meaningless and you feel you have no control over it, you are far more likely to become depressed. If you are lonely and feel that you can’t rely on the people around you to support you, you are far more likely to become depressed. If you think life is all about buying things and climbing up the ladder, you are far more likely to become depressed. If you think your future will be insecure, you are far more likely to become depressed. I started to find a whole blast of scientific evidence that depression and anxiety are not caused in our skulls, but by the way many of us are being made to live. There are real biological factors, like your genes, that can make you significantly more sensitive to these causes, but they are not the primary drivers.
And that led me to the scientific evidence that we have to try to solve our depression and anxiety crises in a very different way (alongside chemical anti-depressants, which should of course remain on the table).
To do that, we need to stop seeing depression and anxiety as an irrational pathology, or a weird misfiring of brain chemicals. They are terribly painful – but they make sense. Your pain is not an irrational spasm. It is a response to what is happening to you. To deal with depression, you need to deal with its underlying causes. On my long journey, I learned about seven different kinds of anti-depressants – ones that are about stripping out the causes, rather than blunting the symptoms. Releasing your shame is only the start.
The Real Causes Of Depression Have Been Discovered, And They’re Not What You Think
According to a research done by a remarkable scientist named Dr. Vincent Felitti that was funded by the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, childhood trauma caused the risk of adult depression to explode. If you had seven categories of traumatic event as a child, you were 3,100 percent more likely to attempt to commit suicide as an adult, and more than 4,000 percent more likely to be an injecting drug user.
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One day, one of Dr. Felitti’s colleagues, Dr. Robert Anda, told me something I have been thinking about ever since.
When people are behaving in apparently self-destructive ways, “it’s time to stop asking what’s wrong with them,” he said, “and time to start asking what happened to them.”
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But it was what Dr. Felitti discovered next that most helped me. When ordinary patients, responding to his questionnaire, noted that they had experienced childhood trauma, he got their doctors to do something when the patients next came in for care. He got them to say something like, “I see you went through this bad experience as a child. I am sorry this happened to you. Would you like to talk about it?”
Felitti wanted to see if being able to discuss this trauma with a trusted authority figure, and being told it was not your fault, would help to release people’s shame. What happened next was startling. Just being able to discuss the trauma led to a huge fall in future illnesses ― there was a 35-percent reduction in their need for medical care over the following year. For the people who were referred to more extensive help, there was a fall of more than 50 percent. One elderly woman ― who had described being raped as a child ― wrote a letter later, saying: “Thank you for asking ... I feared I would die, and no one would ever know what had happened.”
The act of releasing your shame is – in itself – healing. So I went back to people I trusted, and I began to talk about what had happened to me when I was younger. Far from shaming me, far from thinking it showed I was broken, they showed love, and helped me to grieve for what I had gone through.
If you find your work meaningless and you feel you have no control over it, you are far more likely to become depressed.
As I listened back over the tapes of my long conversations with Felitti, it struck me that if he had just told people what my doctor told me – that their brains were broken, this was why they were so distressed, and the only solution was to be drugged – they may never have been able to understand the deeper causes of their problem, and they would never have been released from them.
The more I investigated depression and anxiety, the more I found that, far from being caused by a spontaneously malfunctioning brain, depression and anxiety are mostly being caused by events in our lives. If you find your work meaningless and you feel you have no control over it, you are far more likely to become depressed. If you are lonely and feel that you can’t rely on the people around you to support you, you are far more likely to become depressed. If you think life is all about buying things and climbing up the ladder, you are far more likely to become depressed. If you think your future will be insecure, you are far more likely to become depressed. I started to find a whole blast of scientific evidence that depression and anxiety are not caused in our skulls, but by the way many of us are being made to live. There are real biological factors, like your genes, that can make you significantly more sensitive to these causes, but they are not the primary drivers.
And that led me to the scientific evidence that we have to try to solve our depression and anxiety crises in a very different way (alongside chemical anti-depressants, which should of course remain on the table).
To do that, we need to stop seeing depression and anxiety as an irrational pathology, or a weird misfiring of brain chemicals. They are terribly painful – but they make sense. Your pain is not an irrational spasm. It is a response to what is happening to you. To deal with depression, you need to deal with its underlying causes. On my long journey, I learned about seven different kinds of anti-depressants – ones that are about stripping out the causes, rather than blunting the symptoms. Releasing your shame is only the start.
May your healing journey be filled with peace, love, and joy. God bless! Namaste...
