places to be and do

Not about whats wrong with you its about what happened to you

Survivors OWN ACEs: 30 Days of After Oprah (Day 1)

Day 1

It was #Time’sUp at the Oscars and #MeToo at the Golden Globes but for the rest of us non-Hollywood people it’ was game day last night on  on 60 Minutes.

If you’re buried by snow, parenting or symptoms of traumatic stress, maybe you don’t know Oprah tackled childhood trauma, toxic stress, ACEs, PTSD  or whatever you call crap that happens in childhood and kicks our asses all the way into adulthood.

Oprah said, “This story was life changing for me. Life changing. People use this work rhetorically. Lifechanging. It’s changed the way I operate.”

If I had a football jersey it would say #ThankFck4Oprah on the front and #ItsAboutFrigginTime on the back. For survivors like myself, it was Super Bowl Sundae with the cherry on top. Go here to watch the segment or to read the transcript.

“If I could be a dancing emoji about it I would,” said, “I think it’s that important to our culture.”

Except instead of “you get a car, you get a car, you get a car,” it’s more like, “You get an aha. You get an aha. You get an aha.”

Aha 1. Developmental trauma or why my elevator really doesn’t go to the top floor (i.e. it’s not all in our heads)

When I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress in my early twenties. I kept asking my therapist, “from childhood?” “from my childhood?” because I didn’t even know that was possible.

Bonnie Hahn, a survivor of childhood trauma, who was interviewed on the 60 Minutes segment shared a similar sentiment. “I didn’t understand it because PTSD was for the veterans coming home from the war. That was what I thought it was. I had no idea.”

I too thought trauma stress was reserved for veterans. I thought the rest of us who agonized over the ache of childhood had mental-illness/issues we were supposed to work on in private while trying to pass for normal. I knew I was different. The world seemed like it was easier for others to navigate. I thought I was too sensitive. I thought I was flunking “doing” human. I had no idea the “baggage” I was carrying was literally burdensome to my growing brain, body and being.

I thought I wasn’t trying hard enough. That was hard.

Most of us deal with what happens to us in childhood in painful isolation. Without public health stats and stories getting to us, as kids, or even grown-ups, we have no context to what does or doesn’t happen for other kids. We don’t know what’s developmental trauma or what’s just-the-way-it-is. We know our experience.

We don’t know what happens to us, as kids, can protect or threaten us for the rest of our lives and has everything to do with health and well-being.

About the Survivors Own ACEs series. 

This is the first of 30 posts about the Oprah segment on 60 Minutes last night.

There are those of us who have been raised with the ABC’s of ACEs and are still slogging it out in adult life if we got through baby-toddler-childhood. However, our first-person perspectives are often missing even when about how adults live after childhood trauma. That’s wrong.

Most of us spend most of our days outside of a clinical hour or conference.

Academic research and medical models often miss the mark. The fail to include the living-while-surviving stuff such as recovering, raising kids, working, managing post-traumatic stress and racism, sexism, poverty (fill-in-the-blank) and paying bills.

We have, as Sebern Fisher says, “fear-driven brains” but don’t get an assist on parenting, partnering, or personing. We often just do life while afraid. We spend a shit ton of energy regulating our symptoms and trying to get back in our bodies (or not).

And we suffer the consequences of ACEs in all sorts of social-emotional-financial ways. And die earlier, on average, when there’s been too much. So if we own the consequences of ACEs and developmental trauma – how about we own this conversation, moment and trauma-informed movement so that maybe it’s informed by trauma survivors and not edupuked all over us?

I’ve been living, thinking, writing, researching and interviewing others about healing and post-traumatic stress for three decades. Add in childhood, and my work spans a half-century. I certify myself as a subject matter expert on trauma-informed? I can speak about life and healing informed by trauma.  I’m not alone. There are lots of us. But for GRRRR sake, it’s often pretty lonely.

It’s going to take survivors, parents, and teachers to move trauma-informed change in day to day life. And out of classrooms, boardrooms and therapy sessions.

Many are thrilled that Oprah said trauma, said ACEs, and “trauma-informed” last night. And it’s nice that the conversation got mainstreamed in such a major way. But that’s not what delights me most. It’s not just the topic but who is talking and how because language matters and so does experience.

I’m delighted the world gets the shift from “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” but I’m also clear that survivors have questions for one another and others. 

Sometimes, it’s not the questions that need to change but the one who is doing the asking. Asking is good but don’t frame all interactions and call that a relationship. Preview the agenda and ask and then allow for feedback. Maybe, let’s let those with the most skin in the game lead the conversation. Maybe, don’t just invite us in from time to time but insist on our inclusion at the strategy, policy and implementation level.

When that happens it goes in different directions. Cue Oprah. Oprah, who isn’t relegated to the “lived experience” corner but speaks with and to and as us.

Oprah is a survivor helping us OWN this movement.

#ThankFck4Oprah and #ItsAboutFrigginTime

Aha 2 Preview: There’s a test for that?

Just this : MY HEART; Little Girl Speak

“And when the foundation you’re standing on, begins to break apart; let it crumble. Let it go, Little One. You were never meant to survive on jagged rocks, that were piercing holes, through the bottoms of your feet. You will build a new foundation; a stronger one. One, where you will have mighty wings to fly; and the courage and bravery, to speak.”

-Little girl speak

“I think it’s the hardest form of loss; to mourn the safety and the love, that we never really had, to begin with.”
-Little girl speak

“And you’ve got to find her; this little girl inside you. You’ve got to love her, and hold her tight. You’ve got to safely wrap, your tired arms around her. It’s the only possible way, that she will ever, be alright.”
-Little girl speak

Some people leave sparkles, wherever they go. Me? I try to help survivors to believe, that they are never alone.”
-Little girl speak 

“And I learned how to survive, in the deepest of waters. The very same waters you threw me into head first, when you knew, that I couldn’t swim.”

-Little girl speak

“And sometimes I still choose not to fly, even though I know the span of my wings. For there are still days, where in spite of the sunlight, my heart is weighed down, by broken things.”
-Little girl speak

“And I finally washed up on the shore, after decades and decades, of fighting this war. With wounded marks, and battle scars. With only traces left, of what once was my heart. But I won’t give up. No, the fight isn’t over. It’s only just the start. And I know I can’t quit, until I put myself, back together. This battle, won’t be won, until every ounce of my pain, has been transformed, into glorious art.”
-Little girl speak

Sometimes you can just feel it : Mid year reflections

So yea there is a lot, a lot of things that are going on.  I have learned a lot cried a lot . I feel like many things have changed, and many things are different. I know that I am different, changing letting things go and keeping other things even closer.  I am learning that there is no forever.  I am learning not to lean on forever, and that hard because I want it more than anything.  People that you think are always can be gone just like that.  I am tired of people saying to ask for what you need I am finding that doesn't work for me.  I have tried in the past and yea that didn't work.  I tried recently and yes that didn't work either I was just reminded of all the time that I have taken and the hours that were spent on me.  All I asked was to be remembered in those moments that I was thought of.  A quick thinking of you take care.  Nothing more nothing less just that and it backfired. So this mid year update I am at a  place of moving forward.  I am in a place of doing what is right for me. Of not trying to hold on to those things that I have to fight for, love, friendship, self respect. Dare I even say I am finding that there of parts being in my skin that are just a part of who I am and maybe there is not a need to change, drop or make it into something else.  Yes, there are things that I would love to be different but that quirky passionate, introvert, that is something that I am not willing to give up or change. 

I have been unfriended, I have unfollowed.  If something hurts then why keep getting reminders of those places that you were not invited.  The things that you were not included in. If I am not a friend anymore please do me a favor and unfriend me.  I want people around that want to be and want me around. SO to do what is right for me. I don't do fake or strained. I love that song I hope your happy.  And those that have recently more than let me down.  I do hope the best, that they are happy but I can't keep fighting for a place in your world or with people that have never chosen me.  I was never first.  I was never a choice for them so I have taken myself out of the picture.  OH that more than hurts but its less than the hurt of wanting to belong so much that you sacrifice yourself.  I am not willing to do that anymore.  I don't think that many of those people meant to break me.  I think they were just thinking of themselves and forget to be a little kinder a little gentler, because we all know that I feel EVERYTHING, much deeper than is to be expected.  Every lost note, left out lunch dae, unliked experience, forgotten important date I feel them to my bones and I don't want to be ignored anymore. I am tired of my experiences the things that are important to me being looked over.  My experiences even the saddest ones deserve to be acknowledged even for the 12,000 time.  Because you see it may be the 12001 time that makes it better, that makes it different that helps me breath a little easier in life.  Believe me you so want to be there for those moments; when they aren't as big as they once were, and there is that lightening on my  shoulders.  Those are the moments that I am made of.  I feel like I am coming into my own more, standing up for myself, doing things that are right for me. Its hard, it's really really hard. but I know things, I know what I am doing, I know that I have some really important things to say and to share.  There is a lot of difference in this life left to make.

If you want to be in my life, I welcome you, I hope that you can take the ugly often messy life that is mine and join in.  All I ask is that you also let me join yours even sometimes,  to be invited to be needed, to feel like I belong those are the things that help my heart.  In that mess there is love, and a great amount of passion for the things that I believe in. I will do anything for you and give all that I have.  I have gotten to the point where I kept giving at any cost. That, , that is where the damage is done and no matter what you do or give you just don't matter, and that is a place that no one really wants to be.   There is a sense of where I am going and what I want and I won't stop until I get them. Like forever, I want a forever, my very own everyday forever,  because I long for that as much as I need to breathe. I hold on too tight to things that used to work that used to care for my heart, in the end I am left and alone and I don't like that place.


Today I watching a movie and the girl laid her head on her dad.  There is a safety and a knowing in that that I have never gotten to experience.  I can not for the life of me imagine that feeling, having that protector and safety and knowing a single person would do anything to hold your heart and take care of it and then I realized I have never had that as a constant, I think that there were times that I  felt in but in hindsight they were things that weren't mine.  They were borrowed things and not meant for me. I want that.  I want that feeling.  And I think I hold on so tight every time that I think I have found it because its something that I have never ever had, and want it so very much.

But at the same time I need to stop looking for it in the wrong places.  Looking for someone or something to fill the things that I am looking for.  I tend to get comfy I think and eep looking in the same places if I didn't find it the first second or third time maybe it's time I try something different. Different people different places different things.  There are pieces of me that will always be there a huge part of who I am but I have come so fat to stop.  If I am not finding those things that I want so much then I just have to keep searching.  I am not a quitter that's for sure , but stepping out of my comfort zone that is something totally different.  I just want to be safe and I want to know that my heart will be taken care of .

Then there is the day.  Today marks the last day of Vincent and Marisk'a middle school years.  At 12:40 pm I will officially have two freshman in the house. That is terrifying and exciting.  I know that they are awesome people, I know that they are going to do amazing things.  I know all those things but there is  a sad part, a purely selfish part.  They are growing up, creating their own lives.  Next year is a big year .  Their life is so very different than the one that I lived, and I am grateful for that.  I wish that Mariska was not so much like me, and in many ways she is her own person, I just want her happy.  My heart literally hurts I love them so much.  I never imagined love like this.  And they are mine.  We have good things ahead of us.  A summer of chilling, swimming, playing games being together,netflix.  All those things, and I could not ask for more. 

I heart your heart