I am delighted to share with you my guest blog post I wrote MentalHealthTalk.Info:
As a trauma therapist, I was busy helping others recover from childhood trauma when my own incest memories surfaced. That was when I was in my late 40’s and as so many of my clients, I protested, “Why now?!” For the first time in my life things were going really well. That’s the way it is with memories. They come when we’re ready for them. Read more
Friends and colleagues, I’m working on a Facebook page so that we can meet and talk and help one another heal. It’s a place where you can meet and talk and ask me questions—I’ll respond regularly. I’ll also post updates for any events such as speaking engagements or book tour appearances. This is a page for victims, survivors, the friends, family members and supporters.
Please visit, comment and share the page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Confessions-of-a-Trauma-Therapist-Preventing-Child-Sexual-Abuse/131268826933462?ref=sgm
It’s a work in progress, but the page is open to you right now. I look forward to hearing from you.
Want a fast and easy way to gain accurate, up-to-date information about traumatic memory and dissociation? Go to www.isst-d.org/education/trauma-info.htm. Then click on students and public.
Next, click on dissociative disorder information or trauma information or frequently asked questions.
The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation is a society of clinicians, researchers and academics that exists to train professionals and educate the public about psychological trauma.
Or you might Google traumatic memory. I did and I found solid, informative papers by leaders in the field of psychological trauma. Under Scholarly Articles for Traumatic Memory, click on van der Kolk and you’ll find this expert’s paper explaining the following:
“Trauma is an inescapably stressful event that overwhelms people’s coping mechanisms.” He describes “the differences between the recollections of stressful and traumatic events.”
A study of 46 subjects with PTSD indicates that “traumatic memories are retrieved, at least initially, in the form of dissociated mental imprints of sensory and affective elements of the traumatic experience: as visual, olfactory, affective, auditory and kinesthetic experiences. Over time, subjects reported the gradual emergence of a personal narrative that can be properly referred to as “explicit memory.”
In my book, Confessions of a Trauma Therapist you can follow my personal process as my “traumatic memories were retrieved at least initially in the form of dissociated mental imprints.” I was in my late 40s before I had a personal narrative that made sense of my life and was a clear memory of incest.
What’s your image of a child who’s living with sexual abuse? When you can’t run and you can’t flee, you freeze. It’s what all mammals do. Would you have recognized my frozen state?
My parents thought I was a very calm child.
“Mary Kay’s not afraid of anything,” they would boast.
Little did they realize that at the slightest hint of danger I jumped inside myself where nothing could get to me and where I wouldn’t even know what was happening. Of course I didn’t squeal or tremble. I was frozen. Somehow their parental eyes did not recognize the signs of trauma.
I still have a photograph of myself at about seven years of age, shopping in Toronto with my mother and sister. In the forties when not everyone owned a camera, street photographers made a living snapping pictures of passersby. Once they developed the pictures they mailed them to their subjects. My mother must have agreed to pay because there we are, my mother, my sister and I walking along Bloor Street. In the picture my mother and sister are striding along, oblivious to the photographer’s presence. My mother is wearing a tall hat that no doubt is meant to add stature to her five feet. Two fox skins, complete with little heads, hang around her neck to her waist, their glassy eyes staring at the sidewalk.
As for me I am the poster child of post traumatic stress disorder. My neck is pulled down into my torso. My left hand is making its way to my frightened face. My eyes are wide with terror, expecting something awful to happen. The photographer has caught me at the very moment I am disappearing inside myself.
