Quote from Dr. Lord

Okay, so just hear me out.

I really appreciate client feedback when I have done something that doesn’t feel right, or they disagree with, and even if I’ve hurt their feelings.

Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t feel good. But I am always grateful, because this let’s me know how to better meet them where they are at.

I may be a good therapist, but I am not a mind reader and I don’t always know if/when something doesn’t feel right to a client.

And I am not perfect, I have off days, I make mistakes, and sometimes I misjudge things.

I know many folks won’t speak up or share when something goes wrong, or feels wrong to them, so I value the honest feedback.

So, I share this in hopes that if you are in therapy, you don’t feel that you have to hold back in sharing if things are not sitting right with you. It is your therapy, you deserve to have a space where you can be honest with your therapist, and to get your needs met your way.

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3/8 Sadie

Sadie is a big believer in nap time, just like her mama.

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3/10  tip  PTSD

As I posted earlier, according to the DSM 5, PTSD can develop if you go through a traumatic event, if you witness a traumatic event happening, learning of the traumatic event happening to a close family member or friend, or repeated exposure to traumatic events (for example first responders).

In the US, the lifetime risk for developing PTSD is 6.8% and among those reporting PTSD, 36.6% rated it as serious, 33.1 moderate and 30.2% mild.

When looking at the last year, the prevalence rate of PTSD for women is 8.0%, for men it’s 2.3% and among transgender adults it ranges from 18-61%. There is a range for trans adults due to the varying ways that trans has been defined and studied.

There is mixed and conflicting evidence regarding the rates of PTSD among different racial/ethnic groups. And often the range of gender identities are not included or tracked in large scale studies of mental health.

For adolescents, lifetime risk of PTSD is estimated at 5.0%, for adolescent girls it’s 8.0% and adolescent boys it’s 2.3%.

Symptoms of PTSD typically begin within the first three months after the trauma, although the onset can be delayed by months or years. For about 50% of folks who develop PTSD, the symptoms resolve within 3 months.

The symptoms of PTSD may vary over time and may recur later in life after the person experiences another traumatic event.

PTSD does not mean that the person is weak or broken. It means the traumatic experience got stuck in the brain and nervous system and needs help being resolved.

Sources: NIMH, DSM 5

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3/11 pic  The ability to respond to and recover from the challenges of daily living is a marker of well-being and depends on the actions of the autonomic nervous system.

Mental health and health in general are not static states, or an end point on a journey.

Mental health is an on-going achievement. It is always in motion, as the challenges we face in our day to day lives are always in motion. And these challenges will depend on the various layers or intersections of our identity and lived experiences.

That is why the ability to respond and recover from challenges is a marker of mental health and well-being.

Initially we learn how to respond to challenges from our caregivers growing up. And if you grew up in a toxic, abusive, chaotic, or neglectful home environment, then the conscious patterns of responding you learned may be less than healthy.

And the way your nervous system responds to challenges is also set in this home environment and is rarely under our conscious control. When you grow up in these less than healthy environments, your nervous system’s response to challenge is often hyper- or hypo-arousal (see my previous posts) and addressing these responses will be vital to your healing.

Being able to talk about these challenges, past and present is important. And being able to address how our nervous system reacts to these challenges is even more important. This often comes from therapy that attends to your body, from neurofeedback, from trauma informed yoga, from dance and singing and rhythm.

Find what speaks to you and works for you. There is no one way to heal.

Deb Dana does trainings on polyvagal theory and has a book called Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection, which this quote is drawn from.

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3/12 Quote  It’s important to say what hope is not: it is not the belief that everything was, is, or will be fine…. Critical thinking without hope is cynicism, but hope without critical thinking is naivete. – Rebecca Solnit’s Hope in the Dark

Rebecca Solnit – Hope in the Dark

As a therapist, it is often my job to hold the hope for my clients until they are ready to hold it for themselves.

I think part of this comes from a false sense of what it means to hope, as though hope is all about sunshine and rainbows and a painless future.

But hope is not about believing that everything will be fine, it is about the idea that we have the ability to act and affect our future and our lives in a positive way.

When there is a history of trauma and dysfunction it makes sense that hope is hard to come by, given past patterns and reactions.

Once we start unpacking and better understanding those patterns and reactions, then we are more likely to be able to change those patterns.

When we reprocess past painful memories with EMDR therapy, we are able to change the templates of dysfunctional behavior. We reinforce more adaptive, positive beliefs about the self in these situations, which in turn instills hope for a healthier, happier future.

I am passionate about helping people let go of the pain of their past, live more fully in the present and develop hope for the future. To learn more about me and my practice, click the link in my bio.

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