Trauma: Part 1

Trauma can manifest in a multitude of ways. Anney and Samantha talk about the different types of trauma.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, this is Annie and you're listening to stuff Moon
never told you. We are once again joined by my
good friend Samantha. Hello Samantha on Young UH. For this

(00:32):
our third episode and our mini series on trauma in
the Age of Me Too UM, and we figured we
would do an entire episode on trauma itself, what it
looks like, what it feels like, which just makes sense,
I think UM. Our last episode was about grooming and
how that leads to abuse. So the next step in

(00:53):
that arc of abuse is what comes after, which is
often trauma. And we touched on this briefly in our
episode around PTSD and c PTSD. UM. These both results
from traumas, but oftentimes in our society we hear about
it in terms of soldiers and veterans, not so much

(01:17):
about in terms of abuse and sexual assault. And that
is not to downplay any type of trauma. It's just
to say that we don't hear about trauma in terms
of what we're talking about sexual assault and abuse that often.
And for the trigger warnings for this episode specifically, UM,

(01:40):
we're going to be talking about sexual assaults, sexual abuse, abuse,
self harming and suicidal ideation, and trauma itself. So if
any of those are triggering for you, please take care
of yourself and think about yourself before you continue to listen.
Take a minute care for yourself. Actually, So let's start

(02:02):
with some definitions of the different types of trauma. The
American Psychological Association or the APA, defines trauma as quote,
the emotional response someone has to an extremely negative event.
Trauma is fairly common and normal in the aftermath of
a terrible event or events, but depending on the severity,
it can majorly impact a person's life and may require

(02:25):
outside help to get back to a healthy state of mind.
And according to Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration SAMSA,
trauma isn't an event, series of events, or sets of
circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or
emotionally harmful or life threatening and that has lasting adverse

(02:47):
effects on the individuals functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional,
or spiritual well being. Trauma has no boundaries with regard
to age, gender, socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.
And in an article I was reading before we recorded
this from The New Yorker, one Ideaz wrote, trauma is

(03:09):
a time traveler and or boros that reaches back and
devours everything that came before. Only fragments remain. No one
can hide forever. Eventually what used to hold back the
truth doesn't work anymore. You run out of escapes, you
run out of exits, you run out of gambits, you
run out of luck. Eventually the past finds you. And

(03:30):
I feel like that is such a powerful quote. I agree,
it is a show. You can't ignore what has happened.
It has to be treated. You have to care about
it because it affects your daily life. Eventually, and I
can speak from experience. Eventually, right, it will come out right.
Trauma can be caused by a lot of things. Aside
from the combat soldiers face, there's also domestic violence, rate,

(03:53):
natural disasters, severe illness or injury, death of a loved one,
neglect in children, so operation from a parent, which we're
seeing as a result of Trump's family separation at the border,
witnessing an act of violence. And it is worth noting
you don't have to be present at a traumatic event
to experience trauma. Although that is usually the case, it

(04:15):
doesn't have to be which brings us to secondary trauma,
which is also sometimes called compassion fatigue and secondary trauma
occurs from witnessing and events police or school shootings. Nine
eleven is often brought up or someone in social work
like you are, Samantha or first responders. Yeah, it's actually

(04:36):
something that really should be monitored, but oftentimes isn't. Communities
have actually gotten better with making sure to offer support
during major times of crisis, such as a mass shooting
or traumatic events, but oftentimes people such as myself a
social worker or teachers, first responders are not given that
same consideration on a daily basis. The things that we see,

(04:57):
the things that we hear often affect our relationships, our
daily progress, and even just sleep. I know I struggled
with that as a de FACTS worker. When I say
de Facts Department Family Children's Services, I often had trouble
sleeping and it was a constant thing and we were
rarely given um any opportunity to rest because honestly, with

(05:17):
that type of field, you don't have time to rest.
There's always a crisis. Yeah, and that's something that we
need taking to consideration for jobs like that. We need
to think about the health and well being of the
people who are working in those fields, and we often
don't UM Another thing that is common among social workers
like yourself is um or anyone who is dealing with

(05:42):
someone who has had trauma. Is this secondary thing right
And I will tell you right now, majority of people
like myself who are in these types of field, we
have some type of traumatic background and oftentimes don't see
out help because a part of the trauma is to
ignore the signs of personal stress or in an inability
to see the signs. For myself, the signs of me

(06:03):
relapsing in a PTSD moment often begins with physical signs.
I often don't recognize it until later down the road.
I work in a field when I have to read
crimes committed by youth, including sex offenses, and have to
train and keep up to date with the issues our
community faces, such as we previously talked about the c
SEC community, the sexually exploited children, and and then be

(06:23):
abuse and neglect. And just a little backstory on my
personal history. I was originally born in South Korea and
was placed in an orphanage at a young age. Um
and yes I mean legit orphanage with life physics for missionaries.
All the above not quite as destitute as the any
orphan movie depiction, but not the best either. And I

(06:44):
was subjected to abuse and the collect from both my
biological family and from the orphanage, and even experienced sexual
abuse when I was brought to the u S. And
being a social worker, I can be triggered often, and
as I said before, I'm not the only one. We
have a need to protect others and advocate for others
because of the experiences that we have, and that's kind

(07:04):
of how we began our career stance. But that doesn't
neglect the fact that we have trauma in our own
selves and on our past, and it causes a lot
of issues in our daily lives. Yeah, and as I've
mentioned before, I'm so thrilled I got put on the
show as an intern. But the reason I got to
put on it was because I was the only woman,

(07:25):
and uh, I was triggered all the time, and I
didn't know what to do about it, and I I
developed what I call the callous. So now people ask
me like, well, how do you do those jobs I have?
I have this very extensive callous and that's a common
question for me as well, how do you do stop?
I couldn't do this about where you blah, blah blah

(07:47):
blah blah, And it's true. I understand some people are
not able to do it. Honestly, I kind of wish
I didn't have to do it, and I kind of
wish I didn't experience some of the things. Who wants
to go through these things? But at the same time,
I agree with that callus you have to move on.
And I will say social workers have some of the
most obscene sense of humors because we have to in

(08:08):
order to cope with some of the things that we see. Yeah,
I understand. Another type of trauma is temporary trauma. Are
acute trauma, which is what occurs after a single event
like a car accident or a hurricane. There's chronic trauma,
repeated traumatic events that occur over a long period of time,

(08:29):
or like ongoing abuser neglect. And then there is complex trauma.
There are four components to complex trauma. One it begins
in childhood, that two continues over time, and three frequently
takes place in a caregiving relationship where the caretaker is
the threat or for a variety of reasons, cannot support,

(08:49):
nurture or protect the child from the threat. That results
in for immediate and long term impacts that manifest in
many ways. Then there's historical trauma, which is collective cumulative
trauma experienced by a particular group, like slavery or colonization, homophobia.
There's racial trauma, racial harassment, and experiencing or witnessing racial violence.

(09:12):
All of these deserve their own episodes. I want to
bring in people to talk about that. Um there's re traumatization.
This is conscious or unconscious reminder of past trauma that
leads to re experiencing the traumatic event, and we're going
to talk about that more in this episode. But in
the era of hashtag me too, this is everywhere, right

(09:35):
and let's just remind that it may not just be
one specific thing. There's several forms of trauma and you
may be suffering or an individual who may be suffering
from several of these categories. And sometimes this makes it
even more difficult to try to diagnose, but we'll get
into that later on. Yes, and I did want to

(09:55):
know there's also a physical trauma, which is broken bones
of your burn earns, but that's not really what we're
talking about today. I did want to mention it, but
it's not what we're really direct and just to put
it out there. Physical trauma can lead to self harming
and violent outbursts and physical forms. So there are definitely
reactive things to what we feel. And that's could be
the severity of abuse, physical abuse which kind of can

(10:19):
follow into repeat abuse of yourself because this is what
you know as a form of a punishment or disciplinity action.
That's a long story and again we're not going to
go into that, but it definitely has occurred, right, and
it can also be perhaps related to other forms of trauma.
Maybe you are experiencing physical trauma as a result of abuse,
and again you can have more than one of these traumas.

(10:43):
So let's look at some stats. Um, Like we said,
a lot of stats around PTSD, which is, as the
names suggests, post traumatic stress disorder a big part of this.
A lot of those numbers are based on veterans and
people who have served in the army. But each year,
the Department of Veterans Affairs estimates five point two million

(11:05):
people suffer post traumatic stress disorder and seven to eight
percent of the population will experience PTSD seven to eight percent.
That probably sounded like seven to eight which as the
name applies, Yeah, this is very common. If you've gone
to any kind of traumatic event. Women are more likely
to develop PTSD than men. Women with four or more

(11:30):
PTSD symptoms developed cardiovascular disease at six or higher. And
that just is to reinforce this is a physical It
impacts you physically mentally, It has all this reach that
I think we forget about, right and just just to
could put it out there again, with the Department Veterans Affairs,

(11:51):
they had to have their own individual department because of
the vast amounts of PTSD that was happening from wars,
from training even that that was that severe, and honestly,
because it is a group and a collective, it was
easier to gather evidence to see exactly how or what
they were suffering from. So that is why this exists.

(12:14):
And we know many many people in the military and
the things that have to go through in order to
become a part of a unit that fights together is
a breaking down of theirselves as an individual. So that
has a whole lot of Again, this is also another
podcast which any I'm glad to do, I'll be back.
I'm just saying, but it is more and more information

(12:35):
and this is how it's kind of trickled down as
we look at trauma and what trauma looks like and
how that affects into the individual common people. I guess
what is that common? What is that when they're not
they're not military, they're not Oh my goodness, sorry, Andrew,
you havenna have a lot of work to do. So.

(12:55):
Untreated trauma related alcohol and drug abuse cost one hundred
sixty one billion dollars in two thousand and learns. So
not only is this a mental and physical problem, but
it's an economic problem if we want to look at
it that way, because that's the only way our country
likes to take things. Seriously, I'm honestly me being in

(13:16):
the juvenile justice system, we see this as a thing
we actually have to go back and look what's the
most cost effective treatment and just detaining kids who probably
have some type of mental health diagnosis, because this is
what we are seeing more and more of, and that's
now becoming more apparent than it is trauma related that

(13:37):
we are understanding. Oh my goodness, this is costing us
so much money for not treating it because a lot
of this could be preventative. And when I say preventative,
not the trauma part, but before they hit an endpoint
where they have complete destruction, whether it's physical destruction of
themselves or their community. But when once you start looking
at the physcal cost of it, it is better to

(13:59):
treat and to recognize and diagnose at an early stage. Yeah,
and I um, I've mentioned before I have a wonderful
friend who is a traveling nurse. And actually when I
mentioned that we were doing this and um that I
had this friend that was a social worker and she
was coming on the podcast with me, she she wanted
to meet you because she said that that has become

(14:22):
a part of her job that she did not expect
that a lot of times people come in too because
she works in the emergency room in the emergency room
and they have some kind of trauma or mental issue
that she is not trained to deal with, but she
is expected to deal with, right And it I think

(14:43):
it illustrates that this is a really big problem that
we're not treating. It's a health problem. That's exactly what
it comes down to. Because whether or not you want
to admit a mental health affects her physical health, which
is why we have to have this conversation of in
the end, if you don't treat yoursel off as you
told them the quote, it does come back to haunt you. Yeah,

(15:03):
you can't out run it forever. And of people in
the United States experienced trauma before the age of sixteen.
That's one for In some places the number is higher
some places that I read closer to sixty. This is
probably something that is underreported, right, And you gotta also
remember metro areas versus suburbs. This is what I've seen

(15:27):
working in Georgia, and my focus is within the metro
area Atlanta, Bolton County, Clayton County, versus being out in
l J, Georgia, which is where I'm from, all the
apples in the mountains, which is a little different because
the level of violence that you see, the level of
gang activity that you see are lower in suburban areas

(15:50):
than is in the actual city parts. Right, those city
parts for a city. Apparently I'm silver Melogy because I
was all city folks. I'll just stay there. That sounds
like how my family talks about me. So if you're
tapping into I think this is my l J coming
out and eventually you'll you'll him so much more. Do

(16:11):
you think that I'm a city folks? I do because
you also dressed up in costumes that I don't understand
and celebrate. This wakes at a time, costumes, shavings. I
put on clothes, but I also podcast. Now I'm talking
about costumes, talking about I'm talking about Spiderman costume. I
bring up the spider I'm just saying, that's a city

(16:33):
folks thing. That's fair. That is a fair point. Um.
If we look at l g B t q I folks, um,
l g B t q I youth experienced trauma at
a higher rate than their straight counterparts, resulting from things
like assault, harascent, building, intimate partner violence, physical and sexual abuse,
and social stigma, bias and rejection politics. You can also

(16:58):
look at the intersection of like something like the shooting
in Orlando, which is traumatic on multiple levels. And I'll
add um with the partner intimate partner violence, it is
probably one of the least reported because you oftentimes have
a confusion of well can you hurt each other, you're
both female, you're both male, blah blah blah, and it's

(17:20):
oftentimes under reported, like I said before, and or not
even considered partner violence and more dismissed. Yes, Um. Recently,
I was researching um consents for a different episode, and
I was reading stories about women who were saying that
they had been essentially assaulted by a female partner and

(17:42):
the police show up and they're like, that asked, not
possible exactly. It's kind of back to the point of
First of all, the l g b t q I
community are not regarded as full citizens, which is ridiculous
in itself. And then you start looking at these stereotypes
in which police and a lot of other people start

(18:04):
heavily leading on instead of seeing it for what it is,
which is, yes, this is if there are partners, and
if the one person is showing dominance of another in
a violent manner, that is an abusive relationship. Yeah. And
another problem that plays into that that we don't have
time to delve into right now, but is laws, because

(18:26):
right now rape is defined is pretty much penetrative sex
with a penis in vagina, vaginal sex um. But you
this is so glossed over because our laws are not
there and because we don't. Yeah, like you said, people

(18:49):
of the lgbt q I community are treated as second
class um compared to heteronormative and sus gendered folks. There
at one point six to three point nine times more
likely to develop PTSD. It's very specific numbers. Yeah, and
I've said a million times, not a million, but a
lot on this show that there is not enough research

(19:13):
that is outside of our heteronormative realm. And so I'm
happy there is research around this. But it is new
and it's ongoing, So I'm glad that it exists. I
wanted to continue to exist and to grow and expand.
But um, yeah, normally I can't find any numbers around
this stuff. So I'm just glad, even if they're depressing conforts.

(19:37):
I'm glad that we're looking into it. The more you know,
the more you know. Indeed, we have some more of
this discussion around trauma, but first we have a quick
break for word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank

(19:57):
you sponsor. So what does trauma look like? It can
manifest and a lot of ways and look like a
lot of different things, depending on the person and the events.
Sometimes the symptoms are unnoticeable even to the person experiencing
it and the person's friends and family. All of these

(20:19):
that were about to discuss take place over the short
or long term, which long term could be lasting years
and years and years. Um. Long term effects are generally
more severe. The sooner someone is able to get help,
the better when it comes to successful treatment. Correct. And
I would say with that, you have to remember again,

(20:41):
trauma has been fairly new and so therefore people don't
even recognize it as its own entity, and oftentimes will say, oh,
she's just having an episode. It would be dismissed fairly regularly,
and or oh, I'm just sad, and or oh, I
just feel down today, overly anxious. It is misdiagnosed in

(21:03):
our own selves and we don't understand what is happening. So,
even though this has been around forever and ever, the
idea of trauma informed whatever, however, whether it's therapy, trauma
informed um treatments, trauma informed diagnosis, it is new. And
when we start hearing back from families of like, oh,

(21:23):
you start looking back and like, oh, okay, that's what
that was, it is it's definitely a newer way of
looking at what we're going through and the severity of
what it is. Yeah, And I feel like kind of
related to that is this idea that you'll just get
over it, like it's a passing thing. You're sad right now,
but you'll get over it. I feel like that's how

(21:46):
our society has been around this for a while. And
I don't want to speak for other countries, but I
have traveled a lot and I can say in those
other countries I saw a similar thing where it was
like you don't get therapy, like you don't admit that
you have some kind of mental problem or like things
that you have to work through. And I'm hoping that

(22:09):
we're moving away from that, right. I think that's something again,
this could be a whole different episode about therapy and
treatment and destigmatizing what that is and why we need it,
because as a social worker, we often talk about the
fact everyone needs therapy, whether you want to admit it
or not, whether it's because your mother was too cleany,

(22:30):
or whether it's bigger right, even one of those things,
it is something that you need to deal with because
it does affect you. And who doesn't want to be
better in their lives because oftentimes, when you correct yourself,
you're able to give more. UM is absolutely loving yourself
and being able to love others. I know, like St.
Augustin quote, is love and do as you please, and

(22:50):
essentially it's for you too. Literally that if you love
something or someone, you want the best for them, that
goes for yourself. Yeah, and I've said but for on
this show, I have a friend in particular I'm thinking of.
But um, my number one advice to her is that
she needs to become okay with herself because she's always

(23:14):
seeking someone, usually a man, usually a relationship to make
her happy. But she's so miserable by herself. And to me,
you need to become okay with yourself and then you'll
be a whole person in a relationship. Like you don't
you complete me? That's a lie, Like that's you need

(23:35):
to complete yourself and that person needs to complete themselves.
And then you're compatible and then you're both living your
own lives but also complimenting each other. This is a tangent.
That's just my beliefs. I was gonna say, just going
back into the trauma part, this is why treatment is important.
This is why I'm being able to recognize it. It's important.
And this is why having a plan is important. It

(23:55):
is and we a little while back, we had an
episode all of horror movies called why Didn't You Believe Her?
But this this next bit is related to that um
and the immediate aftermath of a traumaic event. Someone might
appear shaken or disoriented, and they might appear withdrawn or
they might refuse to speak. They might not remember key details,

(24:18):
or they may remember inaccurately, or they might remember seemingly
random details very vividly. And I Yeah, we talked about
this a little bit in past episodes of how that
can look like two police officers responding as being cold
or playing into the idea that someone typically in this case,

(24:40):
someone who has experienced sexual assault is quote faking it. Um,
they aren't the emotional mess that police or responders are expecting. Yeah,
And to add in their memory or repression due to
traumatic events are actually more common than people know. Disassociate
of amnesia and inability to we call autobiographical information. This

(25:03):
could be specific to an event, selective, or overall generic
in terms of identity or of life's history. There are
many events that I still can't remember, but experience a
lot of PTSC moments due to let say, smell, taste,
or even emotion with that actual link to an event,
and you have to remember memory repression and suppression could

(25:23):
be a defensive tactic. And I think that's what we
don't understand when we inaccurately remember things. It's not because
we're trying to falsify information, is because our mind is
trying to protect from something that you can't handle. Yeah,
and we're going to get into some of the science
around that. And from personal experience, I can say, yes,

(25:45):
I remember the weirdest things very vividly, specifically what I
was wearing. I remember what I was wearing in like
every occasion. Some other things, important things I don't know,
but I remember. And I could have everything to do
with again, and you protecting yourself and focusing on something insignificant, Yeah,
it's something like anything to take your mind off of

(26:08):
this horrible, right event that's happening. One of the key
hallmarks of trauma is anxiety. That's a big one. It
can display in a lot of different ways. Mood swings,
night terrors, edginess, irritability, and inability to concentrate. Those are
just some of the identifiers of anxiety. There's a there's

(26:29):
a lot more. Emotional responses are one of the most
common ways trauma manifests. So you've got anger, depression, um depression,
and trauma have very high rates of comorbidity. Depression is
a long lasting malaise or feelings of despair, sadness, lack
of interest. I know a lot of you probably know
what it is, but just to be clear. According to

(26:50):
the Department of Veterans Affairs, rates of depression occur three
to five times more often among those that have experienced
trauma and PTSD as compared to those that haven't. Honestly,
this is one of my go to emotions after being triggered,
and sometimes I don't even recognize it until after a
certain amount of time. I've gotten a lot better at
recognizing my own physical signs and have have to put

(27:13):
an action for myself to protect myself, um and to
make sure that I'm okay. Yeah, And that's that's something
I think is very keys learning in yourself these things
that are triggering and what it does, and then having
a plan in place. That's something that I have had
to learn and has been very helpful for me. Denial

(27:34):
is a big thing. Feelings of intense helplessness, low self esteem,
emotional outbursts, particularly towards friends and family. This often results
and pushing away those that can help you, and then guilts, blame,
and survivor's guilt, particularly specifically talking about survival guilt. If
you look at family and friends of perpetrators. Example R.

(27:57):
Kelly's daughter who just went we only posted a pretty
intense post regarding her relationship with her father R. Kelly.
And let's go ahead and say and make this clear.
It is not the fault of the people connected to
the perpetrators. And oftentimes they are victims as well. We
need to be sure to remember that because they are

(28:17):
also probably going through some type of trauma, whether or
not you want to believe it, but oftentimes this is
part of the survivor of guilt, or not necessarily survivor guilt,
but just guilt in general. And I will say part
of the reason I am a social worker is due
to my survivor's guilt. And I feel the need to
advocate and help others because I was able to survive
such a horrible incidents that I want to make sure

(28:39):
that other kids can do so. And I think it's
really important that we advocate for those who can't for themselves.
And as you know, why you were being victimized, you
weren't really able to advocate for yourself. Because you're trying
to figure out what was happening in your life at
that point in time. Yeah, and that's part of the
reason we're doing this UM, and we're going to return

(29:01):
to survivor's guilts in a future episode because it is
a big part of this whole arc that we're talking about. UM.
But if we look at physical responses, there are a
lot um weight loss, weight gain, headaches, stomach pain or indigestion,
frequent crying, aches and pains, muscle tension. A lot of

(29:21):
listeners have written in and said they've had to go
to physical therapy for PTSD essentially because they're so tense.
UM A loss of sleep, paleness, lethargy, fatigue, loss of energy,
inability to socialize for concentration, anxiety or panic attacks like
racing heartbeat, inability to cope. These are things that are

(29:43):
going to impact how you can contribute to society and
how just happy and well you can be as a person.
And also as a reminder, these physical signs maybe what
you notice before anything else. So if you do see
some of these signs, you need to look back and
see what may have cost this because exactly like the

(30:03):
whole stiffness thing. My shoulders and my neck went out
when I was at the Family and Children's Services because
I had an incident that triggered me and I was
losing sleep and I was having the secondary trauma and
I literally could not move my neck for a good
two days. I still had to work, and I did,
but it was probably one of the most painful experiences
that I had, and it was absolutely due to the

(30:25):
trauma that I was not addressing. And I have recently
come to the conclusion that that is part of why
I went to physical therapy for like three years and
I got better, but it was still not It didn't
go away, and it was basically because they told me,
you can't relax, relax, and to me, I was relaxing,

(30:48):
but I'm just tense all the time. Another part of
this conversation is suicidal ideation, and I want to include
in here. We're gonna again end We're going to come
back to this in a future episode. But l G
B t q I folks are three times more likely
to comtemplate suicide and five times more likely to attempt

(31:11):
to when compared to heterosexual people. That is horrifying. And also, um, yeah,
we're we're gonna come back to that. And again this
goes hand in hand with depression and anxiety, so siddal
adeation often comes together with that. So that's something to
think on when you start trying to evaluate your emotions

(31:32):
in your mental health as well. Yes, UM, And then
if we look specifically at PTSD, c PTSD, secondary PTSD,
all those ptsd s, the most common response to trauma
is post traumatic stress disorder. And again we have a
whole episode c PTSD that you can see for more.
But for a rundown of symptoms from the A p A.

(31:54):
It includes one recollections of the traumatic events occur currently
and to include images, thoughts, and perceptions. In children, play
may take place in which themes or aspects of the
incident are expressed. Nightmares often regularly and involve images or
impressions of the traumatic event. Oh my god, I went

(32:16):
through that so much. UM. Flashbacks happen or situations in
which the person acts or feels as if the traumatic
event were happening all over again. This may include hallucinations
and disassociative events UM, including those that occur on waking
or while intoxicated. And with that we can actually talk

(32:36):
about self medication and why people do it often because
of those vivid flashbacks. Yeah, and we're gonna get into
that a bit a bit more, but first we have
a quick break for words formar sponsor and we're back.

(33:01):
Thank you sponsor. Like we said, it was like a
hundred and sixty one billion dollars. I think, um, that's
a lot people self medicating to deal with stuff like this.
Number four is pronounced psychological distress at exposure to queues
internal or external that may be taken to symbolize or

(33:22):
too resemble some aspect of the traumatic event. Yeah, as
I spoke about earlier, I have moments of panic from
perceived threats that aren't actually threats. One example would be
while I was in an elevator in college U g A.
I was boxed in by several men, and other than
being loud and obnoxious, they really weren't doing anything wrong.

(33:43):
But I began to panic and had had an anxiety
attack due to being triggered from the events from my
time to the orphanage with groups of men. And it
took me a while to realize exactly why I had
no control over my emotions or reactions to that moment.
I didn't understand what I was going through at that time.
I'm pretty I'm a pretty strong individual, and I kind

(34:04):
of rely on that um what they call sassy For
all intent purposes, I'm sassy um. But when it comes
to moments of being threatened or triggered, I become almost
shut down, and I become quiet, and I don't know
how to react, and I go into a panic mode.
And for me, panic mode is to stand still like

(34:26):
the flight flight flight, or freeze. I freeze oftentimes, and
it's not the best reaction, but that's what I've learned
trying to be invisible, and honestly, that causes such a
panic attack for me. And moments like that where I'm like,
oh my gosh, there's actually nothing wrong, but I feel
like any moment it could turn and it begins to
grow inside of me, and I'm just like, oh my gosh,

(34:47):
what do I do? And then blank, Yeah, And that's
something um I I think we'll probably return to. But
for me, I often get told not a brag, but
I often get told I'm a very strong person. This

(35:08):
is why I like you. But then if if something
triggers me and I feel like I am a fake Essentially,
it's like a weird imposter syndrome. It is. It is
a whole circular pattern where you know you have grown
to this person to be strong and independent, and then

(35:28):
you feel a moment of weakness because of the traumas
that have happened in your life, and then you feel like,
oh my gosh, why didn't I do better? And you
start taking yourself and you start feeling guilty for not
defending yourself because in your mind you should have done A, B,
C and D. But that's not acted to you that way,
not how that works. It's not and um, I've come

(35:53):
around to that, but it is something that I've recognized.
It's like I shouldn't feel weak for worth it. PTSD
can be acute, ongoing or chronic like complex PTSD c
PTSD for severe, short lived symptoms, usually displaying immediately actrin
event that might be acute stress disorder or a s D,

(36:17):
and if we're looking at kids specifically, some of the
symptoms might include wetting the bed after having learned to
use the toilet, forgetting how to or being unable to talk,
acting out scary event during playtime to scary event. Yeah,
I have many cases where children re enact the events
on other children, whether out of confusion or sometimes out

(36:38):
of anger. I've had also had children used their own
trauma as excuses to harm others. So this is more
significant than you know. And I don't think people quite
understand that level, because I have encountered more and more
child on child h victimization, and it's kind of a
new phenomenon, whether you want to talk about our least

(36:59):
sexualization due to pornography or or abuse, but it's been
more and more where I see during the playtimes where
playing doctor quote unquote has become a more extreme violation.
M hm. And I while we were researching this and
you were there, I was I had a sudden memory

(37:21):
of I I when I was a kid, I had
this terrifying imaginary friend that tormented me, and he followed
me and like my parents knew his name. His name
is mine Gary. He spelt like vinegar. Um, my friend's name,
his name. He was a big part of my life
until I remember the exact data. You went away because
it's really good to Harry Potter, and all of my

(37:42):
memories are really to Harry Potter. But um, I now
think that it was just me trying to deal with
this trauma that I was going through, and honestly, that
could be the same disassociative identity disorder and why that
happens oftentimes it is goes hand in hand with severe
trauma from an early age, and therefore the protection is

(38:04):
bring on a new personality that can handle it or
protect you from this, and you can forget about these
awful moments. Yeah, and it was easier to be like, oh,
there's this weird ghost that's tormenting me. Yeah, yours is
a ghost. I've had a miss imaginary friends, but your
supposed a ghost pretty significant. And that was an old
man that smelled like vinegar. Yeah, he looks like Nostra too.

(38:24):
If anyone wants an image in their head. Oh my goodness,
that's terrified. How did you sleep? I very much? Did
it very very intense? Yes, yes, vengar um. Okay. So
going back to symptoms you can recognize in kids and
other is being unusually clinging with a parent or other adults.

(38:46):
And honestly, we could go down the rabbit hole of
diagnosing children with attachment issues due to neglect and abuse
and how impacts their reaction to strangers and friends. But
It's something I definitely used to evaluate children who have
had many issue in the judicial system. So kaids that
come back getting in trouble, there are oftentimes a reason
for that, which is why I do what I do.

(39:07):
We just tried to find treatment. But you can look
and see the attachments to adulthood, to adults and two
friends and why they may react to something. And this
kind of also goes hand in hand what we previously
talked about with gang activity um and why when we
talked about the whole grooming, why they seek others and
why these are really really important things about being cleaning

(39:30):
are not cleanly enough. Yeah, And I just wanted to
put in here, and going off of what you said
earlier about misdiagnosis, a report in the Atlantic found that
childhood trauma may be misdiagnosed as a d h D
and children and often is right, any of those things
have often been misdiagnosed when it could have been trauma

(39:52):
and the way they react to things now and as
we know now, a child's mind doesn't get developed until
their twenties. Oh my right, And I say child, but
you know they're obviously teenagers as well. But that's a
whole other conversation about do they truly understand is this
really true diagnosis? Because they do change as they grow older.

(40:12):
The idea that a d h D a d D
can be they can grow out of that actually has
occurred and it can, which is why medication management is important.
But that's a whole again. Another record up with a
million podcasts never leaving. I'm going to keep talking um,
but talking about diagnosis. In order to diagnose, the National

(40:33):
Institute of Mental Health are the n i h M
has this criteria for PTSD UM at least three avoidance
symptoms and these are avoiding places, people, objects, or events.
As I've said, I am a pro with this. I
don't know whether to feel proud or scared, but I
am amazing at this. I love staying away from people,

(40:58):
not me though not me though at least two hyper
arousal symptoms being easily startled, which I am the easiest
person to startle, UM, feeling tense or on edge, difficulties sleeping,
and outbursts of anger. These are pretty much constant. At
least one re experiencing symptom like flashbacks, bad dreams, or

(41:18):
frightening thoughts. These are usually triggered by something. Um And
note about flashbacks because a lot of you wrote in
about them when we did our CPTSD episode. They're not
necessarily what you've seen the media. They can be, but smells, lighting, sounds,
all kinds of things can trigger flashbacks. I have a

(41:40):
song I live in fear of guaranteed I will flashback
if I hear it. Luckily it's very rare, but one
day I bet you I'm going to hear it in public.
Or are like knocking knocking on a door. That's a
big one, and don't do it. I mean, I need
to sign knocking. I'll never knock on your door, thank you,

(42:02):
Oh you can, but like I have to know you're coming.
If it's a surprise knock, Well, just like the last
time I hung out with you, I just made you
come out in your pajama, So that's exactly what I'm
gonna do again. She did, and it was pretty great.
But a lot of times you can't predict what's going
to set off a flashback. Like I said, MO wanna
set me off pretty good the first time I saw it,

(42:23):
and I can tell you at least six listeners wrote
in and said it set them off too. You know.
I actually had the same experience with Meet the Robinson's. Really, yeah,
I haven't seen that. That was this movie about this
kid trying to find forever parents and it goes back
to how that happened. But that also created this whole
fear of rejection and all of the trauma. And I

(42:44):
was hanging out with the kids that wasn't namnying at
the time, so that was super fun. Oh jeez, I'm sorry.
Good movie, though I know Moan is a good movie too, right,
I like Rushed, I love it. Um, It just I
wasn't expecting to get triggered by right right. Um. And
another thing is I used to when I would get flashbacks,

(43:04):
I would squeeze my upper arms. Um. Sometimes I would
press against my face with my the heel of my
hands to try and stave off the flashback, and I
would leave these bruises. I would look a horrible mess.
And people thought I was taking karate or something like that,
or that I was being abused by my boyfriend. And

(43:25):
I include that because again, he was a wonderful guy,
but damn did that annoy him? Right. I experienced similar
similar things, but it's more of like deep scratches and
cutting my hand, as well as scratching myself in my
head on my head until I bled. And these are
usually easy signs to read, and I knew I had
to reach out for help because of For me, this

(43:47):
could be the beginning of my self harming side slash
suicidal ideation. I definitely know when I start harming myself,
I'm going down this route. But it definitely is one
of the bigger things. Where are you recognize all my gosh,
I can't hold it in, So how do I outwardly? Um?
Stop this? And you know what? It could also be
said to like eating disorders. It is also a physical

(44:09):
form of UM triggering and uh. I wanted to include
in here this side note um so I would have
all these bruises on my arms and on my face.
And I can't believe how many men felt comfortable enough

(44:29):
to come up to me and say something along the
lines of I see you like rough sex, so do
I we should hook up? Or I see you like
it rough huh, which is beyond upsetting. It is infuriating
to think that men have the right to even come
up to you to say any of those things. And
I feel like, at this point, you have the right

(44:49):
to punch them in the balls. I mean, if you
don't really really want to answer the question, I'm like, no,
not necessarily, but if you don't like it, I'll help
you out. I'll help you out. I mean, this is
such an absurd When you told me this, I think
my mouth literally opened because I was like, men, maybe

(45:11):
I'm just really really scary too, men, which I hope
so to a certain extent. I cannot believe they would
have the audacity to even ask you that. Who thinks
that's a joke? Yeah, I gotta come on like, yes,
oh yes, I do. Please let's go on a date. Yeah,
I mean it happened to lie. It happened enough where

(45:31):
I was like, this is a thing. Wow. This is
where I'm like, uh man and please no, I don't
think that really, but those moments are like why yeah, yeah,
I definitely pretty upset about that whole thing. As you
should be, as anyone should be, as everyone should be,

(45:51):
unless you're as an m club and or you're in
a relationship where you've already agreed to that. I know, Yeah,
I don't come up to me about that. So all
these another another thing about PTSD is like symptoms that
interfere with activities of daily life, such as being with friends,
performing important tasks, are going to work or school. I've

(46:13):
had episodes of flashbacks due to work conferences which had
me unable to leave home for days and even weeks
at a time. I finally had to make a plan
for myself on how to overcome all of it. But
it took years of therapy to admit how detrimental it
was for me to isolate myself at these times, but
that was my only recourse at that point. Being alone

(46:34):
met I was safe from all the entities that could
get me. Essentially, Yeah, and having a plan, like we said,
that is such a useful tool if this is something
you're dealing with. If we look at memory when it
comes to your pressed memories or suppressed memories or recovered memories.
The science is still out and we can talk about

(46:55):
the Kurrent County sex abuse case where psychologists were able
to quote a quote recover memories and they were false
memories that convicted several several several people of abuse, which
has now caused disruption and trying to use this within
court systems because it's not reliable right. And I'm not

(47:16):
sure where this falls, but I have experienced with a
pretty weird memory thing that I think is selfs offense. Um.
It's not like I forgot things necessarily, but it's like
I actively did not remember them. It's really hard feeling
to describe. Once my mom was apologizing for something traumatic

(47:38):
that had happened to me, and I didn't know what
she was talking about at first, but then it all
came back when she kind of expounded on it, and
it was like I it had been there all along, um,
but I was just looking anywhere else but there. It

(47:59):
was very surreal and dream like, and I actually wrote
a diary entry about it when I was in high school,
and here is a quote from it. I have the
strangest feeling that I have forgotten something major. Not just
something either, but a lot of some things. Pieces of
my life are coming back to me like faded memories

(48:19):
or dreams, and I'm so shocked to have forgotten. It
literally takes my breath away. It says if I'm in
a scene and horror movie, right before everything falls into
place and you understand finally what has alluded you this
whole time? These were once foundational to my everyday life.
This was who I was, This was what I was

(48:40):
made of, and I forgot as if I was brainwashed,
as if I was a different person, a person whose
life I stumbled on while flippling through television stations one
day and left on because of passing interest, but promptly
put out of my brain. But it was there all along,
in the back of my mind, feeding on, insecure, pretty,

(49:01):
waiting to re emerge. I know this sounds weird. It
is weird. I have no idea what is going on
these memories. They're the huge kind. They're the kind that
haunt you and shape you, that hang off your back
like a shadow, that way on you until all you
want to do is hide under a bed and pretend
you don't exist. They're the kind that makes you question

(49:23):
what kind of person you are for forgetting them. They're
the kind that makes you feel like you are in
a horror movie, that makes you afraid of what else
you have buried in your brain, lying in wait, if
it will destroy you, if you remember, I've been waking
up in a panic. When I try to remember what
it was that frightened me, I can't. It's there, but

(49:43):
it's as if my mind won't let me as if
it knows, it will destroy me, and I am scared
at any moment, I could be reduced to an incoherent
sobbing mess, and I don't know how to prepare for it.
I don't think I can prepare for it. Dang, that
was a high school diary entry, um, and I think
it's pretty That pretty much describes my how my memory

(50:09):
worked around a lot of the trauma I went through
and the sphere I had because I knew it was
there and it could attack at any moment, and I
didn't know how to prepare for it. I didn't know
how to protect myself from it. And also, um, we're
gonna be doing a whole episode on therapy, but a
note here the first time I went to therapy because

(50:31):
it can be retraumatizing. Um, I was trying to describe
something that had gone through and I couldn't do it,
like literally physically couldn't do it. Every time I tried,
I couldn't find the words, and I could visualize the
event until I tried to describe it and like magically disappeared. Oh.
I actually have similar experiences of feeling foggy as in fact,

(50:53):
we know that it's hard to correctly remember past events
without evidence that comes along with it. And for me,
I have no one to show me picture uh or
tell me stories of my childhood. For the first seven
years of my life, I will continue to tell people
how they were talking. We'll talk about their childhood, and
I will say, you know, at five years old, your mother,

(51:13):
your father, your guardian probably had some pictures of your
first day as a school, whether your first Christmas, all
of those things. And I don't have any records of
me before seven years old because I was placed in
an orphanage and a majority of those things didn't come
with me. And honestly, it probably is a good thing.
But for me, what I have are vague memories and

(51:36):
dreams that sometimes seem to haunt me. As in fact,
my memories seemed to be severely damaged to the point
I can't even speak my native language, even though it's
the only language I could speak until I was seven.
I mean, I literally could not communicate with my family
when I was adopted. For the first six months of
our lives. It literally was just crying and pointing at things,

(51:58):
which I can't quite remember all of that, but I
know I had to be real fun for everyone, and
now I have a bit of a Southern accident, so
you're welcome to that. But um, even though all of
these things happened, I decided, you know what, I want
to conquer this. I want to take on my ethnicity.
I want to know more about my culture who I was.
And I took a Korean course for three semesters in

(52:20):
college and I was the second worst class, worst of
that class. And that was at the point in time
that when I learned a the phrase fresh off the
boat or a fob and be being whitewashed, which is
what I am, essentially the idea that I am a
Korean that has been inundated in the white American US culture,

(52:43):
and therefore I am no longer regarded as a true Korean,
which that's whole issue in itself. But for me, none
of these actually help, and everything is kind of a fog,
and to the point that I cannot learn even with
me doing do a lingo any of the programs, I

(53:05):
cannot remember Korean to a detriment. And I even ask
a psychologist, what do you think this is? And they
cannot really explain to me other than you are. You
have a defense mechanism right now that's not allowing you
to remember because of the trauma that you endured. Yeah,
and that's how powerful it is. And in terms of

(53:27):
recalling things inaccurately, there is research supporting that UM. And
it has to do with your brain focusing on certain
things and not others in a survival situation. The part
of our brain involved with focusing on things can essentially
get shut down by stress chemicals during a stressful or
traumatic event. And what that means is you're less able

(53:49):
to focus, you're less able to make sense of things,
and therefore you're less able to call things in a
way that makes sense. The i'mgdala responsible for the fear
respond on steps in and takes the reins when it
comes to where your attention goes. And this might mean
your brain focuses on a small terrifying detail or a

(54:11):
minor detail in order to distract and attached UM. Like
I said, I can specifically remember what I was wearing
very vividly, UM. And a lot of my traumatic memories
UM specific unconnected images and stations, probably out of sequence,
which is not good when you're in court testifying. Right,
And I've already we just discussed the fact that I

(54:31):
have such foggy memories and inability to actually learn my
own native language due to some of the trauma UM.
I also struggle with the past traumas in in dreams
I remember when I was really really young, and they
actually still stick with me, specific dreams of me being
left locked out of the home over over twenty four

(54:53):
hours and being attacked my dog, um having a memory
of being abandoned in the woods, which I'm pretty sure
that was not true because I was in a basket,
so I don't think that one was true. But I
had to differentiate with is this real, isn't this real?
What happened? I had uh an incident in which I
was stabbed in the knee by another orphan girl who
went through a manic moment, which cost me trauma as well.

(55:17):
I had many things that happened that I cannot actually differentiate,
and it's hard to organize, so it's just kind of
a big blur, and trying to figure those out has
been fairly traumatic in itself, and I will say for
me trying to get past it or trying to bring
it back up, I have tried different therapies and trying

(55:38):
to get connected back to those because I think part
of my frustration is not knowing, which I know for
a lot of victims that's kind of the same thing
for them. I think, UM, I'm getting I'm constantly haunted
by emotions, so I know you and I talked about
the fact that I get triggered by emotions, whether it's

(55:58):
if I feel like someone's disapproving of me, it triggers
me into a spiral in which I cannot communicate with people.
I kind of go into a fetal patient position and
have to go home because that realization of being disapproved,
not wanted, rejected has been a huge fear factor for me,

(56:19):
has been something that actually will stop me from doing
something better, or doing something new, or trying something new.
And as in fact, when we talk about the fact
this hurts testimony, UM, I had an incident when I
actually came into the US where I was victimized at
a public pool, and I actually got contacted by a

(56:41):
woman recently from my same town who had heard my
story somehow and reached out to me and said that
similar thing had happened to her. And this man was
supposedly about to coach a swim team for kids, and
honestly I had to send back to her, I I
can't really help you a big because I don't remember
the man's name, I don't remember the time frame when

(57:04):
it happened, and I can't exactly tell you, um all
of the events that had happened inside of that. So me,
who has been have been in the court systems that
have actually gone through watching a full case for child abuse,
sex abuse, whatever, I knew that I would be more
of a detriment to the case because of my lack

(57:25):
of memory and inability to say actual names than anything
else that I had to say. I can't I can't
help you, which is unfortunate because the survivor and me
is like, oh my gosh, we have to stop at this,
we have to stop this. But I know legally and
rationally I'm not a help, which is really frustrating in itself. Yeah, yeah,

(57:48):
for sure. And in this age of me too and
hearing about this all the time, it's hard to escape.
It's hard to escape. So this brings us to the
end of part one of our deep dive on traumas.
Sometimes when you make an outline, you're not sure how

(58:09):
long the episode is going to be, but it quickly
became apparent that this was going to be a two parters,
So look out next week for the second part where
we're going to talk about re traumaization and resources and
trauma informed responses, and in the meantime, if you would
like to email us if you want any of those resources,
please reach out. You can email us at mom Stuff

(58:31):
at how stuff works dot com. You can find us
on Instagram at stuff I've Never Told You and on
Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks as always her producer
Andrew Howard, and thanks to you for listening.