Month: February 2021

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Group Therapy About Trauma

The first heard of Group therapy was started in 1895. But group meetings did not get popular until world war 2. Those groups were started mainly to treat the men who came back from war. As group therapy about trauma.

There were no mental health professionals at that time. Doctors wanted to help with war-related mental health issues at that time in 1941 and started group meetings.  A little history there.

 

Have you ever attended a support group, or in any kind of a group that gets together and shares their health issues, problems, or almost anything that a person is willing to talk about? Sometimes, people, all need is to talk and to hear themselves talk and suddenly their problems have been resolved.

Group members will discuss the rules and goals of the group. The therapist will go over the rules of confidentially and the role that each person plays at the group meetings.

That would be an ideal solvent to a problem, yes, just that quick. We can talk about anything, just let your group lead, therapist, or the group know if it is ok, to talk about whatever it could be that you need to talk about.

Ask for feedback. Here is a list that you can get some ideas of what people could talk about.  Always remind people to keep confidentially. Of course, It all depends on your trust in people.

  • Very popular topic – Divorce.
  • Marriage problems.
  • Advice from trying to talk about an important topic to a spouse. Where can I start? How can I do this?
  • How to talk to your grown children.
  • Someone just died in your family, having a hard time dealing with a loved one’s death. Guilt mainly.
  • For my health purposes, I need to lose 35 lbs. can anyone help? Personal trainer. I will pay.
  • Drug or alcohol addictions.
  • You’re in a domestic violent relationship and need help.
  • You need a safe place to live. (Rent)

Members of the group can offer you advice, or maybe somebody is a lawyer. You just never know what someone can offer unless you give them a chance. They can also give you a shoulder to cry on or maybe even emotional support.

If the group has come up with a group problem, the therapist can help by doing some research and present it to teach the group coping skills, other concepts of different skills that best match what everyone needs, or valuable information that someone could use.

There are other group activities, for example, cooking, gardening, even painting, this requires working together with others, and suddenly, guess what? You’ve made new friends… Just be careful, you could meet some people with different personalities or worse problems than you. Know your boundaries. In these groups, you will get to know different personalities and have a choice in who you would like as a friend.

Are you in an “open group meeting” or a “closed group meeting”? A closed group meeting would mean, once a group is started, no one else can join in, only a certain few start from the beginning of the group, and no one new can come in.

An open group of people can come to attend at any time. You will have a harder time getting to know everyone in this group because people will be joining in at all times.

Also, important to know that therapist is obligated by law, to report to police, if members express to harm themselves or others. And in group settings, it is their responsibility to maintain a peaceful, respectful, and safe environment and free from verbal, physical, or emotional abuse.

The therapist should make it known that group therapy sessions are to be nonjudgmental and very productive for each person. All of the above is including the Therapist.

God bless everyone including the therapist who tried to heal those who wanted to heal. Many blessings to you all.

 

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Trauma and Emotional Abuse

75% of our population is emotionally abused every day. Especially women, second is children and then our Elderly.  I believe there is more with this pandemic and isolation. Our children have no outside contact today, because of no school. No one to check on them. This is alarming. This is a concern for trauma and emotional abuse.

Adults especially women are abuse as well. They do not feel safe calling someone. Tried to get help, but it did not go well. The abuser got a hint of it when things were been put together. We cannot always fool them when trying to get away.

Especially the abuser is a man of prevalence, a police officer, a minister, or someone who will look upon negatively, and does not want people to discover his true colors or his true self. There is a worse danger for this type of abuse on children.

Even though some children are resilient, some are not and could be traumatized from the abuse and at times, blames themselves for parents’ disapproval and lack of love and attention. All this emotional chatter gives a child or even a younger teen a confusion of what love is about.

Some emotional abuse has no scars or bruises. You may be able to tell if children have received emotional abuse. Concerns may look like the  following;

  • Sometimes, like when at the grocery store you hear how an older child treats their siblings and yells at them, as an adult would. Children imitate their parents.
  • You hear a child talk and they talk in an “adult manner.”
  • When a parent belittles a child in public, while others are looking.
  • The child is a bully and hurts other children when playing with them and using adult words.
  • Bedwetting and at times having a tantrum. Bedwetting is a sign of trauma in a child.
  • Of course, bruises on parts of the body, especially around the neck area or where you can see bruises.
  • Denying a child affection and daily care can also be counted as emotional abuse.

Sometimes, we could be wrong, but at least we paid attention. Sometimes children need rescuing and don’t express it even with all the teachings at school. Teachers have told kids to report their parents if they feel threatened.

I have seen children report to the teacher and teachers will check the children for wounds and bruises. Parents are getting away today because of the pandemic. Children are unable to talk to other concerning adults who care.

If you’re witnessing something and your consciousness does not let you sleep. Defiantly do something. If you know names and addresses. Please call child protective services to investigate or call the national child abuse hotline at 1800-422-4453. They will assist you with any questions you may have.

Emotional abuse goes together with psychological difficulties. This could come from a mental illness, and both the abuser and the abused will need mental health help. With all this emotional abuse comes together with;

  • Depression
  • Anxiety and panic attacks.
  • Difficulty sleeping, the child can not even take a nap and without feeling safe.
  • Self-harm, cutting on themselves, or slapping themselves.
  • Bet wetting.
  • Eating disorders.
  • Suicidal thoughts.
  • An adult could develop substance abuse to cover the pain and suffering.
  • An adult could model the same parent behaviors as a parent.

If you or your loved one needs help you can always call 911 for assistance. Or you can call the National Domestic Violence hotline at 1-80079972 where they will make sure you get one on one attention.

You can also call it the National Suicide prevention lifeline. At 1-800-2738255 They can provide good resources as well.

May God bless and protect you and give your life-giving courage

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Motherly love

When you are in physiotherapy, one thing you do is they take you back into childhood.  Were you loved, by your family? Especially by Mother. It’s really amazing that when a mother is blamed for the reason that you are screwed up.

The traumatized inner child feels better, maybe not completely healed, but it’s a good start, right? Sometimes there are healings and Mom is seen in a different light. All is forgiven. But not always.

Was it really mom? Why, because she did not protect me? Did you tell her someone molested you? Someone traumatized you. Back in the day, we told our mom, but what if she did not believe what happens to us. Mom would say” she likes to invent things; tells stories you know how kids are?”.

Sometimes you feel like you were loved, but sometimes you didn’t really feel the love. Now that you are an adult, you learn how to treat your children. At first, you didn’t hug them but when they hugged you. That made you feel love. Is that what love is? you just melted, when they’d say “I love you, mommy.” Did my mom not feel that?

You love your children back, hugs kisses, saying loving words. You missed all this when you were young. How could she of spanked me? “It’s going to hurt me more than it going to hurt you” it did hurt me so bad just to scold the kids.

I sometimes cried with them. My mom would always say “it’s going to hurt me more than it hurts you right now?” Mothers did the best they could. My mom as well did not receive much love.

What happened to them that they acted as they acted? There could have been other factors, but maybe mom did not have someone to protect her from a family crime. Who knows, because we just go on with life. We get married to someone, just to get off a dramatic family.

I know I got my resilience from my mother. Women are taught to stay with the man that they have chosen, at least I was.  Back in the day, that’s was how I was raised. God brought me Charlie Brown; I should feel so lucky to have a man.

My mom taught us, we do not divorce our husbands. We stay because of our kids. Even if they beat you and your kids. “Till Death do us part.”

My mom was resilient, I am so proud of her for staying, but I didn’t. My mother died before I got married, and something, she said to me was ” I do not really worry about you, because of who you are…

How do I know if I am healing from all the trauma? That’s a good question. When your life is not always in chaos? Am I happy? Yes, there have been times I wake up and feel good. Nothing hurts, I feel joyous and happy.

That could be a sign that I am healing and so can you. By looking for a professional therapist or mental health professional. There are so many resources to assist with your healings. We cannot always heal ourselves. It takes much discipline and daily structure in our life. We start with a structure and a routine that we will try to stick to. It is not easy, but healing is the goal here.

I read somewhere, a favorite object of yours broke, something very precious to you. So you try to glue it back together, but it will not look the same but your precious item can look like you place it back together, but you can place a ribbon, or glitter glue, glue a pretty object on it.

Because it is precious to you, it will have a better look to it. Maybe it may not look the same but it will still look precious to you and it will be the same object only better. So will you.

We will not be the old us but, the better us. We learn by our experiences. Our parent/s made us who we are today. Resilience and we are thriving in our lives if we still want to get up, shake the dust off, and continue with our goals, our structure, and our resilience.

As a mom, I did the best I could. They’re not in prison, involved with the police, or on drugs. Is that a good sign?

 

 

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Aging is a traumatic experience

Are you a senior? At what age are you a senior? I understand it could start at 55 years old. Where can we go to be prepared to become a senior? A senior center maybe? Talk to another person your age? Nothing really prepares you. You need to smart enough when your young enough to start a retirement plan, especially if where you’re working, they can help with building one for you.

You really do not think about this, because, I don’t know why? Been around others who are retiring maybe? Just thinking about retirement is trauma in itself. We do not plan on well, how long am I going to live for example? Where am I going to live?

You hear about your children placing you in a nursing home and having somebody who doesn’t love you or care for you, take control of your everyday life. They are paid to take care of you. How much did you love your job when you worked? Be paid only minimum wage? You will need to clean my poopy ass? For minimum wage?

Oh dear, aren’t we seniors in for a surprise. As Seniors we already have a lot on our plates, we need to guess what health insurance we will need. We have to know what social security will pay for and what they will not pay for and pay for supplemental insurance. That could be out of pocket money and who much?

There goes your itty-bitty social security check. Unless you were smart enough to get a retirement plan from work called an IRA pension plan, any retirement plan to supplement your income.

I was not aware that they give more money if you went to college or have a college degree. How unfair is that? You worked your butt off for 10 to 12 hours a day for over 25 years and what do you get?

A traumatizing event…Yes, it is. Trauma is when we decide to stop doing what we have been doing daily like working and having a routine for over 20 years and then we stop. We wake up every morning and think of all of our friends we made at work and how they are facing that horrible morning traffic, trying to make sure they have taken the right route to get to work on time.

Sometimes, I send them a prayer. OK, so I am now retired, I keep my doctors appt. and she is telling me “I am aging appropriately for my age”. “Soon I will have aches and pains, my back will hurt, my knees will give out and I will experience falls…” What! But wait!” “I feel fine.” “It’s just part of the aging process,” she says.

Why do they put these negative things in your subconscious? That is so negative. It is said that 90% of people age 65 and over, have experienced one major traumatic experience in their life. It is reported that 12% suffer from trauma each year. Of course, if people have suffered trauma and not taken care to understand it, or deal with the emotions it comes with it, illnesses, will start to appear.

Trauma experiences come in a form of a disease, if not dealt with. How? Come to terms with what happened as a child, teenager, or as an adult. talk to a curandera/healer, a good therapist, or mental health professional. Somebody who can help heal the pain and suffering.

For help contact the national council of aging online. Or call 571-527-3900, they are open Mon to Friday 5 am to 5:30 pm. you can contact them and help you get help no matter where you live. Please do not hesitate to get help. 211 is a good number to call as well or 911 in case you need immediate help.

God bless.