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Overcoming Trauma Guided Meditation

Dealing with the underlying issues of trauma from your past gives you freedom from trauma which binds you and prevents you from having a full life.

Let’s do a little process together, you and me. Join me by taking three deep breaths. Breathe in (pause)
Breathe out (pause)
Breathe in (pause)
Breathe out (pause)
Breathe in (pause)
Breathe out (pause)

When I say my name, I want you to replace it with your name, follow along and repeat after me. I Rosa M Luna
see and draw to me through the divine love
and the Angels,
my spirit guides, and my God source,
all who seek enlightenment thru my process
to RE-Activate me Now!
To start feeling good, NOW!
I Rosa M Luna
Hold the key to the achievement of any state of being,
any state of health,
any state of wealth,
any state of anything!
I Rosa M Luna,
want and desire, let me focus on ME!
Starting with what I Rosa M Luna,
desires right NOW!
Re-activate my self-healing power
for my life extension NOW!
I Rosa M Luna
am a constant gatherer of experience and knowledge.
My life is not only about that!
It is about fulfillment, satisfaction
and one of JOY!
My life is a continuing expression of life and love
And who I, Rosa M Luna
truly am the creator of my own experience.
I, Rosa M Luna,
will learn to understand my
VIBRATIONAL EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM.
Then my naturally joyful “zest” for life
will youthfully return.
I Rosa M Luna love myself!
Take a deep cleansing breath in

Exhale

Okay. We are done.

Congratulations. You are on the path to your new life.

Not all of us are doing this alone, for example, Johnnetta McSwain suffered childhood trauma at the age of 4 years old. Wrote a book about her trauma and went to school to get her Ph.D. She wrote a statement that I would like to quote – “Becoming self-aware that we are women of strength who stand for survival, empowerment, motherhood, leadership, love, nurturing, beauty, respect and courage to overcome anything.” These words are so encouraging to all of us that can remember them and apply them to our lives.

Now you can have an exciting new life free from the threat of diseases that are caused by not dealing with your trauma issues. You will achieve a state of healthful wellness, and you will look and feel younger, just by dealing with your past trauma. Like me. I have seen life at its worst and I thought it would be the death of me, but I have a new lease on life and am living the life of my dreams. Believe me when I say, “I know what you’re going through,” you are not alone. If I can do it, you can do it, too. My name is Rosa m. luna thank you for listening, and you can find me at Rosa M luna.com Many Blessings.

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Taking Back Our Life from Trauma

Let’s start to take your life back and live healthier and longer. You have to be in the right frame of mind to learn anything, let’s try the next steps. This will assist in learning new ways to heal ourselves from the damages of trauma’s afflictions.

Top 10 Ways to Recover from Trauma

1. Negative Emotions

Start by managing negative emotions such as anxiety, anger, guilt, let’s start by shifting the kind of thinking that takes you to those feelings. Instead of focusing on your losses, uncertainties, think of your successes. You’ve been able to keep a roof over your head. Food on your table, the important things you have been able to provide. Despite your pain and suffering, you’re not on serious drugs, you have been able to keep a job, like the job, or not.

2. Negative Thoughts

Traumatic events can agitate us to the core, leaving us in shambles both mentally and physically. But stop thinking negatively.

3. Grow Where You are Planted

Psychologists are also finding that traumatic actions can change us into more robust, better individuals. The name that is given to this global phenomenon is “posttraumatic post-growth.” So, grow. Grow wherever you are, however you can.

4. Self-care

Take one day at a time. Take care of yourself. Shower, eat a healthy meal, eat a healthy snack, dance to your favorite music, walk, run, in other words, exercise. Get that negative energy out of your system.

5. Social Care

Go outside, visit your positive friends, stay away from friends that have a negative lifestyle. Don’t judge them, just stay away from bad influences. Drinking, drugs are not the answer. Look inside yourself and find out what your body is trying to tell you.

6. Self-expansion

I know this may sound silly, but meditate, pray, try talking to a professional, a therapist, someone you trust. Did I already say go to a support group? You might just find more people going through what you are going through. Find some new friends there. They know what you are going through, you are not alone.

7. Your Story

In the next step, you produce a narrative story about your story and the trauma and reflection afterward to accept the chapters already written and imagine crafting the next ones in a meaningful way. Giving you a different and positive feeling about your traumatic story and the stories you’re helping can and should be about a traumatic past that leads to a better and brighter future.

8. Go Pro

Find work that benefits others and helps or benefits you and other people. There is a broader community of victims with events similar to the ones you are enduring. So, help others who are in trouble and face difficulty in overcoming trauma symptoms. This can give you a sense of growth and peaceful life.

9. Take Your Time

Be patient with this process. Those who are practicing in this field know that timing is very important. Growth is a long procedure of process and it takes time.

However, when you and your comrades are ready, it is worth the effort. Let’s promise to do what is best for ourselves and learn from this crisis and do something productive that may help others.

10. New Normal

Being inactive life, going back to what made you happy in the first place is the last step. Think about how you have been able to dig someone out of their self-pity, we cannot do it alone, and really, we are not alone, there are millions like us, also suffering from trauma.

Not all of us are doing this alone, for example, Johnnetta McSwain suffered childhood trauma at the age of 4 years old. Wrote a book about her trauma and went to school to get her Ph.D. She wrote a statement that I would like to quote – “Becoming self-aware that we are women of strength who stand for survival, empowerment, motherhood, leadership, love, nurturing, beauty, respect and courage to overcome anything.” These words are so encouraging to all of us that can remember them and apply them to our lives.

Remember that we are not alone. We can do this.

Many blessings to all of us and God bless.

 

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Live Healthier without Repressed Trauma

Trauma can rob you of your youth like a “thief in the night”. When you least expect it, you look in the mirror and see someone you do not recognize. You could live healthier without repressed trauma. So what happened?

For many of us, I would say that 85 percent of people will or have suffered a traumatic event in their lifetime. Some of these events will create significant pain and suffering especially if there is a near-miss of life loss.

Because trauma changes so many body cells, it causes hormonal changes, nerve damage, weakens the immune system, causes premature aging, and can lead to an early grave.

Take twenty years off of your age and add another twenty years to your life (that’s 40 years) just by doing this one thing:

Dealing with Your Repressed Trauma

Fortunately, your neuron cells can be re-wired and affect your mind,  your way of feeling safe in this world, your way of thinking, and solving problems. I could go on and on about the ways trauma damages and changes your life.

Unresolved trauma can affect the choices you make. What kind of boyfriend or girlfriend do you pick? Neglecting your children, losing your job, make you feel extremely angry, or very violent, and if you are aware of that,

“Wait that’s not me!

What is going on with me?”

Not all of us are aware of what we are doing.

I too, have suffered from trauma throughout my life and made bad decisions, and even made bad choices unconsciously without realizing it. Until I verified my actions with a witness I trusted.  I couldn’t believe that person was me.

Posttraumatic growth can be transformative and lead to living a longer more healthy and happy life.

Many people I have interviewed for my book “Trauma-ties,” told me that despite their physical pain and the daily struggles they have faced, some have said that their lives are actually better today than before their traumatic experiences. They make themselves focus more on themselves, what surrounds them, they pay more attention to people who aren’t doing well. They feel like they want to help them. Which before they didn’t want to get involved.

To move from the process of trauma growth, we should first educate ourselves and learn about trauma effects.  The American Psychological Association provided a definition of “trauma” they said,

An emotional response of someone against a special negative instance such as injury by accident, violent attacks bullying, domestic violence, childhood neglect, and many negative actions that leave a mark on your emotional status, and mental stability.

Some symptoms of trauma are Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, guilt, anxiety, hypervigilance, fear, irritability, behavioral issues, flashbacks, excessive anger, violence, panic attacks, loneliness, depression, all these can lead one open towards traumatic diseases and suicidal ideation.

Repressed trauma will find its way out. It will express itself in diseases such as diabetes, gastrointestinal diseases, cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis, or cancer, or in severe psychological disorders requiring mental health services.

This is serious business.

If you are ignoring or pushing down your trauma from the past you are sick and tired and your life is a mess.

There are too many diseases to name them all because we have not dealt with the unresolved traumatic event. We will have to deal with what happened to us. Or make amends to it. Make yourself ok with it.

If you can not heal from it get some professional help. Find a support group, I know you will prefer to stay at home and feel safe, depressed, and you will feel alone.

Shake the dust off you, that you have collected and get over yourself. Get your butt to a support group, I guarantee, you will later, be glad you did. And your life expectancy will increase dramatically. Many blessings and joyful health to you.

 

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How Will COVID-19 Affect Christmas Today?

I feel like we are being imprisoned for something we did wrong. What did we do? We are wearing our masks, staying at home instead of entertaining ourselves outside our homes, like walking through the streets watching the Christmas lights at this time of year. Going to different stores, and also seeing how other people decorated their homes for Christmas.

The shopping malls are open for shoppers, but with limited entries for a certain amount of people only. We also are limited in gathering with our families. This saddens me. I love gathering with my family during these special holidays.

I am going to miss this so much. First, it is going to be my daughter’s birthday. Then it’s my birthday, our survivor’s celebration (Survival Day), then Christmas. We would have many parties during December.

In the past, it was different. What is this Christmas going to look like this December 25, 2020?

With domestic violence already on the rise due to the pandemic restrictions, the holidays are bringing far more trouble to families across America than we ever bargained for.

It’s hard for the authorities and mental health providers to keep up with this growing epidemic, and already, we know that it is the season for increased suicide and violence among all age groups.

While I am writing this article, it is not Christmas yet. In my family, we celebrate during this time, before Christmas, because during the holiday season, many years ago, I was in one of my abusive marriages, and my kids and I escaped from this abuse during this time in December

Now, we use this as an excuse to celebrate our Survival Day. We have been celebrating this day for many years now.

We, as in my three children, their spouses, and my 5 grandchildren, sometimes invite other special people into our lives, but mainly it is, just us.

I am very proud of my children; they are finally free of their childhood trauma. Sometimes we go back and remember what we escaped from. We count our blessings.

In December, my husband had come home and he must have taken drugs because he was acting worse than ever. As I mentioned before in my writings, I would place a quarter in my older daughter’s pants pocket to escape from the house and call the police.  This time, I hid all the knives from the kitchen, told them to leave and go to our neighbors’ home and call the police.

It took the police hours to find my apartment because my daughter could not remember our apt. number. Until finally, in the middle of the night, he fell asleep and as I ran out of the apartment, the police stopped me and asked me if I was the one who had called the police? I said “Yes” and started to run off, and they stopped me saying they could not go in and arrest him unless I came in with them.  I was so frightened. “He was in bed asleep I told them, no weapons, I hid all the knives”.

When they placed him in handcuffs, I took my money (which he had taken from me) from his wallet and I used that money to leave him. We left with only the clothes on our backs. He used to stalk us, even with a restraining order in hand.

Now we celebrate our survival by giving gifts to each other, dinner, and having a fun time with peace of mind, knowing we are now safe to do as we please. My daughter reminded me of our situation back in the day, and how it was through her eyes.

May God continues to bless all of us who have survived, and many blessings to all.

 

 

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Our Parents Past Lives

How do the past lives of our parents affect us? We do not only pass on our history, our traditional food recipes, and stories from our grandpas and grandmas but even our traumas. Additionally, some of our ways to survive and our way of life.

Our trauma and our methods of protecting ourselves are threads. I had a client whose father was schizophrenic. He believed the Mexican mafia was after him. His son, who was 8 years old at the time, was living with him.

Dad would come to school, take him out of school, and they would drive for hours, trying to get away or move away, leaving everything behind. This was the way of my client’s life experience with his dad.

My client, as he grew up, had a problem with the Mexican race. Those problems were buried within him.  While going to college he had fallen in love with a Mexican girl who didn’t look, Mexican. Soon after he received this information from her, he started getting sick.

He started feeling weird, his stomach would hurt, he would get headaches, almost feeling frightened. Why?  He wanted to stay away from this girl. He confided in her one day when she asked if she did anything wrong?  He said he blurted out the following words. He wanted to know “if she had anything to do with the Mexican Mafia?” My client told her about his dad and his illness.

He said he felt relieved, and at the same time scared that she would judge him and think “this guy’s crazy.” His Girlfriend, (she must have really liked him) suggested he should get help. (Smart lady.)

This trauma was placed within him by his father, who was not medicated for his mental illness, affected his son for the rest of his life, and could have ruined a good relationship. Today, he is married to this lady, has children, a good job, and doing well.

How parent’s trauma, can affect their children’s lives is very real.

Our parent’s past lives and lives within each of us, are molded into our biology. We are all sculpted by experiences of threat and safety. They are like threads, both literally and metaphorically.

Long and thin, those threads stretch, not only through the spaces of our bodies, but back through time, even to the generations before we were conceived.

Scientific studies of trauma and adverse childhood experiences have revealed that children’s distress casts a much longer shadow of thread through our culture, more than we know or care to admit.

We now know that childhood traumas hover over us as adults, creating health conditions like heart disease, liver cirrhosis, obesity, drug use, alcoholism, diabetes, dementia, and many other diseases and illnesses.

If we don’t start raising our children gently and lovingly, we now know that we can start not only threading through the spaces of our children’s bodies, because of our unresolved traumas but pass it on to our grandchildren as well.

If we don’t increase our knowledge of how we can stop damaging our children, the children of our future, we are risking casting those threads to our children’s futures and the effect that could have on their children and their future, it could go on and on.

Let’s get the needed help, for the sake of our children and their future.

Many blessings to you all.

 

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Can My Body Remember?

In a few minutes…{pause}… Now, as I count backward from 3 to 1 you will wake up 3.-happy, 2- Refreshed, and 1- joyful!  NOW OPEN YOUR EYES!

I did not wake up Joyful!!! OH MY GOD! I prayed again and asked if this was true? I prayed and asked my Angels, My Guides, I asked my trusted Pendulum, I muscled tested my question and they all answered “YES”.

I felt like Crying…I felt very very grateful to my brain, my body, for protecting me from remembering this horrific experience. All these years and my body and my mind did not feel I was ready for this information until now.

My Protectors, Spirit knew I was going to experience more horrific experiences and needed me stronger emotionally and mentally because thru me I had three more spirits/souls to bring through. I also had some lives to save.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Now, I ask, “Why?” Why even bother to give me this information? Did I really needed to know, and why? How is this information going to assist me? Only Source and my spirit guides and my Angels know. I pray that someday that too will be reviled to me.

I find this as a message from my higher self, who is constantly taking care of me.  Even today, many years later, very grateful how my brain and my body covered up this part of my young unexplainable event of me to later be revealed.

Right after my revealing experience, I asked one of my brothers if they remembered my “Tio Lucio” my brother stated he was not our real Tio/uncle. He was just one of our uncle’s friends and because he was with one of the uncles we all called him uncle.

He disappeared and never came around again. I also talked to some of my older sisters and they remember him too, sort of, but never liked him. I would like to talk to one of my oldest sisters to check with her about stuff like this and see if she remembers me been gone for a long time. This information was revealed to me just some months before now. I am still investigating.

This could be one of the reasons why mom treated me differently from the other girls. My dear mom did not teach me to cook like she did my sisters. They had to learn how to cook, clean the whole house, learn to wash clothes, make tortillas, I did help make tortillas, get up at 4:30 in the morning to make them, and place them in a turkey pan. A very LARGE turkey pan.

My mother never insisted I learn any of the things she would teach my sisters. She would say that I would “probably will never marry.”  She probably thought I’d never been able to have sex. I don’t know.

I am not sure of what she thought, because she never talked to me about what happened. No one ever talked to me about that incident that happened to me. Just Dona Vita asked me if I remembered why I was in the hospital and what happened to me.

I could not remember.

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More Trauma

I remember waking up surrounded and blinded by very bright lights. If I was old enough to know better, I would have thought it was the Divine white light and I was crossing over. I screamed with pain “Put her back under!” a male voice yelled. (Obviously, I did not die).

I remember waking up again, seeing and hearing my mom sobbing really loud coming towards me. My head was raised enough to see that I was wearing a huge diaper and I saw I was hooked up to wires? Tubes? Other hospital equipment?…   Still feeling pain, but not as bad. I fell back to sleep.

I remember, my mother taking me to a curandera’s house. I was at Dona’s Vita’s house.  Dona Vita was our witch doctor/curandera healer. Everyone went to her for many many different things. This lady knew even medical things… I remember I used to be afraid of her.

Mom said I was to stay with her to help her sweep her kitchen every day until Dona Vita could do it herself. OK…I remember mom would always have us volunteer to help others who had just had babies, surgeries, or the elderly. I felt this was one of those times. So, I would wake up in the early mornings, and by my cot was a broom. I would use it to hold me up to sweep her kitchen floor.

I could not understand why it was so hard for me to stand and I felt weak, but I kept trying to sweep Dona Vitas’ floor. When I felt it was too hard for me Dona Vita said I could finish it later.

She would feed me something to eat and after eating she would give me some tea and I would get very sleepy and slept for most of the day.

With time, I got better at sweeping and not falling asleep. Dona Vita asked me one day if I remembered how I hurt myself? “You know, I must have hit my head too because I cannot remember!”

Ties to this Trauma – I do remember, I was at a doctor’s office.  He was checking me after I had my second child, asking, “How many children have you had?”

“Just two, I responded.”

“You have way too much scarring here, for just two children.”

This memory of the doctor’s office visit and his comment came to me instantly. Did this really happen?  I heard a loud “YES!”

“Now, as you re-evaluate this experience, this acknowledgment, how will this past trauma in this life help you have more joy, happiness, and closure?’

Remember to speak to your Angels and guides, to your God, and Goddess, to give you the much-needed answers. I will give you a couple of minutes to speak to them. May the answers you request give you the peace you need to overcome this new information.

And now go back to relaxing, feeling safe again, calm and relaxed, and go to a happy place in which you can relax and receive the much-needed answers …pause…

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Trauma Again

But who knows why I said “Si”? I don’t know, but it was a lie.… Then he showed me a bigger finger (I know now that it wasn’t a bigger finger but from the eyes of a 5-year-old child….)  he told me to place my hands on it and feel it. Did he place his hands over my hands, moving my hands violently up and down over his other bigger finger?

I closed my eyes and when I opened them, there was this substance that looked like white hand lotion only on my hands, running down my elbows and on my pretty dress.

Tio Lucio grabbed a yellow dirty crunchie hand towel that he must have kept under the seat and wiped my hands and dress with it and then himself.  “Can I go play on the merry-go-round now?”

But it was now getting dark.

He grabbed my underwear and helped me put them on. But I really just wanted to go home. I said, “I want to go home…”

It was dark outside now. I remember sitting away from him as he drove me back home. He did not stop in front of the house.

His arm crossed over me as he opened the passenger door and I remember jumping out running to the door of my house.

Tio Lucio drove away. I heard my brother yell “she’s home!”

“You are in big trouble”.

My mom asked, “Were you at the park?” I nodded yes and she spanked me with the belt and said, “Never to do that again especially by myself.” She stated she had sent the boys to look for me and they did not find me.

My mom would emphasize each syllable of her words with each strike of the belt. Hadn’t she seen my red eyes from crying so much? Didn’t I look like a mess?

Mom was so mad, she really didn’t see me or tried to hear what I was trying to tell her. I looked right at her face and eyes. Mom never looked directly into my eyes or face. Why?

I forgive her now because I did the same thing to my children; spank first and talk later. I am sure my mother had to deal with the same kind of guilt later.

My mom also worried because we lived close to the Labor Camp. The Labor Camp was like a village full of people who followed the harvests.

Some with their families, but mainly men. As I got into school, I had many friends (kids) there. But that’s another story for another time.

My next memory is that it happened again… I somehow found myself inside my Tio Lucio’s truck at the park… again. This time, it hurt much more, he started off with him penetrating me using his fingers.

I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see the expressions he would make with his face.  Then he inserted something that hurt much more and so bad, I screamed and yelled for him to stop! He covered my mouth with his dirty fingers.

I remember the taste, the smell… on them. He was on top of me! He would not stop! He sounded like a bear to me. I would open my eyes at times just to check to see what kind of animal this was!

I was just a scrawny, skinny little 5-year-old girl! I was just a small girl! I saw a lot of red around me, blood. Lots of blood. The last thing I remember… I was feeling cold wrapped in a yellow towel seeing the world go around and around. I fell asleep…

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Trauma at 5

I remember being 5 years old, born a girl, born into a large family. I remember playing on a gravel road just outside of my house. I was pouring gravel on my puppy’s belly laughing along with him as I rubbed his belly with it and his leg wiggling along with his tail. I was enjoying this little game we’d play often on this beautiful sunny day.

My mother always had a lot of people over on Sundays after church. I could smell the food from where I was, especially the freshly made flour tortillas, hmm, soon it will be our turn to eat and I was hungry. Men get fed first. They are some special “mother fu*kers” in our culture.

After they are done eating and drinking, taking their time of course, then “let’s feed the children!”  So meanwhile, we are playing outside. Running, laughing, playing games, having fun with other kids and my brothers and sisters.

 

I decided to play with my puppy on the outside of the rose bushes that my mom planted, forming a line, acting as a fence, just off the driveway, pouring gravel on my dogs’ belly.

When my Tio (uncle) Lucio drove up in his greyish old pickup truck and he swung open the door and asked if I would like to go and play at the park (it was close by my house) he would take me. I yelled “Yeah!” I sprung on my feet and shaking the dirt off my Sunday dress, I said, “I am going to call my Brothers and Sisters to joins us!”

He quickly said, “No. Just you,” grasping my arm and picking me up like a rag doll, putting me in his truck setting me beside him “Because you are special to me. I will also buy you an ice cream cone. Would like that?”

“OK”

“Ice Cream cone! I love Ice cream cones!”

As we drove off, I decided to stand myself up holding on to his shoulder and I said “I can’t see, where we are going? Where are we going to first?” He said, “To the park”.

I loved going to the park. My puppy and I would walk by ourselves sometimes and play on the merry-go-round.

I remember it was made of iron and it was cold when we would sit on it and hold on to the bars for dear life. I loved going around and around as someone pushed it going faster and faster until we’d fall out rolling in the soft and safe grass, laughing thinking, how fun!

As we tried getting up and walking or enjoy seeing others trying to walk feeling dizzy. Remember playing on the teeter-totters? I loved playing on them too, placing my puppy on one side of it, but he was not heavy enough so I would pretend he was and push up with my legs and he would jump off. He was no fun.

Yay! We got to the park, but my Tio Lucio passed the merry-go-round and parked under some trees on the other side of the park, and I could not see anyone.

I remember I started crying, and I don’t know why. I think I started to get scared. Something was making me feel scared, bad, and wrong.

Then, my Tio Lucio started to yank my underwear off and threw them on the floor. He grabbed my legs and positioned them in a squatting manner, then started placing his fingers inside me.

Penetrating me with his fingers, he spits on his fingers one at a time, as if washing them inside me. I remember his fingers would sting inside me and I would shout out in pain crying that it would hurt, “shhh, Mija. No te gusta?” (don’t you like this?)

(Stupid Fu*ker. Did I look like I was enjoying this?)

But why did I say, “Si?”

 

 

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How Do Teenagers Cope With Trauma?

Teenagers are very complex people. Sometimes, they are difficult to talk to. If you are the parent, they don’t believe anything you say, especially, if you have had times when you’ve made a mistake, or forgot something they told you, or as silly as it sounds, you didn’t read their mind. You have to be physic and a mind reader to understand what they are really feeling and trying to make you understand.

Teenagers are going through a hormonal change during their teen years. Their emotions are everywhere because of it. The effect of hormonal moods, emotions, and impulses as well as their body. The mood swings that teens experience are caused by fluctuations in estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone-the sex hormones.

These same teen hormones will also affect the way they think, feel, and react to certain situations. I used to work with teens who had been sexually molested. I had this 17-year-old client. A very angry, untrusting, at times violent young lady. She also was suffering from depression. I had a hard time getting her to open up.

One day she lighted up her cigarette in front of me, the smell of the cigarette made me sick to the point of wanting to throw up. I asked her as kindly as I could, to please turn her cigarette off, she asked me” why, what is it to you.?”

I told her the truth;” the man who raped me smoked those kinds of cigarette your smoking now.” She instantly turned the cigarette off. (to my surprise). She said she was sorry, something like this happened to you? I told her my story. She apologized for how she was acting towards me and said she felt like I was just pretending to care for the money and I really did not give a shit about her. She told me her story and was very positively different and more open. Now she too is helping others to turn things around.

Emotional and psychological trauma can also be caused by ongoing stress such as dealing with sexual harassment, living in a crime-ridden neighborhood Breaking up with another boyfriend or girlfriend. Emotional feelings are more heighten when being traded by a friend, this triples the emotional feelings of being alone.

The following are signs and symptoms associated with emotional and psychological trauma:

  • Depression, unable to get out of bed.
  • Not wanting to visit friends or go out with them.
  • Having unexplained aches and body pain.
  • Always complaining about feeling tired.
  • Unable to sleep, having nightmares
  • Angary outburst, Irritability, and mood swings
  • Unable to remove feelings of guilt and shame.

Treatment for trauma takes time. It may take weeks or months before you start seeing improvement in your teenager’s mood and it is important to stay patient and to continue to offer support and encouragement throughout this process. Be prepared for setbacks and celebrate the milestones.

As parents, we know our teenagers are hard to talk to sometimes. We will need to try to be more patent, more compassionate. Try talking about expectations and what we do, is because we have their best interest at heart

” Because I love you, and want what is best for you, we can do this together and get your input on this, what do you think”. Ask them about their personal habits. Are you sleeping well? Practice empathy with one other, tell them they need to show their friends that this teenager cares about them, doesn’t that feel good to you when they ask how are you doing?

Ask teens about their own coping strategies, I am just curious, Mija, with the covid 19 virus How are you coping without your friends around? How are you coping with the school situation?

I enjoy talking to teenagers more now than before. When they tell me something that would concern me. I will confess to them that I would like to help. Or I will be a very good listener and thank them for trusting me enough to talk to me.

To all our Teenagers and those involved in helping them Many Blessings.