Bonus Episode: Big T, Little t – An interview with trauma therapist Megan Irwin

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.

Speaker 1

The TNA surprise Journey can be shocking, upsetting and isolating, but you're not alone and there is hope connection and Community are powerful tools as we process.

And he'll DNA surprise Network and DNA surprises podcast are proud to host.

The first ever DNA, surprise Retreat May for through the 7th 2023 and Tucson Arizona.

Join Us for four days of healing, including expert-led sessions delicious meals and fun time together that will help us integrate our DNA surprises and Lead, happier more fulfilling lives.

If you've been looking for space to learn grow and heal, this is your sign.

Registration is open.

Learn more at DNA surprise retreat.com

Speaker 2

I mean, I really think that we just try to build bigger Fuller, meaningful lives around the things that have happened to us that hurt and that it's okay.

And it actually makes quite a bit of sense that those things still make us sad in this very special bonus episode of DNA surprises.

I'm joined by Meghan, Irwin will be facilitating a session on trauma at the DNA surprise Retreat.

Megan is a licensed therapist.

Specializing in grief and loss, trauma, PTSD, and Associated challenges.

She serves as a compassionate witness and guide for her clients healing, and personal growth make, it will facilitate a session called Big T.

Little T on how DNA, surprise traumas affect our bodies and Minds.

She'll also Empower us with tools to manage the big feelings.

We experience following our surprises in our Ian, we discuss what trauma is, why there are different labels for trauma and recommendations for coping.

She even shows me how to be more compassionate for myself and my own healing Journey.

We all have things to learn.

Speaker 3

Thank you so much for joining me today.

Meghan,

of course, it's wonderful to be here.

Make it is going to host a session on trauma at the DNA surprise retreat.

In May, So we thought it would be great to have her on the podcast today to share more about trauma and go over a little bit of what we're going to discuss at The Retreat.

So Meghan, can you tell me a little bit about your background?

Sure, thank you so much for having me, it on the Pod, and for inviting me to join you at the retreat.

And share what I know about drama with the folks that will be attending the retreat.

I am a mental health.

Purposed, I'm a clinical social work associate and I specialize in working with people who have experienced trauma and are working toward recovering from it.

I'm also a trauma, Survivor myself.

And so this is a topic that I feel really passionate about.

I'm always excited to share what I know from lived experience and clinical experience with folks.

Do want to make clear that the conversation we're having today is probably going to be pretty high level.

It's not meant to be clinical advice or direction for any of your listeners.

May be a jumping off point for folks, that want to go learn more about the topic on their own.

But anyone who's experiencing really distressing, intrusive mental health symptoms, definitely needs to seek out support from somebody that can work with them directly.

This is not a substitute for therapy.

This is just kind of our conversation about a component of the DNA surprises.

Perience.

Thank you for that

disclaimer.

Sorry for the professional disclaimer, but hopefully we did just scare people away.

This should be an interesting

combo.

Know, I'm really excited to have this conversation and I think it's important to recognize that.

We do have these amazing resources through podcasts books, Retreats all of those things but none of them are

substitute for

clinical support with a licensed professional.

Who is licensed in your state To provide services to

you.

And then I will just

add a side note.

Full disclosure that Meghan is my best friend of about 15 years.

I have been so lucky in My DNA surprise journey to be surrounded, by amazing people including Meghan, who have supported me through this.

And she's seen firsthand how much it has affected me.

And while she's not, my therapist, you've really provided some excellent advice to me, especially In the beginning, as I was just trying to navigate my journey.

So well, it's been an honor to be your friend, all these years and then to be a trusted person that's been able to be there for you.

And this and I have to say I've learned a lot from you, watching your journey with this as a friend.

But also as a trauma professional this is an area of work that we're really not trained in.

It's made me want to seek out further training and working with DNA surprise.

Is an identity surprises.

It's not something that a lot of mental health professionals are trained in, and I've just learned a lot from you and from your community getting to be with you in this.

Well,

thank you for being willing to learn and open to learn.

As I mentioned, make a concession is called Big T Little T and it is on trauma and I think trauma is, I don't want to call it a buzzword, but it's very popular.

Now we're seeing it a lot on social media.

There's a lot of Discussion around trauma, but I'd like to start with the basics.

Sure what is, trauma.

How do you define it?

So of course, there is in the diagnostic manual that we use like a.

There's actually there's only one diagnosable disorder that has the word trauma in it.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, lots of debate about that and it has a long list of diagnostic criteria associated with it but I really kind of break trauma down.

To anything that overwhelms, your ability to cope when your ability to cope with whatever is occurring in your current reality overwhelms.

You there's a series of things that happen to you, emotionally and biologically in your nervous system that are overwhelming and can lead to the kind of intrusive symptoms.

That make the long laundry list of symptoms in the clinical diagnostic criteria, and okay, the other thing I think Think about when it comes to trauma and we'll get more into this when we talk about like, are there different kinds of trauma?

I think about it as both what you experience and what you don't experience.

So what you experience may be an acute event, a car accident and assault a DNA, surprise Unexpected death of a loved one.

That's anak.

That's an experience, right?

That can be traumatic.

Those are Are not all always traumatic for people really.

Again, like is your ability to cope overwhelmed or not but I also think of trauma as what we don't experience growing up.

Did you not experience feelings of love and comfort and nurturance from your caregiver?

Did you not experience affirmation of your self identity?

That's an absence of a thing that we know is an absence of connection that we need as people to develop a strong and healthy self concept and that can also be a form of trauma.

So it's anything that overwhelms your ability to cope and it can be a thing you experience or it can be something that we actually need as human beings that you don't experience the lack of something.

I really like that way of describing it and in the DNA surprise Community.

I think we see a lot of that.

Obviously, the DNA surprise itself can be a traumatic event that acute event like it.

What you were?

But then there are layers, definitely with the people that I've talked to on the podcast.

Where, you know, sadly, we hear these stories of children, who weren't told that they were loved, or never saw that genetic mirroring never felt like they fit in and all of those things.

So, that's really

interesting.

Yeah, it's really layered.

And I think that's what can make a DNA surprise experience, so complicated.

And so challenging to figure out like, where to Start the road to recovery from because it is complex and it's both an event.

And then often an acute, sort of lack of something leading up to that event, which is what we would call complex PTSD.

And so, you know, you kind of get that combo of an event that is traumatizing in and of itself and then the complexity of not having needs met which leads to a challenging self concept for a lot of Well, fluorescence of like not being enough not being lovable, then you get those two things combining.

And it's kind of a complex clinical picture to treat, but it is treatable recovery, is totally possible.

It's just like you said Laird, right?

It's not going to necessarily be like a short simple road to figuring out what comes next.

Hmm, has everyone experienced trauma?

Mmm.

I kind of, I think It depends on your lens on it.

So for me, I think that trying to survive but not to get political right.

Buttock, trying to survive in late-stage capitalism and a society, where so many of our basic needs for.

So many of us are not met like that is inherently traumatic.

Or if you are a person that holds a marginalized Identity or But has a medical illness or a disability.

And you're trying to survive and Society where the society is not built for you like that can be inherently traumatic for many people.

So if you sort of take that macro lens on it, you can sort of think.

Yeah.

Like most people probably have experienced some form of chronic overwhelming stress that has shaped their self-identity in a way that isn't helpful.

On to them.

But has everybody experienced trauma?

I don't think so.

I've met people who have, who don't identify, as having experienced trauma.

There's lots of people wandering around in the world that are like securely attached of their needs were met as children and they have not experienced an acute event that's been traumatic for them.

So, not everyone has experienced it.

It's really just how do you define it for yourself?

I think.

I think that's a huge piece of it.

At right.

Is how do we feel about the things that have happened to us?

Because I think there are some people that have had DNA surprises, that do not Define them as traumatic events.

Yeah, but I think most of the people that I've spoken to at least and within the community that I've connected with do Define it, you know, as as something that is greatly traumatic, right?

Rocks your sense of self.

We'll think about I just want to like because it's sort of you sort of go off of like trauma as being what we experience and what we don't experience an adverse event and then the lack of connections support nurturance belonging that shapes self concept that impacts the nervous system that can create intrusive symptoms that add up to a clinical trauma diagnosis, right?

The level of support that occurs during and after especially immediately After a trauma, also really impacts how much it winds up, being a factor in her life over the long term.

So it may be that some of the folks that you've talked to that had a DNA surprise, had this thing happen, and then were met with the love and the support and the belief and the listening that they needed, and that moment to process it and have the full stress response and integrate it And have it, not sort of linger, right?

And then those folks probably also, like, grew up with, you know, good enough situations where their needs were enough met and they felt enough took care of taking care of right at make sense.

So it's like a horrible thing can happen in your life and it does not have to turn into PTSD.

If there are interventions in place early on or if you're met with the kind of nurturance, that is needed to fully process.

The thing that's happened.

One of the things I really admire about your approach is it's so

hopeful otherwise you're just want to take a nap and cry.

Yeah, but just fine if you need to, that's a great

coping times, right?

I love a nap.

But yeah, I think this idea that getting the support working through it is, is integral to integrating the The event, you know, into your life, into your identity and being able to move

forward in a really healthy way.

I just really like that perspective because, you know, in this in this DNA surprise Community, we have experienced these major events, but I like the idea that they don't have to completely define us and that we can heal and and move forward.

Yeah, thank you for that Insight.

So I'm really curious about Out how trauma shows up for people.

So like what are symptoms?

I guess as you were mentioning before there are symptoms, yeah of trauma.

What are some of those that people who've had a DNA, surprise might experience or

exhibit, it can look.

So it'll look different depending on again, your history of trauma, prior to your DNA surprised and also the sort of goat Oh, to response or responses that you have learned through either through your DNA surprise experience.

Or through prior experiences, keep you the most say for the most protective, right?

So we think of like trauma responses, I think of them as protective responses as fight flight, freeze or van, right?

And those are the ways that we tend to figure out how to respond to an overwhelming situation, to try to regulate ourselves.

And keep ourselves safe, and every response to a traumatic event, no matter how maladaptive it may appear to society, or might actually be like harmful to the person is an attempt to regulate, the nervous system back down to like a tolerable level of stress.

So most people can have a go to one and the symptoms for that can look a little bit different depending on depending on the one.

So for people, Well, that go kind of to flight, which is like movement away from the Bad Thing from the overwhelming thing that can look like a lot of panic.

Fear.

Excessive, worry, excessive concern rumination like, if you ever just get stuck in a loop, a loop of worry and concern that you can't get out of people that moved to fight, which is sort of movement toward the problem tend to feel a lot of anger irritation frustration.

And whatever behaviors are associated with those feelings for you.

It's really going to depend on the person.

But those are the feelings that tend to go with those responses and those responses, take place in our sympathetic nervous systems.

So, what you might be feeling in your body if you go to fight or flight even if you don't necessarily connect with your feelings really well.

These are folks that will tend to feel their heart rate really elevated.

Feel a lot of Nolan, the blood pressure kind of goes up as your operating in this, like some pathetic part of your nervous system.

I would say that like people who van also kind of hang out there and their feelings are going to be worry and anxiety.

But also about like, is everybody mad at me?

But also a lot of appeasement strategies.

Like how can I people, please?

How can I try and ingratiate myself to people.

So that they'll like me.

And there's a lot of like, Like feelings of Shame.

And then there are also folks that go into a freeze response which can feel often like a complete bodily shutdown.

So, these are folks that tend to get really numb feel really trapped feel really helpless.

These are folks that tend to have really strong disassociative skills.

So that feeling of like shutting down and just emotionally or even sometimes it can be like, physically feeding the Ation physically.

What you're going to feel.

If you're kind of a freeze shut down, sort of person is like your body feeling tingly, limbs feeling immobilized, feeling really cold things like that.

Hmm.

We're all capable of experiencing all of these.

It's really like and usually we have tested them all out at one time or another and have learned this strategy of response Works to keep me as safe as possible.

When I'm Overwhelmed.

And so we usually have one or two that become a go-to.

As you were going through these.

I found myself identifying with little nuggets from each one.

We all have all of them.

And I think, you know, personally, with my DNA surprise specifically, I was surprised that I really went into the freeze that's actually not one that I typically would say that I identify with.

I think that initial aftermath I really felt that freeze feeling And then later on, I probably had a little more the

fight.

Yeah,

but it is really interesting to observe.

Well, let me just the different responses.

Let me

ask you this like, okay.

So I typically a foreigner and then if that doesn't work, I'll fight you.

That has more to do with like chronic ongoing relational needs and emotional needs not being met as a kid and figuring out.

That's how I would get attention.

I had an You trauma a couple a year before yours and I too went to shut down because of the thing that happened was I like totally Off Script, right?

And like I couldn't and it was so overwhelming.

There was like there was nothing to do but disassociate to stay safe right and I suspect the same thing might be true, really like maybe with other things in life that flight that fight and stained is what helped you like, get your way through the world but when you had your DNA, so Prize, it was so off script that was just like what the hell like this can't be real and that they did that thought of this can't be, real is very protective in those early days of trying to figure out what to do

100%.

And and I mean you were, you were witness to it that that running script of is this really happening?

Is this really real?

And I hear that a lot from people that I talk to ya, where you know, we can't look at ourselves in the mirror and and all of those kinds of Sponsor.

Yeah, that's so

natural.

I would just like a firm for people that have that kind of the clinical term is like depersonalization or derealization depending on exactly how it's presenting.

Like you don't want that to continue forever.

It's really just starting but early on like that is so protective and it's sort of like buying you time for other parts of yourself to start to like integrate that this is real and you're going to have to do something to it but it's So overwhelming, you can't, you actually can't hold it 24 hours a day.

Especially if your network or your community or your family is at like rising to hold it with you.

And I think what can be complicated for your community is the people that often are like the most important and the support network are the people that are causing harm because they are the people.

I hope that's not too harsh to say I would never impugn people have so many reasons for why they keep things hidden, but it is You're it's usually a primary caregiver that has kept something secret.

That's then been discovered accidentally there.

That's a big loss it.

So that person often isn't there to like rise to the occasion to like, help the in PE.

Exactly.

It's like that's the person that you most need support from and they're the one that did the thing that caused the harm.

And know if I don't think it's too harsh at all because it's it's true, you know, regardless of the intent that impact, right?

Right is very hard and often times the people that I speak to their mothers aren't able to support them for whatever reason biological fathers, may not even know that's what somebody to lean on birth certificate father's.

There's so many complicated family systems involves with these kinds of things but I think that's exactly right.

The people that you would usually lean on during these times are, are the ones that have Even though we have compassion, or I personally have a lot of compassion for people that make those choices.

I think there's a lot of Shame and stigma for women and that's part of what leads to these DNA surprises intimately.

It is still very painful and difficult for their children.

Yes.

Oh yeah.

And I kind of think about it in the grief world.

Are you familiar with like, the grief Circle?

No.

Okay, so there's a model of like, grief recovery where you can think about it.

As As like the loss that occurs is at the middle of the circle and then the first circle around it.

Are the people most directly connected with the person who was lost like family members, right?

Immediate family members spouse or partner and then the next circle out, maybe like close friends and extended family members and the next circle out, like, casual acquaintances.

And the model of it is all the support has to go in to the circle.

Like support can never go out from the circle.

And be useful.

And so like, you're giving support always in the direction, toward the person or people like most harmed by the loss, most impacted by their grief.

So if you think about it, like as an in PE like you're at the middle of the circle at all, this part has to go in the direction of U.

That's not to say that like Mom or Dad or birth certificate father.

Like they're all impacted hurting as well, siblings too, but they got to get their sport from somebody in the next rung out.

Out the support can't come from the in PE to the parent and be effective or in my opinion appropriate.

Like the person that is closest to the loss or the most harmed, all the resources go in their Direction and it can flow through.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, I really like that model.

Yeah, it really makes a lot of sense to me.

Yeah, I'll definitely be using

that.

And, you know, your mileage may vary in your ability to like navigate that in, everyone's complicated, family systems, but it's just a way to think about Excited.

Think a lot of times people in positions like you were put in and the folks that come on the podcast, there's there's almost a position of like you need comfort and you're also trying to provide it to others or feel like guilty about the thing that you discovered, when the support just needs to all be going in.

One flowing, in One Direction, toward the person, in the middle of the circle.

Yeah, 100%.

So we touched on this a little bit, the complex PTSD, and then PTSD, and Called your session, Big T, Little T, implying that there are different types of trauma.

What's the difference between a big T, trauma and a little T trauma?

Or is there

a difference?

Well, I think what I would say about Big T Little T, as you know, some folks don't love the freezing because, you know, and I get it you don't want to think about like the this thing that's hurt you as like diminutive right.

But, but I think that folks need to recognize is that it's only pretty recent There's an understanding of trauma as anything that overwhelms, your ability to cope and an understanding that it can be something more than an acute event.

It's really only in the last 20 years that were willing to understand that.

Like people besides War veterans can have trauma.

So this big T little to you phraseology kind of came out of the work to help people in like just the popular culture understand that.

That there are many things that can be traumatic.

It doesn't just have to be going to war, or being attacked or getting in a car accident.

And so if we go back to how I was, sort of explaining it earlier.

Sometimes, traumas, what we experience, it's an event.

And that's typically what people sort of will categorize has a big T.

It's a thing that happened and it could also be something, we didn't experience a fundamental, human need or connection that we didn't experience.

And that is where you can think of it as more sort of chronic relational trauma.

And that's usually what people are referring to when they refer to Little T.

So I understand by like there is now like some movement to push back against those markers because it's like it's all just trauma and that's true.

And there are just dinked ways that you would clinically approach.

Someone based on the type of trauma, they've experienced like, my clients who have acute events.

And It really differrent sort of clinical conception, as someone that has had chronic trauma, either chronically, their needs were not met or they just had daily experiences of acute.

Harmful events, my clinical conceptualization of that treatment plan is going to be really different and then some people have had both layered together and that's different.

Yeah actually

does make a lot of sense to me.

It's just taken some time for people to understand that, like, Neglect, which is the absence of something, right?

Child neglect and it's the absence of a lot of thing, and it's absolutely traumatic and it's only been in recent years that like that started to be accepted as we've gotten more into like the neurobiology of trauma and how it actually works in the nervous system.

And so, you know, I don't ever want anybody to think that like capitalization is like prioritizing or You prioritizing what they've been through?

It really is just kind of like a pop psychology way of translating.

The concept is as quickly as possible.

And you know, it's I think that still needed like we still complex PTSD is not in the DSM.

Like, I cannot diagnose my clients with it and other countries that use different diagnostic codes clinicians can, but we have post-traumatic stress disorder and something called acute stress disorder.

Her.

And then a couple personality disorders that I think are overused and like, typically what we're diagnosing is chronic Little T trauma.

So it's like there's a lot of catching up to do and there's a lot of work to do to catch up like diagnostic labels and the language.

We use to the science and the current understanding of it.

Yeah, that makes sense.

So given that is a DNA surprise Big T or little tea.

Well God, I feel like I keep saying It depends, but I think, I think, I think it does to me and it might not be back to it or an AP, very surprising and hurtful.

And then the person is met and supported by their community and it doesn't actually become ingrained in the nervous system and the psyche as a trauma, right?

Like not everything that race is traumatic, not everything that hurts and changes the way our nervous.

System response to that.

Stimuli.

So for some people it might be a very painful experience that causes acute stress and a lot of sadness and the and they move through it pretty seamlessly with a lot of great support for others.

It may be an acute one time like first time, big traumatic overwhelming event that they experience and for some people that might be an acute event on top of a lifetime.

Of other over stressful and overwhelming experiences that have left them, you know, feeling.

Overwhelmed and alone in this world.

So it really like, I have no idea how to find it for each individual.

I think it's really like, if someone were to come to me with this experience, I would work with them on, like, trying to understand the meaning that they're making of it, the emotions associated with it.

What does it mean about them?

What does it mean about their safety emotionally and the world?

What does it mean about the World At Large?

Like there's so many meaning-making questions that I would have for someone first?

And then we would figure out like what diagnosis to bill the insurance for everyone figure out how they would Define the situation for themselves.

And then we would figure out ways to start working toward building, a life around it because that's how How I think about recovery.

I don't think about recovery as a return to a previous state.

Yeah, not bad.

No, and I love, I really like that perspective on, you know, how do we classify a deity surprised?

Because I do think it's very personal.

It does depend on the circumstances of how you found out.

Has supported what connections you were able to make, or not, make afterwards.

The circumstances of your conception I think can play a lot into it, totally fair or something else.

And I think the biggest thing that I've learned through my work in this space as I don't get to Define how anyone feels about their experiences.

Yeah and I think that's so important.

So I'm really glad that you said

that I really do think that it's the meaning we make and it may it's also possible for it to not feel like a big deal at first.

And then down the road to feel like more of a Big deal or more overwhelming and I would want to normalize that for people to like, it may be that you have a DNA surprising, you don't feel it affected by it at first.

And then years later, it starts to really bother you.

And you want to do some work around those feelings.

Like, that's pretty normal to.

There's also not a timeline for this stuff.

Anyway, there's no timeline for it.

There's no timeline.

But I'm glad that you call that out because I've noticed, you know, I've done, A lot of therapy.

I've done EMDR.

I've done reading.

I've done all the things that there are to do to kind of process this but every now and then somebody will say something and it could be totally benign, right?

But, you know, something like I was talking to one of my sisters and she did something and I was like, oh you got that from Dad and just saying that I was like oh and that's not my dad.

You know like just those little things where it kind of brings it up again and you kind of get taken back to that space.

So I think it's it is really validating to hear that.

It's not linear stuff comes up and it's just something that we work on.

Yeah, that's honest.

May

also always be there like I know you were like, oh my God you're so hopeful which I am, I believe in the ability to build a life around the things that have hurt us, but I don't believe that they go away.

Way and I also don't think that that's I don't think like never feeling hurt by it again, is the goal.

That you would still feel like a twinge or pain in your chest when talking to your sister about that.

Feels very human to me.

It doesn't feel to me like there's more work to be done so that I never feel that to my French like it might always be there but the thing is that like that's okay.

So you don't feel it all the time.

It's not making you.

Do you feel a lot of other things too?

Right, right?

But it's not a mobilizing,

it's not intrusive.

Really, like in trauma work, we're trying to get the bad thing that happened or the series of bad things that happened, the harm to stop being intrusive, stop having the nightmares stopped.

Having the – self-conception the feelings of hopelessness, the fears around, being in close connection and like, securely attached.

Safe relationship with others.

The Anxiety.

Like we're trying to take whatever the intrusive collection of symptoms are and reduce or in some cases.

Eliminate right.

That's really different than this horrible thing that happened.

Doesn't it ever make me sad again,

right?

Yeah, like that.

It's two different things.

Like being being human.

Just doesn't work that way.

It's like toast could never be bread again.

Like it's always going to be a little bit burn around.

Is and that's okay.

Yeah, because it's not overwhelming.

Your ability to live your life.

Yes, that's a good reminder, and, and good

perspective, I just think people can be really hard on themselves and be like, I already did this workbook because I did you my workbook again.

It's like, what go, like revisit your skills if you need to, but like there's nothing wrong with you.

If you're still sad about this, it's a sad really look.

I think, you know, You reflect on a happy memory?

Yeah, just going to make you smile.

You reflect on a sad memory.

It's probably not realistic for me to think that I'm just going to feel completely neutral about that.

Like it's awesome that

it's a sign of healing, right?

Like, did you feel like did that then take over your month?

No, it's what happened

next?

I just acknowledged it and moved on.

Um

yay.

As your friend, that makes me tear up.

I'm so proud of you.

Thor.

Great.

Like, that's the evidence that like it is possible.

I know what there's so much to talk about on this topic and how it pertains to be any surprises and I in your session.

One of the things that you're going to talk about is how we kind of can work through and and regulate some of those those trauma responses.

So yeah, again this is not clinical advice but in that immediate Aftershock of a DNA surprise, what are things that people can do or should perhaps look into doing to support themselves?

Yeah, so I really, I think if it is impacted you to the point that you're having like intrusive Behavioral Health, mental health symptoms, a lot of depression anxiety, excessive sadness feelings of disconnection feelings of grief and loss.

I know how hard it is to find a therapist right now but Try try to find one that I really think that this is something of an order of magnitude that some professional guidance through.

It is really important.

Now I'll also say that there's a lot of evidence that trauma can be healed in community.

So there are other community-oriented modalities of healing that folks can access to can access support groups would be support, would be helpful but fear support from People with similar lived experience but a few years of healing and Recovery under their belts, can be really helpful Nami.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness has peer support professionals that they can connect folks with.

So it may not be specific to like you DNA surprise, but it may be a grief support peer, a depression support here.

So there's that kind of all falls in the category of like, Professional supports and I do think those are important.

I realized how self interested in might sound, say that isn't their best.

But I just think there's things that like they're so confusing that outside phone from a trained person is really really useful.

Well, I will cosign that because I know that I wouldn't be where I am, if not for my therapist, right?

Yeah, shout out Susana and and then in the DNA surprise Community, there are groups like right to know.

They hold regular Zoom meetings and PE friends.

Hold Zoom meetings.

There you go there.

Yes, there.

That's amazing.

I'm resources Facebook group.

So on to, so I just like, yes, a licensed mental health, professional is really important but somebody that has lived your same experience.

I also, I think that's also really important and those kind of groups and resources, can often be low-cost or free, so I I told Alexis will can link to your listeners.

Don't

want to mention too that, right to know, has a mentorship program.

Only was actually pair you with someone who has had an MP.

So, but yeah, that's like in the grief and loss Community.

That's one of the biggest things that and I will say like, in my own trauma recovery.

Like that was really helpful in terms of types of therapy to seek out, I would encourage looking for someone who trained in treating trauma.

Not just trauma-informed.

I would really want to understand if the person has experience treating people who have experienced a traumatic event or a series of traumatic events.

Chronic trauma interventions or modalities that can be really helpful, or dialectical behavioral therapy or DBT.

I think the DBT skills are wonderful in learning distress tolerance and like regulation and getting your nervous system back to a more regulated place so you can figure out what to do.

Do next.

You can also find lots of good videos on DBT on YouTube that teach the skills.

If you can't access the therapist, the other good like body-based nervous system based intervention or modality, I love is polyvagal therapy.

And then when you're ready to, if you're ready to process the event itself, I strongly recommend eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing therapy or EMDR.

Brain spotting just really similar to EMDR or something called internal family systems therapy or parts.

Work.

These are all modalities that are really good at processing and Trauma Intervention when you're ready to do that, but DBT polyvagal somatic work.

Like those are all great places to start.

Like, build up the sense of safety in yourself to process the trauma and most therapists that are And a trauma are going to do work with you to build a sense of inner safety and calm before we start processing, your acute event anyway.

So if you meet with somebody and in one session, they want you to do EMDR, I would really ask them to explain that choice to you.

I think I have some things that I need to Google after this because I

-, I know.

That's like a laundry list.

No,

the that's really helpful because I think, in that immediate aftermath, you don't even know where to begin.

And for me, I had youth.

I was texting you

like what kind of

therapist do?

I need to find?

And you were like grief and Trauma and that's what I found and and that helped me so much.

And since then I have done EMDR, which I also learned about from you and that has been incredible for taking that sting out of the

event.

And I will say like, okay, so I talked a little bit about DVT, one of my favorite DBT is a kind of therapy that loves an Unum for anyone that's ever done it one of the skills.

I like the most is their tip skill, t.i.

PP.

That is really designed to bring down the intensity of the light body, emotional reaction.

So it stands for temperature and tense exercised, paced breathing paired muscle relaxation.

Look it up.

It's kind of a, there's videos that can teach you how to do it on YouTube, but it's kind of a Russian of things that you can do when you are in fight or flight or feel yourself, going into shutdown that can bring you back to yourself and the temperature one I think is so clutch ice pack on your forehead, lean your legs between your knees, flip your head back up really quick.

Keep the ice pack on there for like 60 seconds.

You will most likely come back to yourself.

It's I it's my favorite way of fighting disassociation in myself and there is something about that temperature change that can be really helpful.

So if you're somebody that's like early on in your really, really just dysregulated and discombobulated over this, look up the DBT tip skills and look for a therapist that can work on regulating body based reactions to stress.

As your starting

point, this is such great advice.

So these tips were amazing.

Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your knowledge or sus about trauma and how it The body.

I cannot wait for your session at The Retreat.

I just think there's so much goodness to learn so that we can integrate these events into our lives and move forward and we might still have those little sad moments but that's okay, because that's part of life.

So, thanks again for that.

Reminder,

of course.

I'm so excited to come be in community with you and your retreat attendees.

If you You are going to The Retreat and reach out to Alexis and share more about what you might want out of it.

There's a million directions to go.

We're still figuring it out and I would love to know where the jumping off point might be for the people that will be attending and I feel really honored to get to join and be a part of it.

With you all to visit your community as a professional.

And also, as a trauma Survivor, but not this kind of trauma Survivor and I feel like it's really special that I'm allowed to visit.

Visit and spend some time.

Sharing what?

I know and learning what you all know.

Thanks again to make in for joining me, for this great conversation.

We're going to dive much deeper into this and so much more at the DNA surprise Retreat.

If this topic resonates with you, we hope you'll join us at The Retreat.

May 4th to the 7th and Tucson Arizona, you can learn more at DNA surprise Retreat.com until next time.