Traumas and life at the Moment -Oct 2024

I just returned from my trauma specialist and thought all the things I am doing right now to help heal could be beneficial to someone else.. soo here is the transparency of my life again:-)

But first some updates, or you can skip to the bottom to get to the therapy part:-)

Film Update:

First to touch on the film. I have it on hold. I brought on a new editor because I felt like maybe my own life should have been included more.  But I started a new Instagram page and am spreading the awareness again. I am beginning to see that these small clips I share are digestible and make an impact, so I believe that even though there is no full-length film to be released (yet) the footage is still doing something for others:-)

You can follow the new page HERE if you would like. I also was gifted some music for the film!!! So, I am slowly putting that into the older edit and pushing that forward in case the new version doesn’t go anywhere. I am giving this a deadline at the end of May to see how it unfolds. Until then I am in school channeling my inner world into my art and FINALLY getting my BA!

School:

Crazy story about my schooling. I have been at it for 10 years, funding it on my own which had me starting and stopping a lot, plus covid. About 3 years ago I found out about this program that would pay for your school in Canada if you had been in foster care, of course, I applied, but they denied me because they said I already had a degree, as I had my Associate of Art. So I ended up putting school on the back burner again and took a full-time job across the country. But the crazy thing, when I was unhappy with my work life and wanted a change I magically got an email stating I had a 28k grant to finish my BA at the school I had originally applied to! Of course, being the skeptical person of good things, I thought it was someone trying to steal my information, so I wrote back asking for my info. I got an out-of-office response from a legit B.C government email, so I followed up with the school and YEP, there we are another 180 in my life I didn’t see coming:)

That one I said was probably my deceased Gma or mom aiding in:)

Needless to say, I snatched up the opportunity without really knowing what that would look like and moved back to the other side of Canada to a town where I didn’t know anyone.

If my turbulent childhood gave me anything it is the ability to pick up and start all over at the drop of a dime. And to be honest, it is both a blessing and a curse and I love the excitement of it, but also don't like being too stable.

I’ve been on this path for the last year and have just under a year to go! I'm in a Visual Arts program so for my final year, I decided to use my art to express everything about my childhood. It's been both healing and frightening as I am processing some pretty heavy experiences.

Thereapy:

So that's where the therapy comes in! After a recent breakup (again) I realized I am terrified of real intimacy and also have some deep-rooted traumas that are blocking me from being in it. So I decided to use the discount my school provides for therapy to see a trauma specialist. One that uses Eye Rapid Movement therapy or another type is called EMDR. I wanted to share my experience of today's session because I found it really amazing how things were processed and I hope anyone else who has experienced anything similar to mine wants to try this approach.

This was my third session and I had already been given a small intro to the technique and had talked over some of the traumas I experienced so my therapist was aware of what might come up. Honestly, it's been pretty wild how my mind is eager to get to it, when I start sharing some small memory it drags me back like watching a film in reverse to my earlier years, to the root of the feelings. But for the first session, he wanted to start with a memory that wasn’t a 10 on my feeling factors. So I said “Let's do the time my mom’s boyfriend was trying to kill her” haha (not funny I know) but the fact that this was about a 6-7 in my trauma scale is pretty crazy! Even when I was telling him about the experience I said exactly that. But here we are. So he gave me a chart of some feelings and asked how I would relate to this experience. Since the violence wasn’t directed at me this time, it felt less intense. I only had “indifferent” which then also felt a bit weird. Funny thing about your psyche, it can play tricks on you, hiding feelings to protect you so you don't go there. Then I was dragged into a real feeling all of a sudden and I said It made me feel “sad” and I explained how I felt sad for my mom. Then “dragged” down again. Now I was sad for myself, my inner child started saying “Why is this always happening”, “Why is this happening to me” and bam. There I was with her. She was being protected by my psyche, and when I put the light on her she got scared saying “I don't want to talk about this”. Tears were streaming down my face now and the therapist started waving his hand in front for me to follow it with my eyes while I listened to the inner child's cries. Then he asked me if my adult self and my dog ( who was on my lap) could go back to that time with her and be with her. So we did that as he continued with the eye thing. I told my inner child in almost a dream-like state that I was there to take care of her to help her. I wanted to take her to a park, so he said that was fine and away we went. Again this all being in a dreamlike state. But as we were at the park the inner child got scared again, at first she trusted me, then all she could think of was “What's happening to my mom”, and “Why was I taken away from her” and she started to mistrust my intentions. So we had to start again.

Back to the beginning reliving the memory, this time my inner child was hiding under a bed, she didn’t want to come out I couldn’t reach her. So we had to start again, actually, he said could you crawl under the bed with her and I laughed, knowing that she would think that was creepy:-) Then I told him I wanted to tell her the police had my mom's boyfriend and that it would help. So we went back into the experience and when she was under the bed I told her, “You’re safe now, the police have him” and I kept reassuring her, finally she came out and I just held her, telling her she was safe. Then I felt sorry for her, sorry she had to experience that and overwhelming feelings of empathy came over me. And I thought of all the little kids who are experiencing things like this and wished I could keep them all safe. I told my therapist that and he told me to focus just on my own inner self for now:-) haha But honestly. I really do wish that.

So back to the experience again and we are talking about how that feels to be told these things and I told him it felt really nice and warm, that I wasn’t alone and someone was able to tell me they were sorry I experienced what I did. Then I thought of the people who have done that for me and I thought of my social worker who became a second mom to me, and woosh the tears came again and he said, “Why the tears?.” To which I replied that I was grateful for the people who gave me that, and she asked if we could stay with that feeling and did the eye moment thing again and ended there.

It felt like a lot of work to unpack just ONE small memory, but we unpacked it:-)

I see now that I just have to be patient and hopefully I can find some funding to pay for these sessions because it sounds like there may have to be a lot:-)

I hope that my sharing this may help someone else. I hope that we can all learn to find our scared inner child and to tell them they are safe, we are sorry they experienced those things and to be there for them and hopefully see some safe people that have already been there to remind them they are not alone.

If this resonates with you, I would love to hear your thoughts, comment below <3

Adoption and the "VOID" research.

Thank you all whom have shared your stories and resources on the video I posted of my mom speaking up about how she felt being adopted.

I really didn’t know too much about this feeling and I posted it because a young woman I follow spoke up about it and asked if anyone had something similar. I remembered having shot this of my mom, so I mostly did it for her. WOW, i never expected it to get such feedback. It breaks my heart to know so many people have this feeling and so many have been misunderstood about it.

I would LOVE for more awareness to be shared surrounding this… so I am compelling some of the resources shared.

This BOOK seems to capture all the information regarding this wound. The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child", by Nancy Verrier, Amazon link here

This is a BOOK for parenting a teenager who was adopted. “ Parenting in the Eye of the Storm by Katie Naftziger” Amazon link here

Here are a couple of Websites that have a lot of information on this wound. Which is identified as “Relinquish trauma”

https://mariedolfi.com/adoption-resource/relinquishment-trauma-the-forgotten-trauma/

a website that gives “Trauma-Informed Care: Resources and Information” particularly for kids: https://www.theannainstitute.org/TIC-RESOURCES.html

AND a YouTube video on “Adoption and Addiction” by Paul Sunderland. it is about an hr long, but you can change the speed where the setting are:-) Click here

And the biggest takeaway I got from these resources for both the adoptee’s parents and those who were put up for adoption is:

You need to feel the depth of the void, of that feeling, parents need to hold a safe space for the one experiencing it with compassion and understanding. It is NOT a personal attack it is a psychological trauma that needs to be felt as it can be healed.

If a person is an adult now, there is something called “INNER CHILD” work… here is a great article on it. We need to “Re-parent” at times, so if you are an adult with this wound you may need to look into creating a safe space to allow that healing to occur as if you were the parent.

I hope this all helps and if you have more suggestions on resources.. please comment below.

Child of Addict(s): How to begin HEALING

First off, if you are like me you have probably been parenting them your whole life! Now listen to this..

YOU are NOT their PARENT!! and SMILE, because thank got we are not:) NOW lets start living for us, so we can be there for others!!!

Now if again you are like me..I know it is soooooo hard to accept that we can’t fix our parents, well maybe we can help them, but that will be another post. Now remember because were children born into this world with parent(s) with addictions, we probably have a lot of the same ways of coping and being, so HI!!

ALSO if you had to walk away from your parents I’m SURE it is KILLING you, Because I know you SOOOO wanted to stay, but it was probably too much pain. It was probably taking you down. AND if no one ever said this to you.. THAT IS OK!!

I state that the way for ME a way to be friends with my mom, came from healing my own pain. SO LET’S START THERE.

When I was doing all this work with my mom, I had no idea what I was doing, it was all new territory, so I offer you now anything and everything I have learned along the way, to help heal my pain, and I hope there is something for your own process here.

1. “YOU ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT PROJECT YOU WILL EVER WORK ON”

   KNOW you are NUMBER ONE, that means if you are not ready to be there with your parent it is ok to disconnect until you feel you are able to, and if that is NEVER that is also ok, we HAVE to be honest with our hearts and understand what we are capable of. This leads me into us understanding BOUNDARIES.

2. BOUNDARIES:

   https://www.instagram.com/boundariesarebeautiful/ is a great page on instagram

   https://www.tiktok.com/@shefasjourney? is a great page on TikTok with lots of tools, plus you can do your own research, enter #boundaries on either platform or google and see if someone resonates better for you.

   This will be your OWN journey of healing, so follow those that speak to your soul and start trusting your intuition.

   As children of addicts were didn’t have good role models on how to take care of our needs, so we will have to learn these things on our own, plus if you have a stable healthy “other” (which can be a family member, friend, etc) that you can watch and model from, do that. I had my second mom and my grandparents as role models for healthy relationships.

3. Start learning about “CODEPENDENCY” it’s not actually what we used to think it was…where we couldn’t be alone. It is so much more diverse than that. It’s how we have been trained as children to survive. We learned that in order to get our basic needs met we had to sacrifice our voices. We need to learn how to undo this… trust me it is a PROCESS I am still single because I haven’t been able to integrate this into my relationships yet. BUT I have learned/learning how important it is to be kind to my own healing process first before trying to put myself in someone else life where I look to them to “fix” me.

   I suggest this book as a starting point… Click here

   Here is the audio version and you have a free trial if you have never used it before.. Click Here

4. You will also need to implement some Self-Soothing techniques to help when the emotions come up.. YOU will know what brings happiness to your heart and remember to do that when things get heavy, you want to make sure you are not staying STUCK in victim mentality, what happened and what you had to endure was NOT ok, but you know that now, so now you are here.. READY and WILLING to heal, so let’s meet here, not in the past.

   I like to be in nature, go to the gym, go dancing, meet with friends and be silly or talk about everything BUT what I’m going through, OR to ONLY talk about what I’m going through. Pet animals, are gifts and bring us comfort. What funny movies, stay away from things that will keep you STUCK in your head and victim mentality. I call this “FILLING your CUP”

5. COMMITMENT TO SELF and your practice of filling your cup:

   Make SMALL plans, and achieve them, small rewards will help boost your confidence, but trying to achieve something you are not capable of will lead you back to beating yourself up, so start small.

   I do 10 mins of meditation a day (sometimes I miss it) but I stay pretty consistent because it shows me I can commit to a practice and we need some sort of routine and stability after growing up not having it.

   I LOVE this 10/12 min meditation on SoundCloud because it reminds me to forgive myself, that’s SELF LOVE and we ALL need lots of that to get through this sometimes harsh world. Click here

   And if you are not on Soundcloud you can find many other good 10 min ones here Click here

6. Inner child healing will be super important to retrain your inner child how to feel safe again. After a lot of trauma, it is hard to show up as an adult for life. That’s why this work is Crucial, and to be honest a bit difficult. I am still constantly catching myself acting from a place of a child. But it is a process. Here is a great couple that teaches you all the ways to start healing this part of yourself. Click here

7. A more progressive way to heal trauma without having to do a lot of work is EMDR. I am not well versed in this but you can google it and find specialists to help facilitate this technique. There is also Somatic healing and other alternative ways to healing Trauma without having to take drugs, which obviously we all want to be free from:)

I’d love to hear your comments on all of this and please share any techniques anyone else has found useful below!:)

AND WELCOME TO THE STOP THE CYCLE COMMUNITY!! We got this, lets keep connecting with one another, and supporting the process!!

PS, if you are battling an addiction yourself, and haven’t gotten clean yet, maybe start implementing some of these healing techniques before you do it, as it will help you along the way of your recovery!!!

How did you do it? How did you build a relationship with a person in active addiction?

I get asked this question a lot. So I am going to write out what I just shared today:

For ME it’s always about finding a way IN.. how to connect as a friend, by finding out what shoes they like, or creating them a playlist, connecting over a funny TikTok video.. You have to work to find them inside.. as you might not recognize them anymore… then start asking questions, like (without judgment): “Why do you use?”

Now depending on your relationship that might be way too advanced for where you are with them and their illness. It took me a long time to get to the harder questions with my mom, and some she could never answer because they were too painful.

So try to evaluate your relationship and find the middle ground, find something you feel they will want to answer, it could be even about someone else. Such as, “Were you in love with dad” then LISTEN, you will have to build trust and the only way you will be able to do that is if you prove to them you are NOT judging them for their honesty, EVEN if it hurts, EVEN if it’s not what YOU want to hear.

You have to remember WHY you are there. Hopefully, it is because you want to understand them and you want a relationship. So keep that as your focus and show up as a friend. NOT as a child needing a parent, or a parent needing a child, JUST a friend.

You have to remember this person, might have been deeply wounded, maybe by something you have no idea about. So you need to build their trust that they will not be hurt more. EVEN though it hurts YOU, to see them like that, you are not there for that reason, that will be something you will have to deal with after on your own.

Read what helped me here

I highly recommend creating a practice of self-soothing; meditation, funny movies, walks in nature, playing with animals, being around supportive friends, reading a book, taking a bath, dancing. WHATEVER it is that brings a little comfort to you. DO that when it gets too heavy, and remember you do NOT want their demons to take you under, so it is YOUR responsibility to separate yourself from their pain. And however, long it takes you to recover, that is ok, and if it’s never, that is also ok. ONLY you will know what you CAN and CAN NOT handle, that is why BOUNDARIES will be key. Google or use #boundaries on TikTok to learn more.

Now if you want a way to understand their addiction, I will use this reference. You know the movie “lord of the rings” and you know Gollum feels about the ring.. well this is how an addict with the disease feels about their addiction in active addiction before getting help. Now REMEMBER you CANNOT make anyone chose to get help, you can’t guilt-trip them, or physically force them (well maybe, but I don’t know the legality of that one:-)

So keep returning to WHY you are there.

Now if they sense in the SLIGHTEST that you are going to take the “ring” (their addiction) away from them (including guilt trip), they may lie, steal, hurt you, etc. SOOOOOO this is VERY important. YOU NEED TO COME TO TERMS WITH THE FACT THEY MAY NEVER get better. I’m not saying that they won’t, BUT that is not going to be up to you. And you have to allow them to want to make that choice on their own and do try to find a way to express how their addiction is affecting you in a gentle way that they can understand, but since they are in the addiction they might not be able to hear it, and they may have too much guilt to be able to hear it.

So now once you’ve come to terms, I mean REALLY come to terms with that and believe me it took me SOOOOOO long to get there, I didn’t want to give up on her getting better, but eventually, I saw that pressure wasn’t helping. NOW yes, some say tough love is the answer and people have to hit rock bottom and you are ONLY enabling them if you don’t let them get there. But if for someone like my mom after YEARS of her trying to get better, and US being separated because she wasn’t I decided to try a new way. I am not god and I don’t know the outcome of people’s lives, but neither do you. It’s THEIR LIFE.

And again, what we are trying to achieve is a relationship with them, meeting them… where they are at.

If it’s too PAINFUL for you to accept that, or you just don’t want to, that is ok too. AGAIN I am not in your shoes or god. But this is how I did it:-)

I wished, oh man did I ever wish, and still to this day, I wish I knew what it was like to have a mom I could travel with, that I could have shown her my amazing life, outside of her impoverished rooms in the DTES of Vancouver. But that was not the life I was dealt with nor her, but instead, I got a mom that was deeply wounded, and incredibly giving in her own way, funny as fu*k, and just HER.

So I hope you get to just know the person you love for today, and I PRAY every moment of every day, that they will find a way from the grips of addiction and will begin to get the healing they deserve. But that is ALL we can do, PRAY, LOVE, and SHOW UP (however that might be).

Love you all, and I am SOOOOO sorry addiction has brought us together because I know the pain in your heart and I would NEVER wish it on another, but it is here to teach us something, and I HOPE that is how to unconditionally love (with boundaries).

PS. PLEASE spend the time to google and research the disease of addiction. Watch videos by Gabor Mate on youtube, EDUCATE yourself, LEARN about TRAUMA and how it affects people, and how to love and support someone with it. AND if you can find it within your heart to help others, PLEASE share your story! So many children are alone in their pain because no one wants to talk about ADDICTION, so they try their best to deal with their pain on their own, without any tools, and for most (not all)… they give up and take the path of their parent(s). WE as a COMMUNITY (which we are now. if you’ve got a shared experience of having addiction in your life). are RESPONSIBLE for these children whether they are yours or not.

AND... If you want a One on One with me book a session here

Can you be too strong?

It has been just over a month since my mom passed and I am only starting to feel like my healing process is beginning. I was worried when she first passed and after a week I didn’t seem to be in deep mourning. However, I guess we all process things differently and I did have a whole lifetime of preparation for this. I used to mourn her death every time we didn’t hear from her months on end as she was off getting high with her friends. However, this past year she really became my best friend, and as much as one can do for another, I did it for her. So maybe it was a bit of a lack of regret that eased my suffering. Then my friend the other day beautifully said.. “maybe it is her, may she doesn’t want you to be sad anymore because of her” I like this one the best and am sticking with it:)

However, since she passed waves of a different sort have been coming in. I think this is the part where you realized you are truly separated from your parents. My mom and I used to joke all the time because I was defiantly the parent in our relationship. She even said, “wouldn’t it be great if I came back as your child” haha… not funny mom! I replied with, “id rather us be sisters or something in another lifetime, mom, you’re a lot to deal with hahaha.” But this idea of the parent and child dynamic has always played a huge role in our relationship. From the earliest time, I can remember I have to start taking care of my own needs, which included safety. It really does a number on you when at such an early age your basic need for safety isn’t met. There are tons of books on how we behave like humans when those basic needs aren’t met (in case you’re interested). So yea, this started popping its head into my present life, and then came the abandonment issues. Man oh man, thanks to parents for the awesome luggage!! ;-)

But the one that came yesterday was the winner. It was me, as a child in the hospital with her just recently, like so many moments in my life. “Being the strong one”. So can you be too strong? For me, the answer is yes. If being strong means you have to hide your fears, your pain, and your vulnerabilities, then yes. Because those are the very things that make us human. Yes, sure there may be times when we have to put them aside, but they usually find a way to come back up, in some other way. “Feelings” like to be addressed; they like to be seen, acknowledged, and they want to be loved. They are actually there as a guidance tool.. but that’s another post.

My mourning this week was for that little girl, that time after time, had to put on a brave face. in fact, perhaps it was for every child that has to to do this. My second mom is the best because she only ever sees that little girl in me, and it breaks her heart time and time again when she sees her not being taken care of. Thankfully I get to see through her eyes sometimes and get reminded I need to take care of that little girl inside.

If we don’t have that person to show us how important that little person is inside, may we find it ourselves? Because it probably needs a pretty big hug right about now.

Now that this dynamic has completed with my mom, I suppose this new era is the union of mother and child within.

A new chapter to embark on, and another… “ to be continued. “