Take a Deep Breath
I mentioned a few blog articles ago that the book, “The Body Keeps the Score”, by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. was in my reading queue. I am currently about halfway through the book.
This week I participated in a six hour webinar training called, The Road to Recovery: Supporting Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities who have Experienced Trauma.
The Road to Recovery is a training created by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network for providers across disciplines who are working with children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) who have experienced trauma. I participated in this training to obtain continuing education hours for my CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) role.
The case that I most recently served on was a teenager with IDD. I ended up being the right CASA to choose for that case because of my experience raising a son with IDD.
I thought the training might also teach me something that could help me meet Travis’s needs. I love the title of the training, the Road to Recovery. That is the road we are on with Travis. The one that has bumps in it. And is long and winding.
Travis has had many evaluations in his lifetime. A psychological evaluation that had been done in 2016 was the first time I had heard PTSD as part of his diagnosis. Travis was 23 at the time. This is the same psychologist that said Travis met the criteria to be diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, but that because he had a cognitive disability she was unable to give him that diagnosis. When I asked her to explain that to me, she said that cognitive issues can keep the brain from completing the process of developing your “self”. Your personality. Your you.
Without the cognitive disability, it is likely that the brain would have developed his personality, his “self”. In that case you wouldn’t have a personality disorder. I told her the same thing I tell everyone. I don’t care what we call his diagnosis, what can we do to help him?
This psychologist was the first to mention that adoption can be a source of trauma.
During this same time I was training to become a CASA. During that training I learned that trauma can start in the womb. The speaker talked about what that might look like in a child’s behavior.
I have written about this subject at length in my past blogs. Would we have done things differently if we had considered trauma as part of Travis’s diagnosis earlier on? And by we I mean the doctors, therapists, and psychiatrists?
If you’ve been following my blogs, you are learning as I learn. That trauma can be in your DNA. And get passed down through the generations.
I have quoted from many books in my writing that touch on how tangled all of this becomes, autism, adoption and trauma:
“The Primal Wound, Understanding the Adopted Child”, by Nancy Newton Verrier
“Stop Walking on Eggshells, Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About has Borderline Personality Disorder”, by Paul T. Mason, MS and Randi Kreger
“Reasonable People, a Memoir of Autism & Adoption”, by Ralph James Savarese
“Uniquely Human, A Different Way of Seeing Autism”, by Barry M. Prizant, PhD
“The Boy Who Felt too Much”, by Lorenz Wagner
“The Brain that Changes Itself”. by Norman Doidge, M.D.
I want to buy these books for Travis’s current team. I want them to know what is currently being studied regarding his diagnoses. I want them to attend webinar trainings about trauma.
When Travis was in school and we would attend his IEP meetings, our comments and ideas were not taken seriously. Even then I was reading every book I could get my hands on.
We have encountered many doctors and therapists over the years, I have found that some do not take it kindly when a parent has ideas of their own regarding treatment for their children. I have also found that some have had limited patience.
Unfortunately, many specialists do not take Medicaid.
Or even have availability.
So I keep reading. Books that are written by neuroscientists, therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists and parents. Individuals that want to know more and teach more.
The following excerpts are from the book, “The Body Keeps the Score”:
Mindfulness - being able to hover calmly and objectively over our thoughts, feelings, and emotions and then taking our time to respond, which allows the executive brain to inhibit, organize and modulate the hardwired automatic reactions preprogrammed into the emotional brain.
The capacity to be mindful is crucial for preserving our relationships with our fellow human beings.
As long as our frontal lobes are working properly we’re unlikely to lose our temper over small inconveniences.
Our frontal lobes also tell us that other people’s anger and threats are a function of their emotional state.
In PTSD the balance between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex shifts radically, making it harder to control emotions and impulses.
If you want to manage your emotions better, you have to learn to regulate them. To regulate from the top (frontal lobes) of your brain down, practice mindfulness meditation and yoga. To regulate from the bottom up, recalibrate the nervous system with deep breathing.
When our systems are in balance we feel like ourselves.
Psychologists usually try to help people use insight and understanding to manage their behavior. However, neuroscience research shows that very few psychological problems are the result of defects in understanding; most originate in pressures from deeper regions in the brain that drive our perception and attention. When the alarm bell of the emotional brain keeps signaling that you are in danger, no amount of insight will silence it.
That is enough to digest for now. I’m going to share more from this book. It is interesting stuff that many of us can make use of. I haven’t made it to the treatment portion of the book yet. It’s called the Path to Recovery.
Remember my idea for Travis’s new empty room, the one now available because his live-in aide moved out? I wanted to put in new flooring and paint it and make it a work-out/yoga space. I even told Travis that we could work out and practice yoga together. Heaven knows we can both use nervous system recalibration! He said he would think about it.
Next time I stopped by the empty room had become his man cave. Full of stuff. Which is hard to comprehend because he lives alone. Every room in his house is his man cave. But I got the message.
I’m thinking about the dollars I am going to save not having to remodel that room. While I take a deep breath. Inhale. Exhale.
“The process of healing does not end when the wounds are no longer visible, it ends when the wounds no longer ache.” - Muskau Sharma
“Just because the process hurts doesn’t mean the results won’t be beautiful.” - Unknown