Curious, Healing » trauma

“Tender Morsels” by Margo Lanagan

Sonia Connolly — Fri, 04 May 2012 05:23:31 +0000

Recommended by: Meloukhia

This is a fairy tale, but no child’s story. It starts with incest and pregnancy and abortion, and continues with gang rape. Then Liga is magically placed in a world that matches her heart’s desire, peaceful and safe.

While examining the consequences of assault and the consequences of avoiding trauma, the story sings along, full of prickly, kind characters and vivid details.

Recommended, for a true look at life in fairy tale guise.

An interview with Margo Lanagan.

Jody Hewgill (the cover artist)’s portfolio.

Available at Powell’s Books.

“The Myth of Sanity” by Martha Stout, Ph.D.

Sonia Connolly — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 22:00:14 +0000

Subtitle: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness; Tales of Multiple Personality in Everyday Life

This book contains a therapist’s compassionate, engaging views on people who have Dissociative Identity Disorder (previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder) and how they can heal. Martha Stout discusses both specific cases and general themes of survival, courage, integrity, and the process of healing.

After trauma, she says the core question is, “Shall I choose to die, or shall I choose to live?” Those who choose to live, live fully, passionately. Anything less would not be worth the struggle and pain of healing.

Healing requires going back and revisiting traumatic memories while the whole nervous system shouts, “No! Danger!” They don’t all have to be revisited, and perfect recall is not required, but at least a few frozen traumatic memories have to be transformed into narrative memory.

The key predictor of healing is a sense of responsibility for one’s actions. Conversely, prioritizing self-protection above responsibility acts to keep dissociative mechanisms in place. A sense of integrity, or the lack of it, shines through all the dissociative fragments of a person.

We see dramatic portrayals of Dissociative Identity Disorder in books and movies and believe it to be very rare, but most people with DID switch quietly, unnoticed, in higher numbers than we believe. Martha Stout says it is because most people aren’t such good actors, and I think people also try to camouflage switching as much as possible. She validates the anger, frustration, and bewilderment of coping with someone’s quicksilver changes and lack of memory for their own recent words and actions.

She also says that we all dissociate to some extent, whether arriving at a destination without remembering the drive, or being absorbed in a movie, or suppressing “inconvenient” emotions.

For trauma survivors she recommends:

Find help, a steady witness, whether a therapist or a friend.
Be as safe as possible in the present. Provide your nervous system with a calm environment.
Buy comforts, keep a pet, fall in love with silence.
Separate yourself from difficult, crisis-addicted, rageful, and violent people.
Have routines. Make them sacred. Sleep every night.
Meditate.
Keep a journal. Note your dreams.

This book is unreservedly recommended!

Available at Powell’s Books.

“Alchemy of Illness” by Kat Duff

Sonia Connolly — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 00:48:19 +0000

Subtitle: A woman explores the transforming – and, paradoxically, healing – experience of being ill

Recommended by: a client

Alchemists strive to turn lead into gold by heating it alone in a sealed container, a crucible. In the crucible of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Kat Duff turned inward and found healing in the stillness and isolation forced by her illness.

Weaving together symptoms, dreams, mythology, Jungian psychology, and alchemy along with anthropological research into illness and healing, Duff reveals new perspectives on illness. Instead of being an assault or a punishment, illness can be a natural consequence of our history as individuals and communities. She sees her illness as an agent of healing both for sexual abuse she suffered as an infant, and for the land theft her forebears committed against the Sioux tribe in Minnesota.

Duff is careful to avoid the painful idea that “sick people are personally responsible for creating their illnesses through some kind of wrong-thinking or wrong-doing.” Sickness isn’t bad. It just is.

She relates a story about Nan Shin, a Zen nun diagnosed with cancer and struggling with guilt and remorse.

Then an old friend, who was also a Zen student, visited. He threw his arm around her shoulders and wisecracked, “Good Karma, huh? Brings you close to the Way.” Shin wrote later, “The jolt I felt then showed me very clearly that I had been thinking, Bad Karma. Within a fraction of a second the molecules turned themselves round and reorganized. I am flatly grateful to him forever.”

Unfortunately, Duff conflates illness with disability, and occasionally uses phrases like “confined to a wheelchair.” People are not confined by wheelchairs any more than people are confined by bicycles, cars, or any other device that assists mobility.

I recommend this book for its kaleidoscope of new perspectives about illness.

Available at Powell’s Books.

“The Girls Come Marching Home” by Kirsten Holmstedt

Sonia Connolly — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 20:43:54 +0000

Subtitle: Stories of Women Warriors Returning from the War in Iraq

Recommended by: A client.

I learned so much from these detailed descriptions of nearly 20 women soldiers, their deployments, and their returns to the US. What it’s like to be a soldier in a modern war. What it’s like in the war zone in Iraq. What it’s like to be a woman in the military. What it’s like to return from war, changed by becoming a solider, by being wounded, by witnessing and experiencing trauma, to find that home doesn’t fit any more.

Some of the women soldiers were wholly accepted into their units with camaraderie and support. Some experienced sexism and sexual harassment. Women of color experienced racism as well. The ones who were arbitrarily harmed by their fellow soldiers and superiors said that caused them more pain and distress than anything else in their tours of duty.

Many of the soldiers are in their late teens and early twenties. A few are closer to forty, and experience age-related harassment for that difference.

On their returns, the women struggle with distinguishing between “normal” difficulties of reintegration and the more severe difficulties of PTSD and traumatic brain injuries. Some fight being diagnosed with PTSD and some fight for the help they need. They miss the structure, enforced closeness, and clear priorities of military life. The transition from skilled soldier to struggling civilian is a difficult one.

This is not an easy book to read, but I highly recommend its forthright, compassionate look at women returning from the war in Iraq.

Available at Powell’s Books.

“The Armless Maiden” edited by Terri Windling

Sonia Connolly — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 06:23:08 +0000

Subtitle: And Other Tales for Childhood’s Survivors

This is an anthology of fairy tales retold for adults, with the scary bits left in, and also the bits about resilience and survival. Yes, her father cut off her arms, but then the armless maiden rescues herself and her child through quick wits as well as magic.

The stories vary widely from beautifully retold tales, to heart-wrenching realities, to clunky pieces using child abuse for cheap drama. I imagine each reader would put different stories in the three categories.

Some of my favorites are:

“The Session” by Steven Gould, where an adult Sleeping Beauty has a therapy session about who, exactly, gave her that poisoned apple.
“Knives” by Munro Sickafoose, where a girl is isolated in a tower by her beloved father, and has to learn about the outside world after he dies.
Terri Windling’s “The Green Children” about a young girl whose mother killed her abuser, and Terri Windling’s essay about her real mother, who didn’t.
“The Little Dirty Girl” by Joanna Russ rings true about what’s needed for healing.

This is a book to read slowly, with time for emotional processing, and plenty of permission to skip the stories that don’t resonate for you, or that resonate too much.

Available at Powell’s Books.

“In an Unspoken Voice” by Peter A. Levine, PhD

Sonia Connolly — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 05:46:00 +0000

Subtitle: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness

This book is billed as a “culmination of his life’s work” on the back cover. It recapitulates material from Peter Levine’s earlier book “Waking the Tiger” about trauma and the nervous system, and uses many of the same case studies covered in the Somatic Experiencing curriculum. Somatic Experiencing is Levine’s protocol for healing trauma, taught through the Foundation for Human Enrichment.

I liked his emphasis on the need for therapists to be present, flexible, and cooperative, rather than distant, rigid, and controlling. I liked his quote from an (unidentified) soldier returned from Iraq: “I have a Post-Traumatic Stress Injury, not Disorder.”

I liked his distinction between awareness and introspection: awareness is experiencing the inner glow of an ember, while introspection is examining it with an external flashlight. Awareness allows; introspection dissects. He also distinguishes between feelings (bodily sensations), and emotions (fear, anger, etc.) which arise when impulses are interrupted.

There are some annoying aspects to the book, starting with overuse of italics for emphasis. When discussing the history of scientific discoveries about trauma, emotions, and the nervous system, he repeatedly uses the words “prescience” or “prescient” regarding earlier researchers, even though they clearly did actual science. When talking about the calming effect of being near a peaceful person, he names three specific famous men and the generic “loving mother peacefully nursing her infant.”

This book would make a good textbook for Somatic Experiencing classes (aside from the annoying bits). It is too dense for a layperson to enjoy, and yet doesn’t cover the healing process in enough detail to be a technical reference on its own.

Available at Powell’s Books.

“CrowHeart” by Keelin Anderson

Sonia Connolly — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 04:18:52 +0000

CROWHEART: becoming unwounded, a memoir of transformation

Recommended by: Keelin Anderson

To tell her story of healing from incest and emotional abuse, Keelin Anderson weaves together daily narrative, fiction, quotes, tarot readings, and dreams, all in present tense.

As I read, I saw places where our paths have overlapped, and places where they have diverged. We have both struggled with finding respectful healers to help us, and have vowed to be respectful of our own clients and their individual processes.

She consciously decides to invite spirit guides into her process. I did that for a while, but found that not all spirit guides are trustworthy, and I was better off looking within for guidance. I think there are many ways of contacting Spirit and healing.

Available from Lulu.

“Leaving the Saints” by Martha Beck

Sonia Connolly — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 04:40:12 +0000

Subtitle: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith

Recommended by: Reading Martha Beck’s older books

I first read this years ago and loved it. I came back to it while writing a (forthcoming) article about spiritual abuse and faith. Since I last read it, I read her newer book “Steering by Starlight” and saw that her latest book is about weight-loss, so I started re-reading with trepidation. I still like this one, though!

This book is honest about extreme sexual and spiritual abuse and its effects, side by side with humorous details about daily life. She talks about forgiveness without preaching (much). She talks about how crazymaking it is to have someone casually deny reality. She talks about how wrenching it is to lose family connections because she tells the truth.

She also talks about her personal search for faith, first as the seeking camel, then as the discerning lion, then as the innocent, playful child.

In her last act as a practicing Mormon, she spoke to a huge crowd about domestic violence. “If something I said feels right to you, believe it. If it feels wrong, disbelieve it. The choice to believe or disbelieve, that’s what makes you free.”

Available at Powell’s Books.

“The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” by Anne Fadiman

Sonia Connolly — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 04:39:52 +0000

Subtitle: A Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of two cultures

Recommended by: Emily Ross

This is a beautifully written history of the Hmong people from Laos in the 20th century, interwoven with the story of one Hmong family who took refuge in Merced, California. Their daughter Lia Lee had her first epileptic seizure at age 4 months. Both the family and Lia’s doctors struggle with her illness and with the communication barriers between their cultures.

The Lees are frustrated because Lia continues to have seizures, and her prescribed medicines cause side-effects they don’t expect. The doctors are frustrated because the Lees don’t speak English and “aren’t compliant” with the medicine schedule. Also, the Lees have very little money.

Dr. Arthur Kleinman, a psychiatrist and medical anthropologist at Harvard Medical School, developed a set of eight questions to elicit a patient’s “explanatory model.” After getting to know the Lees, Anne Fadiman answers the eight questions from their perspective. The American doctors continue full-tilt in their own medical explanatory model, unable to consider a different model.

What do you call the problem?
Qaug dab peg. That means the spirit catches you and you fall down.

What do you think has caused the problem?
Soul loss.

Why do you think it started when it did?
Lia’s sister Yer slammed the door and Lia’s soul was frightened out of her body.

What do you think the sickness does? How does it work?
It makes Lia shake and fall down. It works because a spirit called a dab is catching her.

How severe is the sickness? Will it have a short or long course?
Why are you asking us those questions? If you are a good doctor, you should know the answers yourself.

What kind of treatment do you think the patient should receive? What are the most important results you hope she receives from this treatment?
You should give Lia medicine to take for a week but no longer. After she is well, she should stop taking the medicine. [...]

What are the chief problems the sickness has caused?
It has made us sad to see Lia hurt, and it has made us angry at Yer.

What do you fear most about the sickness?
That Lia’s soul will never return.

My only issue with the book is that chapters about Hmong history are inserted at cliff-hanger portions of Lia’s story, causing me to flip ahead and find out what happens to her. The history is worth reading in its own right and doesn’t need manufactured suspense to pull the reader through it.

Recommended to anyone who wants to learn about Hmong culture and history, medical communication at its worst and best, and the story of one much-loved child.

Available at Powell’s Books.

“The Girl Who Fell from the Sky” by Heidi W. Durrow

Sonia Connolly — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 23:39:45 +0000

I wanted to love and learn from this book, but there were too many jarring inconsistencies with my own knowledge.

As a child, Rachel falls 9 stories and her only lasting injury is to the hearing in one ear. With everything I know about physical and psychological trauma, I wanted at least one sentence explaining that one. Even her hearing disability is only mentioned in passing, as if an editor said, “Hey, whatever happened to that?”

So much trauma and loss, some of it arbitrary and unlikely, and no one in the book grieves. Some of the characters drink, but no one talks about grieving.

I live very near where this book is set, walking distance from Irving Park and its tennis courts, biking distance from Laurelhurst park and its duck pond.

Rachel’s grandma neglects her garden, and the only green is under the bird feeder from fallen seeds. This is Portland. Some plants may die, but any unattended earth is guaranteed to be overrun by verdant weeds.

I wanted to learn about being biracial in Portland in 1982, about racism and anti-racism and one girl’s experience. I wish I trusted the information I received.

Available at Powell’s Books.