Posts tagged childhood trauma
Showing UP for Sophia: What is Resilience?

“Kids are resilient — they can bounce back from anything.”

I’ve heard these words often. I’ve repeated them myself, especially to myself. I meant them without question. Until I started having conversations about healthy relationships with youth who were kept in cages.

Our society refers to these structures as juvenile detention centers — a facility in which inmates are forcibly confined and denied a variety of freedoms under the authority of the state as a form of punishment after being convicted of crimes. Quite a sentence for youth who don’t have fully developed brains until the age of 25 — the development of the prefrontal cortex affects how to regulate emotions, control impulsive behavior, assess risk and make long-term plans. In addition, the cerebellum affects cognitive maturity, but unlike the prefrontal cortex, the development of the cerebellum appears to largely depend on environment, as Dr. Jay Giedd at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego told PBS.

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Showing UP for Sophia: Duets & Debuts

“Wow, he really hurt you, didn’t he?”

I looked at her puzzled, “John?”

“Have you dealt with it? Let it go?”

That was last week. Since then, I’ve dealt with it. But not without a little help from my friends — real and surreal. For days my activities revolved around crying my face off to music, one song in particular, paying close attention to the shit talk that arose as I listened, and breathing through the passages of pain.

I listened and wrote, forgetting facts about Covid-19 and wiping tears and snot from face to sleeve. I lost my appetite, wanting to feed myself answers instead. Why was I hurt? Why was I being led to find the answers in music? Why was I unable to stop listening to the song?

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Rewrite #ABCs🚦 & Flip the Script on Relationships

Facing my ACEs helped me understand why I had no ABCs.

Being told how to feel taught me to mistrust myself.

I had no awareness that I could have boundaries or should require consent.

What was consent?

My boundaries were crossed every day.

I had no privacy or choice, just rules and punishment.

Now that I know my ABCs and have become my own Trusted Adult,

I’m introducing others to theirs.

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