Breaking the Silence about Childhood Trauma | Dani Bostick | TEDxGreenville

What exactly do you think of when you hear military PTSD and is there a reason why there are many service members who have PTSD and is there also another reason why the injuries that troops suffer occur far, far away? and that injury happens to people we consider heroes, so it's a very, very safe way for us to talk about PTSD. It's a safe way for us to talk about

trauma

because it happens so far away and it's happening to very strong people. PTSD doesn't just affect veterans, though, that's I was enrolled in gymnastics, right around the time I found out I wasn't very good at gymnastics because Dominique Dawes signed up for my class and, in retrospect, maybe I could having been good at gymnastics, but at the time I was like, you know.

What this is not for me, so I started taking swimming lessons and joined a swim team and that's when my

trauma

started because my swim coach was a predator and sexually abused me for five years, from the age of seven to 12 years old, so Many people think that PTSD is only for veterans, but it can also affect children, just like it affected me, and I'm not alone in my experience. One in 8 children suffers enough trauma to have lasting negative effects in terms of mental health. health and physical health into adulthood and these 1 in 8 children can expect to experience a life expectancy 20 years shorter than their peers and the fact is that combat is not the only type of trauma child sexual abuse is not is the only kind of trauma because another way to try to make trauma okay, besides making it very, very far away, is to make it a little less far away but still, oh, that happens to other people, that happens to people in different neighborhoods, well, it can happen to anyone. and I'm willing to bet that there are people here who have experienced something similar to what I've experienced and I'm also willing to bet that there are people here who have experienced other types of trauma, it could be a car accident, a serious accident. illness witnessing a death some type of other type of violence living in poverty can be a type of trauma the stakes are high for children because trauma can change the architecture of the developing brain and since the stakes are so high I always feel I've asked why I didn't find out about this before you see?

I didn't know I had experienced PTSD or even trauma until I was a student in counseling school. She had been a teacher for 10 years and had probably seen over a thousand students. I had never learned about the symptoms of PTSD. I always thought it was for other people far, far away. I never thought it was something that I had experienced and I never thought it was something that was affecting me every day and I remember sitting in that class and I'm taking notes and writing down the symptoms intrusive thoughts mm-hmm avoidance and I had always called it avoidance.

I don't know if you can say I'm from the mid-Atlantic region, so for me avoidance was strength, nothing bothered me. me, but I was actually avoiding my own reality. I also learned about nightmares. I learned about hyperarousal. Reacting emotionally in an exaggerated way to certain situations. So I'm sitting there taking notes. The class goes out for a break. We all look at each other. Several of us think. In that class I said we had PTSD and I thought, why hadn't I learned about this before? Why don't we talk about trauma and children? Why don't we talk about trauma in other populations?

In addition to reading the book and watching I did it in a very clinical way, which is also a very safe way to deal with trauma. I learned about PTSD by experiencing it. You see, around that time I reported my

childhood

perpetrator. I called the police and said this harm had happened to me. I know something happened. I said well what happened, I said I don't know and they said when it happened and I said 30 years ago and I was hoping to click and the detective said next time you're in Maryland come and we'll take a statement so while I process my trauma and I processed it partially through debriefing, I learned a lot and this is what you need to know about trauma and this is what you need to know to help millions of kids like the kid I was in the first place, just like I did.

I'd like to think that trauma is like gravity and I don't know about you, but I've never turned to anyone and said, man, this gravity is incredible today, check it out, this is incredible, we're not floating, my shoes are In my By keeping our shirts down, we take gravity for granted, just like I took trauma for granted, and just like millions and millions of people who have experienced trauma take their post-traumatic stress for granted, it's not as good as having a bad memory of something disturbing. It's not as simple as having a nightmare, it permeates every aspect of your life, from relationships to your sense of time, when you experience trauma you think what year we're partying in like it's 1999 again and it's 2018, so Trauma is a lot like gravity in that it permeates every aspect of a person's life and if you think about children, they are the most disenfranchised group in our country and in the world, we like to think. that children are fine, we want to look at them and say if they look good, they must be fine, but sometimes children are not Seneca, the ancient Roman philosopher whom I loved.

I always loved him. I am a Latin teacher. Now I worked as a mental health counselor and now I teach Latin, but. Seneca suffered from a really serious illness and he wrote that sometimes simply living is an act of bravery and that is the case with children and anyone who suffers from trauma, but if you imagine that child in the context of school and that child reappears Ian Singh as trauma and that child literally fears for his life because that's how it is when you experience it, it's way beyond a memory, in fact I don't have any memory of my trauma, I just have feelings, so you're sitting in class. thinking, oh my god, I feel like I'm about to die and your teacher writes here on the board, take these notes.

Our math is important when you think your survival is at stake. I guess there are no other ways children deal with trauma. The favorite is dissociation, we all do it to some extent, maybe you space out, you daydream in a more extreme sense, when you dissociate due to trauma you can actually leave your body, your body is there but there is no one at home, so if you imagine that in the context of school. where children spend the most time what teachers tell children I say it all the time pay attention no command to pay attention can bring a child out of dissociation and then not only do they miss schoolwork but they are also The child who never pays attention, so there are many symptoms of PTSD that you could read about clinically, like I did when I was in school taking notes.

I had a sinking feeling, like this sounds so familiar, but when you're actually living It's like Seneca said that simply living is an act of bravery, so what can we do about it? I mean, it's affecting a lot of people, it's affecting a lot of children, our national conversation about PTSD usually focuses on war veterans. point at which we know that on the 4th of July we may want to be careful with our fireworks. What do we know about a child who is experiencing PTSD? Probably not much and that is dangerous because these children will grow up suffering and these children will experience higher rates of suicide higher rates of eating disorders higher rates of obesity dysfunctional relationships higher rates of addiction so what can we do?

Obviously we can't control the weather if it is a natural disaster that is the source of trauma, we can't stop all crime, but there are some things we can do to make our communities, our schools and the places where our children spend most of the time time are friendlier and safer for them. The first is just spreading information, so when I had my kids, I have four, I had my first coat. girl I knew when I brought her home she was going to cry all the time I knew she wasn't going to smile and talk right away There are a lot of things I knew when my nose runs I don't think my brain is working I understand what it's about when we have epidemics of flu, we receive information sheets as teachers, we find out how to prevent the flu, what to do if you have the flu in Meishan, it helps people understand the world and it helps people. understand how to react to certain situations, so we need to make sure that information about

childhood

trauma is not relegated to universities and certainly not relegated to some trick of the month that will be popular before the next acronym comes out, we need a sustained response. commitment to spreading accurate information about childhood trauma and that can happen in our schools and that can also happen in our communities, doctors' offices, other places that children go, people have the information they need to understand and experience that Most people with trauma cannot put a name.

The second thing we can do is share our stories. I share my story so others can share theirs and since I started sharing I have met many people who have experienced the same thing as me and I wish I could. I had that when I was a child I didn't know anyone who was like me when I was a child, in fact, I didn't know anyone like me until I named myself a victim in the case against my perpetrator, the third thing we can do is be an Ally, this She's my seventh grade social studies teacher.

She came to my perpetrator's sentencing in 2014 and was there not only to support me as an adult, but also to support that 11-year-old girl who sat in her class and then she supported me. He supported me by making me feel important, he supported me by telling me my job was good and he supported me by taking care of me and providing me with a safe environment and he did it for me at my perpetrator's sentencing, so the third thing we can do is be true allies. Don't be afraid of children or others, don't keep them at a distance but make them feel heard, seen and understood.

I have had a good life and all children with trauma deserve that opportunity and together we can make that happen, thank you.