The Secret That Almost Killed Me | Kirsten Johnson | TEDxSDSU

I am here to tell you the truth, my truth, because the truth has the power to set us free and not telling the truth can have serious consequences. We have a saying in the recovery community: “You are only as sick as your

secret

s.” I'm going to share my

secret

s with you today because my secret

almost

killed

me. I do not want to talk about this. I never wanted to talk about this, but not talking about it is what keeps the problem in place and the solution begins when we break the silence the first time I broke my silence I was 19 I was playing house music dancing in my kitchen I grabbed a sponge and the soap and poured it I started washing a knife I'm moving I'm dancing having a great time moment suddenly hands grabbed my shoulders without thinking I turned around and held the 12 inch silver blade to his throat he looked at me terrified and I looked at the 6 foot 7 inch man and then I realized he was just my boyfriend.

I was safe, I dropped the knife and started crying. I didn't know what PTSD was back then or that I was in the fight part, a frozen fight, but I knew exactly what I was defending myself against from something that happened when I was 12 and how I had just put a knife in my boyfriend's throat I felt like I had to tell him the truth. That was the first time I told anyone my secret that I was sexually abused as a child. When that happened, I was always terrified. of when it could happen again and then I became angry when it did, the emotions inside were very intense and difficult to handle and say.

I found that alcohol made all the feelings go away. I had no way of knowing it at the time, but the sexual trauma had altered my nervous system and changed the trajectory of my life and led me into a downward mental health spiral. Those of us who suffered childhood sexual abuse are six times more likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder, on top of that, we were two to seven times more likely to have it. revitalized as an adult I was in my college dorm room the first time I was raped I was crying and saying don't stop I didn't know it was rape at the time because he was my friend I got depressed I didn't tell anyone I couldn't get out of bed I stopped go to class I had strep throat eight times that year and dropped out of college the next semester, a decade later I went back to school I was in grad school studying statistics I had a best friend there and we were always studying together, math geeks who We were and one that we spent all night.

In fact, we had done this a couple of times before staying up all night writing our term papers, turning them in before the noon deadline, and then he would drive. When I got home, I needed to use the bathroom and I was exhausted, so I lay down on the couch and must have fallen asleep instantly. The next thing I knew, I woke up and he sexually assaulted me. This time my nervous system froze and I couldn't. moving or talking until it was over is not a choice it is a survival or a reflex. I never received help.

This revitalization showed me further down the downward spiral of Mental Health and installed in me from that day forward a phobia of waking up to sexual assault. There were many years where I refused to sleep next to someone I was dating and never told them why I never talked about it. There is a lot of Reve activation in my past, including four rapes each. Each victimization of Reve pushed me further down. mental health spiral I imagine this is really hard to hear, it's hard to say, but what's even more heartbreaking is that there are survivors everywhere who live with this trauma hidden inside them without the dots connecting, making them more vulnerable to revitalization and subsequently suffering silently with deterioration. mental health I was silent about childhood sexual abuse I was silent about the actual victimizations that followed and I was silent about all the fear I felt and I was silent about how much alcohol I poured into my system just to try to feel good.

When the panic attacks started I looked for a psychiatrist who prescribed me the benzodiazepine klonopin. He told me that benzodiazepines are not addictive and I told him I didn't drink very often. He didn't know that my alcohol use was abusive and that my sexual trauma was related to my anxiety, so he did his best and diagnosed me with

almost

every anxiety disorder. I was afraid of everything. He had a phobia of highways. I was afraid of speaking in public and I was afraid of leaving the house, that was the weird thing, I would reach for the doorknob and I would freeze in terror, but I was never sure what alcohol made the anxiety go away, but eventually It made anxiety worse for some of us who suffered childhood sexual abuse. can lead to other things like self harm, suicide attempts, eating disorders, drug addiction, for me, I had PTSD, fear of leaving the house, fear of people, nightmares, flashbacks, but I was not diagnosed with PTSD because I never spoke. about my sexual trauma and that's what makes us so difficult to diagnose and treat because as a culture we don't want to talk about the underlying trauma on top of all the mental health challenges it often leads to that we have stigmas for.

Just encouraging us to remain silent in our suffering from childhood sexual abuse was like having an elephant as a roommate when I ignore the elephant in your room, all I can do is focus on the destruction it is causing, like broken furniture torn apart by the last use, but ignoring the elephant. It doesn't make it go away and the destruction continues Those of us who suffered childhood sexual abuse are six times more likely to abuse alcohol and three times more likely to develop an anxiety disorder. My downward spiral stopped one day when I was walking down the hallway I saw my reflection in the mirror looking into my eyes, but it was like I was looking at an empty shell, like the flame of my spirit was about to be extinguished.

I was terrified because I knew I was dying. I sent him a text message. Friend, I can't do this anymore and she helped me. I went to rehab on September 29, 2009. I remember feeling that morning like it was the worst day of my life, but now when I look back I can see that it was the best day of my life. my life because the day I got professional help and told the truth is the day I entered the upward spiral of mental health, early sobriety was intense without the alcohol and benzos to shut it all down, I had all these emotions that I didn't No No I know how to deal with it.

I had traumatic stress due to all the unaddressed traumas and benzos are highly addictive and withdrawal feels like a really long anxiety attack, making my first two years of sobriety feel like a really long anxiety attack. You can imagine I was very motivated to learn to feel comfortable in my skin. I did a yoga teacher training a month later. I went to Mysore, India, to deepen my ashtanga yoga practice, which was crazy six months before. I was afraid to leave the house and then after six months of soap I am sitting in India in front of a guru learning about Transcendental Meditation and mindfulness and yogi breathing and understanding that when I changed my relationship with my nervous system I began to heal, he taught me how to notice my thoughts and the sensations in my body, so instead of thinking I'm going to die, I would notice that thought and then fall into the sensations in my body like sweaty palms, racing heartbeat and that was exactly what I learned. to make friends with sensations. in my body that allowed me to develop a deeper connection with my intuition and it was my intuition that a couple of years later inspired me to move 8,000 miles away.

The woman who was afraid to leave the house moved 8,000 miles away to a small island in Indonesia called Bali Bali was amazing and I went on a long spiritual healing journey there and the deepest retreat I ever did to heal my sexual abuse. childhood with a course of primary therapy because the child had let go of sexual abuse, we have a tremendous loss and also the loss comes with grief there are five stages of grief, the first of which is denial when the therapist started my denial. I had access to my anger. There was an unreal amount of anger inside me, even against my parents.

Which was interesting because when I was 12 I didn't tell you that once my anger went away, I accessed my sadness and cried every day for five minutes to an hour on purpose for four months and it was the most loving time of my life. because until that moment I had always abandoned and rejected myself, but from then on I decided to accept myself radically. All my feelings were allowed to be felt and released. I loved Bali very much, but the truth is that my real trip was not through the east and it did not require. gurus or plane tickets my true journey was through my heart through my layers of fear guilt shame anger and sadness the pilgrimage was through my pain and the path there was in allowing and accepting my feelings the upward healing the spiral healing is the journey towards self-love and self-acceptance and I have now been sober for eight years since I went to rehab.

I have overcome anxiety disorders, panic attacks and the moment for me when the connected dots between child sexual abuse, mental health problems and addictions are The moment I left Bali to come here and talk to you about the things I was never going to talk about because this message needs to be heard, we need to know that if we have this trauma buried inside of us, that could be the reason for our mental health. health is getting worse, that could be the reason why we are evicting Amaya, we need to know that we can free ourselves for those who also listen to me.

I pray that you find the strength and courage to tell someone the truth, tell someone what happened, but telling someone is not enough, we need to be heard, our elephants need to be heard, the downward spiral of mental health stops, we reach the bottom when we stop digging and at any moment we can start learning to love and accept ourselves but it starts with breaking our Silence by telling someone the truth but it's not just for me too that I suffer silent now. Do most of us have an elephant? Most of us have something we feel is so deep and dark locked inside our hearts that we swear we never will be.

We will tell it to anyone in the recovery community, as we call those who take it to the grave because it is a secret so dark that no soul can know. We will literally take it with us to the grave, but we will harbor dark secrets like that with all the guilt. and the shame that comes with them can slowly kill us inside could take us to the grave it almost takes me to the grave so I ask you what is your secret what is the elephant in your room is my greatest hope and the reason why I'm sharing my story with you so that you can free yourself from silent suffering, for that you must break your silence, you need to be heard, your elephant needs to be heard, thank you.