This article offers some insight into the trend that I am noticing online and offline.
People report their newly learnt diagnosis of x disorder, syndrome, spectrum etc.
Where did I see this phenomenon?
I have observed this trend in education, prison services, and increasingly online.
In some cases, individuals list their diagnosis like badges or awards. The common theme behind it all is medicalized methods and approaches that often offer explanations, and I dare to say, misleading explanations.
Trauma Informed Care, the authentic version of it applies non-medicalized methods and approaches. And manages the behavioral pattern that is part of the personality not a disorder, personality. It doesn’t create another unnecessary paradigm.
1+1=2
The medicalized approach looks like this.
Behavioural pattern- loop and adds on a new loop of x disorder, syndrome, spectrum etc.
Loop+Loop= 2 Loops
So if you feel that you are in a loop the solution is not to ‘dress it up with words’ but to reframe what shows up in a relational situation. So you can integrate the parts better that make you feel at odds with your authentic self.
Often, the medicalized approach addresses you as a patient, not as a sovereign individual who is perfectly capable of self-healing. The body can self-repair and yes the emergent property of the brain-mind can participate positively and actively in the process. I like to emphasize here that no emotional wound can be healed alone. This is why you need to work with someone who can hold a belief in your wholesomeness until you see it by yourself and for yourself.
You are the author of your somatic experiencing, narrative/ mind and emotional fluctuation. In other words, the responsibility is yours, it is on you and not on those who are signing you up for treatments.
Unresolved trauma small or big, intergenerational, secondary etc.
Create this paradigm at a macro and or micro level. At the micro level, when you don’t know self-regulative and integrative exercises, and health organizations offer you a look that seems like a reasonable solution and you go for it. And later you learn that you have more problems (somatic dysregulation) than you started with or had. Trauma still stays unresolved and gets transmitted into the collective mindset. Because the subconscious mindset stays empowered instead of the conscious aware mindset.
In today’s world, the medicalized methods and approaches are overexpressed. In other word people more easily give up their own individual sovereignty for a quick fix process, which is not quick and in many cases not effective. I am saying that both methods are essential and necessary. Not just one that comes under the word expertism, and labeling people with all kinds of explanations, descriptions, and feeding the body with prescriptions.
So, who is the expert?
The answer is you are! You live in your body. Therefore, the so-called expert should be able to listen to you actively and raise open-ended questions (NLP), teach somatic experiencing techniques, and aim to restore your wholesomeness.
The expert is someone who is the most knowledgeable person in an average room. So when it comes to your lived experience, you are the expert, and the other who helps you with the whole health and personal development work is the facilitator. Attunement with your own body is a life skill. And Trauma-informed practitioners teach these skills.
And if you read this post and feel triggered notice what shows up in your somatic experiencing, cognitive processing and emotional reactions. Write them down. Journal! This is a first step to allow the mind to identify the pain points or traumatic pain points and also to learn where you feel at ease. Because lack of ease results in dis-ease. This is not just play with words. This is part of the mind and body interconnected mechanism, which then influences the intraconnectedness with others and on a larger scale, the universe.
You are unique, you are able and yes you can learn new skills to become wholesome again. It works in prisons where reminders are constant and yet individuals who do the work can find peace. If they can find peace, so can you.
Nowadays,these words resonate with me
’Hey brother
Do you still believe in one another?
Hey sister
Do you still believe in love? I wonder
Oh, if the sky comes falling down
For you
There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do.’ Avicii
I wish you well on your healing journey!