Tag: trauma

Military Suicides -Sexual trauma – Survivors reality

Newly published research in the journal Psychology of Violence highlights how stigma against reporting sexual assault in the military leads to heightened suicidal ideation amongst military sexual trauma (MST) women survivors.

The results of this cross-sectional, convenient-sampled study suggest that both self-stigma and anticipated enacted stigma from unit leaders for seeking help for MST were associated with suicidal ideation.

Military sexual trauma can be “instances of unwanted sexual attention and pressure, as well as threatened or actual sexual assault, during military service.” Statistics suggest an alarming prevalence of MST, with one out of every three veterans (33%) and one out of every twelve (8.4%) actively serving military personnel reporting MST.

The study authors, led by psychologist Rebecca Blais, draw attention to the severity of this issue:

“Those who experience MST are at elevated risk for a broad range of mental health, physical health, and adverse psychosocial outcomes, including posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, alcohol misuse, and sexual dysfunction…Additionally, women MST survivors are more likely to experience suicidal ideation … suicide attempts … and suicide mortality.”

Stigma and Expected Retaliation Drive Suicide Among Military Sexual Trauma Survivors

www.madinamerica.com/2023/02/stigma-and-expected-retaliation-drive-suicide-among-military-sexual-trauma-survivors/

Psychiatry’s cycle of ignorance & reinvention

I can definitely attest to the ignorance

Owen Whooley is an associate professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico. His book On the Heels of Ignorance: Psychiatry and the Politics of Not Knowing deals with the tumultuous history of psychiatry and its equally unstable present.

In his book, he documents psychiatry’s ignorance, insecurity, hubris, and hype. Owen Whooley is an expert in the field of the sociology of mental health, sociology of knowledge, and sociology of science.

In this interview, we cover his histography of psychiatry, engage with his writings on the DSM, and talk about what gives psychiatry its almost supernatural powers to rise from near death over and over and over.

Psychiatry’s Cycle of Ignorance and Reinvention: An Interview with Owen Whooley

www.madinamerica.com/2023/02/psychiatrys-cycle-of-ignorance-and-reinvention-an-interview-with-owen-whooley/

The Healing Journey

Being raised in drama, trauma and dysfunction can leave us, as adults, continuing the patterns of pain.

We often don’t know who we are.

We don’t know what we like or what we want for ourselves.

We may feel like a chameleon…always changing to our circumstances and surroundings.

Eager to jump into situations where we are focused on keeping others happy without knowing what might make US happy.

We know we don’t feel right but don’t know how to feel better.

Staying safe and sacrificing “me” to stay safe was how we survived but now we want to do more than survive…we want to learn how to live.

We can begin by recognizing this dynamic of the dysfunction and start taking ownership of how we feel, what we think and what we do.

We are no longer slaves to the past as we begin to consider our future.

We may only have a sense of knowing that we don’t like how we are being treated.

So we begin by asking “what do I like?”

“I know I don’t like feeling like this so what might I like instead?”

We can make a list of things we find pleasure in and purposing to invite more of that into our days.

As we find our sense of self that is separate from those around us we may notice that we start to feel better about ourselves.

Oftentimes this improvement helps us to see that staying with those who continue to berate us is no longer serving us.

This empowers us to continue to ask those questions…

What do I like?

What do I not like?

What do I want?

We begin to see that we no longer have the need to sacrifice ourselves to stay safe.

We begin to dream about what could be as we let go of what was.

We begin to shape ourselves into the person we needed all along.

We begin to smile more.

We laugh more.

We begin to feel freedom from the pain and invite the pleasures that come with knowing who we are and that this is more than who they told us we were.

We begin to hope and trust that we do indeed know what’s best for ”me” as we let go of survival and learn how to live.

empoweringsolutions

selfhealingjourney

Emotional Loss

The card of the day is Emotional Loss. You may be feeling emotional today at the loss of a loved one or something you were emotionally attached to. Know that it is OK to cry, it is OK to feel these emotions. You need to feel them and let them go in order to heal.

When you bottle everything up, you cannot fully heal and your emotions will manifest physically and you will need more healing. By feeling your emotions and letting them go, you will invite more good into your life. Whether you feel like moving on or not right now, you need to give yourself some time to heal.

Reach out if you need to and ask for help. There is someone ready and willing to help you but you need to reach out and admit you need some help first. There is so much love surrounding you now as you go through this heartache and you will feel so much better soon.

If you are grieving the loss of a loved one who has passed, they would not want you to be sad but to be happy and joyful and live your life to the full. Know that this time will pass and you will feel joy again with your loved ones.

Sending out lots of love to all of you who have lost loved ones.

Have a fantastic day filled with love!