Written by: Ashlea Taylor-Barber, LMFT, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Recently, I was asked to speak at the Diversity Alliance Conference on the subject of Addressing the isolation, trauma, anxiety, and uncertainty resulting from the pandemic.
I was asked to marry what I know about the connection between mental health and the black community; then discuss key takeaways for employers and employees regarding techniques or skills they could readily implement. It took me a minute to figure out what I wanted to say as I was asked to create a few slides for an hour-and-a-half presentation along with me being asked questions by a moderator. Ultimately, I ended up with, well, a little more than a few slides lol! My excitement and desire to not only educate but facilitate impactful change showed through my tenacity in the creation of my presentation.
The moderator and audience were engaged, and personally, I was on fire with excitement! Since conference participants felt the content was engaging and my passion was transmitted to them, I wanted to share with Brainz Magazine readers what lit us all on fire at the conference.
Part One!
Trauma: How does it work?
I have learned on my journey that while trauma has become a buzzword, most people do not understand how trauma works. I liken trauma to exercise and a healthy lifestyle journal. When we hear the word “exercise” or “lifestyle journal”, we know this entails us doing some physical activity or eating healthy; however, when we commit to this process, we often do research to understand how this process will be beneficial for us. Therefore, just like you need to find effective exercise methods and learn how to lead a healthier lifestyle, trauma is the same way. You need to understand trauma in order to truly process and eradicate it. So, here we go!
Your brain is like a set of drawers. When you walk into my office and see the big burgundy couch, your brain opens a drawer that says seating. Your brain progresses through many questions before you actually sit down to determine if this is where you would like to sit. Examples of these questions could be:
Is this couch hard or soft?
Can I plop down on it because it's soft or is it hard and made out of wood?
Is it clean or dirty?
If you are with a group, is there enough room for everyone to sit on this couch?
The result is you decide to sit down or not to sit down and your brain moves on to the next scenario to process. This process is hindered when a traumatic experience presents itself. When you experience trauma, the trauma interferes with the process of identifying a drawer or making a new drawer that helps you move forward with an informed decision. Instead, your nervous system kicks in because a threat is detected. The nervous system takes the lead, your higher-level brain functioning moves to the passenger seat, and your body leans to its chosen threat trauma response: fight, flight, freeze or fawn, in order to survive the events.
Flight is
Physically – the blood rushes to the extremities such as your legs and arms which are used to run away from danger in order for you to survive. The blood coats your important organs for survival.
Mentally – You are anxious, deflect, change the subject, gaslighting or manipulate to remove yourself emotionally from the situation that has been identified as not safe for you.
Fight is
Physically – the blood rushes to the extremities such as your legs and arms that you need to survive so you can physically fight. The blood coats your important organs (heart) for survival.
Mentally – You blackout and possibly say obnoxious things you wouldn’t normally say. You go for the “jugular” or you share brutal honesty. You might say the truth that no one else will say or you would not normally say if you were not aroused or triggered.
Freeze is
Physically – the blood coats the organs that are important for survival and your body physically freeze in its tracks”. The extreme case of the freeze stress response is Catatonia. Catatonia is a behavioral syndrome marked by an inability to move normally and is a state in which someone is awake but does not seem to respond to other people and their environment (Catatonia | Royal College of Psychiatrists, n.d.).
Mentally – You dissociate. Your mind protects you by taking you to a place where you aren’t emotionally processing the trauma because your body knows that if you were in the present moment, your physical body and/or your mental capacity would be broken to a detrimental point.
Fawn is
Physically – You stay in a traumatic or abusive environment to avoid conflict, you will do things at all costs to avoid conflict such as agreeing with an abuser/conflictual person and try to gain their approval. Your body is in a constant state of stress response as you focus on the unhealthy survival coping skill of keeping the peace.
Mentally – You people please to avoid conflict in the traumatic environment as a coping skill to establish some safety and keep the threat (person causing anguish or trauma) from triggering a trauma threat response in you. You ignore your own feelings and need to avoid conflict. You have difficulty making decisions and shut down (Fawning & Trauma | Charlie Health, 2022).
The nervous system has two parts: the sympathetic, which includes the threat response, and the parasympathetic, the rest and restore response. Ideally, we want to function mostly in the parasympathetic nervous system, which in summary, is the rest and restore state where our organs can function with the correct amount of oxygen, blood flow, and with each organ doing its assigned job. In contrast, if someone is operating in the sympathetic nervous system and remains there, this can produce prolonged stress hormones to be exerted in the body called cortisol which often can lead to disease. I always say dis-ease equals disease. This phenomenon is its own entity, thus, it calls for its own article, so we will save that more extensive discussion of disease development for later. However, for the sake of this article, disease in the context of the sympathetic nervous system leads to the popular statement: "the Body Keeps the Score" which is also a book by Vessel Van der Kolk. Essentially, this statement denotes that even if we can't always cognitively process the trauma we are experiencing, our body may still experience it and often will begin to show signs—referred to as psychosomatic symptoms. These are physical symptoms such as headaches, stomachaches, shoulder or back pain, or any other type of physical pain that cannot be explained by doctors. The physical root cause of these systems often cannot be found because it is a result of prolonged or high-impact stress and trauma. This example can be seen as many people have developed these psychosomatic systems in the post-COVID era. Now that the major stress and trauma has begun to subside, your body can come off alert but the aftermath of a prolonged time in the threat response, if you are even out of it, has played a role on your current functioning. This can manifest as anxiety, more need for control, depression, and health problems. You may also be experiencing brain fog, difficulty concentrating, irritability, lack of patience, increased hypervigilance, inability to relax or difficulty executing tasks as efficiently as you once did before (Perry et al., 2022).
How does trauma look in real life?
Let’s say the client or your employee witnesses the murder of his best friend during a traffic stop. Upon witnessing this traumatic experience, his threat response was flight so he ran away from the scene. After he was safe, he may have experienced grief, guilt, shame, blame, or bargaining. This leads him to make the decision to stop driving, quit his job, and quit school. He also starts to experience flashbacks of that day followed by headaches. His jaw locks at night and he has frequent digestive problems now. Furthermore, he starts smoking recreational weed to alleviate the physical symptoms and, more frequently, numbs his thoughts by drinking and playing video games all day. We know the client has symptoms of depression because he is going through the grief process of anger, denial, bargaining, acceptance and sadness. Before he decided to quit school and his job, the quality of his work declined, he avoided task, he had difficulty focusing, he was frequently absent, he had conflicts with employees and his motivation diminished.
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How does this look like for someone who has symptoms from living through the pandemic?
Ultimately, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people had to move into a prolonged state of fight, flight, freeze or fawn. This prolonged activation of the sympathetic nervous system occurred with the hope that the pandemic would end someday despite the reality that the number of deaths increased and access to everyday essentials decreased. Many people never had to experience such a high level of uncertainty along with enduring such tragedy and devastation. Knowing what we have learned about trauma, our expectation that people can return to a level of pre-trauma functioning, especially in the workplace, is ridiculous and unrealistic. Most people at some point in their career have had to overlook how they feel and prioritize their career over the quality of life and work-life balance. However, the emotional and physical bandwidth that many people had before the pandemic has decreased while the effects of prolonged stress within the sympathetic nervous system have increased. This shift in people’s life course can be correlated to what mainstream media has referred to as the “Great Resignation, as well as, the preference of work environments that offer work-life balance and space for mental health days and realistic stress relief efforts.
People have been spread thin and are looking for a better quality of life. For many people, their job may not make the cut depending on how they are treated, how they feel they are valued, their hope for potential job growth, their quality of management and coworkers, or their benefits which include insurance and incentives in their work.
So where does this leave us? What do we do?
The complicated part is that the pandemic and the trauma that has manifested because of the pandemic have affected everyone. It has impacted you, your coworkers, your employees, your family members. There isn't one refreshed person to lead the way. Everyone is trying to get their bearings.
With that said, the first step is to get your nervous system to calm down with coping skills. Coping skills can be accessible in both the office and at home. Coping skills need to be implemented consistently—weekly and throughout the day, if possible—with the goal of moving your nervous system into the parasympathetic response and changing the pattern in the brain to move to rest and restore and away from survival.
Your goal in finding coping skills that work for you is to find a coping skill that automatically allows your body, without you having to think about it, to release tension with an excerpt of breath leaving the body, your shoulders moving into a comfortable position, your body feeling relaxed, and your mind being at ease. This can happen while you take a walk and watch the butterflies or watch a clip of a funny movie on your break.
Another goal is to make a self-care calendar that you can realistically follow throughout the week. Those of you who have children can incorporate this into your schedule as a family activity. This will prevent you from having to look for extra time and, in turn, you are simultaneously teaching your children how to regulate their nervous systems as well.
I have included a list of easy coping skills below. The store, Michaels, is a great place to find little trinkets, like a stress ball or a crafting project to give your nervous system some relief throughout the day.
Meditate or pray during your work breaks
Do yoga stretches in your seat at work
Listen to music
Light a candle
Color or engage in any type of art or crafting projects
Roll play-doh or a stress ball in your hand
Eat for a minute and just sit quietly for a few minutes
Take a walk and look at nature
Watch videos of animals
Pet animals
Listen to beach sounds while you work
Have lunch with a friend
Get a massage or facial
Go bike riding, swimming, or exercising
The goal with identifying a coping skill is to think about: What makes you feel calm? What makes you smile? What makes you feel safe? What makes you feel loved?
Part Two to come!
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Ashlea Taylor-Barber, LMFT, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Ashlea (Taylor) Barber is an independently Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Systemic Consultant & Therapeutic Speaker. Known as the Therapeutic Black Mary Poppins, Ashlea focuses on eradicating the root of the problem by helping folks move through life transitions, dysfunctional generational patterns, trauma and race based issues with a specific Niche in working with African American Women and Trauma. As the CEO of the therapy & consulting practice Favor & Grace Under Fire PLLC and Speaking Favor and Grace LLC, Ashlea helps folks find peace instead of fear with Favor and Grace.
References:
Catatonia | Royal College of Psychiatrists. (n.d.). www.rcpsych.ac.uk. https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mental-health/problems-disorders/catatonia
Fawning & Trauma | Charlie Health. (2022, December 13). www.rcpsych.ac.uk. https://www.charliehealth.com/post/is-fawning-a-trauma-response-what-you-need-to-know
Perry, B. D., Szalavitz, M., Szalavitz, M.P.B.D.A.R.W.W.B.T.A.D. &, 978-0465094455, 0., Szalavitz, M. P. B. B. L. F. B. D. &, & 978-0061656798, 0. (2022). The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, 3rd Edition & Born for Love By Bruce D. Perry & Maia Szalavitz 2 Books Collection Set. Basic Books/WmMorrowPB Ltd.
Van, B. M. D. (2022). The Body Keeps the Score & Workbook for The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk M.D Paperback – JAN 2022 (Standard Edition). Generic.
