Tag: PTSD

Alcohol, Drugs, and Rape

“We all know right from wrong. Yeah, maybe alcohol inhibits a person. But at the end of the evening, the little monster of shame, regret, or guilt is gonna be in your head saying ‘You really messed up, that was wrong.’”

Alcohol and drugs are inextricably linked to a large part of rape culture. And that applies to both perpetrators and victims—before, during and after sexual assaults. Anyone who has battled alcohol or drugs knows that substances impair judgment and create an astounding lack of impulse control. Memories can be unreliable or absent entirely.

For those of us who have limped our way out of blackouts and staggered in and out of recovery, we know the shame of finding out what we’ve done in a drunken stupor. Often, the only thing between me and a relapse are the all-too-vivid memories of wretched consequences. I’m no longer afraid to open my eyes in the mornings. When I don’t get high, I don’t awaken with a pounding headache and discover a stranger in my bed.

Roll Red Roll is a documentary about a high school in the hard drinking, football-obsessed town of Steubenville, Ohio. The film premiered to sold-out audiences at Tribeca Film Festival 2018. It has hit numerous venues since then, including Michael Moore’s Traverse City fest. It will continue to make the rounds throughout August and into October.

The doc is about “Jane Doe,” a 16-year-old from West Virginia. She’d attended a series of pre-season football Steubenville parties on the night of August 11, 2012. After downing too much liquor, she passed out. While unconscious, Doe was raped and carried around to more parties by several members of the football team. All evening the boys took photos and videos on their cell phones, then casually shared them on social media. Two of the youths—Trent Mays, 17, and Ma’Lik Richmond, 16—were found guilty. Mays was sentenced to two years and Richmond got only one. They did their time in a juvenile facility. Neither boy is on a sex registry due to their age. Both are now playing college football.

After watching Roll Red Roll, I reached out to crime blogger Alexandria Goddard, who is the heroine of the Steubenville rape story. After only a brief mention of the rape in a local media outlet, Goddard found the horrifying tweets and videos that had been posted. She shared them on social media. When she posted the Instagram photo of Jane Doe being carried by the boys, it caught the attention of the local community and the social justice hacker group, Anonymous.

In our exclusive interview for The Fix, Goddard began with a question: “Would the perpetrators have behaved that way if they weren’t drunk? No, probably not. But the alcohol in no way absolves what they did.”

Goddard described Steubenville as “a sports town known for putting down women, talking about them like they’re meat. They show off for each other. Didn’t any of them have sisters? Mothers? The way they talked about her it was as if they forgot she was a human being. That was learned machismo.”

Goddard added, “We all know right from wrong. Yeah, maybe alcohol inhibits a person. But at the end of the evening, the little monster of shame, regret, or guilt is gonna be in your head saying ‘You really messed up, that was wrong.’”

Boys laughed on the video while talking about peeing on Jane Doe’s unconscious body. “But the girls in town were vicious, too,” Goddard said. “And the school staff. Coach Reno questioned whether it was even rape. You can see it in the film. He said, ‘Did they rape her? Or did they fuck her?’” (Warning: the linked video contains graphic content released by hacker group Anonymous)

Another booze-saturated rape case, People vs Turner (aka The Stanford Rape Case), is back in the news this summer. The victim was a 22-year-old woman (referred to as “Emily Doe”). In January 2015 she attended a few parties, consumed too much liquor and passed out. The defendant was Stanford University swimmer and Olympic-hopeful, Brock Turner, 20. He too had spent the night drinking. Turner was caught humping Emily Doe’s naked body behind a dumpster.

After he was convicted on three felonies of sexual assault with intent to rape, the not-so-Honorable Aaron Persky sentenced Turner to only six months. He was out in three. There was a public outcry that built over time. By June 2016, over one million people had signed the petition to remove Persky. In June of this year Persky was ousted from his judicial bench.

And that’s not all…

On July 26, The New York Times wrote about Brock Turner’s lawyer, Eric Multhaup, who had argued that Turner should never have been convicted of “intending to commit rape” because the Stanford swimmer had only sought to have outercourse with “Emily Doe.”

I don’t know how Multhaup said that with a straight face. Twitter, of course, went wild over this outrageous claim. Thankfully, that appeal didn’t fly. The original decision still stands: Turner was guilty of assault with the intent to rape an unconscious woman. He was found guilty of using a foreign object to penetrate the victim. The definition of rape is: “The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” Rape with an object can be equally as traumatic as penile violation.

Amber Tamblyn and Jodi Kantor

Recently, I went to hear author-director-actress-activist Amber Tamblyn and reporter Jodi Kantor at Manhattan’s 92^nd Street Y. The two discussed Time’s Up, a legal defense fund organization Tamblyn co-founded soon after the #MeToo movement showed the world how many women are sexually harassed on the job. On TimesUpNow.com, the tagline reads: “The clock has run out on sexual assault, harassment and inequality in the workplace. It’s time to do something about it.”

Employers are changing work policies. Companies are doing away with holiday work parties because serving alcohol practically ensures that boundaries will be crossed. Unlike in old movies, we’ve learned that there’s nothing funny about a tipsy coworker patting a woman on the butt or grabbing her for a kiss.

“Sorry I got so drunk last night” is no longer a viable excuse and companies want to avoid problems—especially lawsuits. Frequently workplace sexual harassment claims are linked to events where alcohol was available. In a recent article for The American Lawyer, reporter Meghan Tribe wrote that many big law firms are quashing boozy summer events. Behavioral health consultant Patrick Krill told Tribe, “In light of [the] #MeToo movement, an open bar at a summer associate event is potentially a tinderbox of liability.”

Other companies are trading open bar parties with drink ticket systems. Employees are limited to two drinks to avoid the sloshed sexual harassment issues. I also find it encouraging to see so many changes in New York State laws for employers that go into effect this year, such as sexual harassment prevention policies including training for employees.

My own #MeToo story predates my work life. At age 13, while I was high on liquor and pot, I was sexually assaulted by local kids in my hometown, Port Washington, Long Island. Consumed by shame, I spent the following 13 years on a drug and alcohol-soaked binge. At age 26, I came out of a cocaine and rum induced blackout locked in a detox ward with no memory of how I had gotten there.

Currently, I’m working on a series about women who became addicted to drugs and alcohol after they were raped. One of the women I’ve interviewed—let’s call her “Navy Girl”—was not a drinker but, both times she was attacked, the men had been drinking. After the rapes, like so many of us, Navy Girl didn’t tell anyone. She developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and chronic insomnia.

After years of not sleeping, Navy Girl saw a doctor. He prescribed 5mg of Ambien, the lowest dose. Already in her 30s, she’d never been addicted to anything but, within six months, she was hooked. Doctor-shopping worked for years. Then, when prescriptions went digital, she couldn’t game the system anymore and her doctors began cutting her off. Desperate to stave off withdrawal symptoms, she resorted to buying it from dealers but could not get enough for her habit. After attempting to stop for years, she finally found help in a 30-day drug rehab and has been sober for three years now.

Where will Jane and Emily Doe be 30 years from now? Will they be lost to addictions? I’d bet money that they will suffer for years with PTSD. Perhaps in the future perps will be held accountable and sentences will fit the violence of a rape crime. I pray pussy grabbers will no longer be eligible for political office and lawyers will be banned from asking survivors how much they drank. I look forward to the day when enablers won’t shrug and say, “Boys will be boys.”

View the original article at thefix.com

15 August 2018
When My “Give a F**k” Broke

I stood on the edge of this abyss and began my free fall to find healthy. I had nothing left to lose.

“I am fine,” was my go to response for years. When anyone would ask, I would answer with that canned response, and if the typical follow up question was “Really?”, I was prepared. I would look them square in the eye and state firmly, “There is no other option.”

During my almost three-year sexual assault investigation and prosecution, this was my warrior’s response. If someone was brave enough to follow up with that second question and meet my eyes for the response, typically they took a step back or walked away. Even my therapists tried to break through that façade, but my walls were thick, my stilettos were high, and my eyes were piercing. I was not for the faint of heart and no one was getting in.

I was a mom first, a single mom. A single mom operating as both Mom and Dad to two beautiful girls. That man was so disengaged, he moved to Dubai but continued to send—not child support—but rather criticizing emails on how I should raise our children. Thank God for email filters – his crap went straight to a file I almost never opened.

I was a sexual assault survivor who learned a life lesson that I could rely on no one and safety did not exist. Life taught me how to use my presence and my voice to keep people at bay, and also how to motivate people to act. Safety was not real, so I had to make it so. But my triggers were substantial and regular, and the constant awareness that what happened to me could happen to my daughters often paralyzed me.

Those two daughters were my everything. I became a warrior on their behalf. When the school administration failed to protect my daughter from bullies, I fought them, and then finally moved. When my daughter was struck in a hit and run that was so severe it totaled my new car, I allowed my mother bear instinct to come out but limited my rage so I would not be put in prison.

I carried a mortgage, student loan debt, and at one time allowed a homeless family of four to live with us in our home until the pregnant mother could give birth and they could get on their feet. Meanwhile, professionally, I endured a passive-aggressive boss who enjoyed playing head games for sport. I supervised (and truly enjoyed) over 60 adjunct professors who taught amazing students at a graduate school. With what little personal time I had, any attempts at dating were laughable; the caliber of men available was lower than I could settle for and the unavailable men who attempted to gain my affection repulsed me. I was hard, I was strong, and I was lonely – but it worked. I didn’t have a choice. I did not have the luxury of time to handle hurt or to feel more than what was necessary to be functional. I was safe if I exposed myself to nothing and no one. I was this way unintentionally most of the time, but knew how to call upon it when necessary. Still, I was absolutely perplexed when I was given feedback that I was intimidating. I just wanted to survive and I was doing it the only way I knew how.

When my daughter was committed to a mental health facility twice for attempting suicide and given the diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder with PTSD, I finally broke. The realization that I really could not protect my children from all the unknowns absolutely unraveled me. I sat in the emergency room, sobbing. All my deepest fears and suppressed anguish came to the surface. The reality that I could not keep my children from hurt translated into absolute failure as their mother. When the emergency room doctor came over for my statement, I was crying so hard that I could not talk. She asked me that dreaded question, “Are you okay?” I finally answered honestly, and it was the only word I could get out, “No.” That simple and honest answer broke through years of protective walls and it was devastating.

During the months that followed, my newfound vulnerability did not settle well. I needed back in the driver’s seat; it was a non-stop internal battle. I hustled myself back into therapy, where, at one point, I told my amazing therapist that I could not talk to him unless I laid flat on the floor of his office. I was convinced I was losing my mind. He assured me I was not but I did not believe him.

I was broken. My “Give A F**k” was now in a constant state of zero and my moral compass was constantly spinning. I felt exposed and vulnerable and very, very confused. The belief system I had created to make sense of the violence that had happened to me and to generate an environment of safety for my daughters was an illusion that had been destroyed. I had perfected this for years and it was gone in an instant. I was drowning. I could not breathe.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that this was a gift. The dam wall had broken and all of the harbored pain was released and it forced me to process it. A healthy, accepting mindset was as foreign to me as Egyptian hieroglyphics and I had to change. My mental health and my ability to be a good mother and human depended on it. I stood on the edge of this abyss and began my free fall to find healthy. I had nothing left to lose.

Fresh eyes saw the world for all its flaws and beauty. I learned to address flaws as a simple ingredient of life and not as a threat; I began to accept people and situations for who they were, and it was freeing. Another key step to my freedom was learning to listen to my gut and unapologetically responding as such. If I did not feel comfortable in the presence of someone, I simply removed myself gracefully and did not look back. My gut owed no one an explanation, and that was empowering. Kindness was no longer seen as weakness and connecting with people was no longer dangerous. The world was not a field of landmines but rather an adventure with twists and turns.

I felt like I was breathing fresh air for the first time. I laughed freely without hesitation, I smiled boldly without fear, and I slept so well. I loved with all of me and I loved ME. Everything in me relaxed for the first time in over a dozen years and my mental health was good, for REAL. I was no longer simply “fine,” I was “good,” teetering on great.

Unhealthy people in my life were not so supportive of my new healthy lifestyle, but healthy people supported me with fervor. My manipulative boss was the least supportive because she would no longer get the intended response. She was a daily practice for me though, providing regular situations that allowed me to implement healthy responses. She eventually began ignoring me. Unhealthy friendships fell to the wayside. My youngest daughter, who was working on her own demons, did not understand my choices and decided to go live with her father overseas. I mourned her decision, but the friends and loved ones who accepted me, even when I went into my Xena: Warrior Princess mode, kept me grounded.

Shortly after reconnecting with my emotions and releasing my fear, I met a man who changed my life. He was so healthy and good, kind and unconditionally accepting. Jumping into the abyss landed me in the arms of someone who did not see me as broken and on the mend. I was also able to connect with my oldest daughter on a level that I cannot explain other than she is one of my best friends. She accepts my flaws as I accept hers, and we connect almost every day.

I left my stressful position in that unhealthy working environment and began working as an independent contractor, providing trainings to first responders on how to communicate with victims of trauma. I began writing educational materials and speaking at conferences, utilizing my rape and prosecution experience as an educational opportunity for those who work within the criminal justice, mental health and medical professions. This work is sometimes emotional and tiring, but highly rewarding. It gives me purpose and satisfaction to know that I can make a difference.

My “Give a F**k” may have broken, but I didn’t, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

View the original article at thefix.com

7 August 2018
PTSD Service Dogs Are Saving Lives

“If I could pin a medal on Aura, I would,” Evans asserts. “I feel safe in my own world since I’ve had Aura. She’s life saving.”

United States Army Command Sergeant Major Gretchen Evans’ life changed forever in 2006. This was her ninth combat tour since joining the Army in 1979. It was early spring, Afghanistan, and snow still peaked the mountains, but the chill in the air was beginning to shudder into the warmth that heralded the time for going home. One instant shortly before departure would change her homecoming from routine to medically urgent. While taking enemy fire, a nearby rocket blast left Evans with a traumatic brain injury and total hearing loss. She also suffered post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although the injuries sustained on that last tour in Afghanistan meant the end of Evans’ 27-year military career, she believes she’s had PTSD ever since her first tour to Grenada in 1983.

“You just learn to keep that stuff in control because it wasn’t okay or acceptable to exhibit PTSD symptoms while in active duty,” says Evans, who began finally treating her psychological trauma in 2008. Since accepting and addressing her PTSD diagnosis, Evans has used several different treatments including therapy, medication, and identifying her personal triggers. But one of her most helpful aids comes in the form of her faithful service dog, Aura.

Companion animals have entered the mainstream conversation in recent years as reaping a host of physical and mental health benefits for their owners. These boons include everything from lower blood pressure to decreased anxiety. Emotional support animals have gained popularity among people struggling with disorders like depression and anxiety. These animals are able to provide comfort, companionship, and a sense of purpose to some people who have shown resistance to other, more formalized treatments. Given the rising popularity of emotional support dogs and other pets, it’s important to recognize their distinction from service animals. Service dogs, which include Psychiatric Service Dogs, receive specific training related to their handler’s disability. We have probably all encountered a seeing-eye dog helping his visually impaired handler keep from walking into a busy intersection, for example. Emotional support dogs are less specialized and not covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act—which means you can’t claim discrimination if your therapy dog gets kicked out of the supermarket. The distinction may seem unfair for those who swear by their companion dog, but it does allow those with a qualifying disorder to receive highly specialized assistance. For people with PTSD, that assistance can be life changing.

The science on service dogs for PTSD is still relatively sparse. That which does exist tends to focus on the benefits for combat personnel, like Evans, which leaves little to no evidence for the use of psychiatric dogs in the treatment of PTSD related to sexual assault, natural disaster, or other forms of trauma. Nonetheless, there is strong anecdotal support of service dogs for the treatment of trauma survivors, and PTSD is now a service-dog qualifying disorder in the United States.

Evans received Aura free-of-cost through an organization called America’s Vet Dogs, which provides service dogs to disabled U.S. veterans and first responders. Organizations like these are important because Veteran’s Affairs does not currently provide service dogs for their members. Aura is technically categorized as a hearing-aid dog because Evans’ deafness is considered her primary disability, but Evans says the training Aura received for her PTSD has been life-changing after a series of false-starts when it came to her psychological recovery.

“In the beginning I tried excessive exercise…I tried meditation…I swam with the sharks, which is not really all that relaxing, and I did virtual reality…which works for a lot of veterans, but I had ten million things that happened to me, not just one trauma.” In the end, she says, a combination of medicinal, psychological, and community support helped her come to a place where her PTSD is manageable. And Aura.

One of Aura’s dominant PTSD-related tasks comes in the form of something that may sound simple to those who have never experienced a trauma nightmare: waking Evans up. This is a task echoed in the emerging literature on PTSD service dogs. The animals act by removing covers from their handler, nudging them, or even jumping onto their handler’s chest if other efforts are unsuccessful. This assistance alone is crucial, because, unlike average nightmares, PTSD-related nightmares typically replay the events or emotions of the trauma in such vivid detail that those who suffer from them may fear returning to sleep, leaving them fatigued and emotionally drained before the day has even begun.

Evans says Aura also helps her feel safe in the world. The combination of hearing loss and combat-related PTSD can leave Evans feeling vulnerable in public, especially in settings where she has to stand in line or navigate a crowd of unfamiliar people. Her service dog helps to alert her when strangers are approaching from behind, and to provide a berth that minimizes unwanted contact—all of these important for the reduction of hypervigilance, a common PTSD symptom that leaves sufferers feeling anxious, alert, and physically fatigued.

The biggest criticism emerging from the practice of using service dogs to support PTSD recovery is that dogs have a considerably shorter life span than humans, which could potentially leave an attached handler devastated by the loss. Though merely speculative at this point, this concern merits further research, especially when it comes to the care of survivors who witnessed or experienced loss of life.

Research on PTSD dogs is still young and much of the extant literature relies on self-reports. Like many aspects of trauma research, it has thus far focused mostly on combat veterans. It will likely be years before we have a large body of data confirming the experiences of combat trauma survivors like Evans, and even longer before that is applied to survivors of other types of trauma. Until then, we have the testimony of those whose lives have been changed by these animals.

“If I could pin a medal on Aura, I would,” Evans asserts. “I feel safe in my own world since I’ve had Aura. She’s life saving.”

View the original article at thefix.com

31 July 2018
Vets Turn To Medical Pot, Despite The VA's Policy

The VA remains focused on studying the drug’s “problems of use” instead of its “therapeutic potential.”

Once a month, the veterans’ hall in Santa Cruz, California, is home to an unlikely meeting, where dozens of former service members line up to receive a voucher for free cannabis products from local distributors.

“I never touched the stuff in Vietnam,” William Horne, 76, a retired firefighter, told The New York Times. “It was only a few years ago I realized how useful it could be.”

The VA medical system does not allow providers to discuss or prescribe medical marijuana, since the drug remained banned under federal law, which governs the VA.

However, up to a million veterans who get healthcare through the system have taken matters into their own hands, using marijuana to relieve symptoms of PTSD, pain and other medical condition associated with combat.

“We have a disconnect in care,” said Marcel Bonn-Miller, a psychologist who worked for years at the veterans hospital in Palo Alto, California, and now teaches at the University of Pennsylvania medical school. “The VA has funded lots of marijuana studies, but not of therapeutic potential. All the work has been related to problems of use.”

This means that veterans like those in Santa Cruz can end up self-medicating with cannabis without any medical oversight.

A bill proposed this spring would mandate that the VA study cannabis for treating PTSD and chronic pain.

“I talk to so many vets who claim they get benefits, but we need research,” said Representative Tim Walz, a Democrat from Minnesota, who introduced the bill along with Phil Roe, a doctor and Republican from Tennessee. “You may be a big advocate of medical marijuana, you may feel it has no value. Either way, you should want the evidence to prove it, and there is no better system to do that research than the VA.”

Still, VA spokesperson Curt Cashour said the bill is not enough to change the department’s policies.

“The opportunities for VA to conduct marijuana research are limited because of the restrictions imposed by federal law,” he said. “If Congress wants to facilitate more federal research into Schedule 1 controlled substances such as marijuana, it can always choose to eliminate these restrictions.”

Former Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs David J. Shulkin said that it’s time the system looked into the potential benefits of cannabis.

“We have an opioid crisis, a mental health crisis, and we have limited options with how to address them, so we should be looking at everything possible,” he said. Although two small studies are currently being done at the VA, Shulkin would like to see more.

“In a system as big as ours, that’s not much, certainly not enough,” he said.

View the original article at thefix.com

26 July 2018
The Importance of Women’s Recovery Spaces

Women’s meetings gave me the space to talk about the unspeakable, allowing me to move closer to becoming free from the fear that has kept me shackled.[Content Note: Discussions of IPV]

I started my sobriety journey in a foreign city where there was one English speaking 12-step meeting daily, and a relatively small number of attendees. During part of the year, there were few travelers coming through the city, which meant fewer attendees. It wasn’t out of the ordinary to be the only female in the room. I was struggling to accept the gendered language of the literature we read, and had difficulty relating to the stories of the men in that space. I appreciated their support and camaraderie, but I didn’t see myself often reflected in their experiences. I didn’t know it at the time, but what I needed was to connect with other women in sobriety.

When a recovery meeting for women was suggested by a few ladies who had recently moved to the area, it was met with some resistance. The same happened when I later moved and suggested a women’s meeting in the new city where I was living. The resistance wasn’t a force in numbers, but there was a strength of conviction in the small number of people who had a problem with it. I’ve been told that a women’s-only meeting (that is also open to all non-binary, gender non-conforming, and trans identifying folks) can’t possibly be considered part of a [insert 12-step group name here] program because Tradition Three states, “The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop [drinking/using/overeating/etc].”

When it comes to recovery from addiction, gender-aware spaces are important and there has been a long history of them within 12-step programs. Identity-focused groups have existed for decades, including men’s meetings. The first meeting for Black folks began in the 1940s in Washington DC. In 1971, the first gay and lesbian AA meeting began in the same city. While some binary-gender-specific meetings are open to trans folks, there are many that are not. The transgender community still struggles to find a place to recover safely, but there are some meetings in some large cities that are specifically for people who identify as trans.

The first women in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)–the first and most common of the 12-step programs–didn’t have other women in recovery to guide them and would receive support and sponsorship from non-alcoholic women. The founders originally disagreed on whether or not to admit women into the fellowship, at all. The first women-only AA meeting began in 1941 in Cleveland, Ohio. By 1947 there were more than a dozen women-only groups throughout country and that number has since grown exponentially, worldwide. In 1965 the first forum for women alcoholics was held as the National AA Women’s Conference. Every February since, the International AA Women’s Conference has held a conference “just for women in AA.”

The gender we identify with and the gender we were assigned at birth both play major roles in how we are socialized growing up and how society treats us as adults. Our experiences and choices are, without a doubt, guided and influenced by these societal gender norms. Men and women (generally) benefit in different ways from participation in 12-step programs. According to a paper published in the journal Addiction which looked at AA specifically, women seem to benefit the most from “improved confidence in their ability to abstain during times when they were sad or depressed.” Men tend to benefit more from an increased “confidence in the ability to cope with high-risk drinking situations and [an increased] number of social contacts who supported recovery efforts.” In this study, men benefited from experiencing less depression and having fewer drinking buddies hanging around. Women needed the confidence to experience depression and still not drink.

Women’s meetings can foster validation for feelings of sorrow, and women share their experiences on not drinking despite those feelings. Men, on the other hand, frequently cite the need to combat “self-pity” and credit tough love for their early success in sobriety. For women, it’s often about learning to abstain while in the dark feelings, not escaping from the dark feelings altogether.

The majority of people entering into treatment for addiction are victims of trauma and they present trauma-related symptoms to a significant degree. It’s a vicious cycle: trauma increases the risk of developing a substance use disorder and substance use disorders increase the risk of experiencing trauma. Johanna O’Flaherty, a psychologist specializing in trauma, says that over the course of her career she’s seen people admitted for addiction treatment and “80 to 90 percent in the case of women, have experienced trauma.” Most of the trauma is related to physical and sexual abuse.

The most common trauma in the world is sexual violence and intimate partner violence. Active substance use disorders are positively correlated with an increased risk of domestic violence. Alcohol does not cause domestic violence, but someone who is controlling and abusive is more likely to carry out violence when under the influence. The interconnections of violence, traumatic disorders, and addictions are profound.

The truth is, most sexual violence is carried out by men. A 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey found that “90 percent of perpetrators of sexual violence against women are men” and 93 percent of perpetrators of sexual violence against men are also men and overall “men perpetrate 78 percent of reported assaults.” Asking women to talk about their sexual traumas in front of men is a violent act. Yet, trauma must be worked through or it will never heal. The only way to do that is to provide safe options for people to talk about things they wouldn’t otherwise feel comfortable discussing.

Google “women in AA” and the results are heavily saturated with critiques of the program. There are suggestions for alternatives and articles on predators in the rooms of AA and NA (Narcotics Anonymous). It happens, 12 step groups are not utopias and the people in the rooms aren’t there because their lives have always been amazing and their choices ethical. It is possible to meet manipulative and abusive predators there. Strong connections between women can be a buffer and a safety net for other women who might become entangled in an unhealthy or abusive relationship in early recovery.

As a paper written by Jolene Sanders in the Journal of Groups in Addiction & Recovery explains, “Women also feel more comfortable speaking about issues not directly related to their immediate concern of alcoholism. For example, women may talk about childhood abuse, sexual abuse or harassment, and other forms of assault. Similarly, women speak more candidly than men about their relationships with significant others and tend to focus on emotions more than men. Finally, women tend to discuss mental health issues, such as depression, more than men and focus more on building self-esteem, rather than deflating pride or ego, which are primary concerns for men in AA.”

When the women’s 12-step meeting began in the city where I got sober, it was a game changer for me. I had been in a state of traumatic symptom overload. I was experiencing intrusive and vivid recollections of my traumas. I was being triggered all the time about the emotional, psychological, and physical abuse in my past. There are some things my body will not allow me to speak about in certain scenarios. It’s a physical reaction, neurological in origin, and uncontrollable. My body becomes hell bent on protecting me from past danger, literally preventing me from talking.

If I attempt to speak when my body wants to protect me, I begin stuttering and tripping over each utterance. Unbeknownst to me, what I needed was the company of people who were not men. Women’s meetings gave me the space to talk about the unspeakable, allowing me to move closer to becoming free from the fear that has kept me shackled to the past.

Women’s only spaces in recovery from trauma and addiction can help people to express things they may have been taught to not talk about in front of people outside of their gender. Or about events that they have gone through or acts they have carried out or things that have been done to them in relation to their gender identity. I’ve heard rumors suggesting that women’s meetings are not good because they’re just “man-bashing.” This is unequivocally false; just because something isn’t for you doesn’t mean it is against you.

Victims of domestic violence often stay in their situations for financial reasons. To help with this issue, Credit Cards created a guide to help victims gain the financial independence needed to get away from their abusers safely and effectively.

View the original article at thefix.com

18 July 2018
"I: The Series" Exposes the Underside of Trauma and Healing

We Q&A with filmmaker Mary Beth Eversole on trauma, the inspirations for her new series, and the challenges of making an indie film.

Mary Beth Eversole is the creator and executive producer of I: The Series, in pre-production. The short film series explores the damage of trauma—from ordinary events to major catastrophes—and its impact on individuals as they learn how to heal. Episode 1 takes us into the mind of MB, a traumatized person dealing with an eating disorder, body dysmorphia, and PTSD from multiple traumas. Using “the magic of mirrors, lighting, prosthetics, and CGI editing, we watch as MB’s nightmare comes to life right before her eyes.”

The Fix recently had the pleasure of discussing this project with Eversole.

The Fix: What spurred you to pursue filmmaking?

Mary Beth Eversole: I am an actress, voice over (VO) artist, musician, and content creator. I have acted and taught and performed music since I was very young. Voiceover came after I had a traumatic car accident that ended my operatic and musical theater singing career. I had to re-evaluate how I would still have my voice be heard as an artist. It was a very troubled time for me that included PTSD and depression.

One of my student’s parents suggested I try voiceover work and got me an audition at iHeart Radio in Northern Colorado. The producer signed me as a contracted VO artist that day! From there, I continued to do plays and began to study the art of acting in film, which is different from acting on stage. I love the pace of it, the fact that I could play several different characters within the span of a short time frame, and that I met so many amazing creatives and collaborators. As I booked more on-camera and voiceover work, I began to learn a lot about the behind-the-scenes work and what goes into making a film or TV show happen. I realized that my voice could continue to be heard through filmmaking, not only in characters that others wrote for me, but also in what I wrote for others and myself.

I have had a very traumatized life. I have battled anorexia, body dysmorphia, drug use, depression and PTSD. I have been hospitalized, worked through a treatment plan, been in continuous therapy, experienced 12-step programs, and done a lot of healing through music, film, theater, and other healing forces. People tell me my life story is inspiring to them and that I should share it. I realized a few years ago that it was through filmmaking that I would be able to do that and inspire others to know they are not alone and they can heal.

Describe some challenges that you encountered at the start.

I will say I encounter challenges all along the route during the process of making a film or TV series as I think most filmmakers do. Many of the challenges have always come from funding or lack thereof. As an indie filmmaker, funding is usually scarce unless you know someone with deep pockets or have an in with a studio, which most indie filmmakers do not.

The same challenges are popping up again for “I”, the film series I am currently working on. We need $65,000 in order to film and edit the first episode of “I”. Why? Because we are paying our crew what they should be paid and the film involves many prosthetics and computer generated imagery (CGI) effects, both expensive ticket items for a film. If we were a full feature film being created by a studio with the same storyline, it would cost upwards of $455k and that is on the super low end. Other feature films that have had similar amounts of prosthetics and CGI with studio backing have been around the $15 million range. Therefore, in the grand scheme, $65,000 is not much, but to a small indie film like us, it is a huge mountain to climb.

While we are doing great at building our crowd, it has been more challenging to find those funds. Currently we are running a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo at www.ithemovie.org and we would love to have more people head there to make donations. The cool thing about crowdfunding is the donations do not have to be huge. While it will help us to get a few $1,000-$10,000 donors, the majority of the donations will come from people who donate $15-$100. Social media and direct message shares are also super helpful to get the word out and find more backers. If we do not reach our goal through Indiegogo, we will be applying for grants, but those are very competitive and the likelihood of us getting much funding that way is very slim.

How did you arrive at the idea for the “I” film series?

“I” was originally just one short film, based on my personal life experience with trauma and how it led to anorexia, body dysmorphia, depression, and PTSD. My traumas include growing up with a parent with an undiagnosed mental disorder, boyfriend emotional abuse as a teen, two sexual assaults, being diagnosed with 7 major food allergies and at least 15 other food sensitivities that put me in the hospital multiple times and led to organ failure, and two major hit and run car accidents, one that ended my music career as I knew it. I have had more trauma, but those were the major ones that resulted in the mental disorders I still deal with.

I was watching the Netflix film To The Bone and I realized that this was the first time a dramatic film or TV show had gone this in depth with what actually happens with someone suffering from an eating disorder and body dysmorphia. I also realized this film, along with others about the same subject, still only focused on the external symptoms, what people see on the outside. While the film went into the thought process of an eating disordered person a bit through actions and dialogue, it still only skirted it. Furthermore, I realized it did not talk much about what led to the eating disorder.

When the film was done, I had an overwhelming urge to write down my experience in script form, and to give a true inside account of what happens in my head when that “critical voice”—or as I call it ED—takes over my ability to function as a human being. The script was there, all there, instantly.

I wrote it down. [Then] I read it, and read it again, and I realized this was how I was going to inspire others to seek help, heal, and how I might possibly be able to prevent these mental disorders caused by trauma from happening in the first place. From there I showed it to a good friend and director, Brad Etter, because I knew he needed to be the one to direct it. His eye for cinematography is beautiful and I knew he would instantly understand what I was going for. He said yes immediately. After that, we began cobbling together the crew heads to come up with ideas for how we could get this film made and what it would cost.

All along the way, we have had doors opening and people who I never thought I could get to come on to this project attach themselves to it. In fact, it was Lori Alan, celebrity voiceover artist, actress, and the beautiful voice of episode 1 for this film series, who suggested I consider turning it into a series. I decided that instead of making it a series about just my life, I wanted to make each episode about a different trauma and set of repercussions and healing forces based on true stories from what our fan base shared on our social media pages.

Which film or films have inspired you and why?

The films that came out this past year and addressed true life events and movements in a dramatic way, like Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and To The Bone, as well as TV shows like Chicago Med and Law & Order: SVU that take headlines and dramatically interpret them, have influenced me. My film is based on true stories, but told through dramatic film, which gives us the liberty to construct the inside of the mind and interpret how it is seen through the eye of the traumatized person artistically while still getting the story and the message across.

My director, Brad Etter, and my director of photography, Terrence Magee, are both using inspiration for the look of the film from the Guillermo del Torro films The Shape of Water, Pan’s Labyrinth, and Crimson Peak.

What surprised you the most in the filmmaking process?

First, how hard it is to fund a film. It truly is very hard! However, I think what has surprised me the most with this project has been the outpouring of support I have received from the people who are now crew, core team members for our campaign, and just fans of what I am trying to do by bringing awareness to trauma and how we heal from it, working to break the stigma surrounding these issues. I have received countless messages from friends and family saying “keep going, what you are doing is amazing.” I have received more specific messages from friends and colleagues who are or were in the social work and psychology fields that have given me advice, as well as words of encouragement saying they have been looking for a project to do this for a long time. We even have interest already from two health clinics who want us to share this series in their clinic when it is made!

Find more info at Indiegogo and connect on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

(This interview was condensed and edited for clarity.)

View the original article at thefix.com

21 June 2018
Shame, Alcoholism, Stigma, and Suicide

In addiction treatment circles, conventional wisdom suggests we have to let people hit rock bottom before we can help them. But what happens if rock bottom is dying from suicide?

Historical records as far back as ancient Athens have the underpinnings of the stigmatization of suicide. In 360 BCE, Plato wrote that those who died by suicide “shall be buried alone, and none shall be laid by their side; they shall be buried ingloriously in the borders of the twelve portions the land, in such places as are uncultivated and nameless, and no column or inscription shall mark the place of their interment.” Fast-forward a couple millennia and suicide is still criminalized in many places around the world. In the Western Judeo-Christian tradition, suicide has long been considered the ultimate sin, to such an extent that even the body of a person who died by suicide was legally brutalized and dehumanized. This long history of shaming and penalizing suicide has created deeply seated (mis)beliefs that are engrained in cultural norms. Suicidal ideation is stigmatized, and those who experience such thoughts often suffer in silence.

Alcoholism (both alcohol use disorder and alcohol dependence) is also highly stigmatized. Past research has found that public attitudes are very poor towards people with substance use disorders (SUD). Across the globe, around 70% of the public believe alcoholics were likely to be violent to others. As recently as 2014, research has found 30% of people think recovery from SUDs is impossible and almost 80% of people would not want to work alongside someone who had or has a substance use disorder.

Alcohol dependence and alcohol use disorder (AUD) are high on the list of risk factors for suicide. Mood disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder, are even higher risk factors. What is particularly concerning is that mood disorders frequently go hand in hand with AUDs. Alcohol causes depression, and it can be hard to distinguish whether the alcohol or the depression came first because they feed each other. In his book Alcohol Explained, author William Porter explains, “hangovers cause depression whether you are mentally ill or not…the real cause of it is the chemical imbalance in the brain and body. ”

People who have alcohol dependence are 60 to 120 times more likely to attempt suicide than people who are not intoxicated and individuals who die as a result of a suicide often have high BAC levels. Alcoholism is positively correlated with an increased risk of suicide and “is a factor in about 30% of all completed suicides.” A 2015 meta-analysis on AUD and suicide found that, across the board, “AUD significantly increases the risk [of] suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, and completed suicide.”

Suicide attempts with self-inflicted gunshots have an 85% fatality rate. If someone does survive a suicide attempt, over 90 percent of the time they will not die from suicide. That margin of survival gets smaller with alcohol dependence. Being intoxicated increases the likelihood that someone will attempt suicide and use more lethal methods, such as a firearm.

When a suicide attempt survivor encounters medical professionals, half of the time they will be interacting with someone who has “unfavorable attitudes towards patients presenting with self-harm.” (These statistics have cultural and regional variations.) When a patient with AUD encounters medical professionals, they are also likely to be met with negative perceptions. Myths about AUD and alcohol dependency are pervasive and not even nurses are immune to such prejudice.

So what improves professional perceptions and treatment outcomes? Education. Training works to dispel myths and reinforce the fact that SUDs are diagnosable conditions that require as much care and attention as any other potentially fatal ailment. Perhaps increased understanding of these conditions and experiences could fuel progress for treating addictions and preventing suicide. Doctors are sometimes at a loss for what to do with alcoholic patients; interestingly, the physicians who had more confidence in their abilities in this area were associated with worse outcomes. Meanwhile, there has been little progress in treatment availability outside of basic peer support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous.

Peer support groups do help a lot of people get and stay sober and to live happier and healthier lives: 12-step proponents credit the steps and meetings for saving their lives; many say they were suicidal and that after getting sober they no longer had those thoughts. But while suicidal ideation may go away for some people who receive treatment, it doesn’t work like that for everyone.

People who are abstinent from drugs and alcohol still die from suicide. In the case of post-traumatic stress disorder, quitting drinking can exacerbate feelings of hopelessness and despair. Continuing to drink may reduce the severity of the symptoms in the very short term, but ultimately “a diagnosis of co-occurring PTSD and alcohol use disorder [is] more detrimental than a diagnosis of PTSD or alcohol use disorder alone.”

Suicide is a leading cause of death across the world and ranks as the 10th most common cause of death in the United States. For every completed suicide, there are an estimated 25 attempts.

It’s clear that we must do something to reduce the number of lives lost by suicide. Raising awareness of the relationship between alcohol-dependence and suicide attempts is an important part of the equation. Medical professionals, social workers, law enforcement, employers, and others who are frequently the first point of contact need better training to improve attitudes and fine tune skill sets for taking appropriate action. The public also needs to be armed with information that they can use to help their family and friends who may be at risk for suicide, and in particular what to do if that person has a co-occurring SUD.

Despite evidence to the contrary (particularly in the case of comorbidity with another mental illness) conventional wisdom in addiction treatment suggests that we have to let people fall to rock bottom before we can help them. But what happens if rock bottom is dying from suicide? It’s true that we can’t force health onto another person, but we also can’t help them if they’re no longer alive. For many people, prior trauma and mental health issues come before addiction. More evidence-based intervention and prevention programs are needed if we hope to make any headway in fighting this epidemic.

Until that happens, opportunities do exist to help prevent suicide. After Logic released his Grammy winning song titled “1-800-273-8255” (the phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline), calls to the Lifeline increased exponentially. There is nothing quite like hearing another human voice offering support and comfort. There is also a growing number of online crisis support services which provide help through live chat and email. These, unlike many crisis phone numbers, are not limited by location. Texting a crisis hotline such as the US Crisis Text Line at 741741 is also an option and can be done with just basic SMS, no data needed.

If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call your local emergency number. Find your country’s equivalent to 911 on this wiki page or through The Lifeline Foundation. Find a list of additional suicide prevention resources worldwide on this page.

View the original article at thefix.com

20 June 2018
Ariana Grande Opens Up About PTSD, Anxiety

The pop singer describes how the suicide bombing that occurred at her Manchester concert in May 2017 affected her.

In May 2017, Ariana Grande had just finished performing at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England when a suicide bomb attack occurred in the foyer of the arena, taking the lives of 22 people and injuring many more.

It was an event that she says fueled her post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a subject she has a difficult time discussing today.

As the singer told Vogue, “It’s hard to talk about because so many people have suffered such severe, tremendous loss. But, yeah, it’s a real thing. I know those families and my fans, and everyone there experienced a tremendous amount of it as well. Time is the biggest thing. I feel like I shouldn’t even be talking about my own experience—like I shouldn’t even say anything.”

Grande added that looking back on the event, “I don’t think I’ll ever know how to talk about it and not cry.”

Grande told Time, “The processing part” of her grief “is going to take forever.” She was reluctant to talk about the bombing because, “I don’t want to give it that much power.

“Music is supposed to be the safest thing in the world. I think that’s why it’s still so heavy on my heart every single day. I wish there was more that I could fix. You think with time it’ll become easier to talk about. Or you’ll make peace with it. But every day I wait for that peace to come and it’s still very painful.”

Grande admits she’s also been struggling with anxiety before the release of her new album, Sweetener. “I think a lot of people have anxiety, especially right now,” she says. “My anxiety has anxiety…”

Grande then admitted, “I’ve always had anxiety. I’ve never really spoken about it because I thought everyone had it.” She told Time, “I never opened up about it, because I thought that was how life was supposed to feel,” but she added, “when I got home from tour it was the most severe I think it’s ever been.”

Like a lot of artists, Grande threw her emotions into her music, saying that after going into therapy, “I felt more inclined to tap into my feelings because I was spending more time with them. I was talking about them more. I was in therapy more… When I started to take care of myself more, then came balance, and freedom, and joy. It poured out into the music.”

View the original article at thefix.com

13 June 2018