The Healing Wheel

Apr 1

Note: I’m happy to share with you The Healing Wheel (c) and adapted excerpts from my unpublished manuscript It’s Not About Forgiving, It’s About Healing. (The capital letters in parentheses refer to the references listed below.) I would love to hear your feedback by clicking here and sending me your thoughts. ~ Lyn

Embedded in Judith Hermann’s (A) three stages of recovery from chronic childhood trauma are seven specific areas of work. I call them the Healing Wheel (see diagram), with seven spokes representing the seven work areas. These are not linear or orderly nor are they necessarily exhaustive, but they tend to be ubiquitous, spontaneous, and ongoing. They are the unplanned issues that arise throughout the recovery process. (1) We discover who we are by working with our parts, our memory, and identity work. (2) We work on shame, trust, and relationships. (3) We learn how to manage our triggers and feel all our feelings. (4) We grieve the loss of our fantasy childhood. (5) We learn how trauma affects us in the past and present and let it inform our coping and grounding skills. (6) We seek justice in a variety of creative ways. (7) We build a new future and eventually find peace.

The diagram shows these different work areas of equivalent size revolving around our healing. In reality, some of us may spend more time on one work area than another, but in the end, we work on every one and, perhaps, more that I’ve not noted. We may, in fact, be working on one, two, or even seven areas at a time as each area impacts and relates to the other work areas. For some of us, we may be able to space out our work so it’s manageable; for most of us, we go through some periods that feel like a marathon or a clown juggling too many balls.

Healing from trauma is not for the faint of heart, but it is very doable for a survivor like you. So put on your work hat and let’s get to work!

Parts, Memory and Identity Work

Welcoming our parts, learning about their role in our system, and encouraging communication between and among them is often thought of as the core of recovery work for people with dissociative disorders. As our parts begin to tell their stories, the walls of amnesia surrounding them begin to lower, and knowledge begins to move fluidly between them so that the physical person can navigate through life with more self-knowledge.

This is called integration: the combining of one thing with another so that they become whole (Oxford Language Dictionary). There’s a good deal of disagreement among people with dissociative disorders over the issue of integration, which is also called fusion by the International Society for the Study of Trauma. While many people look forward to full integration as their goal, some prefer to remain in collaborative parts after addressing the other “work areas” of recovery. This is called functional multiplicity. Whether our parts integrate into one whole person, or whether they remain in parts with full, collaborative knowledge of one another, the sharing of knowledge between parts is still called integration. As we heal, we integrate.

Our parts carry memories. We know that ordinary memory without the impact of trauma is notoriously unreliable. I remember well my wedding seven years ago. Had I told you about it the week after this momentous occasion, though, it would have been a different story from the recollection I’d tell you today. Some aspects have faded into the past and some have come forward to take a more prominent place. Mostly, the best parts stand out and the not-so-good parts have receded. Except important not-so-good parts, like the fact that I got to the church before my husband, which worried me greatly at the time. Since then, though, that memory has become a humorous part of the story. This is the normal fluidity of ordinary memory.

Sometimes our parts have no narrative to tell. Instead, they may be consumed by powerful emotions, confusing fragments, and unexplainable sensations. As we learned from Judith Hermann, trauma has a powerful impact on memory which rarely lodges in the front brain where complete stories reside. Instead, they are housed in our back brain as a crisis strategy when the trauma first occurred. Janina Fisher (B) says, “A traumatic event is not over when it is over — even if we have successfully survived”.

When the trauma is chronic in early childhood, it is often segmented into parts, or what we might call alters, insiders, headmates, or persons. Fisher notes that trauma is remembered more emotionally and somatically than in narrative form so “survivors often feel confused, overwhelmed, or crazy. Without a memory in words or pictures, they do not recognize what they are feeling as memory.” Getting to know our parts means getting to know our memories, whether they are embedded in a narrative or not.

Fisher further explains that even our triggers are memories. When a certain smell or an unshaven man triggers us into a visceral meltdown, the meltdown is a memory and the trigger is a clue. To simplify, we call this process a trigger. Fisher encourages us to treat our triggers as memories that one of our parts is experiencing. “I encourage you to assume that any highly distressing or overwhelming emotion that you do not understand might be a trauma symptom,” Fisher says.

Identity work grows out of our relationship with our parts. When we started our healing process, we may have experienced identity confusion. I knew myself as Lyn, but who were these other parts who were showing up in my life, my journal, and my therapy? The list grew longer, but the issue was existential: who am I?

In my experience, the answer to that question emerges out of the long, slow process of getting to know ourselves through our alters, our traumatic memories, and our triggers, and through addressing the other areas of recovery work. At times, we may be devastated to learn the truth, but we may also be exhilarated when we gain the power to shape ourselves into the future. Socrates and other ancient Greek philosophers admonished us to “know thyself,” promoting the truth that self-knowledge is power. Those of us who recover from dissociative disorders know ourselves better than most other people ever will and, from that new reality, we claim the power to be who we were meant to be. In the past, we were controlled. Today, we have control.

Shame, Trust, and Relationships

Speaker, writer, and researcher Brene Brown (C) defines shame as intensely painful feelings or experiences of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging — that something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection. “I don’t believe shame is helpful or productive,” she says. “In fact, I think shame is much more likely to be the source of destructive, hurtful behavior than the solution or cure.” Brown concludes that using shame as a disciplinary technique does more harm than good.

Most of us walk around with a ton of shame that doesn’t belong to us. Our caregivers may have told us that we weren’t “enough,” or that we were responsible for bad things that weren’t in our control, or that we were flawed and defective. In some cases, the seeds of shame were implanted as a method of control. Growing up with those sometimes overt and sometimes subliminal messages were enough to convince us to shame ourselves without the help of other people. If we were alone on a desert island, we would probable feel the shame just as we do in a crowded city or at our family of origin’s dining room table. It follows us everywhere. For some of us, it’s not what we are, it’s who we are. We are shame.

One approach to healing shame amounts to throwing those old tapes into the trash bin and creating new tapes that realistically remind us of our worthiness. Getting there is the hard part. Wrenching our self-esteem from the tentacles of shame is like cleaning an oven that never comes clean. Writing and repeating daily affirmations helps to build the truth of who we are and negate the lie that was told to us. Or, we can give our shame back to the people to whom it belongs — the ones who created the old tapes in the first place — by journaling, role play, or even confrontation. Or, if our shame resides in an alter, we can help our insider release the shame.

My shame was an organ in the middle of my chest that pumped black-tar-shame into my body much like the heart pumps blood into my extremities. Eventually, this organ told me his name — Devil — and revealed he was an infant. My whole system gathered around to comfort him when he cried and cried and cried. I believe that each tear sent a little bit of shame out of my body and into the atmosphere to be transformed into something good. Thirty years later, Devil changed his name to Angel, and we carry only minimal shame.

It’s very hard to trust other people and build healthy relationships when we’re riddled with shame that makes us feel unworthy and willing to settle for less. As we noted before, setting boundaries means setting standards about what we’re willing to accept and what we’re not willing to accept from the people in our lives. We can’t change their behavior, but we can change ours. Looking at our relationships — both friendships and romantic interests — through the lens of the healthy person we want to become can empower us to make choices. Are we willing to settle for the abuse, neglect, and minimization this person throws at us? Or do we deserve someone who treats us kindly, fairly, and with respect? Are we satisfied to live inside the tapes of the past, or are we ready to erase them and create the new tapes that represent the person and parts we are becoming?

Expecting to wipe out our shame in one fell swoop is unrealistic. Our entire healing journey is the mechanism by which we ultimately gain power over our shame. As with everything else, taming our shame and putting it in its place takes time. Each small success we have in every area of recovery helps to enlarge our self-worth and reduce the impact of shame. From that place of power, we begin to trust ourselves, look around us, and learn whom we can trust. We seek relationships that enhance our strengths and mirror back our virtues. We no longer mindlessly follow the worst of humanity but, rather, embrace the best that humanity has to offer. The goal we achieve is to engage in relationships that are worthy of who we are, because we are worth it.

John Bradshaw, author of Healing the Shame that Binds You, (D) reminds us that shame doesn’t have to be toxic. Healthy shame, he says, give us permission to be human, to be “not perfect,” to know our limits. “Healthy shame is the basic metaphysical boundary for human beings. It is the emotional energy that signals us that we are not God — that we will make mistakes, that we need help. Healthy shame gives us permission to be human.” As we heal, our toxic shame turns into healthy shame where we are able to love ourselves as the beautiful, imperfect human beings that we are.

Feeling Our Feelings and Managing Triggers

Dissociation saved us by separating our trauma from parts of ourselves. Our bodies and our minds split, temporarily, so that we could manage in real life: our minds went to one or more places while our bodies experienced the trauma. If trauma was chronic, our splits were less temporary and became the “go-to” way we coped with life — from childhood into adulthood. Today, we give homage to this coping strategy of disconnection between thoughts, memories, and actions, while, at the same time, recognize its negative impact on our lives as functioning adults.

As adults, dissociation may lend a sense of unreality to our sense of self and to the world around us. We may feel like we’re looking at ourselves go through the motions of life from the outside looking in. We may lack memories from the day before or from a chunk of our childhood. We may, at times, feel like someone else entirely and discover, often to our chagrin, that, indeed, we do have different parts or people inside. All of this may add up to a pervasive sense of numbness. Each of us experiences dissociation uniquely but these are some of the main descriptors of dissociation in adults.

Yet, feelings, in the dissociative person, are often in short supply. It’s not that they’re not there — it’s that they’re hidden away in the pockets of our minds and bodies that were created by dissociation. Dissociation prevents us from feeling all our feelings in the normal, natural way that people who haven’t experienced trauma feel them. Instead, we may feel numb or overwhelmed by too many feelings all at one time.

Numbing is a protective mechanism that keeps us from feeling the feelings from the past, as well as feeling our feelings in the present. Shutting down our historical memories may have served a useful function at one time, but it also prevents us from living a full life in the here and now. We deserve to feel the full range of emotions in the present — love, joy, fear, competence, anger, compassion, hate, happiness, contentment, agitation, satisfaction, and more. These feelings are the mark of being human. When our emotional switch flips off, we lose an important part of ourselves.

Emotional flooding may seem the opposite of numbing, but they are related. Like the fiery molten rock inside a volcano that can no longer remain underground, our dissociated feelings burst out into the open with such a force that we are buried by their intensity. The ensuing chaos makes it difficult to identify separate feelings but, rather, we are at the mercy of the deluge. Although emotional flooding may be initiated by a variety of stimuli, triggers from the past are one of them.

Because the trigger, or trauma memory, is in the body rather than in the narrative brain, we usually have no idea of the root cause of our flooded feelings. Instead, we feel afraid, terrorized, or doomed in the present day even though we know, at least at some level, that we are safe, competent, and able to take care of ourselves. An important part of healing is learning how to manage our triggers to make room for our real feelings that are connected to both the past and the present.

Each of us learns what helps to ground us in the present when our minds and bodies are taking flight into the past. This may include activity like walking, dancing, yoga, or other bodily movement. Some people use the arts like music, crafts, painting, drawing, and writing to bring themselves back from the past into the present. Still others find that talking with their therapist is the only way to break the bubble of a trigger. For myself, I found that “getting back out there” and learning that I was capable in “this” world helped to pull me back from my helplessness of “that” world.

Janina Fisher emphasizes the need to work through our powerful feelings to determine where they come from and what they mean, today, in the present:“In order to know where we are and who we have become despite the trauma, we have to learn how to discriminate between a here-and-now emotional reaction and a feeling or body memory. To know we or those around us are safe, we have to make those discriminations. Otherwise we will automatically trust those who do not trigger us and distrust all those who do. We will believe the shame is a truth about ourselves rather than understand it as a memory. We will interpret fear as a sign that we are not safe.”

For years, I was either flooded with feelings that had no context, or numb and without feeling, sometimes both at the same time. By the time I found my therapist and began seeing her on a regular basis, I was totally confused about feelings. I was sure my real feelings were bad and were proof that I was a defective person. I thought, “It’s bad to be angry. It’s bad to be afraid. It’s bad to be sad. I don’t know how to be happy. I’m so confused.” One day, my therapist told me, “Everything everybody feels is okay, valid, and important.” I was overwhelmed by these profound words that touched the parts of me who were sure that I was defective. I went home and made a primitive poster to remind all of myself of my therapist’s affirmation:

Everything everybody feels is okay, valid, and important.

Once all of ourselves who carry our negative feelings have expelled the toxins many times over time, we discover, gradually, we are experiencing both positive and negative feelings in real time. Our emotional space expands to embrace the whole range of human emotions in the present. Our inner landscape has room for new feelings, new thoughts, and new awarenesses that feed our bodies, minds, and spirits. Feeling our real feelings in the here and now is an experience no longer confused by dissociation, silenced by numbness, or overshadowed by triggers.

Grieving a Fantasy Childhood

Over the course of my life, I have lost many things that were important to me. To name a few: the family I created — a husband and four happy children — to divorce, a loving second husband to premature death, a safe home and community to a move, and a child to the legacy of my trauma. Perhaps the most important loss was the childhood I thought I had.

In a sense, this primary loss seems a bit of a stretch since I have so few memories of childhood. When I compare my few happy recollections with the happy lives of children in the present, I was severely lacking. But you don’t know what you don’t know, and I didn’t know my childhood wasn’t happy. It just was. Not until I began to heal did I realize that my imaginations of my early years was the fantasy childhood I never had. Facing the truth about my life was the biggest loss.

The original five stages of grief were observed and recorded in 1969 by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, MD, in her book On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach to Doctors, Nurses, Clergy, and their Own Families (E), which was based on her work with terminally ill patients. Those include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Since then, other models with other stages have been developed to describe the slow process of coming to terms with loss. Some models add creating meaning out of loss, or finding purpose, or reconstruction, or some other way to describe the new you who emerges from the rubble.

While the stages of grief were originally articulated in terms of loss through death, there is general consensus that grief is a product of many kinds of losses: death, divorce, catastrophic illness, loss of job, loss of financial security, loss of a dream, loss of a sense of self. It should come as no surprise, then, that for those of us who experienced chronic early childhood trauma, we might grieve the loss of the childhood we never had.

“What?!” you might say. “I not only have to work with my parts, contend with my memories, and deal with shame, trust, and relationship issues, I also have to grieve the loss of my fantasy childhood, too? Dealing with triggers, identity confusion, and constant psychic pain isn’t enough? It’s not fair!” You’re right. It’s not fair. If you walked away in a huff (for only a few minutes), I’d understand!

Fair or not, grief is part of the hand we’ve been dealt. One of our Dissociative Writers says, “The more skilled I become at grieving loss, the healthier I become.”

Wherever you are in your healing, think about the stages of grief and which ones you’ve experienced. Have you ever denied the memories your parts share with you, or did you deny your diagnosis? Denial is a common first response as the false image we’ve created begins to crumble. Anger is a hard one and many of us have trouble getting in touch with our anger for fear it may do irreparable harm to ourselves or someone we love. Yet buried within our systems are red molten lava streams of rage seeking expression. What about bargaining? In my memoir, Crazy, I remember a conversation I had with my insiders just prior to diagnosis. I’m not a multiple personality, but I am screwed up and very confused. If I forget about names and just talk about feelings, then it will be okay. I suspect we’ve all experienced a deep sadness that may have been diagnosed as depression. For many of us, a diagnosis of depression may be what led us into therapy. When you think about it, depression is a rational response to coming face to face with our truth. Sometimes medication helps to take the edge off; other times, giving our alters a voice lifts the heaviness so we can continue to do our work.

Like the whole healing process, grief has its own timeline and everyone experiences it differently. The stages aren’t linear, nor are they orderly. Just as we move in and out of Hermann’s three stages of recovery, we also move in and out of the stages of grief. For some of us, it’s a lifelong process of difficult discovery; for others, it’s a celebration of release. Your method of grieving will be different from mine, and mine will be different from someone else’s. We are unique human beings who’ve experienced unique trauma in unique times and places. Our “new normal” will be ours alone as we move toward acceptance.

Acceptance, of course, is the goal we all seek, to come to some sense that what was, was, but now we can change the trajectory of our lives because what is, now, is not the same as what was, then. In this stage of grief, some of us may entertain the possibility of forgiveness. For those with religious or other incentives, forgiveness may well be the next step. For many of us, however, forgiveness isn’t necessary in order to complete the grieving process. Instead, or in conjunction with, we may move onto those additional meaning-making stages which I call seeking justice, building a future, and finding peace.

Learning about Trauma

When I was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder in 1992 (renamed dissociative identity disorder in 1994), there was precious little support for people like me. Facebook didn’t exist so there were no Facebook support groups. The internet was new and mostly inaccessible, so researching the condition was hardly an option. I read books but there were few available. I felt isolated and alone, and lacked the capacity to learn more about my condition. For many years, all I knew about DID was what I experienced myself and I often doubted what my own body, mind, and spirit were telling me.

It’s been an eye opener to discover the wealth of information and support that has grown over the past thirty years. When I was in the midst of my recovery, I thought, at times, that I was the only person in the world with DID. I thought it was a bizarre diagnosis, rare, uncommon. Actually it’s not rare at all; it’s estimated that 1%-3% of people worldwide have either diagnosed or undiagnosed DID as the mind’s natural response to unremitting, childhood trauma.

Once I was diagnosed, I was sure that I was “doing it wrong.” If I really had DID, I would display certain symptoms or experience certain kinds of situations. Instead, I was displaying other symptoms and experiencing other kinds of situations. I had no perspective except what was right in front of my nose. I needed, but hardly received, a knowledge base to support my recovery.

Janina Fisher refers to her first teacher, Judith Hermann, who taught her that survivors need information. “They (need) to be educated about trauma and all its ramifications and manifestations. They (need) to know enough to make intelligent choices about their lives and treatment … As victims of trauma, they (have) been disempowered and deprived of choice.”

So, both Fisher and Hermann conclude, survivors need to be full collaborators with the therapist rather than passive recipients of therapy. “The antidote,” Fisher channels Hermann, is “the power of knowledge — some way to understand the baffling and intense reactions that (plague) them, often for years, so they (do) not feel so crazy and abnormal.” Both Fisher and Hermann have provided a road map that shines a light on the path ahead. Other books, workshops, and peer support groups do the same.

In spite of the fact that we still need more trained therapists who understand dissociative disorders, the difference in capacity between then and now is astounding. Today, more therapists are ready to walk the walk into the dark corridors of a frightening past. Today, more therapists understand the full impact of trauma and share that knowledge with their clients. Today, fewer therapists are denying dissociative responses to trauma; they’re willing to learn, not only from their professional resources, but from their clients who are the true experts.

The first step in comprehending our symptoms is to have a therapist who can illuminate what’s happening to us, place it in context, and lead us forward. The next step is to gather all the information available about trauma, our diagnosis, and the variety of treatments. On the whole, people who use dissociation as a coping strategy tend to be bright and creative (yes, that means you!). Armed with knowledge, recovery becomes an adventure into self-knowledge.

Seeking Justice

The word justice conjures up images of courtrooms, jail cells, and articulate lawyers. While some survivors are successful in bringing charges against their perpetrators and receiving some sort of legal justice, the vast majority of us simply don’t have the courtroom “evidence” to go that mile. That doesn’t mean, however, that we can’t extract justice from the universe for the harms we’ve endured. Seeking justice, each in our own way, is an important part of our healing journey.

Like the words healing and forgiveness, experts haven’t always agreed on the definition of justice. From ancient times to the present day, philosophers and legal scholars have offered their understandings of the meaning of justice in a variety of contexts. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines justice as the quality of being just, impartial, or fair, with just being in conformity with what is morally upright or good. Regardless of the context, most definitions can be distilled to fairness, equal rights, and respect.

As survivors, we often use surrogates to attain justice. In other words, we find other people, causes, or situations on which we project a sense of rightness, even when we’re still contending with the wrongness of our past. For instance, the writers who participate in Dissociative Writers writing workshops share their stories through writing and affirm each other as they claim their voices. Speaking truth and being affirmed is one way to claim justice. If others acknowledge the wrong that was done, we can reduce the impact of those who denied it and help create a universe that honors truth.

British author, Carolyn Spring, wrote a memoir entitled Recovery is My Best Revenge (F). Her title not only embodies the groundswell of justified anger we carry, it proclaims justice as our very act of healing. We cannot change the past, nor can we erase the people who hurt us, but we can set whatever boundaries we may need in order to heal. Over time, the larger-than-life abuser shrinks into a pitiful shell of a person as we grow stronger, more sure of ourselves, and more capable of seeing the whole picture as the competent adults that we are. This is justice in its finest form.

Some survivors become therapists themselves in order to stand against abuse by helping other survivors. Their insight and compassion are gifts from the rubble and are irreplaceable in the therapy room. Other survivors start organizations that address trauma in unique and effective ways. Spring founded a website called Reversing Adversity and offers insightful video classes for both survivors and therapists. Linda Crockett, executive director of Safe Communities, founded the organization to help churches and other groups create safe spaces for children. Jaime Pollack, director of An Infinite Mind, founded the only organization, to my knowledge, that is geared specifically for people with dissociative identity disorder. Kait Gannon, creator of the podcast The Ugly Truth About the Girl Next Door, is founder of not only the podcast but a nonprofit called Mezzo that educates the public about family-controlled sex trafficking.

We can’t all start organizations but many of us can support or volunteer for them. Or, we might become involved in a cause that has nothing to do with trauma such as animal welfare, working with preschool children, or welcoming immigrants. These, too, are ways of seeking justice in the aftermath of an unjust past.

In the beginning of my recovery, a friend who was active in a twelve-step program encouraged me to “give back” as a way to enhance my recovery from early childhood trauma. My heart wanted to do what she suggested but I only had the inner resources to survive and put one foot in front of the other. For many years, I had no excess energy to give to others. In fact, it was a huge learning curve just to take the time to give to myself. “What good would I be for others if I don’t take care of myself first?” I thought. If you’re not ready to seek justice through surrogates, that’s okay. Your time will come. Someday, you’ll take one little step to stand up, speak up, or gear up for something bigger than you. In your own way, you’ll find and spread the justice that we’re all due.

As we work toward justice through our surrogate people, causes, and situations, we find meaning in our suffering and purpose for our living. Meaning and purpose are drivers in the healing process, transforming us into so much more than the hurts we carry. We slowly claim our inner strength because we can’t escape from it, no matter what our old tapes tell us. We have meaning. We have purpose. We are making a difference. The world needs us. We need us. Because we seek justice, a little corner of the world becomes a better place.

Finding Future, Purpose, & Peace

We all come to our diagnoses at different places in our lives. Some of us are barely surviving and may be living on public assistance. Others of us may have a parent or a spouse who provides us with financial support and, if we’re lucky, a soft landing. We may be working at jobs we love or jobs we hate, or we may not have the stamina to hold any job at all. We may have big families, small families, or no families. Some of us may be in school or have successful careers. We may have big dreams or no dreams at all. We may burst with creativity in our chosen medium, or we may yearn to express ourselves but don’t have the self-confidence or life circumstance to allow that. Some of us may feel fully functional, with the added complexity of multiple selves, others of us may feel fully dysfunctional, with the added complexity of multiple selves, and others, still, may be somewhere in-between. It’s an understatement to say that no two of us are alike and our multiplicity manifests in unique ways.

Everyone, however, has to find a way to fit the work we’ve described in this chapter into the doldrums, the doubt, the confusion, the chaos, the inspiration, the joy, the decompensation, the demands, the rewards, the highs, and the lows of everyday life. In the early years of our recovery, we may be fully focused on the work before us. It may consume us, confound us, and connect us with ourselves and others, leading us deeper into our psyches and further along our journeys. As I’ve noted before, we get to know who we are better than most people. Yes, it hurts to know ourselves, but it also helps, and eventually it shapes, and molds, and forms us into the people we’re meant to be.

What is your intention for your future: your vision for what your life will look like when you have healed from the symptoms of chronic childhood trauma? You are more than your symptoms so who will you be without the fear, shame, triggers, and identity confusion — when the marks of trauma are no longer front and center?

Who will you be? What a wonderful question to ask ourselves! We have the power, now, to shape ourselves in ways we never could before. Will you live alone or have a companion? Will you have a job that fulfills you or a creative expression that completes you? Will your parts integrate into a unified whole, or will they remain functionally multiple as they embrace life? Your intention is the blueprint for your future, and the more you internalize it — post it on your refrigerator, look at it, read it, shout it from the rooftop — the more your selves will lead you to your destination.

There comes a point in our work — maybe gradually or maybe suddenly — when we realize we have more space to grow, more energy to expend, and more love to give. The Healing Wheel has brought us to our destination: A Whole Life.

(A) Hermann, J. (1992). Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence — From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. Basic Books.

(B) Fisher, J. (1921). Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma: A Workbook for Survivors and Therapists. PESI Publishing.

(D) Bradshaw, J (1988). Healing the Shame that Binds You. Health Communications, Inc.

(E) Kubler Ross, E. (1969). On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and their Own Families. Macmillan Publishing Company.

(F) Spring, Carolyn (2016). Recovery is My Best Revenge. Pods Trauma Training Ltd.

April DW Events

(To access these workshops and meetings, please go to the Groupeasy Calendar, click on the Event/Date, then click on the Zoom link.)

Monday, April 1, 12:00 noon Eastern: Focused Writing Group (Rotating Facilitation)

Tuesday, April 2, 1:00 pm Eastern: Writing-in-Place (Kim)

Wednesday, April 3, 8:00 pm Eastern: Evening Writing-in-Place (Surita)

Monday, April 8, 12:00 noon Eastern: Focused Writing Group (Rotating Facilitation)

Monday, April 8, 6:30 pm Eastern: DW Business Meeting

Tuesday, April 9, 1:00 pm Eastern: Traditional Writing Workshop (Sharri)

Monday, April 15, 12:00 noon Eastern: Focused Writing Group (Rotating Facilitation)

Tuesday, April 16, 1:00 pm Eastern: Writing-in-Place (Kim)

Wednesday, April 17, 8:00 pm Eastern: Evening Writing-in-Place (Surita)

Thursday, April 18, 6:00 pm Eastern: Social Hangout (JJ)

Monday, April 22, 12:00 noon Eastern: Focused Writing Group (Rotating Facilitation)

Tuesday, April 23, 1:00 pm Eastern: Traditional Writing Workshop (Sharri)

Monday, April 29, 12:00 noon Eastern: Focused Writing Group (Rotating Facilitation)

Tuesday, April 30, 1:00 pm Eastern: Writing-in-Place (Kim)

🕊️

Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn't you

– all of the expectations, all of the beliefs –

and becoming who you are.

~ Rachel Naomi Remen

Lyn

Lyn Barrett