When Your Past Stays with You: How we can help support our self-advocates through PTSD and Trauma
Watching The Pitt
Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch walks into a crowded waiting room in the ER on the hit show, The Pitt. When Dr. Robby sees how crowded the waiting room is that day, he instantly walks away and the music starts to speed up, depicting his mind racing with flashbacks of working the front lines of the COVID pandemic. During the scene, Dr. Robby has very vivid memories about where he was, what he saw, what he smelled, and what he felt.
There are many scenes showing how little, seemingly not important things, trigger him. One scene includes a patient telling him about making sandwiches that morning. Dr. Robby stated, “It’s killing me. You know how they say a part of you dies when you lose someone you love, I’m not convinced that a part of me doesn’t die when I see a fellow human pass, and I have seen so many people die and I feel that it is leeching something from my soul”.
The Pitt helps to put PTSD into the conversation. The show uses the COVID pandemic as the catalyst for their trauma, but we must remember that trauma and PTSD can come from many things throughout people’s lives. At times, we may use PTSD very freely and easily, almost as slang. For example, that bad meal I had last week gave me PTSD. However, PTSD is something that is very serious, life altering, and lifelong. It will not leave a person, but it can be carried a little bit easier with the right support.
Raising Awareness
June is PTSD awareness month, and it is a topic that may touch the lives of the individuals we support. According to the Mayo Clinic, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD is a mental health condition triggered by experiencing terrifying, life-threating or traumatic events. Individuals with disabilities have a higher risk of experiencing trauma/PTSD for many reasons that include:
- Others see them as a vulnerable target
- Communications struggles
- Exposure to living in the service system
- They don’t realize what is happening to them is wrong
- They don’t feel like they can say no
- If they do make a report, it might not be taken seriously
- They think they need to comply with their caretakers in order to be taken care of well
The statistics surrounding trauma and individuals with disabilities is staggering and include:
- People with disabilities can experience sexual assault at a rate 7 times higher than those without disabilities
- 60-100% of individuals with IDD experience some type of severe trauma, usually abuse throughout their lives (Sobsey, 1994).
- The rate of violent victimization is 4 times higher for people with disabilities than without
Supporting People through Trauma/PTSD
It is important to remember that trauma can look different for everyone. Trauma and PTSD are not always caused by catastrophic, huge events. It can result from a lifetime of neglect, abuse, or constant change. As supporters we need to make sure that we take the experiences of our individuals seriously and not judge what they view as traumatic.
People can experience PTSD in different ways. Our bodies can react to traumatic events for the rest of our lives. The symptoms of PTSD may not always be linked to trauma, but it is vital that supporters come from a trauma informed perspective at all times and keep in mind that if a person has a trauma history, their behaviors have a high likelihood to be linked to their trauma. Some things you might see are:
- Trouble concentrating
- Feeling angry out of nowhere
- Not feeling safe (the person might ask for a lot of feedback from the supporter, or may ask similar questions over and over again)
- May elope (consider looking in places you think they would like)
- Asking for reassurance that they are not in trouble
- Gets startled very easily
- Sleeping issues
- Doesn’t want to perform their hygiene routine
- Saying they are fearful, even in seemingly safe environment
Supporting individuals through trauma is a hard road to travel. You will experience a person making progress and then taking steps backward. That is part of having a trauma history and/or PTSD. Having a solid support system can be one of the most impactful parts of supporting a person. There are things we can do to offer constant and consistent support to help people carry the load of trauma and PTSD a little easier. Some ideas are:
- Help provide safety to the person. Remind them that they are safe and that you will consistently be there to support them.
- Meet the person where they are that day. Every day might not be a good one, so we can make the environment a little easier by decreasing demands or transitions when possible and offering extra support.
- Use trauma informed language. For example, instead of saying, “what is wrong with you?”, you can say, “what happened to you?”
- Learn what the person’s triggers are and avoid them when possible. When you can’t avoid them, prepare the person for the situation and be there for them.
- Create a predictable routine. Being able to predict their environment can help decrease the risk of triggering trauma.
- Help the person label their emotions.
- Remind the person of the importance of consistently attending any type of therapy or counseling sessions.
- Find hobbies or activities that calm the person and remind them what they can do if they are feeling triggered.
It is vital, as a supporter, that you take care of yourself while you support a person with trauma history/PTSD. Everyone has their own story and some situations can be triggering to your own trauma. Remember to:
- Be kind to yourself and know that you matter.
- Communicate your boundaries, you don’t want to retraumatize yourself.
- Recognize your own trauma is yours and valid.
- Don’t ignore how you are feeling while supporting other people.
- Communicate how you are feeling to someone, if you feel comfortable doing so, but it is OK if you don’t want to talk about something.
- Practice some type of self-care, especially after hard days.
Dr. Robby in The Pitt is shown riding his motorcycle without a helmet, knowing the dangers as an emergency room doctor, but due to not processing his trauma, he takes the risk anyway. PTSD will stay with us forever. The people we support are not different in that experience. Having conversations about what they are feeling, being a steady support, and creating a safe place for them can make all the difference in how they carry their past with them for the rest of their lives. It will make people not want to ride without a helmet throughout their everyday lives.
