How long does grief last?

Losing someone we love whether they died, or a relationship ended can be some of the most difficult pain our heart can go through.

There are many factors that determine the depth and the length of our grief. Some of these factors include the depth of the relationship, the closure before the ending, our own coping skills, and the strength of our present day relationships.

Grief comes in waves, and the waves that come lessen in intensity and height over time. The length might be 30 years or it might be two months. Unfortunately there’s no calculator that will determine how long these waves will last.

The reverberation of these waves may last a lifetime, but they definitely won’t always hurt as intensely.

Below I’ve written three tips to moving the grief process forward:

1. Understand the five stages of grief. The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These five stages of grief will all come in waves at different times. It’s also important to know and understand that these stages of grief are not linear. They don’t always happen one by one and sometimes you will go back and repeat a stage. Feeling all five of these stages are necessary and part of moving forward in grief.

2. Feel it in order to heal it. The way through grief is through. What that means is that we can go underneath it, around it, or over it. The depth and intensity of grief will stay with us, and come out in other ways until we embrace the struggle and feel the feelings associated with our grief.

3. Seek support. Since grief is centered around the loss of relationship, but then it only makes sense that part of the process of healing grief is reaching out for the support within relationships. Some relationships that are helpful, our friends, family members, a good grief, therapist, members of our spiritual community, or as supportive members at work.

I want to end with saying, most importantly, be kind to yourself during this time. Grief is not a time to overachieve or try to accomplish. Grief is the time to rest and lean on others. Your productivity during this time is to rest and to feel.

You are doing enough. You are enough. You can survive this grief.

If you have any more questions about the grief, or grief therapy please reach out via the Metta Holistic Therapy contact page or email me directly at reneeminxtherapy@gmail.com – if you’re in crisis or an emergency please call 911.

Childhood Trauma and the Holidays

Experiencing childhood trauma and attachment issues with the family you grew up with is hard enough. This leads to having to work out dysfunctional patterns in future relationships, and often coping with some really difficult negative self beliefs over the years. If that isn’t enough, here comes the holidays!

The holidays are a time that can be extremely triggering for people who have trauma surrounding their family.

It is a reminder that they don’t feel the unconditional love and safety that they see others experiencing with their family around the holidays. It’s a reminder of their grief. It’s a reminder of their trauma. It’s a reminder of their wounded inner child. It’s the reminder of all of our need to be loved and accepted.

So what are some ways that we can feel supported and regulated during the holidays if we have a history of childhood trauma?

Below I’ve listed the top three ways that you can help support yourself and your nervous system this holiday season:

1. Stay in close contact with your chosen family. It’s important that we are staying connected to people that we have chosen in our lives during the holidays whether we are or are not going to spend the holidays with her family of origin. Because if we are going to spend some time during the holiday season with her family of origin, we need that line of communication open with people that we know will not hurt us. If we are not going to spend the holidays with her family of origin, we need a reminder that we do have people in our life that love us and are there to support us so we don’t feel so alone.

2. Remind yourself that you are not alone. One of the core foundations of self compassion is common humanity. What common humanity means is that we are not the only ones that feel the pain that we feel. We have to be careful not to use this to beat ourselves up, as if our problems are less severe than others, but use it to remind ourselves, that we are not alone. We can feel, even more sadness, anger, loneliness, if we feel like our problems, mean that there is just something wrong with us.

3. SET BOUNDARIES. This is probably the most important one. We do not owe our family of origin, our time, energy, emotions, or money. We may choose to show up and spend time with our family of origin but it’s OK to have boundaries around that time. Remember that boundaries are not about controlling other people’s actions but rather what we will do if someone says or does something that we are not OK with. For example, if a family member starts to ask you about some thing that is off-limits and they won’t stop asking then a boundary could be that you will not talk to that person the rest of the night or that you will leave.

I really just want to send anyone who is reading this endless validation and compassion. Holiday seasons are some of the most triggering and difficult times for survivors of childhood trauma and abuse. This time of year doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with you – it just triggers the scars of what has happened to you in the past. It is not proof that you are unlovable, but rather proof of the opposite that you are lovable and sensitive and have a heart that still has the capacity to care.

If you have any more questions about the holidays, childhood trauma, or ptsd therapy please reach out via the Metta Holistic Therapy contact page or email me directly at reneeminxtherapy@gmail.com – if you’re in crisis or an emergency please call 911.

What is sexual assault?

The public knowledge and recognition of sexual assault has increased over the years, especially due to movements like the no more and me too movement.

There has been so much gaslighting and victim-blaming in our culture that it has made it hard for survivors of sexual assault to really recognize and admit what happened to them.

The purpose of this article is to help clarify and validate survivors of sexual assault.

Being a survivor of sexual assault can be one of the most difficult things than any human can go through.

People can often go through the five stages of grief when it comes to their assault, and one of the first stages of grief is denial. It feels easier for a nervous system to handle if what happened was in someway our fault. That’s why it’s really important to clarify, that sexual assault is never the fault of anyone other than the perpetrator.

SEXUAL ASSAULT IS ANY TYPE OF SEXUAL CONTACT WITHOUT CONSENT.

Below I’ve listed a few concrete examples of what sexual assault is.

1. If the survivor of the assault was under the influence, especially if they were experiencing brown or black outs (meaning they were drunk or high to the point where their memory was going in and out) they could not give consent. So if there was sexual contact made by the perpetrator when the survivor was heavily under the influence of drugs or alcohol, this would be considered sexual assault. We need to be in our conscious mind to give consent.

2. If the survivor of the assault gave indications verbally or non-verbally of being uncomfortable with a sexual encounter, but the perpetrator did not stop or ask for consent then this is considered sexual assault. It’s important for us to think about nonverbal communication because this is the vast majority of how we communicate as humans is using nonverbal’s. If the perpetrator was not paying attention to obvious nonverbal‘s such as anxiety as evidenced by breathing quickly and looking away, facial expressions of disgust or fear, then the perpetrator was not interested in consent.

3. The perpetrator felt obligated to the sexual contact, due to being in a relationship with the person or the survivor giving consent at some point in the past. Consent isn’t something that is agreed-upon based on being in a marriage or relationship. Consent isn’t something that holds up for years, consent is something that is agreed-upon in each new sexual act. Just because someone has had consensual sexual contact with someone in the past does not mean that they can never be sexually assaulted by that person. In fact, the majority sexual assault is by someone the survivor knows well.

Here are all the reasons for sexual assault:

1. The fact that the perpetrator wanting to sexually assault.

That’s it.

It’s never the survivors fault. No matter what they were wearing, what substances they were or were not on, their relationship to the perpetrator, their relationship to sex, where they were.

It’s important that we BELIEVE and STAND WITH survivors of sexual assault.

I believe you. And it wasn’t your fault.

If you have any more questions about rape, sexual assault, ptsd or trauma therapy please reach out via the Metta Holistic Therapy contact page or email me directly at reneeminxtherapy@gmail.com – if you’re in crisis or an emergency please call 911.

Why do my family and friends not believe me about my sexual assault?

Having experienced sexual assault is one of the most traumatic life events that can happen to anyone. On top of that, it is unfortunately common that people in the persons life will not believe them about their sexual assault and rape.

Others will often question if the trauma survivor is telling the truth, exaggerating what happened or if it was the trauma survivors fault that the sexual assault happened. Others will often question that the trauma survivor is telling the truth, exaggerating or if it was the trauma survivors fault that this happened.

As a trauma therapist and also a survivor myself, I have seen firsthand how common is that friends, family and acquaintances do not believe the survivor.

You would think that with the #metoo #believesurvivors and #nomore movements That people would be past questioning survivors trauma. But unfortunately it still happens all the time. And this is just stacking trauma on top of trauma further survivor who needs nothing but full support, compassion and healing.

So the question remains, why do friends and family members not believe a survivor about sexual assault?

Below I have listed the top FIVE reasons why friends and family members downplay, minimize, question, gaslight or just flat out don’t believe survivors.

1. The overwhelming guilt of not protecting their loved one. If family’s members/friends truly believed the truth that their loved one was raped or sexually assaulted, some of them would not be able to function living with the guilt that they could not protect their loved one. Guilt and shame are powerful emotions and they are some of the most difficult emotions to feel. Even though it’s selfish to not believe in fully support trauma survivors, sometimes these coping skills that our friends and family members have are unconscious. We unconsciously avoid pain all the time. This is a common human experience AND an important reminder that it is not about the trauma survivor at all but more about the other people.

2. They have their own unhealed past trauma. Generational trauma is extremely real and what this means is that there can often be abuse, sexual assault and trauma that happens for generations and generations in a family. When someone comes out with the truth and is extremely brave – it creates a dilemma for those around them who have been suppressed their trauma. Sometimes friends and family members gaslight or question the survivors sexual assault because that is what they’ve done to themselves in order to survive. Yet again, this is a reminder that the not believing is not about the trauma survivor at all.

3. They are scared that it will hurt their reputation. This reason is one of the most insidious because it’s not about the person protecting themselves from shame and guilt, protecting themselves from dealing with their own trauma but more about the other person’s ego. This one tends to hurt the trauma survivor deeply because the friend or family member is trying to protect their image over their loved ones well-being. It can also cause the sexual assault survivor to begin to feel shame that maybe there is something wrong with them because this happened. It can also shame or coerce survivors into hiding their truth in order to “protect the family.”

4. They want to keep the perpetrator in their life. This reason comes up often if the person that committed the sexual assault is a friend or family member. For this reason, friends and family members often choose the route of complete denial because they do not want to cut the friend or family member that committed the sexual assault out of their life. This could be because of extremely codependency, coercion, fear, financial dependence, don’t want to “break up” the family, fear conflict, fear of change, sexual dependence and more. This reason is retraumatizing and can create some really intense resentments against the friends choosing the abusers side. This reason for not believing the trauma survivor can feel so painful, hurtful and lonely.

5. They were manipulated by the abuser to invalidate the trauma survivor. It’s also happens when the abuser is known by friends and family. Perpetrators tend to be extremely good at manipulating other people and webbing together lies that will benefit them. They can do this by trying to make the trauma survivor seem like a liar, that they wanted it, that it’s a cry for attention, that they are jealous, or mentally unstable. If the perpetrator is able to successfully convince others that the sexual assault victim is lying, then they save their reputation and also have the opportunity to do it again. This reason is extremely dangerous to the trauma survivor and put them at risk.

I want to tell you that I BELIEVE YOU. It is extremely uncommon for assault survivors to lie. It is brave to be truthful about your assault and I am SO sorry if you were not believed. It was not about you.

If you have any more questions about friends and family members not believing survivors or trauma therapy please reach out via the Metta Holistic Therapy contact page or email me directly at reneeminxtherapy@gmail.com – if you’re in crisis or an emergency please call 911.

What is dissociation?

Disassociation is taking the world by storm and being a trauma therapist I’m realizing I’m working more and more with dissociation every day.

It’s not surprising that dissociation is becoming a huge issue with people nowadays considering all the external distraction stimulation that we constantly have access to. On top of the distraction, we are a culture that wants to feel good all the time so having conscious awareness of our emotions and sensations in our body just doesn’t feel natural. And finally, on top of this If you have a history of trauma then you will have even more of a desire to not be in your body because it hasn’t felt safe in the past.

If you’re wondering what dissociation is and if it is something that you may experience, I have listed the top four signs and symptoms of disassociation below:

1. Derealization: A huge part of dissociation are symptoms of derealization. Derealization has to do with the external world or our life not feeling real sometimes. This can show up by having familiar places all of a sudden feel unfamiliar. It can show up in childhood or adulthood as feeling like we are an actor in a movie, a player in a video game, any analogy that creates space from our life feeling like our own.

2. Depersonalization: Another huge symptom of dissociation is depersonalization. This is when we don’t really feel in our body and if someone asked us how we feel in our body or sensations that we notice we wouldn’t be able to tell them. We would often describe ourselves as feeling numb during those times. People say and depersonalization that they can almost view themselves from another perspective and have a lot of distance from their body.

3. Memory Loss: Everyone has the experience of zoning out sometimes when driving and not remembering parts or all of their drive. When it comes to folks with dissociation, they can lose time and forget memories of the past because they weren’t truly present. In dissociation we “go away” For our own self protection but eventually it starts to disrupt our memory. People with consistent association often describe themselves as having a “bad memory.”

4. Focus: Some folks at association often misinterpret their symptoms as ADHD, ADD or focus issues. When they were younger or even now they might have times of “zoning out” or blankly staring off into space.

Dissociation is ultimately a trauma response. If you are experiencing dissociation or have at least 2 symptoms listed above, I encourage you to reach out to a trauma specialist.

If you have any more questions about dissociation or trauma therapy please reach out via the Metta Holistic Therapy contact page or email me directly at reneeminxtherapy@gmail.com – if you’re in crisis or an emergency please call 911.

Was my mother/father/parent a narcissist?

The term narcissist has been used more more and recent times and is starting to gain increasing awareness among the general population. If you’ve heard of the term narcissist and heard a little bit about what a narcissist is, you may be wondering if your parent was a narcissist.

Merriam Webster define narcissism in general terms as “an extremely self-centered person who has an exaggerated sense of self-importance.”

The Mayo Clinic defines narcissistic personality disorder as “is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism.”

All of these definitions can help in a greater understanding of what narcissism is but it’s still tough to come to terms with whether or not your parent was a true narcissist.

As a trauma specialist and as someone who had a narcissistic parent, I have listed five signs below that will help point you towards whether your parent was a narcissist.

1. Growing up did your parent often or almost always project their desires or unlived dreams onto you? For a narcissistic parent, it is hard to see you, their child, as your own person and not just a projection of them. For this reason, it’s also really difficult to see that you have your own desires, interest and dreams outside of what they want for you.

2. Growing up, did your parents have a marriage that was healthy and supportive? If your parent was truly a narcissist, these traits are not only going to come out towards you but also to their intimate partner/coparent. The parent that may be a narcissist would also treat your other caregiver as a projection of themselves and the relationship would not be healthy. The narcissistic parent may have even been emotionally/physically/verbally abusive or cheated on your other parent.

3. Growing up, did you feel like you were always trying to gain the acceptance of your parent but never felt like you were quite good enough in their eyes? Narcissistic parents will have extremely high expectations of their child but will never give their full approval and acceptance. This will leave their child never feeling truly seen, accepted or loved.

4. Growing up did your parent isolate you in some way? It is a common tactic used by narcissistic parents to try to separate you from friends, family and loved ones. The reason for this is because the more you rely on solely them to meet all your needs, the more power and control that they have over every area of your life.

5. Growing up, did your parent gaslight you and make you believe that your emotions/thoughts and memories were not valid or real? If your parent is a narcissist they won’t be able to see your needs, reality or feelings as valid. They may be charming to others or you if you continue perfectly in their projection of you. But as soon as you start to have your own opinions, this threatens their power/control over you.

If any of these five signs of a narcissistic parent are true for you, I’m so sorry dear one. You deserved unconditional love – not conditional transactional love associated with toxic attachment.

If you’ve been through narcissistic parenting, I’d encourage you to reach out for help. Reach back out to friends and family in your life that you used to trust. Reach out to a mental health specialist. Start to prioritize your needs (and not just the needs of others.)

If you have any more questions about narcissistic parents or trauma therapy please reach out via the Metta Holistic Therapy contact page or email me directly at reneeminxtherapy@gmail.com – if you’re in crisis or an emergency please call 911.

Am I Dating or Married To A Narcissist?

You may feel sad, terrified, angry, numb and confused. Things in your relationship have gone too far. You don’t know what happened… things were so good at the beginning. You might be reading this to try to determine if you are (or were) dating or married to a narcissist.

As a professional who specializes in working with abuse survivors as well as someone who has survived narcissistic abuse… I’ve learned quite a bit about how to spot a narcissist.

Below I will identify 10 signs and patterns to look out for when trying to determine if someone is a true narcissist.

1. They describe their past as troubled and depict themselves as an innocent victim throughout their life. When you learned about their past you probably felt sorry for them or had a lot of empathy for them.

2. In the beginning of the relationship, they learn a lot of details about you and then through praise and action make you feel more special than you’ve ever felt in any relationship prior.

3. They start to describe other peoples motives as manipulative and not to be trusted.

4. They start to paint a picture of your friends and family that makes you want to distance yourself from them. You start to question the trust you’ve built with them over the years and the narcissist may even use details if shared with them against those people.

5. You begin to get accusations that you are untrustworthy or doing something behind the narcissist back. You may start to overcompensate for the narcissists trust issues. After all, you know about their troubled past.

6. People in your life who love you may start to give warnings about this person but since the narcissist has already painted them to be a certain type of way you were prepared for their reactions. You don’t believe them. They don’t know the narcissist like you do.

7. You start to isolate and just spend all your time with a narcissist. Somehow they have gotten you depending on them whether emotionally, financially, spiritually or sexually.

8. The emotional and verbal abuse starts. At the beginning of the relationship, you never received the type of special compliments you received from the narcissist. But now, things have changed. They are using the insecurities they know about you against you. They’re using the details you’ve told them against you.

9. You feel like you can’t do better. You feel not good enough, not smart enough, not attractive enough and you feel like you need them.

10. You’ve now entered hell on earth. The narcissist now feeds you small pieces of attention occasionally that keep you hoping that it will go back to the way that it was the beginning. Most of the time though you’re isolated with only them to rely on. The narcissist now has depicted you to other people as crazy just in case you ever come out about their true nature. They have turn people against you. You may now suspect that you are with a narcissist.

If at least half of these patterns and signs has happened to you, I am so sorry. Narcissistic abuse is one of the most confusing and painful things that could ever happen to someone.

The main thing I want to express in this article is that it was not your fault for ending up with a narcissist. There’s no way you could’ve known that this person was a narcissist even if you recognize one or two red flags at the beginning of the relationship. There was no way for you to know that it could’ve gotten as far as it did. Don’t blame yourself.

If you’ve been through narcissistic abuse, I’d encourage you to reach out for help. Reach back out to friends and family in your life that you used to trust. Reach out to a mental health specialist. Start to prioritize your needs.

If you have any more questions about narcissistic abuse or trauma therapy please reach out via the Metta Holistic Therapy contact page or email me directly at reneeminxtherapy@gmail.com – if you’re in crisis or an emergency please call 911.

Experiencing rape in college

Experiencing rape or sexual assault can be one of the most painful, secretive, and shameful events that can ever happen to anyone.

College is supposed to be a time where we are differentiating from our parents, figuring out who we are and who we want to be. It can be an incredibly scary time of the unknown but it could also lay the groundwork for allowing us to trust ourselves given the right circumstances.

If you have been raped or experienced a sexual assault in college or maybe even before, your sense of safety and trust is broken.

As a sexual assault or rape survivor, you may feel lost and alone. Below I’ve listed the top three things to begin to think about as you’re navigating this trauma.

1. COPING. Don’t do it alone. There is a saying that our secrets keep us sick. Shame is an emotion that thrives in darkness and silence. But you can’t get through this alone and dear one: it was not your fault. Please reach out to people that you trust and lean on them. You’re going to need some healthy attachment right now with other human beings.

2. LEGAL ACTION. You may be thinking or other people may be asking you if you were going to be pressing charges. This is absolutely and completely your decision. Other people might have their opinions on it but you need to make a decision that feels OK to you. There is no right or wrong. This is the time to start listening to your body and allow yourself to make this decision. If you want advice, ask someone that you trust or seek legal advice from someone that has worked with this before.

3. THERAPY. Therapy may be some thing that you are rushing to do or some thing that you want to avoid. Research shows, though, the sooner someone seeks therapy after a trauma, the less side effects it will have in the long run. Start looking up trauma therapist near you. My suggestion is to have a free consultation with a few and choose the one that makes you feel the safest.

There is nothing anyone will be able to say to completely soothe your body right after the event. But I want you to know that over time, healthy attachment and self- compassion, will make things easier to manage. Things will get better, dear one. I want you to know that there’s hope.

If you have any more questions about rape or sexual assault please reach out via the Metta Holistic Therapy contact page or email me directly at reneeminxtherapy@gmail.com – if you’re in crisis or an emergency please call 911.

Therapy for PTSD

Having complex post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD affects our every day lives. We want to feel better within ourselves and within our relationships. Therapy is a really good place to start.

So we know that we have PTSD, and we know that we need therapy, but now what?

When looking for a trauma therapist, it’s important to ask about their specialties, techniques and tools. Below I’ve compiled the top three therapy techniques that will help resolve PTSD symptoms in every day life.

1. IFS (Internal family systems) – This is one of my personal favorites both personally and professionally and it’s a rather new trauma technique. IFS views us as complex and multifaceted beings and therefore our healing happens while working with different parts of ourselves. This is why IFS work is also called parts work. For example, there might be a younger part that comes up whenever we are having an argument with her romantic partner that is afraid of abandonment. In IFS we take the time to build a relationship with his part and begin to heal it.

2. EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) – Emdr is one of the oldest therapy techniques used to treat PTSD and trauma. The basis of this therapy is to re-process memories in the past that developed or beliefs about ourselves and others. By targeting then reprocessing Past memories we are able to resolve not only the trauma in our bodies but also how those traumas have affected our relationships with others.

3. Mindfulness – Mindfulness is such a good tool to heal PTSD and trauma because disassociation tends to be really strong and trauma survivors. Mindfulness reverses this pattern and begins to increase awareness of our minds and emotions while helping us remain non-judgmental. Self compassion is one of the most important parts of mindfulness and one of the most important parts of healing in general.

All of the therapy techniques above to help resolve trauma symptoms have one thing in common… they are all holistic. This means that they take the mind, emotions and body into account when thinking about the healing process. And because we are not fragmented people, our healing needs to encompass our whole being.

If you have any more questions about PTSD and CPTSD please reach out via the Metta Holistic Therapy get in touch page or email me directly at reneeminxtherapy@gmail.com

How Abortion Policies Affect Trauma Survivors

My therapeutic specialty is working with women and men who are trauma survivors… survivors of war, survivors of abuse, survivors of childhood trauma. I am also a woman who is a survivor of childhood trauma myself. Throughout my work and my life experiences I have seen how trauma can be triggered by events happening in not only our internal system and immediate environment but also from our society at large.

The war on women in the United States right now is especially triggering for women who have experienced trauma. One of the most disturbing parts of trauma is that our choice has been taken away from us. There is a loss of control that comes with trauma.

Policies, procedures, societal expectations and opinions can be extremely triggering for those of us who have experienced trauma. Specifically those of us who identify as women, have our trauma triggered on a daily basis. The trauma is triggered by what we see in the news + policies that are being enacted on our body without our permission. This is where the loss of control can be re-traumatizing.

I have worked in trauma-informed inpatient, outpatient, intensive outpatient treatment settings. What makes these settings trauma-informed is by prioritizing the client having a sense of agency and choice in their treatment.

When a woman with trauma lives in a society that takes away the right to choose what to do with her body, it makes the society unsafe for her. It is a reconfirmation that people can’t be trusted, that she is not protected, and that she cannot keep herself safe.

What is happening right now with Roe versus Wade possibly being overturned and creating ripple effects of abortion being illegal has so many harmful consequences. The consequence that I’m focusing on in this article is how the patriarchal society of the United States and internalized sexism is creating a generation of women who will feel powerless and unsafe.

A generation of women feeling powerless and unsafe will have long-term consequences with each new mother that gives birth, in generational trauma, with the rise of addiction and mental health issues, and in general levels of connection, creativity and happiness.

I urge you to act. I urge you to speak up. I urge you to be an ally for women. I urge you to march. I urge you to donate. I urge you to do what’s right for ourselves and for our future children.

If you have any more questions about trauma please reach out via the Metta Holistic Therapy contact page or email me directly at reneeminxtherapy@gmail.com

Thanks so much for reading until the end! You are worthy of wisdom, healing, and being LOVED.

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