I listened to Tim Ferriss share his experiences of childhood abuse on his podcast recently.
It was tough to hear because it’s so close to my experience — it was both relieving, and triggering. It helped me to heal.
Debbie Millman was an excellent facilitator for a noticeably nervous and uncomfortable Ferriss. Understandably so.
His courage and sincerity were incredibly inspiring.
The podcast wound it’s way around the subject for nearly two and a half hours; it was deep, profound, intense, and useful to hear the experiences of someone who has made so much of his life.
I resonate with Ferriss’ story; I also experienced a subjection to an extended period of abuse in childhood. He talks about the rage, depression, suicidal tendency, overstimulated sympathetic nervous system states, and adrenal fatigue that I know well.
It’s incredibly challenging to live in the cycle of these states; in the podcast, he talks about the suicidal tendency, not from the viewpoint that he wanted to stop living, but from the position that he wanted to stop the cycle of the current ego reality. I know how that feels.
Even now — I have a relatively stable and fulfilling life, I live with purpose, and integrity, yet when something triggers me to feel the depression that has existed in the past, my mind automatically flies off to:
- What if this never goes away?
- I can’t deal with this.
- Maybe I should take my life?
Ferriss’ share is timely considering the amount of the darker aspects of society that are surfacing now. It’s significant to note that, in the USA, there are, at minimum, one in six adult males who have experienced the same experience. One in three adult women have been assaulted in some form by the age of 18.
It’s essential because this share will embolden and encourage so many people with similar experiences to seek help, and support.
Perhaps the most crucial aspect of this share is that people who have been mercilessly unaware of what it is like to go through these experiences get to understand more fully what it means to have that experience, and how it affects our lives.
His high profile will motivate people who didn’t recognise this life experience in another; perhaps they wrote someone off for not having the “get up and go”, or called them a “loser” for not being able to achieve in the fast-paced, and competitive, culture.
I want to celebrate Tim Ferriss for his courage and vulnerability. It takes someone like him to step out of his comfort zone in love, to help others to validate their own stories.
Thank you Tim, and Debbie, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
I want to outline a few things I took from the podcast, that I resonated deeply with, I’ve split them into dark and light aspects:
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Dark aspects
Growth, gratitude, and light aspects of hardship and the trauma experience are available. I often talk about that.
In truth, that’s because I have to. For survival.
If I weren’t able to do that then I’d have checked out of this life long ago, I’ve always had a sense of the universe working for me, rather than against me. This anchored me to the Earth, elements, and sky, throughout the darkest times.
I always took the opportunity to go hiking or swimming in my darkest times.
Having said that, the darker aspects of the trauma are real. I’ve experienced many of them. I needed that anchoring.
Dissociation
Dissociation involves not feeling like you are who you are. Not feeling like you are in your body. It’s incredibly disorientating. Over the years, I’ve learned to sit with this until it passes, because it does always pass. If it didn’t give within a short period, I’d seek advice from my medical professionals. I’d often experience this late at night.
Dissociation saves someone’s life.
If you’d have had a psychotic break as a child, you wouldn’t have survived. Childhood adaptive responses are perfect, a miracle of evolution. Coping mechanisms are no longer useful, so you check out until you’re ready.
Hypermnesia
An overreactive brain state. I am not able to switch off reoccurring thoughts, or disturbing notions, fears, and visions of impending doom.
As I healed from the trauma, the ability to use this trait for productive and creative means became very useful.
Amnesia
Not remembering is a trait of traumatic memory. It can also come in the form of traumatic memories being malleable and changeable based on the ability of the person to remember what happened and remain safe.
Trauma is knowledgeable in this function; it won’t give you a memory that the body can’t handle.
The nervous system activation is vital here, and breathwork can help to create space to feel these high states.
Meditation — facilitating remembrance
Meditation is a beautiful way to facilitate remembrance. However, it must be done in facilitated environments. If you feel that there’s something beneath the surface that you have blocked out, then seek out a therapist or a trained meditation practitioner with a high level of experience in trauma.
When I first started meditating, I had some shocking experiences around flashback memories, and visions where my imagination was trying to direct me towards the trauma.
The shock of the traumatic memory
It can be shocking to remember something that clicks in your intuition but feels traumatic.
I needed to build support around this very quickly, although it took me a good three weeks to build the courage to tell anyone in my life.
Re-traumatisation
Reentering a traumatic experience is not always useful, valid, or courageous.
If you’re entering traumatic states with an immersive form, then your body-mind is reinforcing those grooves of experience. What you’re searching for is a dissociative experience where you can sit with the experience, and process the emotion that it brings up.
The best way to do this is to make sure you open up these memories in a safe and supported environment, where you can be supported and guided through the process.
You’ll get to the place where you can do this for yourself, eventually.
Anguish
Utter despair and hopelessness. In this state, I don’t believe in the possibility that anything will ever change.
Insanity
Perhaps the most challenging part of trauma is the thinking that you are insane. The cultural fears play right into that.
Most people are happy to reinforce the notion that you are insane. When in fact your body is processing a natural event in the way that it does so intelligently. You have a traumatic injury; you’re not insane, troubled, autistic, or any of the other vicious labels people will throw at you.
Self-loathing
Common for trauma survivors, especially childhood abuse victims, to internalise their abuse as a shameful act. It’s often the case that an abuser will infuse verbal and emotional abuse into the child psyche, which continues long into adulthood.
Rage
Vengeance, retribution, and rage are exaggerated and disproportionate experiences after a violation of this kind. I never wanted to act upon those things, mostly for fear of ending up in prison, or dead.
I used to cycle around grand and fanciful daydreams of vengeance, for anyone that caused me even the slightest of harm. I’d never dream of acting upon it. However, it would take up days of my time.
Also, I struggled with the violent end to my own experience of trauma.
Suicidal tendency
As I mentioned earlier, it’s easy for the ego to move towards suicide as a pressure release for the trauma. It offers this as a solution to the cyclical feelings of hopelessness and hardship.
A, sometimes, excruciating and exhausting existence will evoke extreme responses.
Stanislav Grof, a psychotherapist, says that the mind wants to kill the ego which cycles around despair loops.
Ferriss mentions on the podcast, and I agree, that the best way to combat this is to think of all the people in your life that love you, and how they would feel if you acted upon this urge. They would care and be deeply sad and grief-stricken.
The only way that I didn’t act upon my urges towards suicide was to think of my loved ones.
If you feel this way, please seek a therapist or another qualified professional help. Some charities can help you too:
- https://www.thecalmzone.net
- http://tasc-uk.org/what-we-are-doing/
- https://blog.charitynavigator.org/2018/06/charity-navigators-top-10-tuesday_12.html
Talking around these suicidal tendencies, and the hope that she found in psychopharmacology, Debbie Millman stated that:
It felt like I was falling through the ether; it [the anti-depression drugs] made me feel like there was a bottom to the despair.
I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t know how to be alive.
Tim expresses how his mum found out about his suicide plan. What saved me was thinking of my family and those that love me.
Overwhelm
Once you know, you can’t un-know.
You have no choice but to dive in and heal the trauma. It can be overwhelming.
It also speaks to the amount of hardship that trauma survivors have when trying to explain what happened to them, with law officials. They often have to defend their ‘believability’ and overcome victim-blaming.
It’s not easy seeking justice, yet, it is the way to freedom. Justice doesn’t have to be going through the courts, it could be that you find forgiveness in service to yourself, and working with other people who’ve experienced similar hardships.
Heart rate over compensation
Loud noises, fear, and shame can induce a high heart rate; pumping blood in the ears.
Feeling numb
I had a pride in pain tolerance, and relieving pain by strange means.
“It didn’t affect me, I’m good”, then it goes under lock and key.
Creativity
Pain most often comes out in nuance in creativity; it’s a healthy way to channel it. It can be confusing though, there can be references to dark aspects of humanity, that you can’t understand.
I started drafting a book, and my trauma came flooding out onto the pages. Luckily I was in psychotherapy at the time.
Sexuality
As you’d imagine, I’ve never had a healthy relationship with my sexuality. I’ve been in experiences, whilst they were consensual, I was playing out my trauma.
Those experiences reactivated the sympathetic nervous response, and I existed in the fear.
In the podcast, they both mention that sexuality is lifelong healing around trauma. I haven’t quite come to terms with this, and I still have a sensitive and guarded tendency around sexual encounters.
Last year, I completely lost my sex drive and sexual function. It’s slowly coming back to me through my healing, and meeting a person who I trust, and feel safe with; connected.
Most people who suffer abuse experience this.
I can’t speak my truth
- I can’t speak my truth, because people can’t handle it.
- I’m worried about destroying my parents.
- I’ll be too much of a burden.
It’s essential to speak your truth in safe spaces, so seek out a therapist to start with; who’s trained to hear these profound and uncomfortable truths. Don’t expect your parents to know what to do with your trauma. Most likely, they won’t. But try. Tell them what happened, unless it involves them.
Ferriss states that he felt:
Freed from the weight of it in my unconscious.
I can resonate with this, the people around you might not be able to handle it immediately, however, the more you share your truth, the freer you’ll be.
Internalised shame
These are some of the standard versions of internalised shame for trauma survivors, I am:
- Damaged goods
- Dirty
- Broken
- Not able to catch up
- Left behind by society
Internalised shame makes you feel fatefully flawed; however, there is a way out. There’s always support out there, and there’s hope in those stable relationships.
Everything becomes related to past trauma
Everything becomes interlinked around the traumatic memory, and often things that aren’t related become entwined with it.
Fear that reengaging with trauma will destroy us
There’s a tremendous amount of energy around these feelings, and it can be scary to engage with them; legitimately sometimes.
It’s essential to socialise around them with a professional, in my opinion, little and often.
Super achievement
Our culture celebrates this one. I’m willing to wager that most of our celebrated figures have a form of this super-achievement. Work as a distraction from the pain, to drown out the whisper of the signs of the trauma — the shame of feeling like a broken person.
A form of overstimulation — pouring a hot boiling thing on a slow simmering feeling.
Aversion for words
A great many people who have experienced trauma don’t know how to formulate their words around their experience. Don’t expect them to.
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Light Aspects
Now we’ve been through all the darker aspects, let’s turn to the light. Tim and Debbie both state their hope and purpose in the world. My personal experience of this is finding gratitude, purpose, and meaning in my story.
Sensitivity
Trauma survivors are often incredibly sensitive and empathetic to others. If they don’t get lost in people-pleasing and enmeshment, this can be an incredibly powerful relating tool.
In my own experience, I can pick up on seemingly imperceptible nuances in tone of voice, and facial expression and I can read someone’s body language, and energy, and calibrate all that information into an accurate picture of their mood.
Having a voice
It becomes significant for someone who’s experienced childhood abuse to have a voice, almost more important than anything else. I have to catch myself in normal conversation sometimes if I don’t feel heard and understood, to see if I’m projecting my past onto that situation.
Most of the time, it can be an empowering trait and can help others to speak their mind in group settings.
- Do I stay silent, or do I tell the truth?
- Do I lie to myself?
Often in a person’s life, they discover a moment where they can choose to have a voice around trauma. Incredibly courageous and powerful, and a real inspiration to the rest of us.
It means you choose not to be ashamed; you know that the people who love you are alongside you, that they will believe you.
One notch more hope, than shame
Aligning to hope and moving in purpose, is an incredible way to live life.
On the trauma healing journey, it’s essential to move one notch more in hope, because the shame is so overbearing.
Relief that it makes sense
The healing journey involves relief that the chaotic, and heavy, experiences that you have had make sense within the new context of the traumatic injury.
- I suffered from acute trauma.
- I am experiencing an injury.
The seemingly inexplicable triggers, downstream of the trauma, will all click together, as understandable.
Connection
It’s not hidden, ugly, or loathed. It’s in the light of day, it’s connected, and understood.
Therapy is an investment in my life.
It creates a capability to connect with other people who deserve your connection.
Integration of the trauma as part of your life experience will create an excellent ability for you to relate to others and a great purpose for you to contribute to humanity’s healing as well.
Shared suffering connects us.
Self-love; love
Trauma forces me to intend on self-love. To balance out the amount of pain, that is too large for me. The way to deal with it is to heal it, and the way to heal it is to bring love in, for yourself.
Do I hate myself because of this thing that happened to me? No.
Once I learn to self-love around these challenging experiences; know that it’s not your fault and that you survived the best you knew how at the time, you’d be able to love people in your environment more. There are people who deserve your love.
Healing in community
Mutual awareness, curiosity. Genuine interest. I am learning to navigate amongst others.
Helping other people helps me heal — a virtuous cycle.
Empathy. Resonate. Feel. Help.
A community can be a safety net; it can become part of your toolkit for life.
Purpose will open your heart again.
Spirituality
Ferriss mentions that he has become a sommelier of suffering. That’s fascinating to me, because of what the Buddha says:
A trauma survivor has a unique and excellent understanding of more of life than usual.
I became an interconnected human who can sympathise and empathise.
Everyone is fighting a battle, that you know nothing about.
Meditation
The light aspect of meditation is that you can have a profound understanding of yourself as a human being, as part of something bigger.
You can anchor yourself in ‘The Clearing’. That space of profound peace.
Psychedelics
Ferriss mentions his journey with psychedelics to help the consciousness to navigate a remembering. He advocates this in regulated environments, and I would recommend the same.
I had some profound experiences with Psilocybin and my healing journey, in which I was able to transcend my suffering traumatic cycles, and realise that there is more to life than I’d realised.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness is letting go of hatred — It’s the opposite of “swallowing poison and expecting it to kill my enemy”.
I forgive you, and I set you free, I forgive you, and I set myself free.
More capacity for light
More light, joy, compassion, safety, security, and optimism.
The amount of light that you can experience is directly related to your experiences of the dark.
Expose it to light, and use it to find more light
Meaning; purpose
If I don’t do this, I’m nothing.
I am searching for meaning because I felt meaningless.
I create so I can search for who I am.
These drives are in trauma healing, and they have pushed me to seek what meaning and purpose mean, in life.
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I want to end this article with Tim Ferriss’ parting words of wisdom:
You are never alone, and it’s never hopeless.
How can you use your suffering to better connect with others, rather than isolating?
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit:Clarence E. Hsu on Unsplash