Domestic Violence Interview with Liz Sylvia - Part 2!

Explicit content warning

02/15/23 • 39 min

Did you miss listening to Part One of the interview with Liz Sylvia?
https://buildingmentalcourage.buzzsprout.com/2084082/12109254-domestic-violence-relationships-with-liz-sylvia
In this episode, I am speaking with my dear friend again, Liz Sylvia where she shares about her personal experiences of both sexual abuse as well as physical abuse. Liz bravely uses her mental courage to discuss specific details about how one of her relationships turned violent and how she and her family have been encouraging each other to heal from the traumatic events that took place.
It is vital that not only as an adult we heal from traumatic events, but also recognize that even if a child was not completely involved, even if they just heard the interactions with someone being physically, emotionally, and/or sexually abusive, they too are affected and need to heal from the events as well!
Domestic violence is not ok, if you are or have ever experiencing any form of domestic violence, I would like to urge you to seek support and help to heal from what going through something like that does to you mentally. If I can be of any support, please feel free to reach out to me either through the Facebook Community, or Instagram linked below!
Would you like to reach out to Liz Sylvia?
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/liz.wood.121
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/woodyou87/

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Previous Episode

My Experiences and Knowledge of the 4 Main Trauma Responses!

With this episode, I really struggled trying to decide which topic out of multiple that I really felt would be best for this week. At one point though, I was listening to another podcast, and it was talking about the main purpose to help people, in a meaningful way. Ultimately, that is my main goal of doing this podcast. I am not really worried about making money from this podcast, or becoming famous. I just want to help. The topic that kept resonating with me over and over, probably because I wish that I could have heard this when I was going through it myself. So this week I will be discussing my experiences and symptoms and knowledge of the 4 main trauma responses. It is typically very difficult to even catch yourself experiencing these trauma responses and recognize them as unhealthy when you are still dealing with the abuse, however that is my hope with this episode - to maybe, just maybe help you recognize them sooner rather than later. There are 6 types of trauma responses, however for the purpose of this episode I will only be covering a few of them. Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn. There are healthy and obviously unhealthy ways in which these responses are expressed. I will be discussing my personal experiences and knowledge of each. For myself, the prominent trauma responses that I express in an unhealthy way have been Freeze and Fawn. The freeze trauma response for me showed up when I had no interest in spending any time with friends or family and began to isolate myself. I wouldn't even spend time talking on the phone with anyone really. With both my previous marriage as well as my current marriage, there was a great deal of control issues. They wanted to know where I was, who I was with, what I was doing, how long I would be gone at ALL times. It was as if they viewed me as their child instead of their wife. As this continued, it became just easier for me to not go out and do anything with anyone. So I began to isolate myself. Now from what I have also learned, the need to be overly controlling can also be considered a trauma response. It falls under the Fight trauma response. So I don't even know if either of them were doing this intentionally or vindictively or if it was just their way of expressing some kind of trauma that they had previously experienced. Now I am not excusing their behavior but it is a known fact that behaviors are learned so they had to have learned at some point in their life from someone that doing that was actually acceptable. Another response that I expressed, and that is common when someone is being abused is loosing all sense of self trust. Second guessing every decision or not even feeling as though you can make a decision on your own. This tends to come from what is known as gaslighting. It is designed to make you feel crazy. It is in my opinion one of the hardest forms of abuse

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Next Episode

Living With Depression

Living with depression can be very challenging. It leaves you feeling like you have no desire to do anything at all. But yet, you still stress and worry over everything even and ruminate over everything that you do or don't do. You feel overwhelmingly sad. Your energy levels feel depleted all the time. That is why it is common for someone with depression to sleep too much, or you might be the type that because you can't stop stressing and worrying all the time, you don't get enough sleep.
I personally have lived with depression since my childhood. The first time I had any kind of depression was during the time that I was in 4th grade and just diagnosed with ADHD, and was put on Ritalin. That caused serious depression for me to include suicidal thoughts and writing suicide letters. However, even after changing the medication, and getting therapy, I remember still struggling with feeling sad, and overall really just struggling with my own self confidence.
Once I became an adult and noticed that I was having depressive thoughts , and struggling with ruminating and had lack of motivation for pretty much anything, I sought for help. However getting help at that point due to at that time, I was still married to my ex-husband and he was at that point in the army meant getting put on one anti-depressant after another which for someone who is medication resistant, that didn't do any good.
When getting help, as difficult as it may be, you really need to also consider that your family, or the people who you are the closest to may also need to get help as well. I was the one who was depressed yes, but they were the ones have to live with me and my depressive mental state. Having the people you are the closest to get help as well will guard their state of mind from taking blame, and can help them understand why you are depressed and why you act the way you do. They don't have to know the exact specific details of what you share in your therapy sessions, but knowing how to cope with living with someone who has depression is not something that we just automatically know how to do instinctively. Them getting help can also help them to know better how to support you and be there for you while you are getting the help you need.
Seeking help with medication is for a lot of people a very much so dreaded topic, however the best piece of advice that I can give you is to find a psychiatrist who offers and will allow you to take a GeneSight test. It unfortunately won't tell you whether or not you will have adverse reactions or not but it will help you and your doctor understand how well you would or wouldn't absorb the active ingredients in the different classifications of mental health medications that are available. Secondly, keep a journal of the medications you take. Do Not Rely on Your Doctor.

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