What happened in Vegas...

What happened in Vegas...

Elizabeth M. Johnson, MA
American Society
Photo credit via Rawpixel

Photo credit via Rawpixel

…stays in Vegas. Right?

Wrong.

Whatever happened in your past never remains there. No matter what it was and when it happened. Yes, you are all the more vulnerable if you were younger and your brain was still forming.

Imagine you were hospitalized as a child. Your mother held you down perhaps because you wouldn't submit to the shot or the medicine. Now, as an adult, you enter the hospital again. This time you're hoping you're at least 7 cm dilated so you can stay. You are but something's not quite right. Things have changed and an unplanned c-section is happening. Feelings of hopelessness, helplessness and fear wash over you. You're restrained again as part of the standard operating procedure.

But no matter the age, your body stores experiences - good and bad. The body remembers. Which is one of the reasons that experiences that happened in the past can still impact our present. Why that emergency c-section feels even scarier than you'd considered it might ever be.

It's easy to say "what's in the past is in the past,". The pay-out, however, is better when we understand the odds.

Elizabeth M. Johnson, MA
American Society
Elizabeth M. Johnson, MA

Using a trauma-sensitive and social justice framework, my work is helping you understand how culture and personal history influence the decisions you make. So you can shed fear, guilt or shame based "yeses" and "no's" for choices that honor your values, intuition, talents and skills.

I have worked with abuse survivors for 15 years including at three different human services agencies. In those capacities, I've coordinated training and education for community partners and volunteers on abuse dynamics, lethality assessment and crisis intervention. I have also managed a 24 hour domestic violence crisis line, training and overseeing 50 agency volunteers, including students.

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