You are The Expert

Let me start out boldly: no one can ever presume to know what is best for you. No one should presume that you cannot take care of yourself or that they know better than you do about your life. This is true even if you are a trauma survivor.

• "Even" if you seek a healthcare provider's advice on something that you're going through;

• "Even" if you accept an offer of a free meal delivered from a local group feeding families recovering from Covid;

• "Even" if you are paying a personal trainer to teach you how to use weights and feel stronger;

• "Even" if you visit a non-profit for services for your children.

You still know yourself and what you need best.

But all too often an expert in their field assumes that they know best for you: their client or patient. This seems to happen more frequently when the client is a survivor of abuse.

Our culture is partially to be blamed. We have a culture that focuses on adjustment, improvement, and correction. Something is wrong with you. You need to be fixed! But all my years of seeing or dealing with people in crisis, I’ve never met anyone who needed to be fixed. I met many people who needed to be heard. I met people who need a specific kind of support. I met people who felt like they had been left behind or abandoned.

I have yet to meet someone who needs to be fixed.

But because we prioritize faster, better, fixed, the expert in the room asserts their knowledge into actionable, clear steps. They write a prescription. They check off another box. They opt for shaming instead of listening. In doing all of this, they minimize your experience.

The “fix” mode allows people to set a goal for resolution, despite the fact that some things cannot be solved. Sometimes there is nothing that can be done. Save listening and being a support. Those generous gestures are the opposite of fixing. They are slow and often filled with unease and occasionally, dissatisfaction.

I am no saint here either. I am as susceptible to the tendency to fix as everyone else is. I grew up inculcated in this culture, too. Despite work at three different victim services agencies, I needed to learn and embody trauma-informed practices on my own. To learn that holding fast to resources truly serves no one. To learn that it can be re-traumatizing to ask a client to share their story again and again.

I am not alone in this void of experience.

The education of healthcare professionals or providers centers on facts, education and learning procedures. There is little focus on the "being". How to hold space for someone. How to sit with the uneasiness of a problem that is not their own. How to intentionally build trust, instead of relying on one's credentials. These misses, too, are also part of the reason that providers assume to know what's best for their client.

And still, you are always the expert on you. Doesn’t mean you don’t need help sometimes. But you always know what is best for you. In the words of poet, essayist and human rights activist June Jordan, “Wrong is not my name. I am not wrong.” She wasn’t wrong and neither are you.