Yes, that’s right! This past Wednesday, Jan. 8, I had the honor and privilege of being featured on Nahid Kabbani’s cable TV show “The Lighthouse for Today’s Viewers.” During our time together, I gave my first two Toastmaster speeches, “The Aliveness of Me,” in which I discuss the emotional repercussions of my infant surgery for pyloric stenosis without anesthesia or pain control, and “So What is PTSD, Anyway?” which focuses on the many causes of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, the symptoms which plague sufferers, and the fact that PTSD can be healed and transformed.
Tune in locally on Access Sacramento Channel 17 Monday, Jan. 27, 9 pm; Tuesday, Jan. 28, 1 pm; or Wednesday, Jan. 29 at 5 am. For those of you who are farther away, I will be on the Dr. Oz show one day (my fantasy), so keep envisioning this dream with me so it will become a reality and we’ll be able to spend time together there. I want as many people as possible to be in the know about Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, especially from preverbal medical trauma.
Nahid also interviewed me in-between speeches. Her focus for the show is on refugees from the middle east, many of whom have escaped war and violence, many of whom have Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. She is bringing up the issue in order to begin a conversation in the Sacramento community about the very real effects of trauma. I discussed how for decades, I didn’t even know that I had Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and that I confused the expression of its symptoms with what I thought of as personality characteristics. If we have exaggerated startle responses and break out easily in anger, it may not be because this is just who we are. We may be suffering from a very real wound to our nervous systems, our minds, and our emotions. The good news is, once we become aware of the fact that we have PTSD, we can take steps to defuse it and over time, diminish the effects altogether.
Nahid Kabbani, sister Toastmaster, journalist, producer, and community activist, is doing something brave and necessary. She is calling out to all refugees, especially those in the Sacramento area who fled the middle east during and after the war with Iraq, to reflect upon this information about Post-traumatic Stress. I am hoping in the future to share some tools with this community, which may help to heal some their very real wounds. I am hoping to train someone to work with this population so that in their native language, they will be able to express themselves through freewriting, which can help them not only understand themselves, but also help to transform their PTSD over time.
Everyone deserves to live in peace, serenity, safety, trust, and good feeling. Let’s share our awareness of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder so that many more people discover that it is possible to experience freedom after trauma. It is possible to ReStory Your Life.
Congratulations, Wendy! So wonderful to hear that your important message is reaching refugee audiences.
I’ve got to get someone to help me translate it!!
Wow, this was a wonderful and new opening for you and the message about recognizing and managing PTSD! Congratulations.
I do hope that you can become involved in helping particular groups like refugees to find healing and freedom. What a wonderful, major and challenging flow-on from your own story this would be.
What I’m seeing, Fred, is that we have so much in common with so many because many people have PTSD! I hope we all start talking publicly about PTSD, first to get the word out and increase awareness and second to diminish the stigma associated with PTSD or any condition in which people struggle psychologically.