Chapter 5: Why Work on the Exercises in This Book? The Skills in this Book Helped Me Both Heal and Win My Court Case, Too

 This is from my book, How to Heal: A Workbook for Survivors by a Survivor Plus Tips for Documenting Abuse by V. Jones, available at https://www.amazon.ca/How-Heal-Workbook-Survivors-Documenting/dp/B0GMQBP8R8.

Please note that my ideas are based in part on the advice given to me by therapists as well as my own experiences. Some of the conventional wisdom about high-conflict child custody battles is not so much wrong as incomplete. Extreme conflict during divorce and child custody battles like I went through is uncommon, but it is more common when child sex abuse and domestic violence are involved. The current legal system is inadequate for this problem and often makes it worse. I disagree with both protective mothers and father's rights/parental alienation advocates. The focus of high-conflict divorce needs to be on mental health support for children and parents and examining which parent works harder on their mental health and supporting their children's mental health, not for two or three months or even years, but until all children are over 18 years of age. 

Psychological abuse (coercive control), physical and sexual abuse are all traumatic. Trauma damages three brain organs—the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the prefrontal cortex. These organs work together to regulate emotions, memory, anddecision-making about right and wrong. They also regulate the body’s response to stress, known as “fight or flight.”

Thousands of years ago, when our ancestors lived in nomadic tribes as hunter-gatherers, they needed to be able to outrun or fight off predators such as lions, tigers, and wolves. The fight-or-flight response gave our ancestors bursts of strength and energy they needed to survive. Unfortunately, repeated traumas overwhelm the brain's ability to process stress. The

amygdala, which governs the fight-or-flight reaction, enlarges and becomes overactive. At the same time, the hippocampus, which processes memories of each day's events, and the prefrontal cortex, which governs decision-making, shrink and stop functioning properly. As a result, trauma victims develop a “freeze” reaction to stress, which is like the deer standing still, staring into the headlights of the hunter’s pickup. If stress is prolonged, the brain begins to react to small stimuli as though they are huge. The trauma victim falls apart, weeping or raging with anger, very easily. Moreover, they lose the ability to right themselves once the danger ends. This is called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Another problem with child abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault, and coercive control is that victims sometimes learn their self-care, communication, and interpersonal relationship skills from the person who is abusing them. Consequently, they struggle with both PTSD and unhealthy communication and coping skills. In my opinion, this combination, along with a genetic predisposition to a dramatic personality, causes Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). People with this diagnosis often unwittingly sabotage their interpersonal relationships. Some of the readers of this book may have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). 

The conventional wisdom on the internet is that women who struggle with depression and emotional outbursts have BPD, and abusive men have Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). Just understand that unless you have special training and education, such as being a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) or a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist, you do

not have the qualifications to diagnose another person with a psychiatric disorder. That said, if someone you know is difficult to interact with, they may have one of these diagnoses or a related one. Neither getting angry at them, telling them off, nor avoiding all interactions with them will help you cope with them. Or perhaps you are the difficult person that others avoid.

NPD is hard to treat because people with the diagnosis experience much less emotional distress than do their family, friends, employees, and coworkers trying to cope with their behavior. However, they reveal themselves by resisting attending and participating in therapy or classes that teach therapeutic skills. If people accuse you of being a toxic person or

having BPD or NPD, you will only be helped by embracing therapy and learning therapeutic coping and communication skills, such as those taught in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Nonviolent Communication (NVC), and by learning how to listen more effectively and attentively to other people.

When I worked as a psychiatric nurse, DBT was still relatively new, and it was not used at the hospital where I worked. The first time I came across a DBT workbook, I felt like it was the manual for living a mentally healthy life. It is very helpful for anyone who wants to improve their coping and self-healing skills, not just people with Borderline Personality Disorder. That being said, Dialectical Behavior Therapy does not heal quickly or easily because abuse and

emotional trauma damage your brain's prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus. This damage is more like an earthquake destroying multiple buildings in a city than a broken leg. 

Rebuilding the damaged structures of your brain takes time, so you must keep working on the exercises in a DBT workbook repeatedly while faithfully attending DBT modules

and working with a therapist to rewire your brain to function properly. 

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) modules include Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation, and Distress Tolerance. Mindfulness helps you both become more aware of your emotions— anger, anxiety, and sadness— and calm them.

Interpersonal Effectiveness helps you both communicate your feelings and needs to others and relate to their feelings and needs more effectively. Emotion Regulation involves using the decision-making functions of the prefrontal cortex to become aware of what you are doing and make better choices. 

For example, do you yell at family, friends, and coworkers or speak to them sarcastically? 

However satisfying these actions may be in the short run, they will cause problems for you in

the long run. Emotion regulation will help you stop doing these things. Distress Tolerance teaches techniques for calming yourself down in the moment, or, in scientific terms, calming your amygdala to reduce your brain’s production of stress hormones.

Effective Communication from DBT and Nonviolent Communication (NVC) are both skills that help you communicate your needs in ways that help you improve your relationships, or at least prove to third parties that you are less responsible for interpersonal conflicts.

Taking workshops and classes to learn the skills taught in DBT and NVC, and working on the chapter in this workbook on listening more attentively, will help you both heal from trauma and abuse and improve your interpersonal relationships with co-workers, friends, and family. However, healing requires committing to studying and practicing these therapeutic skills almost every day for years.

The most important practice for healing the brain is Mindfulness Meditation. This involves sitting upright in a chair or on the floor in a quiet room, comfortable but not so comfortable that you fall asleep, because meditation can put you to sleep. If you meditate as little as twenty minutes a day, five or six times a week, you should notice within a few weeks that

you are calmer when exposed to stressful events. The longer and more often you meditate, the stronger you become. It is wise to adopt a meditation or similar practice for the rest of your life. Similar practices include walking on trails through nature, centering prayer, and yoga.

Fortunately, walking in nature is often free. These days, everyone is charging for parking and entry fees, but you should be able to find some free places to walk. Remember when I was a teenager, I discovered that I felt better while walking or riding my bike along the Sacramento River near my rural hometown. 

Are there any nature parks with rivers, streams, or forests in your home community? Try walking in these places, but remember to turn off your cell phone and reflect on what is troubling you as you take in the nature.

The more you engage in meditative practices, the more you will attain a state of calm awareness during stressful events and interactions. This helps you to react or act in ways that are more helpful to you and others. 

If you can’t afford to pay for classes and workshops to learn these skills, there are other resources to learn them for free. Public schools, domestic violence, and child abuse non-profit agencies may offer workshops. You may also find books and other resources on DBT, NVC, Mindfulness, and listening skills in libraries, bookstores, and on the internet.

Unfortunately, when you are experiencing extreme stress, you won’t be able to meditate mindfully. Fortunately, there are many ways to calm yourself down or cheer yourself up until you are able to meditate. Having gone through all

these problems, I learned many more healing and communication skills, which I share in the rest of this book.