Wade re-awakened and exacerbated past experiences that had nearly destroyed her self-worth.

Ruth was treated like a second-class citizen for most of her life: as a child, as a woman, and particularly as a black woman. When will I matter?”Ĭomplex trauma creates and fuels low self-worth. “It’s like my father mattered more than me, my mother mattered more than me, and if I had gotten pregnant now, that fetus would have mattered more than me. It’s taken me most of my life to realize that it wasn’t my fault and that it was my father’s illness, but now it feels like there are people who believe that I would have been to blame and that I should have suffered the consequences.” Ruth’s voice began to quiver as her anger morphed into grief. “Some of these states would have forced me to give birth like it was my fault. “What if I had gotten pregnant by my father?” she asked. Wade, Ruth arrived at our session appearing irritable and stated, “Don’t ask me how I’m doing, you don’t want to know.”Įven though she often presented herself to others as “the nice old lady” (which is a response to complex trauma that many mental health professionals refer to as “fawning” or “people- pleasing''), fortunately Ruth and I had developed a relationship in which she was comfortable feeling and expressing her emotions. The day following the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe v. This combination of theoretical perspectives and interventions appeared to be successful, as Ruth reported feeling safer, an improved sense of self-worth, and the courage to begin exploring her sexuality (which had been developmentally delayed for most of her life). She participated in talk therapy for years with little progress and began seeing me in order to try EMDR, Internal Family Systems Therapy, and Somatic Experiencing. Ruth is 72-year-old black heterosexual cis woman and complex trauma survivor who suffered from years of childhood sexual abuse as she was continually raped by her father. Like what you are reading? For more stimulating stories, thought-provoking articles and new video announcements, sign up for our monthly newsletter.

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