1/A trauma response explainer
Flight/fight/freeze are common responses to trauma. The ability to activate all 3 mechanisms is why people both survive & heal from traumatic events. Part of this is genetic (30%) & biological (ie. what we inherit as a stress response mechanism).
2/The rest is environment-ie. what is modelled; trauma history; the nature of the trauma-personal or sexual assaults increase trauma likelihood; how long the trauma goes on & if you know your perpetrator this increases the odds of developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
3/Post trauma occurs when cognitions become so altered the brain tells the body to see threat everywhere(imagined rather than real). Essentially there is a “misfiring”; ensuring the flight/fight response is activated regardless of threat.Over time this response becomes normalised
4/Freeze has dissociative elements which has the outcome of forcing the heart rate down. This enables access to the higher level thinking part of your brain. This is critical to survival as it ensures higher level problem solving is possible to ensure survival or planned escape.
5/The flight/fight response is the body in hyperarousal. The brain tells the body to “arm itself” to enable either physical escape (flight) or to defend itself (fight)
It makes sense that flight/fight/freeze are all needed in order to survive” traumatic events.
6/Survivors of l/term violence & abuse speak of “emotionally” breaking from their bodies-this is dissociation. Women tend to activate dissociation more effectively than men. It enables survival, but post survival dissociation when emotions feel intolerable can become normalised

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More from @TracyWesterman

30 Mar
1/A child @10 does not fully understand consequences in the same way as an adult. They are rigid in understanding right & wrong & driven by external fear of punishment. Criminalise them @ this developmental stage & risk moral reasoning ability stagnating @ that level #RaiseTheAge
2/ Ultimately, this means they learn to avoid punishment (e.g. becoming better at
evading law enforcement) rather than developing a greater sense of moral reasoning based
on an internal working model of right and wrong. #RaiseTheAge
3/ They also learn not to rely on close attachments for their emotional needs before they have developed fully as adults. This is significantly damaging as secure attachment bonds with families & parents is strongly linked with positive mental health outcomes. #RaiseTheAge
Read 6 tweets
27 Mar
*Trigger warning on domestic abuse
1/I have long been concerned there is little discussion, awareness & training on psychological & emotional domestic abuse & its devastating impacts on victims. In many of the worst abusive rships, physical violence is minor or barely present
2/As the family of Hannah Clarke said after she was burnt alive by her ex husband along with her two beautiful children; “Hannah never thought it was abuse because he never hit her”. However, the family had long seen many red flags.
3/It is difficult, almost impossible for victims to see it as abuse as it is insidious and perpetrators deal in cycles of love bombing, covert devaluing, isolation & persecution, which slowly chips away at self worth.
Read 12 tweets
8 Jul 20
1/How 2 get Indigenous Suicide Prevention Right-A thread from (Westerman& Sheridan,2020).
STEP 1.Define causal pathways: We estab a unique set of risk & protective factors exist 4 Indigenous suicide @ a pop'n level via unique psychometrics (WASCY &WASCA) authorservices.wiley.com/api/pdf/fullAr…
2/ We Developed unique, intervention programs based on pop'n, evidence of difference in risk & protective factors spec 2 Aboriginal people. Some findings from Westerman (2003): 42% of youth (N=323) had suicide ideation; 23% considered @ suicide risk. 20% had made previous attempt
3/ Depression was linked with ideation (corr 0.2), BUT impulsivity had the strongest r'ship with suicide risk (youth correlation 0.80; adults 0.63). THIS IS A SIGNIFICANT FINDING with non-Indigenous suicide causally linked with depression. It informed our unique program content
Read 12 tweets
20 Jul 19
A racism thread. Research has shown similar courses of mental illness between victims of violent crime & victims of racism. Epigenetics tells us racism impacts in the same way as a traumatic event. The impulsive nature of Indigenous suicides makes sense from a trauma perspective
The best I can do as a clinician is assist my clients 2 develop robust cultural identity & the skills & resilience to manage racist events. Cultural resilience assessment enables clinicians to ‘treat’ those factors demonstrated 2 buffer suicide risk. This is crucial to prevention
Just as trauma frequently becomes a central organizing principle in the psychological structure of the individual, trauma has become a central organizing principle in the psychological structure of whole communities.
Read 5 tweets
8 Feb 19
Ok, I’m going to attempt a thread.

When non-Indigenous children suicide, Australians are pointed, and RIGHTLY so, to look for deficits in society or systems. When Indigenous children suicide, Australians are pointed toward the deficits in Indigenous families, in our culture.
This removes the possibility for compassion FOR us, FOR our families, FOR the children’s families. When are we going to have a more empathetic view of Indigenous child suicides and for Indigenous families bereaved by suicide?
The core of this is that we confuse risk factors with causes of suicide and generalise out issues such as abuse, alcohol, FAS as explanations for ALL suicides. It is a "they did it to themselves” mentality that is not only inaccurate, but unhelpful and unkind.
Read 8 tweets

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