Addressing trauma and PTSD among the most vulnerable amongst us

“Even if I tell you my life, what will you do about it?

… I have been asked these questions before and nobody has come to our help. We have never been helped….

I have been living this bad life, and many people come and say they will do everything, and nobody has been doing it. And not only are many people in Sudan living in these conditions, but all these people come here, and nothing has been happening for all this time.”

– ‘Mary’, in Kenya, after fleeing from Sudan.  Excerpt from Out of Exile: Narratives from the Abducted and Displaced People of Sudan.

Hi everyone,

Refugees often have good reason to be suspicious. When violation has become commonplace and even those offering help have become a source of betrayal, being willing to take the risk to trust again does not come easily.

This is one of the many challenges we face in seeking to offer trauma recovery to refugees living in San Diego. The healing process requires a sense of subjective safety and trust in the one who offers to help.

We need the local refugee leaders on board with our efforts before approaching the larger refugee community.

Phase 2 of Trauma Recovery for Refugees will be Educating Refugee Leaders About Trauma, PTSD and Recovery. We want local refugee leaders to have a firsthand experience of what it will be like in our future trauma recovery program. It will be abbreviated, yet offer educational material about trauma, combined with an experiential aspect to teach them Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE), the same body-centered method of recovery we will be using in the actual 6-month program.

In order to launch Phase 2 this fall, we need your help. We need to raise $3300 to educate refugee leaders about trauma.

• $550 will cover the cost of 1 session for 15 refugee leaders. 1/6 of our goal.
• $220 will cover the cost of training 1 refugee leader.
• $100 will cover a fifth of the cost of creating the trauma curriculum.
• $50 will cover the venue fee for each session.
• $20 will provide 1 yoga mat for 1 refugee leader.

Can you help us with this?

All of the details (about our plan, budget, why) can be found on our website.

Your contribution, large or small would be a big help. We are grateful for your continued interest in and support of our efforts.

Warmly,

Barbara & Anshul
Founders, Living Ubuntu
http://livingubuntu.org
(949) 891-2005

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Educating Refugee Leaders About Trauma, PTSD & Recovery

Phase 2 of Living Ubuntu’s Trauma Recovery Program for Refugees

In December 2012 we completed a survey to determine the rates of trauma and PTSD among refugees in San Diego.

We found:
* 83% have endured traumatic experiences (e.g. forced evacuation, lack of food, water, shelter, violence, kidnapping etc.)
* 85% are currently suffering from symptoms of trauma, ranging from mild to severe.

The top 5 most common symptoms of trauma in this population were:
* Recurrent thoughts or memories of the most hurtful or terrifying events (over 65%).
* Feeling exhausted
* Sudden emotional or physical reaction when reminded of the most hurtful or traumatic events
* Feeling that they have less skills than they had before
* Bodily pain

Services for refugees remain extremely limited. Given these findings the obvious question is, what can we do to help with this, and how?

Click here to find out (and help us) »

Any questions?  Contact us at (949) 891-2005 or info@livingubuntu.org.

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[Ubuntu] n.
Every human being truly becomes a human by means of relationships with other human being.

Educating refugee leaders on trauma, PTSD and recovery. Why this approach?

We intend to offer a Trauma Recovery Program for Refugees that will be able to address the challenges noted here. This program, designed for refugees to participate in groups of 15-20, will be conducted with cultural sensitivity and combine psycho-educational curriculum on trauma with a body-centered method of trauma recovery.

Toward that ultimate goal, Phase 2 will be Educating Refugee Leaders about Trauma, PTSD and Recovery.

By assisting refugee leaders in developing a more in-depth understanding of trauma they will be more able to recognize on an individual, family and community level when struggles have their origin in unresolved traumatic experiences and require specific types of intervention.

Refugee leaders also need this information in order to best attend to their own well-being. They too have survived atrocities and despite demonstrating phenomenal resiliency, sometimes these experiences can take a toll in ways hard to recognize. If not outright trauma, survivor’s guilt alone can be incredibly difficult to deal with.

A healthy refugee community requires healthy, well-informed leadership. For our efforts to be successful, we need them to understand and support our approach. That means we want them to have an abbreviated first-hand experience of what participation in our program will be like.

Benefits from this approach

1. Leaders will gain a deeper understanding of trauma, PTSD, and the recovery process
2. They will be more able to recognize symptoms and side effects of unresolved trauma and PTSD (e.g. nightmares, depression, anxiety, moodiness, difficulty concentrating, intrusive memories, body pain, substance abuse, domestic violence etc.)
3. Be better advocates and sources of referral for our future Trauma Recovery Program for Refugees

For more information about our efforts, click here.

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Phase 2: Educating refugee leaders about trauma, PTSD and recovery

Phase 2 of Living Ubuntu’s Trauma Recovery Program: Educating refugee leaders about trauma, PTSD and recovery

Last December, we completed Phase 1 of Trauma Recovery for Refugees and the results of our survey to determine rates of PTSD among refugees in San Diego confirmed what we suspected. Many have survived terrifying and horrific situations and are still suffering with the after effects.

1. 83% have endured traumatic experiences (e.g. forced evacuation, lack of food, water, shelter, access to medical care, violence, kidnapping, etc.)
2. 85% are currently suffering from symptoms of trauma, ranging from mild to severe.

While responses indicated a wide range of difficulties, the top 5 most common symptoms of trauma in this population were:

• Recurrent thoughts or memories of the most hurtful or terrifying events (over 65%).
• Feeling exhausted
• Sudden emotional or physical reaction when reminded of the most hurtful or traumatic events
• Feeling that they have less skills than they had before
• Bodily pain

Click here to see the full report »

Services for refugees remain extremely limited. Given these findings the obvious question is, what can we do to help with this, and how?

Trauma induced behavior cannot be rectified with the use of traditional crisis intervention techniques that depend on logical processing because trauma behavior is an illogical, instinctual response not under the control of the rational brain.
– David Berceli, Ph.D.

“No more hurting people. Peace.”

8-year-old Boston Marathon bombing victim, Martin Richard, holding the sign he made when his school organized a ‘Peace Walk’ in May 2012.

Hi everyone,

Monday’s frightening and tragic bombings at the Boston Marathon exemplify the kind of mass violence we would wish would never occur. Yet, in some odd way, it also feels like it came ‘too soon’.

Incidences of mass violence are happening way too often, leaving an inadequate amount of time to fully process the last one before there is another one to contend with. We are left with the shock, the outrage, the numbness, the fear, the heartbreak, the resolve to bring change… and then… the next one…

Monday was a prime example of this. How could it be that runners from Newtown seeking to commemorate 26 Sandy Hook shooting victims by running the 26 miles of marathon didn’t even get through the race without being in the midst of yet another national, mass, violent tragedy?

Did you hear about 8-year-old Martin Richard waiting at the finish line for his Dad?

A year ago he participated in a peace walk with his school. He made a sign that said, “No more hurting people. Peace.”

Martin didn’t survive the explosion, but his message did.

This might be the best any of us can aspire to accomplish in this life:

No more hurting people.

Peace.

This Friday, April 19th, Golden West College will be holding its 7th Annual Peace Conference. The theme for this year is Sustainable Peace. Come say ‘hi’ to us at our Living Ubuntu booth.

Then on Sunday, April 21st, Jewish World Watch (JWW) is holding their 5th Annual Orange County Walk to End Genocide.  Hope you can be there too.

Peace,

Barbara English
Executive Director, Living Ubuntu
http://livingubuntu.org
(949) 891-2005

[Ubuntu] n.
Every human being truly becomes a human by means of relationships with other human being.

Update #4: Results of PTSD survey of refugees in San Diego

Hi everyone,

Just before 2012 came to an end, we managed to exceed our sample size goal (i.e. our goal was 150, we reached 213) in order to assess the rate of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among refugees in San Diego.  The next step was to analyze the data to see what we could find out, and for that process we owe our thanks to three faculty members at National University, Jan Parker, Brenda Shook, and Charlie Tatum.

It feels painful to me to describe such extreme human suffering in terms of percentages, but with the intention of highlighting just how much the refugees willing to complete our questionnaires have endured, and how many are still suffering currently, it feels important to note below some of the findings.

Eligibility

• Refugees from Ethiopia, Somalia, Burundi, Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, Rwanda, Eritrea, Uganda, or Kenya
• Currently living in San Diego area
• 18 years of age or older

Our sample of 213 refugees included

• An approximately even gender split (slightly more women vs. men)
• 75% from Somalia, Sudan, or South Sudan
• Almost 70% that had lived in a refugee camp

The data revealed

• 83% have endured traumatic experiences (e.g. forced evacuation, lack of food, water, shelter, access to medical care, violence, kidnapping, etc.)
• 85% are currently suffering from symptoms of trauma, ranging from mild to severe (e.g. nightmares, physical pain, recurrent thoughts of terrifying events, etc.)

Number of traumatic experiences they indicated having gone through

• More than 70% survived 3 or more
• More than 50% survived more than 10
• Nearly 10% survived more than 30

At some point later this year will release more of the results in full detail.

These preliminary findings re-affirm our determination to continue with all necessary next steps toward Trauma Recovery for Refugees.

For now, our efforts turn to the planning of Phase 2 of this project, creating an experiential, abbreviated trauma recovery program specifically for the leaders in the refugee community. We will once again be focused on those from countries in eastern Africa. We want the leaders to have a firsthand experience of what our future program will be like. We will need their feedback and their endorsement when we are ready to launch the actual program.

With gratitude,

Barbara English
Executive Director, Living Ubuntu
http://livingubuntu.org
(949) 891-2005

[Ubuntu] n.
Every human being truly becomes a human by means of relationships with other human being.

10 years on in Iraq, the toll and torment of PTSD

“Shock & Awe”. Baghdad, Iraq, March 2003.

Hi everyone,

Ten years ago today, it was a Wednesday evening I will never forget. I was filled with anxiety and dread throughout the evening, attending an event in Santa Monica where Gore Vidal was promoting his recently released book, “Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta”.  Headed home afterward, south on the 405 sitting in the passenger seat, there it was, my worst fears confirmed.

The radio’s news announced the U.S. had begun a military assault in Iraq.  We were officially at war… again.  I stared in the direction of the ocean, transfixed on the night-lighted landscape of refineries and began to cry.  I pictured the view as if explosions were occurring here locally and I felt throughout my being the extreme and horrific destruction and loss of life about to occur far away.

Ten years later, I still feel the deep sorrow of that moment, and the decade of tragedies that unfolded day after day, to this very day.

When a war ends, then what?

The roads, bridges and buildings get re-built. But how does an entire society recover from the heartbreak, devastating loss, and the Post-Traumatic Stress that holds them imprisoned in the past, even when they desperately want to move forward?  PTSD symptoms often rule the lives of people that don’t know what PTSD is, and often stigma prevails so even the limited resources available for help are not sought out.

And often it doesn’t end there. Substance abuse takes over. Tempers flare. Domestic violence increases. Children get neglected and abused. For many reasons, unresolved trauma is trans-generational.

(caution: this clip includes graphic descriptions and imagery)

We can’t afford to ignore the implications of these ill-attended to invisible epidemics. The paradigm needs to change.

Last December, we completed research to assess how many refugees living in San Diego are suffering from post-trauma symptoms.  We will send an update soon about the results and the next phase of our project to launch a Trauma Recovery Program for this high-risk, vulnerable community.  We are going to need your help to make it happen.

Warmly,

Barbara English
Executive Director, Living Ubuntu
http://livingubuntu.org
(949) 891-2005

[Ubuntu] n.
Every human being truly becomes a human by means of relationships with other human beings.

Why do we put down “feelings”?

People don’t think any more, they feel.  ‘How are you feeling?’  ‘Oh, I don’t feel comfortable.’  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, we the group were feeling…’

Do you know one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas?  Now thoughts and ideas, that interests me.  Ask me what I’m thinking…

– Margaret Thatcher in the film, The Iron Lady (2011)

Hello everyone,

Once upon a time, in a place not far from here, a group of Darfur, anti-genocide activists went to visit a Congressional aide.  When a member of the group delivered an impassioned plea for intervention and tears came to her eyes as she expressed her heartbreak and anger that innocent children were being bombed by the Sudanese government, contempt for feelings ruled the day, and arrogance reigned supreme as she was told by the aide, “these decisions need to be made by grown-ups”.  A few sentences later, the aide added platitudes, referencing the role of the U.S. government as “we’re doing all we can.”

Having witnessed the above exchange, I couldn’t disagree more with Ms. Thatcher that, “…one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas.”

Why are we so afraid of feelings?  Why so much disrespect and suspicion of them?

I don’t know what happened in Margaret Thatcher’s life that led to such contempt of feelings, but she is not a rarity in her perspective.  Yet, she is targeting the wrong enemy.  Feelings, per se, are not the culprit.

It is a myth that we lose the ability to think rational thoughts, have sound judgment, choose wisely, or are ‘less adult’ when we are emotional.  Feelings are not irrational, immature or mere ‘fluff’.  There would be no warm, empathic relating, or enjoyment of life without them.  Feelings are a necessary companion on the path to knowing who we are and in the pursuit of compassionate wisdom.  They take us beyond the dry and dull to infuse ideas with passion and ‘life’.  Feelings contribute the heart and essential humanness so that we do not fall victim to the cold, calculating, slice-and dice, cut-off automaton influences of a left-brain-only, logical, linear thought process.

Where we get into trouble is when we are not in a well-regulated state, or lack sufficient groundedness in our body.  Then we are at risk to be unable to contain our emotional states.  Feelings can become overwhelming, hi-jack our senses, and unplug the rational.  Chronic stress, and unresolved traumatic experiences only make it worse.

We live in a society that over-values the head at the expense of the heart.  We pay too high a price if we just go along with that.  To counter-balance this, able to feel our feelings and keep our heart open, we’ve got to be able to stay in tune with the body’s sensations.  But how?

That is what we will be working on in our upcoming body group series – Sometimes ‘a head’ just isn’t enough: Bringing the body back to life.  All details are below and on our website.  I hope you will join us.

Warmly and with feeling,

Barbara English
Executive Director, Living Ubuntu
http://livingubuntu.org
(949) 891-2005

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Sometimes ‘a head’ just isn’t enough

Bringing the body back to life

Why is there so much resistance to feeling our feelings?

Why do we have such a love/hate relationship with our bodies?
Why do we obsess about how we look rather than how we feel?
Why is it so hard to slow down?
Why don’t we stop to feel our tiredness?
Why do we pursue success and accomplishment at the expense of relationships?

Living Ubuntu Body Group
February – May 2013
6 sessions on Sunday afternoons (2p-4:30p)

Orange County, CA

Starts Sunday, Feb 24th
see all dates »

Find out more at
http://livingubuntu.org/events

Questions?  Please contact us at (949) 891-2005 or info@livingubuntu.org

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