Paradigm Shifts

One week ago I was officially diagnosed with ADHD. It’s been a couple of years of questioning whether I might have ADHD, and about 15 months of actively pursuing a diagnosis (don’t get me started on that whole long process!). During this time I began identifying as ‘ADHD-adjacent’ and found that much of the language for common ADHD experiences, like object impermanence or hyperfocus, were helpful ways to describe what I was experiencing. Those who are close to me probably got sick of hearing me talk about ADHD experiences constantly, and as my housemate put it last week, “we all knew/suspected.” But as soon as the diagnosis became official last week, something strange happened.

11 Trauma-safe Practices

Following up on my last post outlining core principles of trauma-informed practice, I wanted to share some more practical ideas for what it might look like to embody these principles Christian contexts. I should acknowledge that my own lived experiences of religious trauma relate to two specific subcultures—Independent Fundamentalist Baptist and White Evangelicalism—so my suggestions … Continue reading 11 Trauma-safe Practices →

Understanding Safety

I’ve done a lot of writing about the importance of cultivating “safety” recently, but some recent conversations have highlighted to me that not everyone understands this word the same way. While trauma survivors and psychologists use “safety” to denote a very particular experience, I’ve noticed a lot of Christians assume that “safety” is synonymous with “comfort.” When we trauma survivors talk about the need to feel safe, we’re not asking to avoid discomfort or even pain. In fact, we’re often better at tolerating uncomfortable feelings than anyone else, both emotionally and physically. What we’re asking for is the space to honour our God-given bodies with a felt assurance that we are not at risk of experiencing harm—a felt assurance so visceral it allows our bodies, nervous systems, and brains to engage in learning and connecting as God invites us to do.