Marci Ansen
Traumatage
This photo is of Sandra Pankhurst, who runs a business in Melbourne, Australia, called Specialised Trauma Cleaning Services. To find out why I've put it here, please read on...
A few of you have asked me what prompted my recent posts on the likes of Validation & Acceptance, and our creating of delusions to help us get by.
Probably the main catalyst was my recent reading of an amazing book called The Trauma Cleaner, by Sarah Krasnostein. I can't recommend it enough, for a bunch of reasons. There's a few here:
www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/28/i-started-dry-retch...
And a magazine-style article in Narratively (which the book I presume grew from) here:
narratively.com/the-secret-life-of-a-crime-scene-cleaner/
But, honestly, read the book.
Sandra Pankhurst, the subject of the book (and above photo), is trans, and that's explored in great detail in the book, including the traumatic events of her life.
That's all actually a bit peripheral, but towards the end of the book there's some exploration by the author of shame and empathy and acceptance (yes! that word), which started me on this process.
But Sandra's life experiences have made her an incredibly empathetic and non-judgemental person, and that's obviously a huge part of just why she's so good at her particular job.
Just after I finished this book, I also had some communications with someone that made me reflect on some of these issues (shame, empathy, acceptance, etc).
This all started coming together, and made me think about how these things are kind of connected -- and that's where my validation & acceptance musings first came from (and I thought I'd start with that as a reasonably positive note, not that I intend getting too grim and depressing (I hope)).
So, in a very broad sense, this is where this is all coming from (for those who are interested).
Traumatage
This photo is of Sandra Pankhurst, who runs a business in Melbourne, Australia, called Specialised Trauma Cleaning Services. To find out why I've put it here, please read on...
A few of you have asked me what prompted my recent posts on the likes of Validation & Acceptance, and our creating of delusions to help us get by.
Probably the main catalyst was my recent reading of an amazing book called The Trauma Cleaner, by Sarah Krasnostein. I can't recommend it enough, for a bunch of reasons. There's a few here:
www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/28/i-started-dry-retch...
And a magazine-style article in Narratively (which the book I presume grew from) here:
narratively.com/the-secret-life-of-a-crime-scene-cleaner/
But, honestly, read the book.
Sandra Pankhurst, the subject of the book (and above photo), is trans, and that's explored in great detail in the book, including the traumatic events of her life.
That's all actually a bit peripheral, but towards the end of the book there's some exploration by the author of shame and empathy and acceptance (yes! that word), which started me on this process.
But Sandra's life experiences have made her an incredibly empathetic and non-judgemental person, and that's obviously a huge part of just why she's so good at her particular job.
Just after I finished this book, I also had some communications with someone that made me reflect on some of these issues (shame, empathy, acceptance, etc).
This all started coming together, and made me think about how these things are kind of connected -- and that's where my validation & acceptance musings first came from (and I thought I'd start with that as a reasonably positive note, not that I intend getting too grim and depressing (I hope)).
So, in a very broad sense, this is where this is all coming from (for those who are interested).