From Broken to Gold: One Woman’s Raw Journey Through PTSD

A mental health advocate shares her real journey through complex PTSD and trauma after multiple traumatic events working in the prison system. The discussion covers dissociation, trauma stored in the body, phantom pain, journaling for healing, alternative therapies, triggers, intuition, and the role of community in recovery.

Key topics include:
• Complex PTSD and cumulative trauma
• Dissociation and trauma symptoms
• Trauma stored in the body and phantom pain
• Journaling and using both sides of the brain for healing
• Triggers as signals for healing
• Alternative therapies and recovery tools
• Community vs. individual healing approaches
• Turning trauma into purpose through writing

Chapters / Timestamps
00:00 Introduction to Nikki and her trauma journey
00:45 Working in prisons and repeated traumatic events
02:00 The stabbing incident that changed everything
04:30 Dissociation and early PTSD symptoms
06:30 Leaving work and beginning treatment
08:00 Physical trauma and phantom pain explained
11:00 Trauma stored in the body
12:40 Kintsugi metaphor for healing trauma
14:00 Trauma talk and losing the ability to speak
15:20 How journaling started the healing process
18:00 Why handwriting helps trauma recovery
20:00 Life after medication and alternative therapies
22:30 Microdosing, medical marijuana, and healing paths
23:40 Listening to intuition during healing
26:00 Understanding the brain and removing shame
27:30 Learning to lean into triggers
29:30 Writing the book and finding purpose
32:00 Cultural perspectives on trauma and healing
35:00 Community healing vs Western approaches
36:00 Finding support and connection

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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicoleeverettauthor/posts/10234447950639761/
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Website - https://sheismental.com.au/
Blog: https://sheismental.com.au/blog

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PTSD recovery, complex PTSD, trauma healing, journaling for trauma, trauma stored in the body, dissociation trauma, healing after trauma, mental health podcast, trauma triggers, trauma therapy, phantom pain trauma, trauma and intuition, trauma recovery tools, trauma survivor story, healing journey podcast 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

All right. I want to introduce everybody to Nikki. She is an author as well as a mental health advocate, and she's had quite the journey, and she's got quite a bit to talk about her trauma journey and where she's at and what she has to bring to the world. And I'm we're going to talk about journaling and all kinds of different things that I'm I'm personally interested in, but I think a lot of people are going to be interested in hearing um your feedback on what you have to say. And people, you know, when they hear about everything with your story, it's incredible. So welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm very excited. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So where do you want to start with your journey? Because we I wanted, you know, we're going to talk about your book and PTSD and trauma and all that, obviously. But where would you like to start with your journey?

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Um, well, it's got many starts, but I suppose the the start that people would be interested in is where um how my PTSD journey started. I actually hadn't real like I'd heard of PTSD, um complex PTSD, but only through combat soldiers, you know, you that's that's um what you think about when you hear PTSD and trauma. Um so at the time, I'd on my career spans over 20 years working in mental health and drug and alcohol and the prison system. And I'd been working in the prison system at the time, and over a two-year period, I experienced five separate events, um quite violent events, and um yeah, uh and the way I dealt with that is I just threw myself back into work. I did not deal with that well at all. So I thought if I busy myself at work after each event, um I I'll be okay. And I just I just kept telling myself, just toughen up, just toughen up, it's fine, it's it's it's what it's you knew what you were getting into when you started working in the prison. So um, but as each event um happened, my mental health sort of the wall started crumbling until the final, final one where I got caught. Um caught up in a stabbing with the prisoner stabbing another prisoner, and it just it actually broke my mind. Um so I went to work that day.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

You were a counselor, right, Nikki, in the prison system? Yeah, yeah, because that I used to run group work.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Oh yes. So I had a couple of different roles, but it was around that that type of work and developing programs and things like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

So how the the last straw, that stabbing instance, you were caught in the middle of it?

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Well, walked into it type thing, and then there was prisoners around, and yeah, so it was uh and I have very I don't have a lot of memory of it. And the but when I did write it out in the in the in the book, that chapter, I really don't even remember writing it. There was um so I went to work that day really, you know, like I well, I thought I was capable and confident um seeing prisoners running group work and whatnot. And I came home that night and I couldn't string a sentence together. I, you know, the stop starts, and then I just wasn't making sense. My memory was all over the place. I couldn't stop shaking. Um, it was life-changing. And it was because I think it was because I wasn't listening to my body, I wasn't listening to my mind. I kept bum down, bum up, head down, and kept pushing and pushing and pushing. And then eventually my mind, which is there to protect you, said, enough, enough. If you're not gonna look after you, I'm looking after you, and I broke.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Well, you went to work in survival mode, you know, because of what you did for a living, you were in a toxic environment to begin with. When when that happened, did the did the prisoner were they killed? No, no. Okay. Okay. When what what happened? Did you were you sent home? Did you did you just break? Did you or mentally did you just break, or did it take you time to realize how much it affected you?

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Oh, I I knew something was wrong. So I to give you a bit of concept. So, you know, two years prior, I was working in a prison, there was a prison riot, and then there was um then I got a couple of months later, I got caught up in a um mental health patient. Um, she trapped me in her house, and then my friend and worker colleague suicide. Then there was another big prison fight, and then so these were all in a matter of months. So this is why it's called complex PTSD, which just and I was having the symptoms, I was having the nightmares and things like that. So when the stabbing happened, yes, I I went home. Um during the stabbing, I actually disassociated, which was really scary for me. I didn't understand what that was. I I'd heard the word, but I didn't know what happened, and I found myself watching the stabbing from up in the, you know, from a distance. So um it was and I wasn't in my body at all, which scored me more than anything. Um, like what is going on here, you know. So I I was aware that I was unwell, but I didn't really realize how unwell I was. And my psychologist kept saying, No, you are really unwell. And I I was just like, no, I'll I'll be right, I'll I'll push through it. Um, but the the the the ability to speak, I'd always spoken it um for a living, spoken in front of group works and training sessions and things like that. Um, that scared me more than anything. Um, yeah, that I'd lost that ability. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Well, how long ago was that?

SPEAKER_01 5:54

So it was back in 2017, late 2017, in the so then and after that, you know, I quickly went to the doctor um the next the following week, I was seeing a psychologist and a psychiatrist. And then that's when my journey began. I was highly medicated for quite a long time. And um, yeah, my life just spiraled. It was the life well, I was not living the life I had worked so hard to achieve. I I worked to get to the top, you know, working my way up to the top of the you know, justice system, and then all of a sudden I couldn't sitting at home, couldn't string a sentence together.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Were you able to take some time off work?

SPEAKER_01 6:37

I haven't been back to work.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Oh, okay. So you were after that, you were out.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Yes, yes. I would have done more harm going back into a prison than not. I have a lot of fight-flight. Um, I get triggered, and um, yeah, if something happened in the prison, which they do all the time, something, something we just take off, and um, I would do more harm if I was back working in that environment at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

So in 2017, you're you're getting help, you're seeking help with somebody, and you know, they put you on some medication to try and help and things like that. It what how long did it take you before you kind of started feeling yourself again?

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Years, absolutely years. Um, it's not something that just it's it I was a completely different person. I was on a lot of medication, I was just spaced out. I've got three daughters, and they they kept waiting for me to go back to where's my normal mum? You know, what happened to her? And she didn't exist anymore. The professional woman that I was didn't exist anymore. Um, I had significantly changed. I'd lost my sense of self, my sense of purpose, my sense of safety. I had lost everything about myself before than who I was before, and I found myself in this middle stage of um brokenness and trying to heal. And that's where I thought that's that's who I thought I was going to be for the rest of my life, this broken heal, trying to heal person. And it wasn't until I realized there's got to be a new me that when things really shifted.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Well, I want to talk about that when you, you know, you had that moment that you realize like you needed to do a lot internally in addition to the help you were already getting. But you also talked last time we chatted, you were telling me that you realized there was a lot of psychological physical pain you were having. Like it wasn't just up here, like you were physically in pain. Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. No, go ahead, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

I want to talk if you could talk a little bit more about that, because that's so powerful that I don't think a lot of people realize and I still I've got this pain that radiates up and down my arm from during the time I was holding onto my folder like so tightly for over an hour, and and I think that's where all the trauma went into my arm. So anytime I go to the psychologist's office or anytime there's trauma, I have this overwhelming pain in my arm, and still to this day. And it's where I hold my trauma in my arm. And you know, I think, you know, I've read a lot about it and studied a lot about it, how the body does really hold hold it, you know, the like the book, The Body Holds the Score. Keeps the score, sorry. Um and I think you know, that whole I should have my my body was shaking and I was resisting that. And I was holding it in tight, not to shake, but essentially that's what you should be doing. You should be shaking, you should be letting out the energy, you should be letting, you know, this this trauma pass through you. But us as Westerners, we we tend to hold it in. So that's why it stays in the body.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

It how long did it take you to realize that you were holding, like you hold all this trauma in your arm? Because I'm sure other people listening have debilitating pain in other parts of their body that could be related to, you know, it's not just a muscular skeletal injury, like it could be related to trauma. So how how were you able to put the pieces of that puzzle together?

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Well, my psychologist did. So I went to I was going to the doctor and my other doctor, and I had tests and you know, um, x-rays and whatnot, because it was it's very, very painful. So it's it's very real to me. And she mapped it out and realized that you know, it happens every time when I'm at her her a session with her, um, and any time when there's you know, there's something that triggers me, or a flashback, or if I've had a horrific nightmare, I wake up, my arms just throbbing, and but then it goes away, you know, during calm times, it goes away and then comes back again.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Because you know now, like what do you do? Do you have like things that you do to make the pain go away?

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Yeah, I treat it like a normal pain that like there is something wrong because I take net I take painkillers because it's it's it's actually really painful. Um, sometimes I'll put even put like on a wrist splint just to hold it. Um but yeah, really try and shake it out and and calm myself. And it's amazing. It's it is a phantom pain. It is a not a well, it's a real pain, but it's associated with trauma.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Yeah, so I think for people that are listening, what Nikki's talking about with the phantom pain is a lot of amputees still still get pain in the area where the that part of them was amputated, and it's called phantom pain. If people that are listening don't know what that is, but Nikki still gets that in her actual arm. And you said it's a stabbing pain, which is ironic because it was from the stabbing that you you excuse me, put the stabbing that you witnessed.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Yeah, which I didn't, I wasn't stabbed, but yeah, it's a stabbing pain. So it's very the mind is an interesting thing, isn't it? How it just kept prodding you to to keep healing and prodding you to pay attention to this, you need to keep fixing this and keep healing yourself.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Weren't you you were talking, and I'm gonna probably not say this pronounce this properly, but I made a note of it because I was fascinated when you mentioned it. Um Kinsuji.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Yeah, so so how did I say it properly? I think I struggled it too. Sometimes I okay, sometimes I say it all wrong. Um, so because my I sh my hands shook and my my legs shook so much, my my doctor she wanted me to do something with my hands, so she's she she wanted me to knit actually, and I'm not a knitter, so I um I like plants, and so I discovered um you know it's called um kokodamas, so it's another Japanese form where you put get a plant and you wrap wrap it around um moss and make these beautiful plants. So during that process of discovering how to do that, I come across kinsuji, and that is the art of um rather if there's a broken pottery bowl rather than throw it away, they repair it with gold, making it more valuable and beautiful and more interesting than it was before. And I applied that to my mental health, and um and I thought, yeah, I'm not not less than because I'm living with a mental illness or PTSD. I'm actually more, I'm the same person and some. And that really started my whole journey of of looking at myself differently. I stopped picking myself up as much, you know, I should be stronger, and and that's yeah, and that's that's the journey. I I that's the that's the um metaphor I I kept telling myself.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

You um you talked you talked to me too now. You're big into journaling, correct?

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Well, I am now, but I never was in the beginning. So same. Yeah, yeah. So I think that how that came about was I because I'm and I'm still at trauma talk now. Sometimes I I still put talk with full stops. Other times the words just tumble out on top of each other.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Um Okay, we're gonna you're gonna have to go to let we're gonna go back to the trauma talk so you can explain that more. But let's talk about, I guess let's talk about, or would it be easier to talk about that first before the journaling?

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Oh, it's a so it sort of falls into the same thing. Okay, nice. Yeah, yeah. So I um so trauma talk, it's you know, when you talk with full stops after each um word, you know, like uh like you know, your your words don't flow, your sentence don't flow, or you talk so fast that everything's just tumbling out and you're not really making sense. So um I was doing that during counselling or not talking at all. And she said, you know, what you need to do is go home and journal. And I'm like, I don't like writing. If you said to me, write 25 words or less, I'd go, oh my God, you know. But after after one night, a really bad nightmare, I got up and I thought, I'm just gonna give this a go. And so I started, and my arm was just like aching because again, I've had the nightmare. So I had to go to my left hand and I just started drawing, and then words came out, and then flowly sentences came out, and um, after a while the pain subsided, and I started writing with my right arm. So you have to write, you can't type something about the brain and the and the hand. Yeah, and um it was for the first time in a long time I was able to go back and get some sleep without nightmares. It was like the journaling took the the trauma out of my head for a while and put it on the paper, and that's where I left it. Um and I the way I relate, or the way I try and explain that to people is you know, and you go to bed and you've got a big busy day the next day, and you keep it just keeps going around and round your head. Well, if you get up and you write your list, you're able to go back to sleep because you know it's sitting there on the paper when you wake up. So that's that's a very minimalized way of describing how the journaling started. And so I kept doing that. I'd take the what I'd written into her, she'd read it back to me. I didn't get to, I didn't have to speak so much in counseling, which I loved. And um, and that's how the book came about because it's you know, she said, you know, this is going to help some people, and um it has. I'm very grateful it has.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Yeah, you talked to when you were telling me about your journaling, because I am I I told you too, I'm new to journaling myself, but you when you were talking about it, you were saying how you use both sides of your brain.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Yeah, you use that you're actively writing, so you're actually doing a physical thing, but then you you you engaging that um emotional side. And I don't know a lot about it. I'm only only from from what she's told me, but that that seems to happen during trauma too. You know, your emotional side gets triggered, and when you um something happens during a traumatic event, and then you you know well, I take off, or your emotions get explode, and then it takes some time for your rat your other side, your rational brain to catch up. So it's it's using both sides, or it's engaging your whole brain, I suppose, like similar to what happens during a trigger.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Yeah, I know, I know people are using there's a lot of digital journals out there and apps and things you can use, but I know I've been I've been told, and you really need to get it on out of here on the paper, and you need to write it. Then if you want to put it in your digital journal after that, or speak, you know, into your digital journal after that and read it, that's fine. But it's really important that you physically write. Yes. And and what can you elaborate a little bit more on on that just so people can have a full understanding? Because we're so app, everything's an app now for every like to run our lives. We run our lives through apps. So can you just explain a little bit more on why that's so important?

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Well, that what I've been told is the act of doing it stops that, you know, it engages that side of your brain. You're actually physically doing. And I know you people can say, well, you're doing when you're typing, but it's not the same as actually arm moving, writing. And um, so it's really it's pulling back the emotion side and it's push pushing through the the doing side. So it's evening up um the sides of both sides of your brain, I suppose. And that's probably very simplistic. There's probably a lot more complicated.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Um well, but it works, and there's a reason why they tell you to do that. And it it it it is it is that simple though. It really is. I mean, and I I reap the benefits of it every day, writing in it.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

So and I suppose you can align it to, you know, people say when you if you get stressed, go for a walk. That's a doing thing, and you know, all these, it's getting your body moving, um, even if it's minimalistic on, you know, your arm. But yeah, something, something, something about it works. So, you know, let's go with it.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

What do you what are you doing now? I know you're you're well into your healing journey. We're never done with our healing journeys, you know, because we're always evolving. And but where are you now with it? And what do you have daily things that you do? And what do you do to help when you get triggered? Because I'm sure you get triggered. I mean, we all do.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Yeah, we all do. Yeah, so I went on a a bit of a um a healing journey, which is never over, as you say. Um, so I had enough of the medication. I'd really I'd said, I'm I'm not doing that anymore. I'm not me, I'm not anyone on the medication. I was very spaced out, and um I so I I spoke to my doctor about giving all that up, and that happened slowly. It didn't happen um automatically, and but I had to replace it with something. So that's when I began looking at all the alternative therapist therapies, um, the float therapy and um new calm, um, all these different different alternative things, um, which I do I do still do today. Um, I tried medical marijuana, I tried microdosing, all these different things. Um, and I think they've all got a place at certain times. So I for example, I would try something and it mightn't have worked at that time, but then I might circle back and try it again later. And um, and it is does it works for you at that time. So I don't think there's one therapy that is it. Um, different therapies work at different times of your life um of where where you're sitting at that time. And it's I suppose it brings up, I think about my traumas as splinters inside me, like dirty sharp splinters. And and I suppose that it's it's working those splinters up to the surface, and those therapies help with that. Different therapies will help different with different splinters.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Um I think, and you can tell me your thoughts on this. I think when people start just in the beginning stages, like, okay, I I have some work to do, there's some stuff going on, I, you know, I maybe I've never dealt with. I think once you open that door to start like bringing in other, maybe other researching other modalities and things like that, you'll know what feels, you'll know what works for you. Cause like what worked, like I was very Drawn to meditation, to MDMA and journaling. And the MDMA, I just I was drawn to it. I just, there was something inside me that knew I needed to do it. And I there was not nobody in the world would have talked me out of it. Um, because I just, you know, like when you know, you know. So I think for everybody listening, you know, you it you'll get the answers. You'll know what it, and it might just be, you know, seeing a counselor or a psychiatrist, a therapist of some sort. It might that just might work for you, or you might need to maybe dig into some deeper, like you were saying, microdosing or, you know, medical marijuana, what whatever works, um, you'll be drawn to that. Your body will be drawn, draw you to that naturally, I think. Do you agree with that?

SPEAKER_01 23:33

I do agree. And that's another that's they're the drink, the gifts of trauma, I think. You know, we we we tend to to um ignore our gut instincts and uh but really they're stronger than ever. Um they're screaming at us, like you're saying that you wanted to do the M MDA.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Oh, it was screaming at me.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Yeah, so that it's that that is a there are gifts of trauma that that we're able to um if we listen to that our guts become very stronger, that we our intuition becomes stronger. Um, and you do you do know what's right for you when you're doing those healing things, and you've just got to believe it and and listen to it. Um yeah, like I um the journaling for me as much I I'm a horrible speller and yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Your journal's not judging you though.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

So that's why I resisted. I thought, oh my god, my even my writing looks like a grade three written, but um it just worked. It was one of those things that worked, and yeah, um, yeah, and it and it it and it actually gave me the gift of the book too in the end. So I was um I it gave me purpose back. So but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

That's incredible. That hold on, let me just close this blind a little bit because I'm getting sunned out here. Um that's incredible that it led you to the book, and and that's what I mean is people might be like, I don't, you know, I don't have the money to go to therapy, I don't have insurance, I don't have, you know, it could be as simple as just a piece of writing it down on a piece of paper, and just like you said, you just even you you said you just started drawing because you didn't even know where to start. No, so you just started drawing and it came and then it led you to this book. And I mean that the answers will come. So don't, you know, I don't want people to get discouraged. You will get them, and everyone's journey is unique and different.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Yep. And it it actually gave me that gift of um, you know, um when I did disassociate, I when I went to write about the stabbing in chapter two, I I wasn't there. I it was like I wasn't writing it, I was there watching myself write it. Yeah, so it gives you these gifts that you can look at as as as bad, but uh, you know, you can also look at it as good. You know, my one of my close girlfriends, she she says all my trauma symptoms as good. She finds a good in a you know, the when I do when I go back and have flashbacks, she says it as like the movie the time traveler's wife, or yeah, um Doctor Strange, other multiverse, she says it as such an amazing thing that the brain can do that. Um and the disassociation, she says that's amazing. So um it's just looking at yourself differently, and that's that was the biggest thing I had to do as part of my healing journey. And I started with understanding the brain, which you know, I that's what I do for a living. I I research and um develop programs and whatnot. So I had to research what's happening, and by doing that, I developed a little e-book, like I wrote it like I was writing it for the prisoners and gave the brain uh like their amygdala, like a little characters, cartoon characters. And for me, I was able to visualize what was happening then. And um, so having that understanding of what's happening in my brain during a trauma or during a flashback, it just relieved me of like, you have to harden up, it's it's your fault, you know, stop being so weak. And I was able then to heal properly. I was able to go this abnormal thing happened to me, and I acted normally in a very abnormal situation, and it's not my fault that I react this way because my brain just kept reacting to the same similar things in the same way. Um, so I mean I just I let that go and that that letting go of not being tough enough and strong enough, it was so freeing, and that that allowed me to start my healing journey.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

I think the journaling helps a lot too, and meditation too, helps a lot too with identifying like not being a like I'm not afraid to get triggered anymore. Like that's why we suppress our trauma because we don't want to get triggered. We don't want to, and so now I'm not afraid. Like I got triggered last night, to be perfectly honest. I was triggered by something last night um I was watching, and now I try and lean into that because my body was like, hello, Tracy, like it was I was getting chest pain. And you know, it wasn't horrible, but I was starting to get like some sharp pains, and and you know, and then now I I try and lean into it and I'm like, okay, what's going on? Oh, wait, I hadn't even realized I had gotten triggered. I'm like, oh, I just I was I got triggered. My body's telling me exactly what happened, why it happened. So I try and lean into that now. Um, and that's where the writing is key because then you can that's where you you're almost reintroducing yourself to yourself, you know, by learning your body triggers.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Yeah. And I I I did the same. I started leaning leaning into it too. And your natural instinct is to pull back and just of course.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

So your body doesn't well, yeah, it's there to protect you.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Yeah, yeah, and and not not delve into it any anymore. But um the your triggers are a clue of what needs to be healed, and it I and that's what I did. I end up tracing back each trigger, and it's quite difficult with complex PTSD because there's quite a few, it's not just one event, and you think, okay, that goes back to that. It can go back to many different things. And I think that's what people who've had childhood trauma struggle with because it's years of it, and you know you never know where different triggers come from. Um, but yeah, once you start leaning into it, it's just like, okay, I'm going down deep to get this this this splinter, and I'm gonna work it up until it's out, and then I'll deep dive and get another one, and you know, and so I think the triggers are there, that really the triggers are our friends. Um that's what how we need to look at them. Just a one of those best friends that tells you the truth, whether you like it or not, you know.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

So um oh, I've never heard it described like that, you know, those friends that are just brutally honest, but it's what you need to hear, that's what your triggers are. Yeah. I've I've never I've never heard it described like that, but it's so true.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Yeah, yeah, it's true. I mean, that's they're there to protect you, and they protected you at that time when you really needed protection during the event. Um, but it's just that that it just keeps looping back. Um yeah, and it's it's just discovering how to to to work with it and how to to live with them. Um, but yeah, it's it's become who I am now.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Well, this is a good segue to talk about uncomfortably comfortable.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

Yes. Yeah, so uh yeah, uncomfortably comfortable, like I said, came through. Um I'd take the uh the the stories back to my psychologist. She read them back to me, and then at some point she said, you know, this this is a book. And I resisted it for a long time because I thought, no, well, I'm just a a per I'm not a writer, like I'm I'm just someone. But she said, you know, you write in a way that's very simple and clear, and um and that's what I found. People have it's sold in 13 countries across the world now, so it must be relate, people must be relating to it. Yeah, it's written very, very simply. It's not a clinical guide at all. It's it's written from my experiences of um living day-to-day, it's very honest and raw. Um, but it's positive at the end. I find the gifts of trauma, and it's um yeah, I've been told that I've given voice to uh uh uh feelings that people can't put words to. And so a lot of people have said, I've got my husband to read it on my child, and now they understand what I'm living with. So um, yeah, uncomfortably comfortable.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

Did it take you a long time to write it?

SPEAKER_01 31:41

Once I once we agreed that I will write a book, I had then again had to deep dive into different, you know, I deep dived in um to researching, you know, all these different things, you know, the the history of mental health and how indigenous deal with mental health and PTSD and whatnot. Like so it took me about two years, all up from from that. Um and the title came from I used to work with serious violent offenders and sex offenders, and you'd walk into the unit and I always had that uncomfortable feeling. So I had to be comfortable, uh feeling uncomfortable. And then PTSD is the same, you you feel uncomfortable all the time. It's like you want it, um you've got a s an itch, and you just constantly have to itch it, um, but you're resisting. So that's how the book title came about. And I love it. Yeah, and along that journey, you know, it's been a journey because you know, I had I haven't really while working in the prisons, you don't really work, you're not on social media. And um my publisher said, you know, you need to start Instagram and all these things. So I went to my daughter and I said, Can you start me an Instagram account? So she's come back all proud and she's called it she is mental PTSD. So um at the start, I'm like, oh, it's a bit jarring, but I actually like it. She is mental. So that's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

So that's when you yeah, with your book, when you started doing your research, what were you learning? Because you you just we didn't talk about this before. You mentioned you were researching like what indigenous people did and things like that. What did you learn about how they dealt with things like this?

SPEAKER_01 33:19

Yeah, I wanted to learn how different cultures looked at um trauma or you know, mental illness as a whole, how and I went back and how we as Westerners looked at um mental illness, and it comes from quite a different space. So in indigenous cultures look at it like it's um you know, it's something that the whole the whole community uh have to have to heal. Um, it's it's something that your soul needs to heal. Um, it's not it's not something that you have done. So um it's a whole community healing, and that you will learn from it, and that you there's something about you that needs to go through this dark night of the soul um journey to find your true self. And so that it's a very it's quite a bit of a spiritual journey that they go on, but it's then you're not alone, you know, it's a whole community that comes together. There's there's rituals, there's there's different things that uh um they go through. You know, for example, the um the the the war dance, the uh you know when uh warriors go out to to war and then they come back and they have to do this war dance, what that essentially is is shaking off the the trauma before they go back to the village. And animals do the same thing. If you know uh a deer was hunted by a lion, it it it shakes um before it gets up and so it's shaking off the trauma. And that's something as Westerners we don't do. We try and hold this shaking in, and it's the least thing we can do. And um what I found us as us Westerners do, we we individualize it, we're what's wrong with me, you know, even um our our health system, it's like you need to go away and fix that. You know, we do have support, but it's it's something innately wrong about you that you need to fix. So we we come from a very different point of view.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

And I love how the community comes together to help support them to get them over their trauma journey.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Yeah, and they look at it very holistically, you know, that something in their environment, you know, everything around, you know, body, mind, and soul, something's not right, not just in your mind. Whereas we just we just look at the mind that we look at things in in silos, whereas we, as we know, by talking about the arm, it's body, mind, and soul. And there's something about um going through the the dark night of the soul um that is that heals your soul as well. So it is a body, mind, and soul experience healing from trauma.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

Did you learn from any other cultures, some other interesting things that they do?

SPEAKER_01 36:03

I try to just look at everything as a whole. So, you know, the you know, from Asia to American Indians to Aboriginals, and yeah, it's and they the thing that worked is that it's a it's a community thing. It's you're not on your own here. There's something about our community that has broken this, you know, something about your spirit, um, that's not just you on your own. And we're gonna do some rituals and we're gonna do some healing, we're gonna do some love support from from all. So it's a community problem, it's not just a the person's problem.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

And I think that's that's how that's more powerful than the way we do it, rather than we just yeah, and I think people go, and I'm sure you felt this way, that people going through trauma feel so alone, they feel like they're alone in a desert and they don't have any community around them, and we're you know, the the whole world's crazy right now, anyway, where there's so much negativity out there and we're so divided. But people, it that feeling alone, like you can find a community. That's why, you know, where you and I are talking because there is a community out there, supporters that can help you. You might not get all the answers you need, but you'll have that support. And it doesn't sometimes coming from the least likely people is the most help that you need. It could be from a complete stranger, it could be from somebody that you've known your whole life. I mean, you don't know, but like building that community around you, like you need to find you need to find your tribe. You need to find your people.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

That's right. And there's something about there's something really healing about meeting someone or speaking to someone who's been through something similar. It's there's you don't even have to, you know, talk. It's just a there's a knowing in the eyes. Um, I went and got um my son-in-law um gave me a a tattoo. Um, it's a semicolon that's for PTSD. You know, I could have ended it here, but I I went on in in a different direction, similar to writing. Um, and so many people have noticed it and and came to come up to me and said, you know, I've got one too, and I've been through this and I've been through that. So this in alone is a real connection thing that you know brings people together. Um and I feel like you know, we've all had different stories, we've all had different experiences, but what we do have similar is our react, is our symptoms. You know, we a lot of us have the nightmares, we have the the triggers, we have the flashbacks, you know, we have the disassociation. So what got us there may be different, but where we are now, um, and our healing journey is very the same. So that's how we can support each other in that healing journey.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

It's funny, it's funny you said that because there is something about talking to somebody or several people that have been been through trauma and complex PTSD, like you have, you know, that it's just there's a comfort and knowing you don't have to explain yourself. Yeah. You know, they they get it, they just get it. Yeah, you know, versus talking to somebody and it's just like a blank stare, and you can tell that they have no clue how to even react to what you're what you're talking to them about.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

Yeah, it's like we've all gone out on our very own hero's journey, you know, the um, you know, that that book where we've all gone, you know, through trauma, we've gone on our journey and we've pulled together our um our supports and we've come back with with the prize. Like you, your yours is you're helping people with this, and I'm helping people with the book, and and yeah, that's the hero's journey. And and that that that's that's one thing I've I've tried to do. I've developed um even like a journaling guide for people and to rewrite their story so that they're the hero in their journey in their own journey rather than being a victim, because that's often how that sells for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Yeah, that's while I talk about my keynote, it's like you have it within you to do the to do this. You you have the strain and you have to do it, you know. Do you um is your book on Amazon? Where do I know that you you know you mentioned uh and you've got a journal guide now?

SPEAKER_01 40:27

Yeah, it's on Amazon, it's on my website. Um it's on on it's on Spotify, so it's on audiobook and perfect. Yeah, it's um and you can go into any books, it's in a couple of bookstores. You can go into any bookstore and they'll order it, but yeah, it's on Amazon, it's on Kindle. Um, so it's perfect. It's traveling, traveling around the world at the minute, so it's good.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

Yeah, that's incredible, Nikki. And it's I'm so glad that it's helping so many people. And I like that you wrote it really raw because I think that's really what people need now. They don't want anything that seemed I think when you're going through this and you're reading and looking for guidance, you don't want it so polished. You want it to feel real.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

Yeah. Or clinical. You don't want it too clinical. Yes. Yeah, a lot of the books I I read, I wrote the book I needed, and a lot of the books I read, I was like, oh wow, I don't, I really don't understand this. I I need to understand it, but I don't, and I had to re-read, re-read, and I was like, Oh, I just wish it was just put in really simple terms. Um so that's pretty much how it's written, very simply. A lot of stories from the prisons and mental health units I work with. Um and I use a lot of metaphors too.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Yeah, I can't even imagine the stories that you have. Um, and I'll include all your contact information in the show notes, of course, so people know how to get in touch with you with the link to your book and everything. I think that it's really important that people read that. Maybe that's a good first step. Yeah, is to just order, order that and read it, and it it'll maybe it'll give you the cues you need to start.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

Yeah, I think, and I've been told, you know, you turn the last page and you feel uplifted. You feel I can do this, you know, I can I can do that. And I am more interesting, more valuable, more, you know, because of my experience. And so it gives you that love back inside self-love, and that you know, you you aren't less than you're more now. You're so much more because you've had this experience, you're so much more interesting, you've got so much more to give people, and um, and that's the way I think each book should should end that gives you that love feeling at the end.

SPEAKER_00 42:35

Yeah, yeah, I love that. That just sounds that's so it's just sounds so I want to read it. So I'm definitely interested myself. And I really appreciate that. You you're a trauma rock star, you know that. Um, you've been through so much and you've got so much wisdom and experience to bring with it. And I just think you're a gift to the world. And thank you for sharing your story. Do you have any last minute for anybody that might be listening? Maybe we accidentally triggered someone, you know. Sorry, but you know, ease into it. Um you know, maybe we triggered somebody, or maybe just some last-minute words you have for anyone that may be struggling right now.

SPEAKER_01 43:15

Uh again, my main message is to look at yourself differently. Look, don't look at yourself from the the the story of I am the victim, why did this happen to me? Poor me. You need to look at your strengths, look at how amazing you are. You know, you've been through something that majority of the people haven't in this world, and you've survived it. And you need to celebrate that. You need to see now that the gifts of trauma that you've got, you know, they are there. Um, and that you are more. You are more. You're not less, you are more because of your your experiences. And yeah, you you need to find that and share that with others, but they're more as well.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

So that's that's beautiful. I love I love how you say that your the trauma can can be a gift for you because it can. It's so we're we're you and I are both testaments of that, you know. So I love that. Well, thank you so much, Nikki. This has been an amazing interview. You're so you're just so um, you just have such a soft, kind way about you. And I just I think that people are gonna hear that and feel that when they watch this. So I just I'm so glad that you've been on here. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for having me, Tracy. Yep. Let me just hit the stop recording.