Juliet Arnott: Finding my feet

what's this film about i was gonna say my nervous breakdown yeah nervous breakdown is definitely an old term and probably i wouldn't use it these days but actually there's a strange relevance in the sense that what i now understand about what i struggle with is definitely related to my nervous system [Music] do you not have any weaving box sylvia [Music] it became apparent that there was a huge degree of timber going to waste from the residential red zone so we decided to try and attempt to divert some of that material into furniture [Music] yeah there was a lot of publicity at that time and in the need to tell a good story it usually singled me out and that was quite difficult actually because we really were a team [Music] i mean i guess the thing is they've always been struggles so they've been periods of struggle that i just haven't understood so like with whole house reuse as an example and leading up to the auction and i just entered into what i would call a down period or a shutdown and then through the following year you know i was just really drinking a lot eating a lot sleeping a lot i couldn't believe how i couldn't go out for a walk i didn't really understand it as anything other than depression [Music] i was just in that addictive spiral of waking up in the morning hungover drinking in the day it was in september 2019 that i finally realised that it was so serious that i just had to stop to even be able to admit that to my husband um those sorts of things were just really extraordinarily um scary but it was also a triumph because i was able to stop drinking and in doing so the absence of being boozed meant that i had space to see what else was going on inside me for the first time in my life and it was obviously not pleasant because there were things that i was trying to avoid [Music] so that was the first one that i read i read this book the body keeps score by bissell vanderkol there was a neurobiology of trauma reading that book and being sober i was able to see that the out of control feelings that i was having were directly consequential to the trauma i experienced in my early life to the abuse i just remember reading about that and just sobbing and sobbing and sobbing was so relieved to know that that's why that's why i'm like this [Music] grew up on a farm my parents were yes just super wonderful loving parents [Music] i didn't tell my parents at the time i didn't know what it was i was too young to even put a word to what that was [Music] i only told my parents two years ago which of course is devastating for them [Music] somewhere around 30 of people have experienced childhood sexual abuse no one traumatized person looks the same as the next so impacts can be really different so people can have drinking problems they can have anger problems they can have emotion regulation problems or depression or eating difficulties and those things can sometimes be symptoms of of underlying issues or underlying unresolved trauma part of what's helped me understand how things are for me is that when we experience painful things as a small child we want to naturally avoid those those feelings and so we hide away those parts of ourselves that are too painful to bear what i've experienced in my life have been survival adaptations to what happened to me so the painful harmful things that happened to me as a child were unbearable for that young girl i couldn't stay with those feelings and ever since i've my system has done everything that it could to avoid re-experiencing those things and part of that avoidance is addiction part of that avoidance is not being present with the feelings in my body [Music] it's pretty heavy stuff i mean juliet started this journey that we're both on now after we got married so i found myself in quite unfamiliar territory there are things that i have seen done that have caused a freeze response in juliet and so we both enjoy a lot of physical affection but um juliet still has a lot of problems with the sexual sexual side of it and it's not a it's not a linear journey it goes up and down so what's okay one day isn't okay on another day it is this period of time that i've been with greg where everything has come to the surface i do feel safe and secure in a sense with him that allows me to address what's really going on inside me but also being with him um physically is a real trigger for me have you had to get a bit of professional help i have yeah i've had a little bit of help with uh mainly with juliet's psychologist and we've also seen a psychologist together who specialises in partners partner relationships but i'm you know i'm learning i'm committed to committed to one another so we're on this journey together and we're on the right path what we know about traumatic memories is that they are stored and encoded differently and people's brains when they're reminded by something in their environment of that traumatic event the feeling is in the body and the brain is as if that thing is happening right now not in the past often talking therapies aren't enough what we'd kind of call somatic or body-based interventions now really important body-based therapies help people inhabit their bodies and get familiar with sensations and start to feel safer with those sensations [Music] for anyone that knows me well knows that i've spent my life avoiding dancing but it became the thing that really shifted things for me and it helped me really understand that i can work with my nervous system i can change the state of my nervous system just by moving my body so now i'm a convert [Music] it's different from my past in the sense that i would always have been a walker i would go walking and have gentle walks whereas now what i need to do is things that really lift my energy levels that bring my nervous system into a state of activation so i have to look in the morning for things that are going to help pull me out of the state that i awaken i have to find a way every morning to pull myself out of that state to start the day [Music] i've always been a person that has understood the need to use my hands to make things what are you making craft itself was nowhere near enough i had to learn about what was going on i had to learn about what else i could do to relate to myself differently [Music] this has been the most challenging part of my life thus far i think knowing that i can share my story and that i've let go of a lot of shame about sharing my story in this process is very powerful for me gives me a lot of hope because i i now understand myself whereas before i didn't and understanding and knowing the way that i need to go is incredible compared to how it was before [Music] you

Channel: Frank - Stories from the South

Views: 2,535

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Id: S3W0Ng_GbIc

Length: 10min 48sec (648 seconds)

Published: Mon May 30 2022