The Secret That Almost Killed Me | Kirsten Johnson | TEDxSDSU

[Music] [Applause] I'm here to tell you guys the truth my truth because the truth does have the power to set us free and not telling the truth can have serious consequences we have a saying in the recovery community you're as sick as your secrets I'm gonna share my secrets with you today because my secret almost killed me I don't want to talk about this I never wanted to talk about this but not talking about it is what keeps the problem in place and the solution begins when we break the silence the first time I broke my silence I was 19 years old I was blasting house music dancing in my kitchen I grabbed a sponge and the soap and I poured it on I began washing a knife I'm moving I'm grooving having a great time when suddenly hands gripped my shoulders without a thought I turned around and I held the 12 inch silver blade to his throat he looked down at me terrified and I looked up at the 6 foot 7 inch man and then I realized it was only my boyfriend I was safe I dropped the knife and I began to cry I didn't know what PTSD was back then or that I was in the fight part a fight flight freeze but I knew exactly what I was defending myself against from something that happened when I was 12 and because I had just held a knife to my boyfriend's throat I felt like I had to tell him the truth that was the first time I told anyone my secret that I was sexually abused in childhood back when it was happening I was always terrified of when it might happen again and then enraged when it did the emotions inside were very intense and hard to manage and tell I found alcohol alcohol made all the feelings go away I had no way of knowing it back then but the sexual trauma had altered my nervous system changing the trajectory of my life bringing me on a downward spiral of mental health those of us who were sexually abused in childhood are six times more likely to develop PTSD on top of that we were anywhere from two to seven times more likely to be revitalised as adults I was in my college dorm room the first time I was raped I was crying and I was saying no stop I didn't know it was rape back then because he was my friend I got depressed I didn't tell anyone I couldn't get out of bed I stopped going to class I got strep throat eight times that year and I dropped out of college the next semester a decade later I was back in school I was in graduate school studying statistics I had a best friend there and we would always study together math geeks that we were and one that we pulled an all-nighter we had actually done this a couple of times before we stayed up all night writing our final papers handed them in by the noon deadline and then he drove me home he needed to use the bathroom and I was exhausted so I laid on my couch and must have instantly fallen asleep the next thing I know I'm waking up to him sexually assaulting me this time my nervous system picked freeze and I was unable to move or speak until he was finished it's not a choice it's a survival or reflex I never got help this revitalization showed me further down on the downward spiral of Mental Health and installed in me from that day forward a phobia of waking up to sexual assault there were many years where I refused to sleep next to anyone I was dating and I never told them why I never talked about it there's a lot of Reve activation in my past including four rapes each one each Reve victimization pushed me further down on the downward spiral of mental health I imagine this is really difficult to hear it's difficult to say but what's even more heartbreaking is that there are survivors everywhere living with this trauma hidden inside them without the dots connecting making them more vulnerable to revitalization and subsequently silently suffering with declining mental health I was silent about how about the childhood sexual abuse I was silent about the subsequent real victimizations and I was silent about all the fear that I felt and I was silent about how much alcohol I poured into my system just to try to feel okay when the panic attacks started I sought out a psychiatrist who prescribed me the benzodiazepine klonopin he told me that benzos are not addictive and I told him I didn't drink very often I didn't know that my drinking my alcohol abuse and that my sexual trauma was related to my anxiety and so he did the best he could and he diagnosed me with just about every anxiety disorder I was scared of everything I was had a freeway phobia I had a free a fear of public speaking and I had a fear of leaving the house that was the weirdness I would go to reach for the doorknob and I would freeze terrified but I was never sure of what alcohol made the anxiety go away but eventually it made the anxiety worse for some of us who were sexually abused in childhood it can lead to other things like self-harm suicide attempts eating disorders drug addiction for me I had post-traumatic stress disorder the fear of leaving the house fear of people the nightmares the flashbacks but I wasn't diagnosed with PTSD because I never talked about my sexual trauma and that's what makes us so Dyke difficult to diagnose and to treat because as a culture we don't want to talk about the underlying trauma on top of that all the mental health challenges that it often leads to we have stigmas against only encouraging us further to stay silent in our suffering childhood sexual abuse was like having an elephant for my roommate when I ignore the elephant in their room all I could do is focus on the destruction it's causing like broken furniture smashed last wear but ignoring the elephant doesn't make it go away and the destruction continues those of us who were sexually abused in childhood are six times more likely to abuse alcohol and three times more likely to develop an anxiety disorder my downward spiral came to a halt one day when I was walking down my hallway I caught my reflection in the mirror looking in my eyes but it was like I was looking into an empty shell like the flame of my spirit was about to flick her out I was terrified because I knew I was dying I texted a friend I can't do this anymore and she got me help I went to rehab September 29th 2009 I remember feeling that morning that it was the worst day of my life but now when I look back I could see that it was the best day of my life because the day that I got professional help and told him the truth is the day that I got on the upward spiral of mental health early sobriety was intense without the alcohol and the benzos to shut everything down I had all these emotions which I didn't know how to deal with I had the traumatic stress from all the unaddressed trauma and benzos are highly addictive and the withdrawal feels like a really long lots of anxiety making my first two years of sobriety feel like one really long anxiety attack so as you can imagine I was very motivated to learn how to feel comfortable in my skin I did a yoga teacher training a month later I went to Mysore India to deepen my ashtanga yoga practice that was wild six months earlier I was afraid to leave the house and then at six months soap I'm sitting in India across from a guru learning about Transcendental Meditation and mindfulness and yogi breathing and understanding that when I changed my relationship with my nervous system I start to heal he taught me how to notice my thoughts and to notice the sensations in my body so instead of having a thought like I'm gonna die instead I would notice that thought and then drop into the sensations of my body like the sweaty palms the racing heartbeat and it was exactly this learning how to befriend the sensations in my body that it allowed me to develop a deeper connection with my intuition and it was my intuition that a couple years later inspired me to move 8,000 miles away the woman who was afraid to leave the house moved 8,000 miles away to a little island in Indonesia called Bali Bali was amazing and I did a lot of really long spiritual healing journey there and the most profound retreat that I did to heal my childhood sexual abuse with a primal therapy course because the child had shed sexual abuse we have tremendous loss and withal loss comes grief there's five stages of grief the first of which is denial when the therapist ripped away my denial I had access to my rage there was an unreal amount of rage inside of me including on my parents which was interesting because when I was 12 I didn't tell them once my rage was gone I had access to my sadness and I cried every day for five minutes to an hour on purpose for four months and it was the most loving time of my life because up until that point I had always abandoned and rejected myself but starting from them I decided to radically accept myself all of my feelings were allowed to be felt and released I loved Bali so much but like the truth is my real journey wasn't through the east and it didn't require gurus or plane tickets my real journey was through my heart through my layers of fear guilt shame rage and sadness the pilgrimage was through my pain and the path there was through allowing and accepting my feelings the upward healing healing spiral is the journey towards self love and self-acceptance and now I am eight years sober ever since I went to rehab I've overcome the anxiety disorders the panic attacks and the moment for me that the dots connected between the childhood sexual abuse the mental health issues and the and the addictions is the moment that I left Bali to come here to speak to you guys about the things I was never gonna speak about because this message needs to be heard we need to know that if we have this trauma buried inside us that me might be why our mental health is declining that might be why we're evict Amaya's we need to know that we can get free for the me toos listening I pray that you find the strength and the courage to tell somebody the truth to tell somebody what happened but telling somebody is not enough we need to be heard our elephants need to be heard the downward spiral of mental health stops we get to our bottom when we stop digging and at any time we could start to learn how to love and accept ourselves but it starts with breaking our silence by telling someone the truth but it's not just to me toos who silently suffer now is it most of us have an elephant most of us have something that we feel is so deep and dark locked inside of our heart that we swear we're never going to tell anyone in the recovery community we call these that take it to the grave because it's such a dark secret no souls can ever know we're gonna literally bring it with us to the grave but harboring dark secrets like that with all the guilt and the shame that come with them slowly can kill us inside might take it to the grave almost brought me to the grave so I ask you what is your secret what is the elephant in your room it is my greatest hope and the reason why I'm sharing my story with you that you be freed of silent suffering for that you must break your silence you need to be heard your elephant needs to be heard thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 450,263

Rating: 4.8843427 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Life, Health, Self, Self-help, Sexual Assault

Id: OgRwaSdP5oA

Length: 14min 47sec (887 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 02 2018