My Stories
My blog, essays and articles feature stories on healing from trauma, coping with disorder and practicing mindfulness
Masking Who You Really Are When You’re Neurodivergent
I performed onstage for the first time when I was 15. I don’t remember the part I played, but I do remember the feeling of being onstage, of being accepted by the audience, of being understood, of being someone else. I continued performing onstage through high school and college, but what I didn’t realize until much later was that I spent my entire life performing offstage, as well. I am neurodiverse with sensory processing disorder (SPD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and [...]
PTSD and Anxiety: Working Against Our Fear Response (and Tips for Feeling Safe)
My husband is a producer and had a film in a film festival—for which I couldn't have been more proud—and we got to go to the festival in sunny California—for which I couldn’t have been more excited. But I wasn’t [...]
CPTSD, PTSD, SPD and Boundaries: Learning to Contain the Universe Within You
Understanding boundaries has been an essential part of my trauma recovery—a concept I didn't know existed before learning how many of my boundaries had been crossed. While recovering, I’m learning how to set boundaries for myself. I’m learning what I [...]
PTSD, SPD and Fight-or-flight Response: Recognizing and Reconnecting to Our Proprioceptive Sense
My husband and I decided to go for a drive. Neither of us had been feeling well, and once better, we needed to get out of the house. My husband drove, taking routes I typically wouldn’t take. There were dozens [...]
CPTSD, PTSD and Trauma: Nows the Time to Understand Intergenerational Trauma
Intergenerational trauma refers to trauma that has been carried from one generation to another. The trauma rides along our genes like an anxious passenger. Wanting truths to be told. Wrongs to be righted. Justice to be served. Its a heavy [...]
CPTSD, PTSD, Dissociation and Fight-or-flight Response: How Childhood Trauma Shows Up in Marriage
I’ve been thinking about how May is both Trauma Awareness Month and Mental Health Awareness Month, and then I came across a story I’d written that took place almost exactly one year ago this week. It was during COVID lockdown [...]
Chronic Pain, Depression and Somatic Trauma: How Focusing on My Body’s Strength Makes Me Less Angry
After only recently learning of my trauma — of the somatic trauma that occurred 25 years ago — I’m just starting to understand my injuries. Injuries that didn’t make sense for decades. Like why I have a herniated disc in [...]
Mental Health and Well-being: We All Could Use a More Trauma-informed Approach in Life
My students have been forced into online learning due to the pandemic—and being forced into anything is stressful for anybody. It's made me think a lot about how we treat others when they're stressed. When we’re stressed. Or worse, when [...]
CPTSD, Perfectionism and Control: From Merely Surviving to Making Homemade Fries (+Recipe)
Recently, I was asked what those of us who suffer from childhood trauma do in our downtime. It made me pause. Well, there isn’t any downtime, was my immediate thought. Because when you suffer from trauma, it takes every second [...]
Chronic Pain, PTSD and Trauma: Getting Started Is the Hardest Part (and 7 Things That Help)
When I first wake up, it’s like everything is screaming — my body from the chronic pain, my soul from the emotional agony, my mind from all the things that have happened or that need to get done. It’s when [...]
Awakening: How Occupational Therapy Uncovered Hidden Trauma
It was March of 2018 and my third attempt at medication in three years. To try to ease my troubled mind. I had tried drugs before — prescribed or not — but this time, I was more desperate than [...]
Fight-or-flight and Trauma: My Husband Triggers My PTSD (and 5 Things to Do If Someone Triggers You)
My husband triggers me. As our loved ones tend to do. I told him the other day that it’s like he subconsciously knows what will set me off—like he can feel the energy in the air, but instead of moving [...]
CPTSD, OCD and Trauma: How Getting My First Tattoo Became a Lesson in Perfectionism and Control
I decided to get my first tattoo at the age of 39. In my 40th year. To mark the new beginning I’ve been gifted. The chance to start my life post-trauma. It symbolizes that the pain from my past is [...]
“Loved reading this Jenna, what a great explanation of how your OT helped you. I have taken a few tips for a client of mine I am treating at the moment! Great post. Cheers!”
JAYNE OT