Confessions of a Trauma Therapist

I was still on a high from Wednesday evening’s amazing book launch when I walked into the scene of the annual conference of Canada’s EMDR therapists on Friday. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a trauma treatment I describe in Confessions of a Trauma Therapist.

Loaded down with cloth shopping bags of books, I made my way from the parking lot to the scene of the conference. I could hear the speaker at the morning session winding down in the large ballroom to my left. I set myself up at the table which was positioned to catch people as they left the session and settled in to sell and autograph my books. Through the impressive doors of the ballroom, I heard the microphone saying there was somebody selling books or something outside the door. She’d been asked to announce it. Wrong name, nothing about my book, not even the title or the relevance to the conference.

The participants flooded out from the morning session. Most didn’t even notice me sitting there trying to look friendly. A few stared with curiosity, then decided it was nothing that concerned them. The only books I sold and signed were to people I already knew and who intended to buy my book anyway.

Oh well, live and learn. It’s the sort of experience that keeps us humble.

What an incredible night it was! Yes, the books did arrive in the early afternoon. And all went smoothly after that.

The auditorium of Women’s College Hospital was filled to overflowing with the wonderful people who joined me in launching Confessions of a Trauma Therapist.

One of the best parts of organizing the book launch was hearing from old friends and seeing so many people who matter to me at the launch itself.

Michele Landsberg commented that any author would envy the amazing turnout for the launch. She told us of her work as a young reporter when she encountered so many women wanting to tell her about their abuse because they knew she would listen and believe.

Sylvia Fraser described in gripping detail how her memories of incest surfaced. Sylvia’s book My Father’s House was published in 1987 before most people knew about sexual abuse.

Tina Sanders praised WRAP (Women Recovering From Abuse), the wonderful group therapy programme she attended at Women’s College Hospital. Eva-Marie Stern, the WRAP art therapist, followed Tina.

Then my husband and my son, those two wonderful men in my life, spoke of their experiences with me as their wife and mother. My son’s love and sincerity moved me to tears. He is a best friend.

Boris Mischenko played his guitar and sang for us. The programme ended with the whole auditorium clapping along to Boris’s great music.

All of this was shaped and created by Judy Steed and myself. In between speakers I read from my book. Judy has an amazing sense of shaping a workshop, a presentation – and as we saw last night – a book launch. She’s my dear friend and we’re used to being together as a team running workshops.

After eight years of work, the book is finally available. If you missed last night, you can purchase a book online on Amazon. at this web address.

I’ve been telling readers of my blog that I was in a blissful state of calm about my coming book launch.

Well, all that bliss got shattered a few days ago when I still didn’t have any books for the book launch.

Imagine! A book launch with no books! My trust in the universe and my assurance that if I just did everything in my power, it would all turn out just as it was meant to – all that faith turned into an internal windstorm of sleepless nights and a stressed body.

It’s many years since I’ve felt electrical charges of nervous energy tightening my muscles and turning this usually relaxed and happy body into a minefield of doubt and worry. It was an unpleasant reminder of how my body felt most of the time before I healed from childhood trauma.

Today – the very day of the launch – my publisher promises my books will arrive in time for tonight’s celebration. I got the news late yesterday and slept the whole night through in a state of relaxed gratitude and relief. My faith in the universe is restored.

This evening at the launch those books will go out into the hands of people who have been waiting for them. For me, it’s the fulfillment of my life’s work, getting what I know from personal experience and from my 30 years of studying and treating trauma into the hands, hearts and minds of others. I feel a deep sense of gratitude for the opportunity life has given me.

Now if only those books arrive on time…

As we get close to the launch of my book Confessions of a Trauma Therapist, I can hardly believe what an interesting and stimulating evening it’s going to be. The universe is certainly cooperating! Imagine having Judy Steed as MC (Judy Steed published Our Little Secret about sexual abuse in Canada), Michele Landsberg telling us some of her journey as a journalist and Sylvia Fraser speaking about her history as one of the first to write about her own incest.

Michele Landsberg wrote for The Toronto Star in the days when she was a lone voice exposing sexual violence against women and children.

Sylvia Fraser is another amazing pioneer. Imagine publishing her book My Father’s House in 1987 when society was still in total denial about the sexual abuse of children.

My husband Dr. Harvey Armstrong recognized and began treating child sexual abuse when he was a psychiatric resident at The Hincks Treatment Centre long before anyone was aware that child sexual abuse was endemic in our society.

The great irony is that even though Harvey was an expert, he didn’t recognize that his own wife suffered a dissociative disorder and post traumatic stress disorder. Harvey will speak about his experience.

It’s going to be quite a celebration of how far we’ve come in stemming the flood of child abuse.

It’s three days until my book launch for Confessions of a Trauma Therapist: A Memoir of Healing and Transformation.

Talk about telling the world! In it, I tell everything about how I recovered my lost childhood memories of incest.

Let me tell you, it’s much easier to tell the world than to tell one’s own family.

Of course, I had to alert my family to the fact that I was publishing a book about having been sexually abused by my father and his father, our dignified old grandfather.

I sent the letter to my sister, her children and their children, the youngest of whom is 19. In it, I tried to explain why I was revealing such unsavory family secrets.

I said: “I have written the book with the goal of encouraging other survivors of child sexual abuse. I want to help professionals and anyone else wanting to understand the victim’s struggles with trauma-based shame and betrayal.”

“This letter will stir some strong feelings in you. I want to hear from you when you’re ready.”

More in the next post about the fallout from my letter.