Hey there, it’s Kerri! Thank you so much for joining me on this latest episode of Invisible Wounds Healing from Trauma. This is episode 23 and we’re going to talk about things we may not realize that can happen in a relationship involving an abusive partner. I’m going to add a disclaimer here, because we are going to be discussing specific aspects of Domestic Violence or Intimate Partner Violence and it could be triggering. If it is, pause the episode. Do some mindful belly breathing, or any of the other tools we’ve learned, or one you like to use to get grounded, centered, and feel safe. Then come back when you’re ready.

I’m so glad that we’re walking the path towards healing together!

So just a quick reminder, I’m not a clinician, counselor, or physician. I’m a Certified Trauma and Resiliency Life Coach, and a Certified Trauma Support Specialist with lots of lived experience with trauma. Also, the information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and not meant to replace treatment by a doctor or any other licensed professional. An added note: If you are in a relationship where your safety, mental, physical, and emotional health are at risk, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for help in leaving the relationship safely and other resources. If you are in a situation where you feel you are in immediate danger, please call 911!

Alright let’s dive in!

In the last few episodes, we’ve gone over different types of relationships including abusive relationships, and how those of us with trauma histories can be particularly vulnerable to becoming involved with relationships involving abuse. We’ve also talked about the fact that the price we pay for being in these types of relationships comes at a HUGE personal cost to ourselves!

Today, I want to talk about a couple of things that we often don’t even think about or realize that can happen to us during a physical incident. We need to think about BRAIN INJURY and what happens to our brain when we get physically hurt.

We all know basically what our brain looks like inside of our skull. Our brain is connected to our body by the spinal cord. The brain is surrounded in our skull by something called Cerebrospinal fluid. This clear fluid acts as a kind of “shock absorber” or cushion to protect our brains. If we are jolted this helps keep the brain from hitting the inside of our hard, boney skull.

However, when we are being physically hurt by anyone, or more specifically in this case by our intimate partner, it can actually hurt our brains! If you are hit anywhere in the head, face, or neck, are violently shaken, are thrown, shoved, pushed, or strangled, this can all cause damage to our brains. When these things happen, the fluid around our brains isn’t enough to cushion it or stop it from banging against the inside of our skull. Think of a pickle in a jar, surrounded by the green brine. If you shake the jar rapidly back and forth that pickle will bang against the inside of the jar. The same thing happens to your brain. During my abusive relationship, I was hit repeatedly in the head and face with open and closed fists, with objects too. I was violently shaken, I was thrown against walls, hit my head on concrete floors, tables, counters, you name it, I collided with it! When our brains slam back and forth against our skull, this is called a concussion. It is an injury to our brain and we most likely don’t even realize it. I know after I was hurt, I would have headaches, dizziness, see “stars” or spots, feel confused and disoriented, but these things would gradually go away. But these types of injuries happened very frequently to me, so my brain never had the chance to heal from one incident to the next. Over time, I noticed that I had very frequent headaches, my memory was terrible, my balance was way off, and even though I have an excellent vocabulary, I found I couldn’t find words in my mind for things. While reading, words would “jump around” on the page, it was so weird! I also got confused easily. One night while I was driving on a 2-lane road, I was in the right lane as I should have been. Suddenly, I pulled over into the left lane and started driving in it like it was completely normal. Thank God there was no oncoming traffic! My abuser was in the car with me, talking to a friend of his in the back seat and it took him about 10 seconds before he realized what I was doing. He screamed at me to get back into the correct lane! It was like I suddenly “woke up” and realized what I was doing. I pulled back into the right lane and was completely shaken! What the hell had just happened?? I knew something was wrong, really wrong! It wasn’t until I left my abuser for good that I found out what was going on. 4 months after I left the last time, I suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm. It’s a brain bleed, and many people don’t survive. I shouldn’t have, I was extremely lucky! During all of the testing and scans they did of my brain at that time, scarring and places in my brain from old injuries showed up. I have Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). It still sounds strange when I say it out loud.

We are finding out more and more about TBI as a result of Intimate Partner Violence and how often it happens. We get hurt by our abusers but unless it’s something drastic or an extremely bad injury, we typically aren’t “allowed” to get medical treatment. I mean, that could get our abuser in trouble, right?  BUT If you ever have an incident where your head is hurt and you lose consciousness, or have nausea, or vomiting you need immediate medical attention! Do not HESITATE to call 911!! So, we do the best we can to try and heal on our own. However, many of us are hurt repeatedly, over, and over and our brains get hurt, and we don’t have a chance to heal from one injury to the next. Over time that “builds” up. Some of you may notice things like I did: Bad memory, headaches, dizziness, terrible balance, fogginess, and forgetfulness, among other things.  Other symptoms are things like blurry vision, slurred speech, ringing in the ears and being really sensitive to lights and sounds. You might sleep more or less than usual, have mood swings, or feel really depressed.

Almost worse than being injured, is how our abusers can use these symptoms against us! Here we are: hurt and not able to recover, experiencing so many different symptoms and our abusers tell us that we’re stupid, lazy, can’t say or do things right, whatever it might be. They find fault with us, and we believe them! Again, it’s that “It must be me; it must be something wrong with me!” During an abusive relationship we become conditioned into believing that something is inherently wrong with us, we hear it over and over again. It really is like being a prisoner of war. We really live through varying degrees of torture, and it doesn’t have to be physical! The fear, the mental, emotional, financial, abuse, being deprived of support, connection, help, hope, sleep, food, it all takes its toll on us!

When I was teaching classes at the domestic violence shelter at worked at here in Phoenix, one evening during class, I was talking about some of the signs and symptoms of brain injury. I mentioned one of my symptoms, the one where words “jump around” on a page while reading. One of the ladies in my class jumped up suddenly. She had this stunned look on her face. She said, “When I read, that happens, words move around on the page, letters get mixed up!” I said again that these can be signs of brain injury. She looked at me and said “You mean I might actually have something wrong with me? I’m not dumb or stupid?” I told her gently that of course she wasn’t stupid, and that we needed to look into getting her to a doctor right away. She sat down and started crying, but they were tears of relief, tears of letting go of that “false” narrative she had heard for so long from her abuser. I will never forget her, or that moment! We did get her treatment, and therapy and her symptoms improved so much! Over the years, I have had many of those kinds of moments with survivors, when that “light” comes on, they make that connection. Not that it’s okay to have anything physically wrong with you, but understanding that it isn’t our fault, it’s not a failure of some kind on our part. It’s a physical thing, an injury that we can heal from, make better, and repair!

The other part of this is that symptoms of trauma, mental health, and brain injury can all overlap: they have many of the same symptoms! So how do you know what’s going on? You really don’t, not unless you get medical attention. Concussions also don’t always show up on a brain scan (CT) or even an MRI. But there are other ways medical professionals can diagnose brain injury It’s pretty safe to assume that if you get hit in the head, face, neck, or are violently shaken, thrown, or hit your head against anything, you’ve likely suffered a concussion or brain injury.

Another piece to this puzzle is strangulation. Strangulation cuts off oxygen to your brain and can cause brain injury! This is not the same thing as choking, there is a difference! Choking is like what happens to you when you get a piece of food stuck in your throat. Strangulation is any external or outside pressure put on your airway that restricts your breathing! This could be from someone’s hands or arm around your neck, or someone sitting on your chest or back, or by using something on or around your neck to cut off your breathing like a rope, scarf, belt, anything. It takes a very small amount of pressure on someone’s neck to cause a decrease in oxygen to the brain and cause damage. A very serious note: If your abuser strangles you or has EVER strangled you, your risk of being killed by them