Home / Member News / Official Communication from the office of Wenecwtsin – Kukpi7 Christian
It has been about four weeks since we heard the news of the 215+ children at the KIRS, and recently the 751 children in Cowessess Saskatchewan. For myself it seemed like the initial three weeks blended into one long day. I actually lost one week because this news had a very profound effect on my physical, emotional, mental and spiritual state of being I am beginning to come back to being myself. I was actively in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder processing what I felt and trying to make sense of it, my initial reaction like many was ANGER and rage, then grief and tears. I have had many sleepless nights but thru my own processes and understanding of trauma I have been able to refocus myself and bring myself back. Turning my ANGER into ACTION.
Many probably do not know that I worked at the Round Lake Treatment Centre and with the Community Health Associates, I helped establish trauma treatment programs in B.C. I have a working knowledge of trauma and its impacts on myself and others. I have put together below some information that I present as part of the history of our community (this is on Splatsin’s website) that I learned while at RLTC. If you are in an active trauma process I ask that you seek assistance to work through whatever is happening for you, remember what is happening is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation.
Trauma is when a person is rendered powerless and great danger is involved. The person has witnessed or been confronted with an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious physical or psychological injury to oneself or others and the person’s response involves intense fear, helplessness or horror. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD is when you have experienced trauma and you re-experience the trauma in the form of dreams, flashbacks and intrusive memories.
You also show evidence of avoidance behaviour – a numbing of emotions and you experience hyper-arousal as evidenced by insomnia, agitation, irritability and outbursts of rage. PTSD occurs within six months after a traumatic event and can be one year, twenty years or forty years after the traumatic event. If we understand that traumatic events are ones where people are rendered powerless and their lives are threatened, then we would understand that since contact, our people have been experiencing trauma under the laws of Canada and B.C.
HEALING PROCES
Remember; healing takes time, there is no quick fix and every person who has experienced trauma needs their own path to healing. Healing is a lifelong process. In order to begin the healing process, individuals need to feel and be safe. There needs to be an established safe environment and a sense of security for individuals. Remember, be kind to yourself and others, listen, and support and look after yourself.
See Health Services here.