TraumaTies Episode 7: Trauma & Intersectionality
Episode Summary
As a proud Somali-American Muslim woman, Lul Mohamud, MPH is dedicated to supporting survivors of domestic violence in the African Immigrant and Refugee communities. Through The Person Center, she is leading change to better the lives of the community she calls her own.
On this week’s episode of TraumaTies, hosts Bridgette Stumpf, Executive Director at NVRDC, and Lindsey Silverberg, Head of Services at NVRDC, discuss trauma in communities with Lul, who is the Executive Director at The Person Center.
Lul says that the invisible wound of trauma can only be healed if we start at the root cause. Using an analogy of a water pipe that has burst, Lul says that in order to truly fix it, you need to get to the source. If you get buckets and try to move the water elsewhere, you’re going to become exhausted, succumb to the water, and give up. But if you mend whatever caused the break, you can stop it from the source.
The same goes for trauma. Whether the trauma began five years ago or 500 years ago, you have to go to the source and begin healing from there. Trauma is an invisible wound that builds on top of itself. If you ignore it and go on living your life as if it doesn’t exist, you’re going to exhaust yourself. And Lul reminds us that trauma shouldn’t be an individual issue — oftentimes, trauma is connected through community.
This episode investigates trauma responses, how trauma differs between communities, and the steps we can take to begin healing.
Featured Guest
Name: Lul Mohamud, MPH
What she does: Lul is the Executive Director at The Person Center. She focuses her global health work on trauma response and prevention through restorative and reformative justice for survivors of interpersonal, structural, and generational violence both domestically and abroad. She received her Master of Public Health in Global Health and Community Health Development with a certificate in Mental Health from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. Lul is on a mission to lead systemic and cultural change to better the lives of her community.
Company: The Person Center
Words of wisdom: “Being able to work with TPC has told me that our people deserve to be the subject. We deserve to be the main character in the conversation. We deserve to be put in the spotlight in the sense of being heard, being cared for, and being believed. And for myself, you know, growing up in the African immigrant community here in the D.C. area, in particular, I really saw that many of us were suffering in silence.”
Key Points
Top takeaways from this episode
Communities of color have different trauma impacts and responses. Although individuals and communities of various backgrounds and ethnicities experience trauma, black and brown communities have different roots and responses to trauma. Oftentimes, there’s a fear and stigma around trauma and mental health issues, so black and brown people are forced to live with it. And for people with a compounded amount of obstacles and burdens (typically those within communities of color), the intensity of the trauma is heightened.
Society often treats trauma as a shameful personal issue. There’s a cultural and structural response to mental health challenges. People are often told to “get over it” or that “it happens to everyone” because trauma is uncomfortable, and people don’t like being uncomfortable. So, trauma survivors bottle up emotions for fear of being labeled as “unstable,” “dramatic,” or “weak.” Additionally, we tend to put the responsibility of fixing a problem on the trauma survivor, but in reality, trauma is deeply connected within communities.
To begin healing trauma, you have to go all the way back. You can’t solve trauma only in the present context. You have to retrace your steps and go back in time. Specifically in communities of color, trauma is heightened by historians who are erasing narratives and invalidating trauma. In many cases, trauma is generational and therefore needs healing and validation starting at the root of the cause.
Episode Highlights
[4:19] Mental health in communities of color: Starting from the roots of colonialism, black and brown individuals with mental health issues were labeled as “hysterical” and “unfit” and were locked away, further stigmatizing unseen trauma and silencing individuals.
[10:51] How trauma and trauma response differs between communities: Compared to white communities, communities of color have different external stressors that impact trauma and trauma response. Additionally, society has different expectations and judgments around people of color with trauma.
[20:10] Believing in others: Lul discusses the impact that one person can make by believing in others. She also talks about the people that have influenced her and the personal experiences that have shaped her career.
[25:25] Why we shouldn’t be ashamed to cry: People are afraid of the uncomfortable. Oftentimes, we’re quick to tell people “it’s OK” and resolve the situation at once. But it’s important for people to feel that sadness and feel that frustration — because crying is innate, and it’s not a bad thing.
[31:29] The trauma response: Lul uses the metaphor of a horror movie to describe the trauma response: “the scariest part of the horror movie is not actually the jump scare. It’s waiting for it, realizing what’s happening, and figuring out the plot.”
[39:39] The cost of distancing ourselves from trauma: As a society, we continue to create walls and ignore the fact that communities are deeply connected. And that leads to two different costs: the first is quantifiable dollars. The second is a moral cost.
[45:07] Resolving trauma: There’s no easy solution to trauma. Lul talks about how if we really want to begin healing, we have to get to the root of the trauma.
Connect with the Network for Victim Recovery of DC
☑️ Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram & LinkedIn.
☑️ Subscribe to TraumaTies on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.
Brought to you by Network for Victim Recovery of DC (NVRDC), TraumaTies: Untangling Societal Harm & Healing After Crime is a podcast that creates space and conversations to dissect the structural and systemic knots that keep us from addressing trauma.
Rooted in a belief that survivors of crime deserve respect for their dignity in the aftermath of victimization, NVRDC seeks to empower survivors by informing them of all of the options available and working to transform existing response systems to be more inclusive of the diverse needs that survivors often have after crime.
NVRDC also provides free, holistic, and comprehensive advocacy, case management, and legal services to victims of all crime types in Washington, DC. Visit our website to learn more about how to access our trauma-informed education training and how to partner with us to expand survivor-defined justice.
Top quotes from the episode:
[05:06] “That history still exists a lot in our community in terms of that fear to discuss the wounds that we don't see. Many times, if you're bleeding, that's something we can do. You know, it's something that happens to all of us. But trying to explain the trauma, the pain, the stress that you're experiencing that is unique to only you and your community… you're more than likely going to hit a wall.”
[09:32] “There's very much a cultural and structural response to mental health challenges. We tell people, ‘Just get over it,’ or ‘you're not strong enough.’ It happens to everyone, it's just the intensity of it is heightened for individuals who live with that compounded amount of obstacles and burdens.”
[25:25] “People are ashamed of the uncomfortable…We don't want to let a person cry. We're like, “Don't worry about it. It's gonna be okay, you're fine…” We don't have to do that. We don't have to pacify each other. You have to let a person know that this side of themselves that they can't control — which is like that deep sadness or frustration — there's no shame in that.”
[40:01] “We as a collective society on this globe are experiencing trauma simultaneously, in real-time, while also carrying the burdens of historical, generational, [and] familial traumas. And one of the things that we have failed to do systemically, and I would say universally, is implement the restorative mechanisms to heal that trauma.”
[44:19] “When we talk about colonialism, it's not just an injustice. It is a tragedy. It is the loss of lives. It is the loss of cultures. It is the loss of language. It is the loss of tradition.”
[46:28] “I believe the response to this global trauma crisis begins with historians. It begins with historians because only then [do] you have to tell a person, ‘We know this happened to you.’ Because what has happened is that the white supremacist culture and system relies on us forgetting it.”