Sign up to receive County Executive Pittman's Weekly Letter to be the first to learn about big announcements, and get an inside look at issues crossing the County Executive's desk.
On Tuesday morning, my first stop was the Edgewater Senior Center. Karrisa Kelly, the Director of the Department of Aging and Disabilities (DOAD) had invited me to address their all-staff, all-day meeting to share some thanks and encouragement.
It did not go as planned.
I walked in the front doors and was met by a familiar DOAD leader who told me that she would let the speaker know that I had arrived so that she could stop her presentation and hand over the mic.
I could see into the room through a big, glass window, and what I saw didn’t look like it should be interrupted. Deputy Director Joelle Ridgeway was in the midst of a slide presentation on the topic of trauma. The lights were low, the room was full, and it felt intense.
“I can wait until this is done,” I said.
“She’s just started, and it’ll be a half hour. We don’t mind.”
I checked my watch, saw that I’d be just on time to my next appointment if I got out in 45 minutes, and found a seat next to Director Kelly, who like everyone else in the room seemed a little uncomfortable about my insistence on listening, rather than speaking and leaving.
This was a group of caregivers, broadly defined - people who, in the words of my briefing document work directly with, “Older adults, individuals with disabilities, caregivers, veterans and military families, and anyone interested in planning for their future.”
Joelle's presentation was exactly what I needed that day, and probably any day. She talked about the parts of the human brain, and which ones turn on and off in response to trauma. She discussed broad categories of treatment - the ones that don’t work, the ones that help a little, and the ones that help the most. She used examples from real life, including her own.
When she finished, and it was my turn to speak, I started by saying the right things. I thanked them for how creative they have been over the past eight years in meeting challenges, especially during COVID when they didn’t just respond to requests for help, but they called the people they serve every week just to check in on them.
I celebrated the twenty-five programs they operate, the improvements we’ve made together to our senior activity centers, and how at a time when so many distrust or even dislike public institutions, those seniors love their DOAD.
I thanked them for getting out of bed every morning and overcoming trauma-induced patterns of self-protection, and practicing instead the healing patterns of connection, of being brave enough to open themselves to other people’s trauma.
And then I asked Karrisa for permission to get personal, because as I was listening to Joelle’s presentation some things about my own life and how I navigate the challenges of my job had jumped out, and I’d written them down.
To do my job effectively, I told them, I must open myself to people’s trauma, or as Joelle said in her presentation, “Meet people where they are.” When I feel attacked, my fight and my flight responses kick in. It’s a powerful force, and it comes from an accumulation of conflicts that go a long way back, but I’ve learned to regulate myself in ways that sound very much like the treatments Joelle was recommending.
I trusted animals as a kid, but not people. I wasn’t happy in my first college years away from the farm, and managed to get some therapy. I visited a Zen Buddhist temple and learned to meditate. Soon after, I took up Tai Chi and have done the form that I learned from Master Wu Kuo Chung every morning for the last 44 years to allow, in his words, the “internal energy to flow through my body.” And later I joined Adelphi Friends Meeting, where I sat in silence every Sunday morning and learned to, “See that of God in everything,” but with an extra “o” in God, to make it, “The good in everyone.”
I know it sounds weird to hear all of this in a government publication from an elected county executive, but it didn’t feel weird sharing it with our staff of caregivers in the room on Tuesday. It didn’t feel weird because we’re all public servants, we’re all called on to meet people where they truly are, to connect rather than self-protect, and to find ways to serve.
It’s taking what they call “trauma-informed care” and making it “trauma-informed public service,” and to do that effectively requires that we heal ourselves, and share our strategies.
So I shared mine in a safe space with the caregivers in a great county agency, and now I’ve shared them with you.
Until next week…