WMH Season 4 Ep 3: The S.A.F.E. Path to Healing Trauma

This is a transcript of Watching Mental Health Season 4, Episode 3 which you can watch and listen to here:

Katie: Hi everyone. Welcome to a brand new episode of Watching Mental Health, and I am so excited to have you here today because I'm really excited for this guest who I believe is a staple in our community and is really doing some amazing things. And so I'm really excited to bring onto the show today. Beth Flory, who's the Chief Executive Officer of Safe House, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting survivors of domestic violence. She holds a master's degree in the Human Resource Management and an SHRM CP designation, which guides her trauma-informed approach to leadership. So Beth is passionate about fostering resilience, emotional safety and empowerment both within her team and among the survivors that Safe House serves. And today we're going to be talking about trauma, releasing trauma, managing secondary post-traumatic stress, and really living and being happy and finding happiness after trauma. And so with that, thank you so much for coming to the show today, Beth, and welcome.

Beth: Thank you for inviting me. I'm super excited to talk with you about these topics.

Katie: Yeah, they're popular right now. Everyone's talking trauma and I think that a lot of people are struggling with trauma and maybe are struggling through that cycle and working through it in order to find another side. So I think this is a really timely conversation. But before we jump into that, let's just start. I always like to start with asking my guests a little bit about yourself. Who are you in your own words and why does this kind of work matter to you? Why did you decide to go into this probably kind of challenging work area?

Beth: Yeah, so as you did my amazing introduction, thank you for that. I am the CEO of Safe House Comprehensive Domestic Violence Organization here in Henderson, Nevada. And I also consider myself an artist too. So we all have our things that we do, and I love to paint. I love to draw, I love to create. And so I love to try to explore those different areas of my life, kind of all at the same time to fill both that right and left brain part of my existence, I would say. So I would say in my own words, I'm a leader in the field of domestic violence as well as a creative person.

Katie: Yeah, I love that. I also consider myself to be a creative person. I love to paint and just to be able to use your hand, both sides of your brain like you're saying, and the work that you do is it can get pretty intense. And so before we jump into trauma, I want you to tell us a little bit more about what's Safe House is, how long has it been around and how it serves the community here.

Beth: So Safe House serves survivors of domestic violence and their children. We have been in operation for 31 years. It will be 32 in February coming up in a few months. And we provide those services in a couple of different ways. So the thing we're probably most known for is our emergency shelter. We have a 62 bed confidential shelter. So what that means is it is totally hidden, so you can't Google it, you can't look up on a map. And that is extremely important for survivors of domestic violence in case they have an abusive partner who is stalking them, it can be very dangerous for somebody to leave their abusive situation. So that helps to provide some security until we're able to move them onto their own house. And then we also have some other services as well. Now the one we see our most clients through is actually our advocacy program.

So these are individuals who may help a victim with a temporary protective order, help them understand court cases that they're going through, help them get connected with resources in the community like Legal Aid for example. We also have counselors that can provide one-on-one therapeutic counseling. They are licensed. We have an LCSW and an MFT to different types of individuals who can provide counseling. And we also do outreach and education. So we have a person who goes in the community, does tabling events, does speeches. I also do some of that for the agency, and then a 24 hour crisis hotline. So anytime somebody is in need, they want a safety plan, they want to just talk to somebody, learn about our resources, they can call our hotline. It's five six four three two two seven. It is staffed 24 7 by our own employees. So we are very well informed on how to work with individuals who may be experiencing domestic violence or maybe somebody who has a friend or family member and need some advice on what to do to help their family member.

Katie: Wow. Wow. It's a lot. And it's so important. And for people who maybe are listening around the country, we're located here in Las Vegas, Nevada or Southern Nevada Henderson, and it's all part of the southern Nevada space. I think. I don't know too much about this area, but I think from what I've heard is we do have a pretty large problem with domestic violence here in southern Nevada. We have a pretty large problem with sex trafficking here and with victims struggling to find resources and kind of a lot of opportunities for this to happen for these victims to happen here in our town. Have you noticed that, or is that more of a rumor?

Beth: Yeah, so domestic violence is a pervasive problem. That's all across the United States. Historically, I've worked at Safe House, it'll be about 16 and a half years now, and the old data said one in four women and one in seven men would experience domestic violence. I just read a data point just in the last month or two that said one in two women, so half of women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime, and then two in five men. So that is generally across the whole United States. Now, unfortunately here in Nevada, we as a state rank in the top five for domestic violence related homicides since I've worked here. So I think it was one year that we were not in the top five list of domestic violence homicide. So it's definitely a pervasive problem. And then you had mentioned sex trafficking. We do serve survivors of human trafficking as well, and Vegas being the town that it is, I think unfortunately it lends to that type of abusive situation because of the environment we have with the strip and as well as the transient nature of the city that we have. Yeah,

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. I think you're right. Just the nature of our city being an international destination in some ways, when we have these large events like the Super Bowl or F1, you always kind of hear of these spikes of this activity, and so it is too bad. So we really do need these services. But you're in the brunt of it every day. It sounds like you've been doing this for a long time. How do you deal with that trauma, that post-secondary trauma? And for those who don't know, explain more. What does that mean? That post-secondary trauma that people who are in this work may experience?

Beth: So when individuals work in types of work that you see horrible things, you hear horrible stories every single day that you're at work. So this could be a job like mine. We also see secondary post-traumatic stress or secondary trauma happen with people who work in hospitals, firemen, police officers. It's when you're exposed to this stress daily and you see these horrible things daily, it can actually impact your own mental health. And you start to exhibit symptoms that are pretty much the same or similar as somebody with PTSD. And an example of a story I could use, and I apologize if this is slightly graphic. I went to the Cliffs of Moore in Ireland out a vacation. And when I went to those cliffs, the first thing that I thought was, I wonder how many people jump off this cliff instead of, oh, how beautiful is this cliff?

And for a long time, some of these thoughts that I would have, I didn't think, I thought they were kind of a normal way of thinking. But then I realized in talking to people who don't work in these type of fields, they really don't have those kind of thoughts. And it's unfortunately because we hear so much trauma. And then the other part of that is so many employees who come to work in this field in particular have a history of trauma themselves. It's what draws them to the field. So we have several individuals who work at Safe House who are actually former clients of ours from years and years ago, as well as individuals who maybe went through a domestic violence situation when they were younger. Maybe they grew up in a household, whatever reason, that is what drew them to the field in the first place, which then makes them even more susceptible to this type of secondary post-traumatic stress.

Katie: Yeah, yeah, that's true. And that is true. People in the mental health space tend to have come from a mental health challenge or a story. And same thing with addictions. People who are in addictions tend to have had a history with themselves or family. And so that makes sense that you would see that here too. And so I guess my next question is, it's hard. How do you help people get through that trauma, both maybe the clients you're serving as well as the staff that you're leading?

Beth: So with our clientele, a big part of it, number one is our employees have to be trauma informed. So that means that they receive education on trauma. What is trauma? What causes it? And the impacts of trauma on individuals so that they can recognize these symptoms within our clientele. So one misconception may be our clients come to us sad. A lot of our victims are very angry when they come to our shelter. They're angry at their life situation. They're angry, they were abused, they're angry. They have to leave their household. And that regulation of their mood is compromised by that trauma. As well as some other things like the ability to make plans when you're a survivor of trauma, it's hard to order something A, B, C, D, E. And so even being prepared to manage that when you're trying to help somebody move into their own apartment while understanding these emotions that they may have, or maybe when they're talking to you, their communication kind of jumps around because of what's going on with their mental health.

So number one is understanding that so that employees don't take that personally. Then as I mentioned, we have our counseling department at Safe House. They use a range of modalities to help people overcome trauma. So some of the common ones are like CBT, which is cognitive behavioral therapy. There's one EMDR, and that's actually an eye movement. And it is funny because you'll hear some of these techniques and tools that are used for trauma that you're like, that sounds kind of like hocus pocus, but it's actually rooted in science. It does work to use these therapies. We have a machine that sends an electrical current, it hooks to your ears and looks like a nineties Walkman that it's called a alpha stem machine. It sends a current over your nerve and it can help calm anxiety and depression, all things that can be symptoms of trauma.

And then the other thing with our staff is we do a lot of education just on self-care. Boundaries is super important in this field because you can, especially if you're a survivor yourself, you have a victim that you're working with and you see all the struggles that they have, it could be easy to overcome your own boundaries, which then would burn you out. So making sure that the staff are educated well on how to establish boundaries, what are healthy coping mechanisms that can help you cope with your work, and just different techniques that can help you be positive. And conversations that I just had recently with, we are hiring for an individual. I was discussing that we as employees here, I am highly against people working overtime. I've worked in some jobs where I've had to work 60 hours a week or something outrageous or stay over all the time because of Collins.

And we are so conscientious of avoiding overtime with our employees, giving them some flexibility. Our salary employees have flex time so that they have that ability to step away from the job, have a personal life and take care of themselves. And we also make sure that we have good medical coverage, even though we're small, good health coverage to take care of yourself, an EAP program so that individuals can receive counseling. Myself, throughout the history of working at Safe House, have seen a counselor, I think on three different occasions where I recognized in myself that I was having an issue and was like, okay, I need external help for this. And I think it's that mindset of it's okay for me to get help as a provider. I think it can be easy as a provider to think you need to be the end all, be all. You need to be the picture perfect person that helps other people and really recognize, okay, it's time for me to take care of myself so that I can take care of other people.

Katie: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think that what a powerful approach to taking care of your team and your staff. You're small but mighty, and it's almost like it's not an excuse to say, well, we're a small team, so we really work every one to the bone. It's like, no, that's not what we do. And people just don't talk about how burnout impacts the people who are in this space so much. And especially here in Nevada, we have such a high, I think, rate of provider burnout, of burnout of people who are doing this work, this first responder type work and helping victims out in the community that they just burn out and then we can't use 'em anymore. So we need that time. We need to be able to have our lives. And to me, this sounds a little bit like a reflection of your trauma informed approach to leadership. And so I mentioned that in your bio. So talk to me a little bit more about that is that one of the things is taking care of your team in this way, one of those aspects of trauma-informed approach to leadership that you take?

Beth: So a big part of it is, number one is recognizing that your team can end up with secondary traumatic stress. So that is number one. You have to recognize that. And luckily, because we work with trauma, we're educating ourselves on trauma already that we can easily transfer that. So that's number one really holding, I would call it maybe a democratic approach to leadership. Never raising your voice, never yelling at staff. I have worked in some past jobs where I had some bosses that I definitely got yelled at, and I worked at social work since I came into the field in 2000 I think it was. And I had some bosses that yelled at me, and that definitely contributed my burnout. So it's keeping myself healthy and calm and reflective and being honest and really approaching employees in that calm, consistent, steady kind of manner. Being as transparent as possible with employees, talking openly open door policy.

I have an open door policy in the sense that anybody can talk to me, but I do want to caution supervisors that it's good to have office hours scheduled. You can actually lose your own boundaries in that. Sure. Yeah. So have people schedule with you for sure. Unless somebody is in a crisis, listening to staff, understanding that they have lives and being trustworthy and consistent is super important in a trauma-informed approach. I definitely have found, and sometimes it's been hard learning on my own, it's like maybe I said something to an employee that I didn't realize hurt their feelings or made them feel a certain way that they come back and tell me that I'm willing to apologize and willing to admit my own faults. So I have definitely found in the leadership roles in this type of work that I've had to really, really exercise, learn emotional intelligence, because I feel those kind of go hand in hand when you have good emotional intelligence, you have empathy. I think it lends extremely well to supporting individuals who work in this field, and that takes work to develop just like anything else, it's a muscle. You got to work it out. So taking your own classes, your own skills to really try to understand that type of approach with staff.

Katie: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That word, emotional intelligence or that term, it's so important. And for all of us to learn to reflect and to pause before we react is so key, especially in this space. So yeah, it really matters and self-care really matters. And so tell me a little bit more about what are some of your favorite self-care techniques or self-care things that your staff does? Even what are, for someone who's maybe out there who's listening, who knows that they're on this way to burnout, what are some ways that we should step back and we can practice some self-care?

Beth: So one of my favorite things to suggest, I might be a little bit obsessed with this, is gratitude journaling. And this may seem like the most simplest thing when we work with so much negativity surrounding us, it's really important to get ourselves in a mindset of gratitude. And it is actually research. I first kind of heard about gratitude journaling. I took a class, I believe it was put on by Yale. You can go on Coursera and take this course. I think it's called The Science of Happiness or the Science of Wellbeing. Yeah, okay. Maybe we can find the link later for you. But on there, it actually talks about gratitude journaling and there is a scientific backing to improving your wellbeing. And I started doing this probably about two and a half years ago consistently. And I was really in a down and out kind of place, and I was like, all right, we're going to try this.

And I would write, in the beginning, I would write, I made sure I wrote three things I was grateful for, and sometimes it was the most basic thing. I got up this morning, I love my dog, whatever, the most simplest thing. And I found that in doing that, after doing that for several days, it was like I started looking for the things that I would write about later. It's like in my daily life, I'd think, oh, I could write about this in my gratitude journal later. And so I started recognizing all the positive things that were going on in my life. And then I would say it has often got to the extent of actually manufacturing it. So then I'm like, you know what? I'm going to do this thing and then I'm going to be able to put this in my gratitude journal. And so now what was literally three sentences, sometimes those sentences were a couple words long. Now, there are days I write pages

In there, just being thankful of people, grateful to have a job to be alive to, and then getting really detailed in different things that people have done for me. And it really changed my thinking that now I live so much more in an attitude of gratitude I would call it, and I fall back on that. And so that was probably my number one. I cannot preach gratitude journaling enough for people. I think it's the simplest thing. You got to put it somewhere where you are committed to do it every day. Maybe it's a little journal on your end table that you wake up every morning on your bedside table and write in it, or at night. It's really good to create that pattern so that you're consistently doing it every single day. And where it's easy, something you can grab, it's right there if you don't have to dig in a drawer to try to find it, it needs to be very accessible.

So that would be, I would say absolutely number one for me. And then from there, I would say having a good circle of friends outside of your job that is not related to your job. I have many friends in my work, but a lot of my close friends are not in the field that I'm in, so that I'm able to go and do fun things with friends and get my mind off of work. I'm also very careful to take my vacations and take my off time so that I have those breaks away. And then on another kind of daily thing that I do is I walk daily. It is pretty regular that I get up to 10,000 steps a day. I'm very lucky. I live in Boulder City, which is a nice, fun little town, and I live really close to downtown, so I'm constantly walking my dog. And walking has such a beneficial impact in so many different ways. It helps your endorphins. There's also a lot of research around trauma and exercise. Using both sides of your body can help overcome traumatic experiences. So riding a bike, walking exercises, dancing, yoga, I also do yoga. It helps keep that brain working in both sides of your brain communicating, which helps overcome trauma as well.

Katie: Yeah, actually, yeah, that's true. That's absolutely true. To keep your body moving is so good for your mental health, and people just don't realize that. And I just loved all the things you said, and I hate to keep going back to this, but I love how you said, I take my vacation, I take my time off. I was in a class, like a mental health class where we were talking about helping people who are struggling with suicide. And they were like, raise your hand if you're there and available and accessible at all times of the day. And there were people who were raising their hand, and I was like, I'm not raising my hand, not that I know I'm not that. And then I almost feel bad, right? Like, oh, I should be available. I should be here whenever anybody needs me. But the truth is I need to have those boundaries in place in order, I need to practice that self-care in order for me to then show up when I do show up. And so I'd love that you keep mentioning that because people are like, oh, you have to be accessible all the time because a crisis can happen anytime of the day or night. And that's true. A crisis can happen anytime of the day or night, but you yourself don't have to be there every time in the day or night. Right? Well,

Beth: And that's why we should have a community around this or adequate staffing in a job so that we shouldn't have to roll 24 7 in a crisis. We shouldn't. And I have worked in some fields where I was on call 24 7, and that's why it's important that I have, one of the changes I made when I became CEO of Safe House is I actually put an assistant manager at our shelter because for the entire time I was here, there was only a manager that was running the shelter, the emergency services director. And I was like, we need an assistant manager, if not just for the on-call portion, because that facility is 24 7. They're a crisis anytime. So I'm like, you need to be able to pass that phone to somebody else. And then even with our advocates, our advocate supervisor talks about, Hey, our courts are open at night.

Yes, I have a varied schedule to accommodate clients who may have work, but I have my cutoff time, my cutoff time is my cutoff time, and I can call in the morning. There's nothing that's going to change that. There are resources in the community for those more extreme cases. When you have somebody who is experiencing suicidal thoughts and different things, there are those community resources. And even then, it's not the same person is working that high line every single day, all day long you, you're shifting your workers. So it's super important for people to get a break besides the gratitude journaling, that's my other one. Take a break. Make sure you take a break. And we have an amazing off time package at Safe House. We are a nonprofit, so maybe our wages can't be as high as some other places, but man, our paid time off, we make sure that we have accessible paid time off. We far exceed like any casino in Vegas with painting law.

Katie: Yeah, no, that's really great. And it's so important to be able to take that time and to put in those boundaries. And that is what, when you don't, I feel like that is what helps increase these PTSD responses that we get both on a secondary level, but then also the people who are struggling will continue to struggle. We live in such a society where it's like, if I'm not doing something, I'm not successful. It's a constant push, push, push. We have to go, go, especially here in Vegas, things can be fast, but sometimes you need to slow down. And it feels like when you're dealing with trauma, sometimes that is the approach is to slow down

Beth: And I think so, and to do things that you love and that excite your brain in some other way. There's that saying, don't put all your eggs in one basket, have some other eggs, have a hobby that you're interested in. Basically anything that can get your mind out of the space that you're in and that is healthy. The original thought is people say with self-care like, oh, I'm going to have a glass of wine and take a bath. That is a lovely thing to do, and I absolutely do it for sure, have a glass of wine and take a bath. But there could be a problem if your only way of coping mechanism is having the glass of wine, then you're getting into something that's a little bit more unhealthy and is more of a short-term fix, an immediate fix, a band-aid, which is important.

We need our band-aids, but we have to focus on what is the long-term fix to make sure that we maintain our mental health while working with others. And that's when we get into things like gratitude, journaling that we're doing every day, these habitual habits that can help keep us well, like exercise, walking, yoga, pickleball, I mean, whatever it is, art, painting. We both are painters. Painting is a huge coping mechanism for me because it's just something that gives my brain something else to do rather than focus on these terrible stories that we get to hear all the time. Yeah,

Katie: I know. I know. And the stories can really live with you and the trauma can. And so this really segues nicely into my last question, which is for someone who may be experiencing or maybe who experienced severe trauma and who are struggling, and my question is, do you feel like it's possible to overcome that trauma? And I think I'll know your answer because you see it all the time, but for people who are stuck, do you feel like that that's possible to work through that, to come out the other side and be a happier, fulfilled person?

Beth: It absolutely is possible. I've had some traumatic experiences in the past that I've overcome. I think the key, and we see that also every day in our work. So while I may be talking about we hear these horrible stories, the stories of resilience outweigh those horrible stories for us. I mentioned that we've had staff, we have a board member that's a former client. We have four board members that are actually survivors of abuse, and all of them came out of that situation in their own way. I think it's important to remember there's a light at the end of the tunnel. And then to also recognize when maybe we need some outside intervention. A lot of times it can be really difficult to reach out to somebody else for help. And as I mentioned earlier, there's a point in my time where I was like, okay, I think I need some professional help.

I think I need a little bit more than the activities that I'm doing, and that that's okay. And to not stigmatize that need for extra assistance to maybe see a mental health therapist or a counselor, or in some people it may be culturally related or maybe Reiki or whatever it is that spiritually fulfills your cup in any profession, I think is really good to seek that out and to not feel embarrassed about that. And to know that absolutely, there are so many people that thrive that they have a traumatic experience, and that trauma actually propels them to amazing better things like the employees that we have that work here, right? They've been propelled by their trauma to actually make a mark on this world and in Las Vegas to improve the community. So it's definitely possible, and I see it every single day. I see it every day. And so it is definitely attainable.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think that when we're in the dark, it could be hard, see the light on the other side, and it can be hard to reach out for help, but reaching out for help is so, so important. And so you mentioned at the beginning that you have a 24 7 warm line crisis line. So talk to me about that again, tell us the number one more time so that way we have it.

Beth: So the 24 hour hotline, it's five, six, four, three, two, two seven. You can call anytime day or night. And the individuals on that line, we specialize in domestic violence. However, we do have resources that we can give out to people. So we do get a number of calls that are not domestic violence related, and that's amazing. We have our book that we can go through and say, okay, what are you facing? We can give you a referral and know a lot of the resources that are in our community. And like I said before, to be a listening ear to decide how to move forward with your situation. However that that's maybe getting into our emergency shelter if you're a victim or maybe just safety planning on how to leave to go and move somewhere else or whatever it may be. We're here to support.

Katie: That's beautiful. And it's so, so important for our community. So I'm just so glad that I had you on today to talk more about Safe House, to talk more about trauma, to talk more about boundaries. These are all things that really matter, not only here locally on the ground, but everywhere. We are such a constant go society that to step back and to focus on us and to focus on our self-care and working through trauma is so, so important. So thank you for your time, Beth. This was such a great episode. How can people get in touch with you if they wanted to reach out to you or learn more about Safe House?

Beth: So we have our website, it's Safe house nv.org, so that's like Safe House Nevada. So safe house nv.org. You can look at all of our programs that we have and different parts of our agency. You can always call that hotline number and they can transfer you to our extension. We do have another phone number that's to our office, which is (702) 451-4203. So you can call that number and want to get in touch with me that way you can definitely do that. Okay, great. We also have our Instagram and Facebook. Those are all safe House envy. Yeah. So we're around. You can

Katie: Find it. Fabulous, fabulous. And for anyone now, so I grew up donating clothes to the women's shelter here in Las Vegas. So if anybody wants to donate supplies or clothes, do you accept those? Is that something that you're looking for regularly?

Beth: Yeah, so we have a wishlist that's on the Safe House nv.org website. So those are items that we need pretty much all the time. Examples might be like pajamas, shampoo, conditioner, hygiene products. Those are some pretty common diapers, especially large size. We have a lot of large babies, so those five, six diapers are always in need of ours. So we have our wishlist online can definitely look at that, and those can be donated at our office. And then for any items that if somebody has some used clothing, we do have a partnership with a thrift store on Lake Mead and Boulder Highway. It's called the Giving Store. And our relationship is really unique with them because we do get a portion of their profits. However, our clients also get vouchers to be able to shop there if they need anything. So we get a lot of individuals in our shelter who they have to basically leave everything at home. They come with nothing. We like to have the pajamas on hand to give 'em something right away so that they have something comfortable to sleep in. And then we help them get down to the Giving store to pick out some new items if they don't have anything. So it's a really great relationship we have with the Giving Store, and so I highly recommend that if anyone has any extra used clothing or furniture or housewares, that is a place that they could donate to that's very reputable and very supportive of our programs.

Katie: Well, that's fabulous. That's so good to know. Thank you so much. Thank you again for your time and for everyone listening, thank you for tuning in today. We are live every first and third Wednesday of the month, but you can see all of our episodes at katierosewaechter.com. And I'm excited for just a great episode and looking forward to seeing everyone again next time here in a couple of weeks. Have a good one, and we'll see you soon. Bye bye.