Trauma-sensitive care for survivors of abuse
Interview with Dusk Liney
I chat with Dusk Liney, the Business Manager at Newborn Mothers and a trauma-sensitive birth/postpartum worker at The Listening Mama. Together we discuss Dusk’s personal experience of postpartum as a survivor and the broader themes that people who have experienced trauma face within motherhood. At the core of this conversation, we explore the importance of trauma-sensitive care and how to support survivors to create safer postpartum experiences.
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About Dusk
Dusk Liney is the Business Manager at Newborn Mothers and a birth and postpartum professional at The Listening Mama. Dusk’s special interest is trauma-sensitive maternal care that honours our resilience and provides pregnancy, birth, postpartum and matrescence support. She is the creator of ‘Dear Dusk’, a place for trauma-resilient mothers & parents to find companionship in navigating the landscape of motherhood.
At Newborn Mothers, Dusk brings her unique mix of experience in maternal care, education and business to support our strategy, communications and operations. Dusk also facilitates our Postpartum Professional Membership.
We explore the following questions:
How did you come to this work of supporting survivors, and what is your story?
What are the additional layers that survivors of abuse and complex trauma experience in matrescence?
What could have prepared you better for motherhood as a survivor? What would’ve been valuable for you to know beforehand?
What are some of the useful resources that you have either come across or created since then?
Do you want to tell us a little bit about the work that you do now as a trauma-sensitive doula?
Can you tell us what trauma-sensitive care means?
What can postpartum carers do to learn more about trauma-sensitive care?
Can you tell us about the new website you’ve started called deardusk.com?
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Transcript
Julia Jones:
Hello and welcome to Newborn Mothers Podcast. Today we have a very special guest and I'm amazed it's taken us this long to have you on the show. Dusk, welcome. Dusk is our business manager here at Newborn Mothers and also a birth doula over at The Listening Mama and specialises in supporting survivors of abuse. Dusk, I've appreciated you obviously as our business manager doing lots of project management, people management, all that kind of stuff, but also having your insight as someone who has some experience with how we can provide more trauma-sensitive care has been invaluable to Newborn Mothers. So I wanted to have you on specifically to talk about that. So how are you?
Dusk Liney:
I'm good. I'm so excited to be here to share about this. It can feel overwhelming, but there's so much that we can do to create more safety for mothers like me.
Julia Jones:
Yes, and I think that's been really, really helpful to us here at Newborn Mothers. We've definitely changed a little bit about how we use language and how we teach and things like that because of having this insight. So I wanted to share that so that other people can do some of that as well.
I know that many people are survivors, and we probably don't really even know how many because a lot of people perhaps never tell anybody what's happened to them. A lot of the time this is triggered by many of the experiences that we have in postpartum as well. There are lots of physical, emotional and relational things that happen in postpartum that can bring up a lot of big feelings for people who've experienced trauma or abuse in their childhood or earlier in their lives. Let's have a chat about what we can do to create some safer postpartum experiences. But first of all, I'm interested to know how you came to this work and what your story is.
How did you come to this work of supporting survivors, and what is your story?
Dusk Liney:
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a survivor of sexual assault from childhood and then also experienced kind of complex developmental trauma. When I came to fall pregnant with my daughter, I had this image that motherhood was going to wipe the slate clean. I guess it was six, seven years ago when I was pregnant and the television shows, the media, the pop culture didn't really have a lot of examples of mothers who were struggling, whereas the media has sort of changed now. But back then, the images that I saw of mothers was that everything kind of gets fixed when you become a mother, and anything that you're struggling with pales in comparison to that perspective of motherhood.
So I genuinely believed if I had a positive birth, I would have a great postpartum and the slate would be wiped clean, and all of the kind of echoes of my trauma or the impacts of trauma on my life would go away, which was not the case. But there was a genuine kind of longing and hope for that. I experienced a high level of anxiety and insomnia, panic attacks, that was part of the way that I moved through the world, and I hoped that that would kind of disappear when I became a mother.
Unfortunately, that was not the case. I had very high levels of anxiety in my pregnancy. I had a positive birth, but I did experience obstetric bullying afterwards. Then my daughter was in NICU with a very life-threatening condition, but we brought her home a week later, very healthy, but it was quite a significant experience. My mum was also very ill and on her journey towards death with her diagnosis of cancer. So it was a very loaded time. There was trauma in there in terms of my birth, but that was layered upon this experience of an imprint of complex trauma.
I remember bringing my baby home, and it was a very challenging time for me postpartum. I didn't realize it at the time, but retrospectively was diagnosed with postnatal OCD or postpartum OCD. So my expectations that the slate would be wiped clean and my trauma responses would be superseded by this experience of motherhood was just not the case. I began to wonder what resources are out there for survivors who are trying to navigate pregnancy and birth, and then motherhood. Unfortunately, I didn't find a lot, so it was a very lonely journey in the beginning of my motherhood.
Julia Jones:
It's interesting because I often hear people say that they had this kind of like, and it's a bit of a Christian image of the mother Mary, and you're just born as this perfect mother. You just have a baby and it just clicks, you know what to do. But then you even had a further layer on top of that, that it would also heal you internally. Not that just you would know what to do as a mother, but you would be the perfect mother, all that pain would be released.
I was just reflecting as well that it's actually taking a lot of the bravery and the effort that mothers put in because actually, that's a lot of work for us to do that. It's not like we just have a baby and we're instantly great mums. No, we have a baby and we work through a lot of our stories and experiences. We learn how to be a better mother, and we're putting in effort and being brave about that every day. So we should really be giving you a little bit more credit for that, not just thinking it's this like magic automatic thing.
What are the additional layers that survivors of abuse and complex trauma experience in matrescence?
Dusk Liney:
Yeah, absolutely. I think everyone goes through that matrescence experience of reorienting your whole identity. For survivors of abuse and complex trauma, there are so many other additional layers that we need to navigate through.
There's an inner split that happens not just from woman to mother, but there's ones around being that self-protector to being the cycle breaker where you focus so much on your own personal healing, but now you bring a child into the world, you're now focusing on breaking the cycle so that your child doesn't experience the same thing as you.
There's that shift from self-regulation, so much self-regulation is required when you're a survivor, to then regulating another little being that can also trigger your own dysregulation. There's a lot of layers to work through. I think about it as the trauma wall that we're pushing through alongside the maternal wall.
What could have prepared you better for motherhood as a survivor? What would’ve been valuable for you to know beforehand?
Julia Jones:
What could've prepared you better? Because you're talking about this kind of idea, this impression that you had of motherhood. What would've been valuable for you to know before going into that?
Dusk Liney:
I think that I longed so much for that mother Mary trope to be true that I'm sure people tried to prepare me, but I don't know whether I didn't want to hear it or I couldn't hear it. I'm sure there was things that people did to support me, but at the time, they just didn't seem to reach me.
Now when I'm working with families, one of the biggest things that I talk about is: things will come up. There will be moments of dysregulation or distress, and rather than going, ‘I don't want this to happen’, having the attitude of ‘This may happen in moments, so what can I do to support myself if that arises?’ Rather than thinking it won't happen, rather than expecting that it will, just sitting in this space of possibility that those old echoes of trauma may influence this space and how do we want to meet them?
Whether that's going through a postpartum mental health plan to ensure that there's support available, looking at that broader wellbeing plan, looking at what are the flags if things are starting to go downhill, and how can we begin to have conversations about that? A few different open conversations and explorations on the what-ifs and how could we move in that space.
What are some of the useful resources that you have either come across or created since then?
Julia Jones:
What are some of the useful resources that you have either come across or created since then? Because I know there wasn't much for you at the time.
Dusk Liney:
Definitely, the resources that have been developed in the Newborn Mothers postpartum education and care professional training. Those client resources to have the conversations around mental health, sleep, breastfeeding and how to move with those experiences, I think are really helpful in my doula work.
Depending on who the client is and what their experience is, we might even do a plan of if suicidal ideation comes up, how are we going to approach this? Who are you going to talk to? Who do you want to reach out to? What are the resources available to you? Who can mind your child when you attend those appointments?
So really getting into the nitty-gritty so that when you're in it, you don't have to be going, ‘Oh my gosh, I can't, this is too much. It's too overwhelming’. You can just pull out the plan and go, ‘Okay, six months ago when I was thinking this is never going to happen, these are the things that I wrote down if it did.’
It might not get to that point. It might just be looking at that point between the baby blues and when it gets a little bit long, if that drags out a little bit longer, what questions might you ask? Who will ask them? And who might you want to explore that with?
So just meeting those different areas of vulnerability so that you can meet it with gentleness and compassion rather than that really critical inner voice of ‘I can't believe that this is happening, and what did I do to cause this?’ Recognising that it might arise and when you do, you've made a plan to meet that with gentleness.
Do you want to tell us a little bit about the work that you do now as a trauma-sensitive doula?
Julia Jones:
Yeah, I love it. Do you want to tell us a little bit about the work that you do now as a doula?
Dusk Liney:
When I started three years ago, I very much wanted to, I suppose, be the person that I didn't have. So when I was pregnant, I would Google pregnancy support for survivors of sexual assault and very little came up. I remember talking to my midwife, had an amazing case-load midwife who was an absolute angel. But within the system, there just isn't that time to explore all the things. They have to cover the basics and she did above and beyond that. But when I asked about my experience as a survivor and recognising that that could arise for me in the birth space, she just told me to Google the positive birth movement and to look at Shalome Stone's resource, Rock Your Birth, which I did, and it was amazing.
But I just remember thinking, that's not okay. How can one-fourth of the women's population have experienced abuse and be navigating pregnancy, birth, and postpartum with this very different experience and there be absolutely no resources for us. It's very reflective of the silencing that happens around this experience. It's such a cultural taboo, and yet even in our system, there's just no resources for us.
So I was like, that's my area of expertise that I want to work in and I just put myself out there as this is who I am, this is my story, and I'll try and work in a supportive trauma-sensitive way. I've had a range of different people from different walks of life come and work with me. Some have experienced trauma, some haven't. I treat them all with that same trauma-sensitive approach because I think whether someone's experienced trauma or not, everyone benefits from trauma-sensitive care.
Can you tell us what trauma-sensitive care means?
Julia Jones:
Yeah. Can you tell us what that means, trauma sensitive care?
Dusk Liney:
There's different levels and layers of working with people with trauma. There's trauma awareness, trauma sensitivity, trauma-informed. Often I think there's this cultural best practice pressure to be trauma-informed across every aspect of care and there is so many different experiences of trauma. I think it's unrealistic to be able to have extensive knowledge in every area.
So for me personally, I would say I'm trauma-informed in working with survivors of sexual assault, but I might only be trauma-aware in working with trans families because I don't have as much knowledge and experience in that area. I aim to be trauma-sensitive, which is having an understanding, an awareness of how trauma impacts people, and then intentionally having practices in the way that I work with people that make room for and respond to their trauma.
It doesn't have to be disclosed, it's just how I move with everyone that I work with. So I have a range of principles that support that work. It's really very much centering people's sense of safety and looking at how we can create autonomy, choice, sense of empowerment and regulation for their nervous system.
Julia Jones:
Yeah. Which we know is good actually for everyone. We know that for people who might be neurodivergent or for people who have had any other challenges, mental health or even people who really don't have anything at all that they thought was a big deal, postpartum can still be a big deal. So having that approach to everyone I think is really the gold standard, isn't it?
Dusk Liney:
Absolutely. If trauma-sensitive care was kind of used across the board, it would reduce birth trauma significantly because so much birth trauma is not what happened to you, it's how you were treated when it happened to you.
Then I think a lot of birth trauma from a different lens is actually re-traumatization of people who have been abused because birth trauma can really mirror that same experience. If we could bring trauma-sensitive care more into our practice, into the medical system, it would just make such a difference in so many people's lives.
What can postpartum carers do to learn more about trauma-sensitive care?
Julia Jones:
Yeah, so amazing. Do you have anything else you want to share?
Dusk Liney:
If you're thinking about kind of where to start, there's lots of resources out there and there's some in Newborn Mothers. Beginning with looking at your own story and your own triggers can be a really good place to start because as a practitioner, we can often be impacted by our client's stories. If we're kind of feeling dysregulated or stressed in holding that space, then it's not necessarily creating a positive working environment for that person. So doing exploration on your own story, which we do a lot of in the course. How is this affecting you? What's coming up for you? Thinking about your own system of support, your own village, so that as you're working with people who may have experienced trauma, you're also finding spaces to care for yourself. That self-care as a practitioner is a really important part.
Thinking about what makes people comfortable, even the word safety can often be loaded or a little bit triggering. In the trauma-informed space, we talk about safe enough or safeR. So using that starting point of really understanding how do people feel comfortable within themselves? I do big explorations with families around what that looks like. Is it warmth? Is it cool? Is it touch? Is it no touch? and really getting a landscape of what are their own inner resources that they draw on and the environmental ones to make them feel that sense of comfort and safety.
The third thing is always using invitational language. Before doing anything, just making sure that it's been asked of that person. Would it be all right…if the plan is to run them a bath or make them a meal, just always checking in. Is it all right if I go into your kitchen now? Because for some people, that might be their safe place in their home, and so jumping on in there and dumping your stuff all over the kitchen might be a little bit of a ‘Oh gosh, someone's in my space.’
So just taking that extra moment to ask, ‘Would it be all right if I start cooking your meal in the kitchen now?’ can just really send that person into a calming like, ‘Oh, I'm in control now’. Even when someone's invited you in to be their support person, just making sure there's always those micro-moments of informed consent can be really helpful along the way.
I think those are just a few little ways to get started, just looking after yourself, learning how to make people feel comfortable, and then ensuring you're using that invitational language with the way that you support people, whether that's in their homes or in group classes. That's a good way to kind of get started in this area.
Julia Jones:
I love it. That's really simple and practical for people who are listening and not sure where to start. I think as well, just that understanding that this could be anyone. They might not have disclosed to you, and even if they have, you might not know the specifics of what is triggering or upsetting for them. Sometimes they might not even know until something happens. So having the constant little check-in, so that at any point they can go like, ‘Oh, this isn't feeling good’, or ‘Ccould we do it this way?’ Or ‘Let's just pause’. It's going to be really valuable.
Dusk Liney:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Can you tell us about the new website you’ve started called deardusk.com?
Julia Jones:
Amazing. So Dusk, you've started a new website called deardusk.com. Can you tell us about that?
Dusk Liney:
Absolutely. I think for me, what's driven me over these last seven years is that part of me that came home from my midwife appointment and Googled ‘pregnant survivors of trauma’ or ‘navigating motherhood as a survivor’ and just having nothing come up or academic articles that I was not going to be trawling through. I want to go back in time and for me to be able to type that into Google and for this website, Dear Dusk, to come up. To be able to just read from someone just like myself, because it is myself, the experience that mothering as a survivor or mothering after complex trauma, it looks a little bit different, but you're not alone in it.
I've styled it as an agony aunt column so people can ask questions and I can share my experience as a peer, but also as a perinatal professional, so that people can navigate this thing in community.
Julia Jones:
I love it. Thank you so much. We'll pop some links up for that for people to check out more about. Any closing words?
Dusk Liney:
I just want to honour any survivors that are listening to this podcast and how you are moving through your life as a woman, as a human, as a mother, as a parent, whatever that looks like for you. I just honour your resilience and your unique journey as you move through your life and find places of joy and contribution and strength and love.
Julia Jones:
Thank you so much, Dusk.
