This video covers:
- What is a traumatic event?
- What is post traumatic growth?
- The five areas of post traumatic growth
- Ade’s stroke journey, including becoming a parent shortly after his stroke and returning to work in a different field.
- Ade’s love of horticulture and orchids
- Can post traumatic growth be cultivated?
Transcript
Adrian: Hi.
Jamie: How are you going?
Adrian: I'm good. We're talking about post-traumatic growth.
What is it? And why is it? I guess.
Jamie: I think the first thing to understand about it is the word trauma. A lot of people use the word trauma these days, but it's important to have an understanding of what that is.
Trauma is any life experience where the person might subjectively experience a state of psychological distress after the event.
And it's normally defined as an experience where there's either loss or a perceived loss of life or serious injury.
So that can include things like mass tragedies like bushfires and floods and so on. But it can also include personal trauma situations where people feel as though their life was at risk. So stroke, road traffic accidents, loss of a loved one.
So that's what trauma is. And obviously part of the definition of trauma is that it can cause distress and so people can go on, have an ongoing sense of psychological distress, and we would call that post-traumatic stress.
And there's a DSM, diagnostic and statistical manual diagnosis, called post-traumatic stress disorder. And we understand trauma mostly in the context of trying to understand that condition.
So post-traumatic growth is a much more recent idea. And it emerged from evidence in studies that showed that even when people are exposed to traumatic situations, there are some of them who go on to experience growth rather than ongoing psychological distress, and that's simply labeled post-traumatic growth.
So it's a situation where a person experiences a traumatic event and then not only bounces back to where they were before, but bounce back to a higher level in some way.
Adrian: And so you and I both love language. And the stupid thing about stroke is that it historically was, you were struck down by God. So I have this vision of the finger coming out of the sky and there you go, Adrian, you've had a stroke. Something bad has happened.
I don't know that I ever really processed trauma per se. I just thought, you know, you have a stroke. I didn't know anything about stroke. You have a stroke, you get better and you get on with life.
But actually, no, you're left with lifelong disability in my case. And, you know, loss of independence because I don't have a license anymore, for example. Which really sucks.
Jamie: Yeah.
Adrian: But if I look at the trajectory with a pregnant wife and a kid on the way, I didn't want that kid to come into the world and have a depressed, angry dad who was, you know, on a disability pension and angry at the world.
So I kind of shook myself together. And, and that was an internal and an external factor that made me look after my world around me. So that kid didn't come into the world with an angry man.
So it's unlike resilience, which you may as we know, you know, you've had it before and after. You may have been resilient before the finger came out of the sky and you're still resilient after. Post-traumatic growth, is that defined event. And then your trajectory goes upwards.
Jamie: That's right. So it's a, it’s a defined event that changes you as a person in some way.
And I suppose you speak about you made the choice of not being a bitter man because you were struck. The processing of what had happened to you is part of the post-traumatic growth experience, right? You'd processed it in such a way and you made a choice that you wanted to be the best father and provider you possibly could be. And that led you down a certain path.
Not everyone processes events like that in a similar fashion. Some people hold on to their pre-stroke situation or condition or life or lifestyle. And have significant difficulties shifting their mindset, shifting their behaviours, shifting their thoughts and attitudes to adjust to the new way things have to be. And then making the most of that.
So all of that for me is encompassed by post-traumatic growth. The choices you made necessarily required you to grow because if you didn't grow, if you didn't process what had happened to you in that very meaningful way, well, it could have turned out very differently for you.
Adrian: The other thing I did, and this was sort of from day dot in hospital, was I made a conscious decision. I kind of felt anger was a waste of energy. I needed to get as well as I could because I had heart surgery coming up and then I needed to get out of hospital as quick as I could because there was a child on the way. You can't put it back in.
So, I needed to get well quickly. And I just felt there was no point in having a pity party and rolling around and wallowing in anger and sadness when I had to, you know, get walking again, get moving again. And so, anger for me was not part of the equation.
And I didn't, I kind of felt like anger was something that you gave yourself. Post-Traumatic stress was different. But anger is something that you kind of give yourself and you see that and you let it run around. And I just, I didn't want to be dragged down by my anger as well.
So, reflecting back on when you introduced the concept of post-traumatic growth to me it is, it was more about appreciating the fact that I'm still here, I'm still alive. Konnie doesn't have a life as a single mother ahead of her. So I've got to get well. And anger to me was, I think you would know me well enough to know that anger doesn't really come into the equation for me.
Jamie: Yeah, Yeah.
Having said that, anger can be a very normal part of a grieving process. And anger itself can be a healthy emotion, if used correctly. And anger is the emotion that gives us energy to do something about something that we perceive as being unjust.
The fact that you didn't even go there possibly means that you came to acceptance a lot quicker than most might have in a situation such as yours. You didn't, in your terms, didn't want to waste your energy on the anger.
So you probably, very quickly, moved through the process of processing what had happened to you and you immediately focused on the future, the near term future and the long term future. And asked yourself the question, what do I have to do to match this vision of the future that I have? Again, of being a father, provider, a husband, and ...
Adrian: Get back to work.
Jamie: Get back to work. Do all those things.
Adrian: I think in some ways I was naive because I just thought you have a stroke, you get better, you go back to work. But actually there was months and months and months and months of rehabilitation ahead of me.
And I got back to work, but not in the way that I did previously because, hey, there's an arm that doesn't work and you no longer have a license. You can't jump in a ute and can go from site to site, etc.
But it was, I think luckily my employer at the time said "Mate, when you're ready to come back to work, there's a job there for you."
In hindsight, entering or trying to get into the workforce with disabilities is bloody hard. And that was luckily one less complication that didn't enter the equation.
I just thought, yep, I'll just go back to work.
Jamie: Right.
Adrian: And that took seven months of intensive rehabilitation. But employment as a goal is vital, I think.
Jamie: Absolutely. So, so you were keen to re-engage with life and get back to it as quickly as possible. And that's part of post-traumatic growth. It's about being connected to others, looking for meaning, for new possibilities and so on.
And my understanding is you returned to a different form of work. Did you? Then what you'd been accustomed to?
Adrian: I ... pre-stroke I was running a site, running a garden, and then overseeing several other teams and several other gardens.
You can't do that when you can't drive anymore. So I was luckily, you know, I got to work in my favourite garden, which overlooked Sydney Harbour and Rose Bay and the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.
And you know that wasn't a bad place to be. But I wouldn't have chose it, I mean. I stupidly and I think this is an example of growth. I stupidly applied, when I stupidly, I saw a job, I'd been out of hospital five weeks. I still had dressings on my wound from heart surgery and I applied for and got my dream job.
And then had the reality check of going ... My cousins are optometrists, so I went and saw my cousins. And they said "Look, based on these tests, you won't have your license."
I had to turn down my dream job and that really, it was a kick in the pants. It was uplifting to, you know, this would have set up my horticulture career at 34 to go on to bigger and better things.
I would have been running a 400 acre Arboretum in central west New South Wales, native plants, etc. etc.
Dream job, dream job and it still, yesterday was the 16th anniversary of my stroke. I didn't tell you that before we started filming and it's still 16 years later that loss of opportunity. I will never, it will never sit right with me. It will never, that for me, that lack of independence and loss of opportunity, because of, I would have had a pretty good horticulture career.
I've still got a pretty good career, but it's one thrust upon me rather than one chosen for myself. But I think, yeah, maybe I shouldn't have been looking for jobs, 5 weeks out of hospital.
Jamie: Well, I mean, that speaks to your willingness to just get back to it and soldier on and do the best you can. And in some ways that might have given you that motivation to keep going and eventually find another job, even though it's not the one that you would have chosen, but something that's still fulfilling and it helps you achieve those other life roles.
Adrian: If I hadn't done that job, you and I wouldn't be talking because would never have met.
Jamie: Exactly. Exactly.
Adrian: So from bad, good.
Jamie: From bad, good. Exactly.
Adrian: Is my take home message of post-traumatic growth. Is that, you know, finger comes out of the sky and your trajectory can be that, or that, or that. It doesn't have to be that.
Jamie: That's right.
Adrian: Which is hard in the context of stroke, because stroke is life changing. And, you know, I've been in hospital, I've watched people dying, I've watched families grieve and I've seen lives shattered.
So perhaps when ... when should you tell someone, if you think you can. I mean, we can't go to the DSM five and look it up, can we?
Jamie: No, no. It's not a condition in the DSM five. DSM five ... the full title of that is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. And there's nothing disordered about post-traumatic growth, so you're not going to find it in there.
Adrian: Right.
Jamie: It's a concept that is independent of that taxonomy. And when should you tell someone?
Well, whenever you notice any signs that they might be growing as a direct result of the major life event that otherwise might have caused an ongoing traumatic response.
Adrian: Is there, can you be too early?
Jamie: I don't know the answer to that question. I'm not sure. I'm not sure that the literature has actually looked at that. But my sense would be no. And your story is a really good example of that, right?
You were looking, you had accepted your dream job within five weeks of the stroke. Is that what you said? Well, that's pretty early days Adrian.
Adrian: I was five weeks of being out of hospital.
Jamie: Right. It's still early, so it's probably not too early.
Adrian: Right. It's not, yeah. It's that looking to the horizon rather than looking at your feet because your feet are shuffling because you're learning to re-walk.
Jamie: Yeah.
Adrian: I mean I was again this is, it sounds silly to say it, but my best mate when I had my stroke, he rang me the first morning in hospital and we were supposed to go on a bushwalk and I said, I guess we won't be going on that walk now.
He said, no probably not. I said to him and I clearly remember well, I want to be bushwalking again within 12 months. And at that point I was completely hemiplegic. I was in the bed, I'd been in a bed ... I was going to be in that bed for about another week because this side of my body was not moving.
And, and he said "Yeah, alright, we'll go walking in 12 months."
And I did. 12 months to the day. From discharge from hospital we went on a five day bushwalk and, and I said to Pat "Did you say yes to dangle the carrot or to shut me up or to gee me up?"
And he said well I'd seen your MRI. So I kind of figured you'd get your walking back. So it was a bit of all of that.
Jamie: Yeah.
Adrian: And that, that again, it set me on a trajectory of, okay, well, I've got to get walking because I'm going bushwalking in 12 months time.
Jamie: Great. What a lovely story.
