Biography
Biography: Christopher Jump
Abstract
Many people experience trauma and hardship in life. Many are diagnosed with mental health conditions. Is a diagnosis always necessary? If a person is diagnosed, is it always necessary to prescribe drugs? Are there alternatives? Is it possible for a person to learn to cope and move on in life without relying on a diagnosis and prescription medication? Trauma affects many people in many ways. It can be through physical or sexual abuse, natural disasters (earthquake, flood, hurricane, etc), kidnapping, rape, shootings, death, etc. 60% of adults in the US report experiencing abuse or some other form of family trauma during childhood. Four out of every 10 children say they have experienced a physical assault within the past year. One in 10 of those resulted in a physical related injury. In the speech, the author will plan on spending five minutes addressing the impact that physical and emotional abuse had on me as a child. The author wants to mention two specific incidents of verbal and emotional abuse. The author will touch on feeling extreme sadness as a result and how even as far back as third grade the author experienced intense thoughts of suicide ideation. The author will also touch on the interests the author had as a child and how the trauma led me to lose interest in the author’s normal activities. After explaining the impact trauma had on my life, the author will spend five minutes detailing what did not work for me when the author decided to seek treatment. The author will mention being misdiagnosed with clinical depression and borderline personality disorder. The author will touch on the 15 years the author spent on medication, a few specific examples of the trauma of being hospitalized and how lost the author was for 15 years. The author will then spend five minutes describing what worked for me. The author will explain how through two therapies, dialectic behavior therapy and cognitive behavior therapy and through the support of my peers the author was able to learn coping techniques and go off of my medications. The author will use specific examples from each therapy and how connecting with others with lived experience gave the author that sense of acceptance and community. The author will spend the final five minutes addressing what the author life is like now. The author will share about the work the author do as a Program Manager at Heart and amp; Soul. The author will share examples of success the author have had in the community. Specific examples such as isolated people becoming social, people with no direction deciding to go to school and seek a degree, people becoming gainfully employed. The author will use the final five to 10 minutes for questions and answers