Tempering Trauma: Two Perspectives on Trauma and Resilience in the Practice of Civil Law

Chris and Alison partnered with Christie Bhageloe and Florida Legal Services to present a webinar.  We edited the audio of that live presentation to bring you this episode.  Our guests are Dr. Christie Monaghan and Tania Schmidt-Alpers. 

If you'd like to watch the actual webinar - and see us live in action - you can do so here on the FLS youtube.

This episode involves much discussion of domestic violence.  Survivors can contact the statewide domestic violence hotline at (800) 500-1119 and access the legal hotline by selecting option 3. They may also contact the legal hotline directly at (850) 385-0611.  TTY Access to the legal hotline can be reached at 1-800-621-4202. The legal hotline operates Monday-Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the exception of holidays. Attorneys are able to communicate in both English and Spanish, and have access to interpretation services for other languages as needed.

Betty Griffin Center: bettygriffincenter.org

Dr. Monaghan's office number is 321-368-8877.

https://www.floridabar.org/member/healthandwellnesscenter/

Find a qualified psychologist: 

Florida Psychological Assoc: https://www.flapsych.com/search/custom.asp?id=1236

Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists

These conversations are not appropriate for children. People with their own traumatic histories should be aware that we discuss violent crimes, exploitation, sexual trauma, child abuse, and incarceration.

Transcript

Webinar_Transcript.mp3

Chris Moser [00:00:04] This is Trauma InJustice. This is a podcast about the ways that people confront and manage trauma in the justice system. These conversations touch on seriously troubling topics. This podcast is not appropriate for children. People with their own traumatic histories should be aware that we discuss violent crimes, exploitation, sexual trauma, child abuse and incarceration. 

Alison DeBelder [00:00:32] I'm Alison DeBelder 

Chris Moser [00:00:34] and I'm Chris Moser. 

Alison DeBelder [00:00:36] Hi, everybody. We wanted to let you know that this week's episode is a little different than usual. We partnered with Florida Legal Services to present a training webinar for lawyers that was viewed by people all over Florida and beyond. We've heard from one person in Arizona who's sharing it out there already, so this one's different. We have two guests on this episode back to back, and you might hear our host Christie Bhageloe from FLDS who moderated the whole thing. Not only are the format and content a little different for most episodes, but the sound is also different since this one involved different equipment than we usually use. There's also a video recording that you can watch. We'll put that link in the show notes in case you'd like to check that out. The biggest difference is that this one was live. Normally, we chat a whole lot with our guests and later edit down to what you hear in an episode. So it felt like this just flew by. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back next week with the usual format. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:01:35] Welcome. Welcome everyone. I'm Christie Bhageloe, the director of statewide training at Florida Legal Services. I am so excited to have you here with us today and this is our first webinar episode with going to be turned into a podcast. I feel so special to be able to co-host this. So today we have with us the crew of the Trauma InJustice podcast. I hope some of you were able to listen to it before today's webinar, but if not, do not miss it. They are in season two of this podcast. It's absolutely amazing. And there's a new episode coming out tomorrow. I can't wait. So I hope you will all check that out, and I'll definitely put the link in the chat as we get going. So with us today, we have the podcast creators Alison DeBelder and Chris Moser. Alison DeBelder began her legal career as an assistant public defender in Jacksonville and then shifted her practice to civil legal aid. She has worked as a mitigation specialist and Tara Wildes undergraduate and graduate students. Alex is a member of the Public Interest Law section of the Florida Bar's Executive Council and as the chair of their recruitment committee, Alison created and hosted the podcast Trauma and Justice with her friend Chris Moser. All right. Next up, we have Chris Moser, who is the co-host of the fabulous podcast I'm telling you about. And she not only is she a podcast co-host, she is also the director of the pre-law program at Flagler College. So Chris is an associate professor at Flagler College and director of the Billard program, and began her legal career representing death row inmates at Capital Collateral Regional Council before moving to North Florida to work at the Jacksonville public defender's office. And that is where she met her friend and podcast partner, Alison DeBelder. So on top of all these other jobs, Chris also continues to handle criminal cases in private practice and is also a civil litigator. That is hard to beat, and that's stuff. We have our podcasts and webinar guests today and experts we have. Tania Schmidt-Alpers Tania is the domestic violence attorney at the Petite Griffin Center in 2017. Tania closed for private law practice to work in-house with the Betty Griffin Center. Continuing to represent victims of domestic and sexual violence and civil legal proceedings, Tania has been awarded pro-bono awards in Flagler County from 96 to 98 and in St. Johns County ever since. It looks like Tania has been certified by the Florida Supreme Court since 2007. As a family and appellate lawyer, mediator Tania actively continues to volunteer at the St. Johns County Legal Aid pro-bono clinics. And last but not least, we have Dr. Christy Monaghan. She is a licensed psychologist in private practice in St. Augustine. Her practice involves a variety of clinical and forensic specialty areas, including frequent court appointments to family law and criminal law cases. Doctor Monaghan is a member of the American Psychological Association and the Florida Psychological Association. Doctor Monaghan was instrumental in the development of a national mental health program within the American Academy of Veterinary Medical Colleges, this model program was designed to address mental health and wellness issues within the profession and to enhance the health and wellness of its members. So as you can see, we have a wonderful panel say, I'm really excited to get this started, so I will hand this over to Chris and Tommy at this point. Thank you very much. Tania, thank you so much for joining us today. 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:05:23] Thank you for having me. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:05:24] Can you share some of your expertize in a few cases that have stuck with you? And begin by telling us a little bit about your first court appointed legal aid case. 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:05:39] So I had been working for a private practice in Palm Coast, and when I was offered the job to work for legal aid, working with Betty Griffin and then to other shelters, and they were like, Well, the grants are only going to last one year. Do you thought, you know, you want to take the job? And I was like, Well, one year. And so here we are. Twenty four years later, next month. And but I went in and there was a whole stack of cases already, you know, on my desk ready, waiting for me. And the first one, I had kind of grown up a little sheltered and naive. There was not a lot of domestic violence that I knew about or heard about. So the first case I polled had a woman that had been pistol whipped, and I read that and I was like, pistol whipped. What's pistol whipped? And I know now it seems kind of naive, but it was really just kind of shocking to me. And I was like, Is that really what it sounds like? And yeah, I mean, that's what it had been, and that was kind of the first shock, I think that I got, you know, starting to do this kind of work that it was so much broader than, you know, pushing, shoving, hitting that there were just so many different ways that people were violent to each other. Then I think the next really shocking case I had was a woman that had been beaten with a coat hanger, and she had been beaten so badly that her face was so swollen like you could barely see her eyes. She just barely looked human. And at that time, hearing these things and seeing these things, I mean, I literally was traumatized by it. I was crying. I was thinking about it at night. It was so upsetting. And, you know, now 24 years later, I hate to say it. It's, you know, a little more par for the course. There's very few cases that really, you know, shock me or upset me because I feel like I always say, I think I've seen everything, but there's always something else that's going to come up soon, you know? And then, you know, moving along there was, I think, the other big pivotal moment in my awareness of violence was I had represented a woman who had filed for an injunction. The husband was in jail. He was telling her to increase her life insurance because he was going to kill her when he got out and she filed for an injunction. And that wasn't enough for an injunction. And she came in to me and then ended up disclosing like they'd been married for 22 years. He had strangled her. He had chased her down the road with a firearm. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:08:08] Had any of those instances involved police or were they things that just happened to her that she never reported? 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:08:15] She never, ever reported. Like there was literally one call to the house for I think it was like a dog issue, but I mean, there was never any domestic violence reports, and she had just lived through this unbelievable, you know, 22 years of physical violence that she didn't even write down on that injunction until we revised that and amended it to include that which then of course, she was granted her injunction. And then nine days later, you know, I had been telling clients the injunction is just part of the safety plan because it's not a bulletproof vest, it's just a piece of paper. But it can be very powerful to enforce, especially if there's violations. But really, again, it's just part of the safety plan, and I think the time that really drove it home was she was killed nine days after we had gotten her the injunction, he shot her death. And that was really upsetting and impactful and really brought home how important safety planning is, you know, the shelter does safety planning. But you know, you just you don't know. You know, there are red flags, but you don't know. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:09:21] Can you go into a little bit part of the safety planning that is outside of the injunction work that you do for the science? 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:09:28] Sure. The shelter does a lot of safety plans, like people packing go bags, you know, with important documents like birth certificates, Social Security cards, you know, varying your routine. You know, if you always go to the same public, maybe don't always go to that. Publics don't always drive the same path, you know, try to switch things up, you know, having a signal either telephonically or with your neighbors, like, Hey, if this light is on in this room, call the police. There's a problem. Things like that. Things that you can do to stay safe. People knowing having documents and knowing what's going on is important. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:10:04] And in your experience, does domestic violence cross cultural class, race and educational line? 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:10:13] Anybody can be a victim. Absolutely anybody. The person sitting next to you or the person you least believe could be a victim can be. I mean, I think you see in more affluent areas, people sometimes are more reluctant to report. Elderly people are more reluctant to report because they have barriers, because they've, you know, have limited options. Immigrants, LBGT community, because they're going to be, you know, the outing, the threat of outing, things like that. So there's different communities that have different barriers. But really, anybody can be a victim. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:10:49] And we have the abuse we that's embedded into the materials. Could you give a couple of common examples of the methods that some of the abusers use to exercise control and power over the victim and also to isolate them 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:11:08] so that power and control wheel? Our counselors use that. And it's not the legal definition of domestic violence, but it is an example of how an abuser exerts control and keeps the victim doing what they want them to do and within that abusive situation. And a lot of times victims come in, and that's really when the light bulb goes off. They look at that power and control wheel and they identify, Oh my gosh, all of these things are things that he does the isolation, you know, keeping them from their friends and family, relocating them sometimes. The big one within the litigation context is custody of minor children, you know, threatening to take the children away, limit their contact. Financial control is often a huge player in that as well. People sometimes don't leave because they don't financially believe that they can support themselves and their children going forward. Those are, I would say, the the big ones, right? 

Christie Bhageloe [00:12:04] And these are, I guess, would you agree, red flags that would precipitate the actual abuse that occurs later down the line, whether it's weeks, months or years? 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:12:16] Sure. I mean, it's the power and control wheel is the example of an abusive relationship, a lack of a balance within a relationship. So if someone's identifying with those things, I mean, violence increases in severity and frequency as time goes on. And those are usually the first indicators that sometimes people don't see, you know, it kind of creeps up on them. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:12:39] Right. And I guess, you know, we had talked privately about like a slow burn or finding yourself in this situation, which is sort of counter to a lot of the media versions of this where you get married and there's a big fight right on the honeymoon. It's usually like a gradual, I guess, slow burn situation that is hard to identify if you're actually in it yourself. So you have been in Florida since 1997. You have immense respect with the judiciary, helps so many clients and have done so much service to our community. And you're so well known. Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. And so now I guess I want to shift to a line of questions that I think, and I hope will illustrate in a very meaningful way how domestic violence can literally happen to anybody. You had been in Florida for a couple of years practicing law in this area. And you met somebody who did you meet? Where did you meet them and what did that person do for a living? 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:13:51] OK, so as part of my job, I was doing law enforcement trainings, and so I would go to the sheriff's office and the police departments and educate them on domestic violence and handling domestic violence calls and things like that. After one of the classes, someone came up to me and said, Oh, there's this guy in the class and he wants to take you out, and I was like, I don't know who that is. I don't know anything about them. I had gone on a ride along with a different deputy to kind of see what they do and had met this other deputy that had been expressing an interest. And he had asked me out and I was kind of like, OK, you know, we'll go out. He was handsome and well-built and seemed interesting, so he asked me out and it was like a whirlwind, like the first date. Red roses on the table at the restaurant for me notes things like that, like love notes. And it was just, I want to spend all my time with you, and we just literally went from just going out on a date to being together 24-7 to the point where it was like, I would have to leave to go do something and like wrap presents for family, and he'd be like, I'll wrap the presents for you. Can I come with you? Wow. So, yeah, rapid involvement, 

Christie Bhageloe [00:15:03] I think in some of the literature is like rapid involvement. Is that correct? 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:15:08] Yes, that's exactly what it is. Rappin, involvement, very intense. Big red flag. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:15:13] OK, OK. And with someone who I guess you yourself described yourself as a little naive with a pistol whipping case, and you're several years into this kind of work, did you identify that as the problem at the time, or was it later when things got worse? 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:15:33] So it was funny because when it was happening, my mom kind of said to me, if it seems too good to be true, it is certainly true. And it was, you're so involved in it and it's so all encompassing that you really don't even have time to think. And it wasn't until later like, we started this. You know, if I said no to something that he wanted or wanted to do, then he would just cut off completely and we wouldn't talk for periods. And that went on for years like this just constant cycle of, you know, together apart, together, apart, very intense and accommodating like I was, I was trying to be accommodating to avoid an outburst or a period of not communicating things like that. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:16:19] I don't think that the on again off again is also uncommon, and in relationships like this, could you describe some specific behaviors that you did when you were broken up, but he was trying to get you back? 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:16:34] Yeah. So there was one period of time where I had an office on the main artery that kind of goes through St. Augustine, and I had shut off my phone like I had changed my number. I wasn't answering any calls or doing anything from him. And he would drive by the office and he would pull people over, like literally right in front of the office. And so I'd have to look because there's lights, you know, patrol car outside the office. Or he would take like the chalk markers that they use, like on cars. And he would leave a note on the back door of the office. You know, just things like that. I mean, it was just constant. You know, you need to call me. We need to get back together. We need to fix this. I mean, that was even that was all the way through. It was always, we have to get back together. We've got to fix this. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:17:27] And eventually, you, you did get married. Is that right? 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:17:31] Right? So it's kind of a strange situation. So we have gone up to the mountains together, and that was really the first like outburst where there was he thought he had got mad while we were up there and he threw. There were these like mason jars that we were drinking from and he threw it across the room and it shattered. And I'm kind of the person that I'm like, You make the mess, you clean it up. So I didn't talk to him for the rest of the evening and I was like, We're done. When we go home, we're going our separate ways. And the next morning I was cleaning up the glass and I was. I know it sounds silly, but I felt like that was the first thing that really impacted me. Like, why am I cleaning up his mess? Why am I cleaning up the glass that he broke? And so we came home, and that was the period where I had shut off. It changed my phone number and changed all my contact information, and we had had a break during that time. And during that time, he had had a relationship and gotten someone pregnant and then subsequently got married. And literally, like the day before he was getting married, he was trying to make contact with me at my office. He's like, I've made my I made a mistake. You need to help me get out of this. And I was like, You know, you made your bed liner and then same thing just, you know, he had gotten married. He had the child. And then he reached out at some point and he was like, I need to file for divorce. I need to get out of this relationship that I'm in. I need to have this child. We need to take care of or things like that. And he had told me that he had gotten divorce papers signed, which he hadn't. And then I later found out he hadn't, but he had moved in with her. And then we had started harming his daughter, who's now my daughter. We had started the litigation process because the biological mother had taken kind of a downward slide on pain pills. She ended up being incarcerated for a period of time for trafficking drugs. And during that time, we did a termination of parental rights, right, and got married during that time. So we did the termination of parental rights. We ended up I ended up adopting my daughter, which is the biggest blessing that's ever come out of this whole situation. It's unbelievable. But that process took a long time. We started in 2009 and we didn't have an adjudication. We had a four day trial in 2011, and it was like this really horrible time because my parents were passing away. They both passed away in 2011, like 33 days apart. And that was the time what we were doing this four day trial for the adoption and we had animals getting sick and dying, and it was right at that time. I think that that was the most isolating time because when my parents passed, the violence definitely increased. After that point in time, there was no sympathy or empathy that my parents had passed. There were times where he'd escalate and have explosions, you know, in the House, and I would leave the house and I'd go to my office and he would call and say, You know, you better get back here or your parents ashes are going to get thrown in the canal behind the house. I mean, things that he knew were triggers that would, you know, make me go back. The adoption process resulted in a appeal and didn't culminate until 2012. During that time, I mean, he was violent to my daughter. He was violent to me. There was, you know, bullets on the nightstand, threats to kill me, strangulation waking up in the middle of the night, ripping all the covers off the bed, screaming that I was having an affair with his adult son. I would go sleep in the other room. He'd follow me into the other room. He'd start hitting me. Usually, he chose to hit me on the back. So, yeah, there were a lot of incidents that were going on during that time. He would like strike my daughter. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:21:18] And that's a police tactic. Correct. You see police officer throughout the duration of this. 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:21:25] Right. Because I wasn't going to tell anybody because his job was his most important thing, that was his power. You know his that was his power. And if he lost his job, we were going to pay for it. And he had actually said that on multiple occasions that if Flagler County Sheriff's Office Building Flagler Flagler County Sheriff's Office ever gets called out, there's going to be a lot of grieving widows. Basically indicating he was going to have a shootout with the Flagler County deputies, so it was a secret that we kept in our household. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:21:54] Right. And at this point, going back to even just the wheel right, you have this child that you love and that you're caring for, and that made it probably a lot harder to figure out what to do next. Even somebody with your experience and your education? 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:22:12] Yeah. Well, he always said, we're a package deal. My daughter and I are a package deal, so you don't get one without the other is what he always used to tell me. Told me that all the way to the end 

Christie Bhageloe [00:22:21] and all this time. Does anybody know what's going on inside your house? 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:22:28] So I had been very isolated from my friends. I believe that they all knew something was going on. I don't think anyone knew the extremity that it was going on. I had a friend in Maryland. She texted me, Just be like, Are you OK? Is everything OK? And then I text her back, and then I delete the messages so he wouldn't see them. But she even didn't know, you know, the severity of what was going on, basically. And you know, it was during the time up until the adoption, if I had left at that point in time, I wouldn't have been able to adopt her right. You know, and I'd go through it all again to adopt her. So yeah, yeah. And then in 2014, I started saying, we need to get a divorce. This isn't working. I'd draft up divorce papers. I'd be like, I want to do this amicably. Hey, throw them in my face. I'm not getting divorced. We're a package deal. You know, it was that kind of a thing, and I really wanted to do it amicably. I didn't want the big blow out which ended up happening in the long run. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:23:27] So let's talk about that, and more importantly, kind of the aftermath of that, there was an incident that finally resulted and outside involvement. Can you describe the events because it wasn't you who called the police? Is that correct? 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:23:44] That's correct. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:23:45] OK. 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:23:46] So in the end, my daughter is the one that reported, and I'm glad she did. She reported it to her guidance counselor at school. Okay, which that in and of itself triggered a call to DCF, which triggered a call to the sheriff's office. And that kind of led the ball rolling down 

Christie Bhageloe [00:24:02] there, their mandatory reporters, right? That's right. They have to do that. 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:24:07] Iraq. And we were actually divorced at the time that the disclosure came out. But the last official incident that had happened had happened in December of 2015, where we had been talking about divorce. I was trying to go through like the reasons why we needed to get a divorce. And I had like a pad of paper and some loose papers, and he got mad. He took them and threw them in the pool. And then I was like, OK, I'm done. I walked inside the house. He followed me inside the house. We had like a kitchen counter and he grabbed my breast area and twisted my bra, and he had me bent over the kitchen counter. When he twisted my bra, the wire underwater, went through my dress, came out my dress and I was saying to him, I was like, Get off me, you're hurting me. He's like, You're hurting yourself. And it was just on and on and on about, you know, him doing that. I looked over to the side and I saw through the crack of the door, the bedroom door that my daughter was videotaping the incident. After the incident de-escalated, I went in the bedroom and she was like, I videotaped it, I have it on videotape and I was like, Put it away, put it away. If he sees it, you know, it's going to be an incident. So the next day, she was out by the pool and she saw there were papers in the pool. She tried to fish them out and the phone fell into the pool. And so that video was done as far as we thought. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:25:28] Can I stop for a second? Up until this point, was there an arrest? Did anything happen to him as far as consequences after your daughter reported? 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:25:38] And she didn't report until months later, she reported. So it happened in December, and then she reported. I think it was like February that following February, because after that incident, he was still living in the house that we were going through divorce proceedings. After that incident, I did get him out of the house with a temporary, exclusive use and possession of the home order from the court. And then at that point, we were living separately. But he kept saying, We're going to fix this, I'm going to move back in. And I was like, No, that's not happening. Valentine's Day, there were flowers on Valentine's Day and we were already divorced. You know, we got divorced at the end of January, and then in February, my daughter, she was having some issues with socialization, with kids her own age. She tends to socialize more with adults. And she would go eat lunch with the guidance counselor. And I guess she just spilled it all to the guidance counselor, which I can tell you to this day. I would not have reported any of that still sitting here. If it were up to me, I wouldn't have reported any of it because I knew that that was going to cause an issue with his job that was going to escalate the danger to my daughter and I. But I'm glad in retrospect, I'm glad she did. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:26:50] So was the video evidence that she recorded eventually found and what happened after that? And I guess more importantly, as this was going on, how are people and I'm talking specifically about his coworkers. Court staff? How are people perceiving hearing this allegation before and after the video? And did that surprise you? 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:27:16] So with the video gone, there was no really corroborative evidence, which is something he had echoed, which a lot of abusers echo throughout the relationship. No one's going to believe you. And there were people that were at the sheriff's office that I was close to that believed his, you know, line that nothing had happened. It was frustrating. It was upsetting to think that people didn't. I mean, I did have people that believed me and I will say the City Police Department, the St. Augustine Police Department under lawn leaders, they were excellent. They were monitoring my office. They were having officers doing their paperwork in my parking lot and things like that because it was such a severe escalation. And I think I think there's like a group of people that viewed him as very dangerous and the situation being very dangerous and then others that just thought she's just filing, you know, to get custody or whatever which that had already been determined all in the divorce. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:28:09] So there wasn't his outside projection of other how people perceive him. What couldn't be true, right? He writes, so friendly. 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:28:19] So at some point in time, we got with a forensic person who actually tried many different things that finally managed to pull the video off the phone. And I think the Flagler County Sheriff's Office was going to close the case if that didn't get pulled off and it got pulled off the phone and they finally filed charges on him. And yeah, I mean, we left our house for a period of time for safety purposes. It was a scary time. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:28:44] Thank you so much for talking to us about this. I just have to kind of closing questions. One is how did you experiencing this firsthand impacts how you represent your clients now? And how do you deal with the burnout of doing this kind of work for as long as you've done it? 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:29:04] So I think that speaking about it, like people are like, why are you talking about it? I think speaking about it is so important because if anybody would have known the warning signs or should have known the warning signs, it would have been me if anyone had the ability to get out of that relationship, it would have been me. You know, so it's important for people to know that it can be anybody. As far as how it impacted my work, it definitely has given me. I understood, you know, people say, Well, why doesn't she just leave? And really, people should be asking, Why is he abusing? You know, why does it bother her? But I always understood that why she didn't leave from a textbook kind of viewpoint. But it has given me a totally different understanding of it internally. And I think it's made me more compassionate towards clients and understanding their fears and really believing their fears going forward. As far as the resiliency, as far as doing the work, there's huge burnout in the domestic violence field. Huge turnover because of the vicarious trauma that goes on. I do have to say I have a paralegal that's been with me for 23 of those twenty four years. She's incredible. She takes a huge burden off. We had judiciary that are very in St. Johns County. We're very blessed. They understand domestic violence. So it's more that you're quote unquote winning your cases. You're getting your injunctions than you are getting knocked down and knocked backwards. So there have been very, very supportive. And I think just, you know, this weekend we were cleaning out the garage and I found all these mementos and I've got all these letters and cards and emails from people that were like, You've really made a difference in my life. And I think just even one person, if I've changed their life, then it's worth it. This is a great field to be in. I love what I do. I love the people of Betty Griffin House that I work with. They're incredible people. We have incredible resources and things available there. I'm lucky, all in all. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:31:00] Thank you so much. 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:31:01] Thank you. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:31:03] Thank you so much, Tania, for sharing your story and for the work you do every day for your clients. I know they all appreciate it. I'm going to pass this over to Alison and Doctor Monaghan at this point. 

Alison DeBelder [00:31:16] Hi, welcome, Doctor Monaghan. I wanted to start off, I guess, at the beginning. Can you tell us what trauma is? 

Dr. Christy Monaghan [00:31:24] Yes. Basically, the concept of trauma is a very nonspecific and generalized term. We use the term trauma to refer to any experience or overwhelming situation that someone has been exposed to or that they're experiencing themselves, that they feel or that perceive to be something that they are having difficulty or that they are overwhelmed with the concern and the emotional distress that they feel that they are not able to effectively cope with this. 

Alison DeBelder [00:32:03] We've been hearing more, I think, in culture and in the law, certainly about vicarious trauma. How is vicarious trauma distinct? 

Dr. Christy Monaghan [00:32:12] Bacteria's trauma is a concept that is used to refer the experience that a person has when they are in a helping profession, in an empathic engagement with someone who is experiencing trauma. The term came about originally with reference to hospice workers and then subsequently with first responders and emergency room providers. It reflects a number of different types of dynamics. It's something certainly in mental health that we experienced attorneys in their clients. So mental health therapists as well. 

Alison DeBelder [00:32:58] And do you yourself treat people who've experienced trauma? 

Dr. Christy Monaghan [00:33:02] Yes, I do. Part of my training, actually my doctoral internship was at the University of Miami VA Medical Center. And so my first exposure with that actually was working with veterans. And the concept of PTSD that most people are familiar with basically is very similar to what we refer to with vicarious trauma. Our bodies only have certain ways to react to stress. So depending on whatever the trigger might be, the reaction is very similar. Some of the things that you might say would be a heightened sense of vigilance, a feeling of not being, say, having difficulty with sleep, relationship issues, substance abuse increases, substance use, that type of thing. Depression and anxiety. 

Alison DeBelder [00:33:59] Can you give us an example of vigilance so I can think of a person that I worked with in the past springs to mind around sleep? This is a person who had been a witness to a violent crime, and he was behaving strangely. We talked about it turned out he hadn't been sleeping. Why hadn't he'd been sleeping? He was doing like the Nightmare on Elm Street trick of eating the instant coffee and washing it down with caffeinated soda to try to stay awake to avoid sleeping because of nightmares. Right? So I think everybody knows what a nightmare is. They can anybody. I could pick up on that, that somebody was avoiding sleep. What are some examples of the hypervigilance that you mentioned? 

Dr. Christy Monaghan [00:34:48] Vigilance is a feeling of being anxious to relax. In other words, that in order to stay safe, you have to always be looking, be watching that there might be danger that came about originally with the concept of the prehistoric times where our brains develop, such that they were able to alert the person that there was danger. So we still have that that component of the brain. It's it's just sometimes not as good as determining whether there's a tiger, whether there is a true danger or not. And individuals who have certain characteristics tend to experience that more frequently. It can be a history of previous trauma and in their own experience, certain things that are going on in their family relationships are some of the things that would predispose them. So the people who are the most likely to experience black areas, trauma would be those people who are empathic. The same characteristics that allow us to get into very good training programs in law school, in psychology and to be able to get out successfully and then to be successful in our field. Those same characteristics predispose to vicarious trauma. We also refer to that as compassion fatigue, which is basically the cost of caring. So the very individuals who are most successful with their work or most dedicated, they are able to delay gratification. They're able to be dedicated to the work, get their work done. They're able to think they'll work many, many hours, which certainly is characteristic of the legal profession as well as their psychology profession. So that sense of empathy and our ability to have compassion is something that can predispose us actually to compassion fatigue with my Cairns term. 

Alison DeBelder [00:37:03] So if people find that they are suffering from these adverse effects of either a direct trauma or indirect trauma, working with people who've been traumatized, what kinds of treatment are available? What's the modern standard for working with folks who have been through traumatic events? 

Dr. Christy Monaghan [00:37:26] The treatment is going to be based on individual needs and the history of that particular person. The degree to which they're experiencing certain effects that are impacting their lives in a negative way. So that would be something that would be assessed in a clinical history, forensic history. I do a lot of work with domestic violence and children who have been abused in that type of thing, so you would tailor that to what might be physically the same and psychologically the same reaction. But to someone who has lost a loved one or has experienced a serious automobile accident or whatever. So basically, to answer your question, I use the type of treatment that would be specific to that particular individual needs, and that basically is with an empirically determined types of treatments. And certainly, the concept of psychotherapy is pretty general. But one of the things you want to focus on in working with people who either have experienced trauma or who are experiencing trauma affects by vicarious exposure would be the importance of looking at the basic things like self-care ways to assist that person in developing resilience. And another thing is kind of come on the the scene in terms of psychological research in the last 14 years is the concept of self compassion. We, as people in healthy professions, tend to be rock stars at being compassionate towards other people, but we really are deficits in terms of applying that same compassion to our sales. So those are some of the things that you would want to focus on. If there's depression anxiety, you would treat those accordingly and also referred to psychiatrists for primary care providers Thor medication management when appropriate. 

Alison DeBelder [00:39:39] Are there any specific resources that you can point people to or examples that you can give that you would recommend? I assume we have mostly lawyers listening in today things that you would specifically recommend as healthy ways to cope and build resilience. 

Dr. Christy Monaghan [00:39:58] Yes, and I think that's a very important concept, because we we often feel that our concept of what is going to be necessary for us to last self care is to take a vacation or take a class of some type, do something that's going to be time consuming. But what we know is that there are many strategies that we can learn and can utilize that are empirically shown to be effective, involving things such as mindfulness. Many people have heard about mindfulness, somewhat similar to a meditation. So things like that, and certainly our breathing, we don't often give appropriate, effective, deep breathing the focus that it really needs. That's one of the quickest way other than injection, and they actually lead to greater anxiety medication to lower the blood pressure and heart rate. And so those are things that you can do in the moment. But one other thing that's kind of a larger category would be along with the self-compassion learning, how to set boundaries and the assertive. And that's a difficult for a lot of us that's 

Alison DeBelder [00:41:21] going to say easy for you to say 

Dr. Christy Monaghan [00:41:24] yes, but not easy for anybody to do, including me, because our case loads get to be so involved. And so it's it's a matter of trying to maintain that balance. 

Alison DeBelder [00:41:36] What do you do to protect yourself or insulate yourself? 

Dr. Christy Monaghan [00:41:42] I have learned a lot in developing wellness programs, particularly in veterinary medicine, about the types of things that are most helpful in addressing these kinds of issues. So I need to ask some of those very techniques that I use with other people. 

Alison DeBelder [00:42:00] I think Christy put in the chat your phone number, your offices and the comments phone number to get in touch with you is three two one three six eight eight eight seven seven. Can you just quickly give everybody an idea of the type of work that you do when you are working with lawyers? Like when should they pick up the phone and call you for a consultation regarding the case? 

Dr. Christy Monaghan [00:42:26] Well, I think certainly there would be a variety of different types of cases that actually work on very similar cases to family law attorney and also do some criminal work as well. So I think just any time that someone might have a question as to the best way to approach that case in terms of their own involvement, again, we as being very compassionate. People sometimes have difficulty maintaining that balance and also with regard to if attorneys, just as psychologists, psychiatrists, first responders can at times based on, say, a history of trauma or something that's going on in their lives at the time, those are all natural human responses to chronic stress. So certainly, I would also be available to work with someone on a direct therapeutic level as well. I want to mention the Florida Bar Association has a member benefit program, mental health and wellness, and there's a website for that. There is a hotline, and I would recommend that as a good reference. 

Alison DeBelder [00:43:41] Thank you so much, I know Christie wanted to save some time for questions. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:43:45] Thank you all so much for all this information. I really can't think of a better way to close out Domestic Violence Awareness Month and Chris Tang the Alison. I really appreciate you letting our legal aid audience be a part of the podcast. I think you're going to have a lot of new listeners because anyone who knows me knows I am a book person, but I am now a podcast person. Do this podcast, so I 

Alison DeBelder [00:44:08] think I'm converting. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:44:12] All right, so we did have a good question come in and we addressed that somewhat, but I think it's worth going back over. Sarah Sullivan wrote, Tania, thanks for being vulnerable and sharing your personal experience. Being in a love bombing relationship that ended very badly as a teenager led me to also do Deb work, and then I figure it out within four years or so. Can you give us tips on identifying and differentiating between the wonderful fluttering of beginning relationships versus, say, toxic obsessive in the making one? And also, do you have any tips for how to identify a secondary trauma for working with survivors of violence? A lot packed in there. Take it away 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:44:54] as far as like the red flag signs. Certainly the isolation. I think that that's the biggest one. Not that our friends and family are always correct, but I think if friends and family are feeling that they're being pushed out and they verbalize that that's something to, you know, take notice of that obsessive constantly like wanting to be with you all the time is another red flag. Things like and I heard this somewhere where they said, if you on the first day and if you're out with someone and they are full of blaming their past relationships, making themselves out to be the victim, that should send a bell off in your head. So just being vigilant and being open to those kind of things. I don't know if Christie has anything Doctor Monaghan Al has anything she wants to add to that. 

Dr. Christy Monaghan [00:45:44] I think that it's stated very well. I think certainly, as you mentioned earlier, your Tania the importance of talking with someone as people in my profession, in your profession, we feel like we should be able to handle everything to take care of everything. We tend to be perfectionistic sometimes, which can be good, but it can be problematic as well. So I think certainly to maintain your social relationships and also at times, if indicated or desire with a mental health specialist. 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:46:19] I had talked about that friend in Maryland that would constantly check in on me, and she was really like the lifeline that I viewed it. She later told me that she had to go for counseling because she was so traumatized by the fact that she knew I was in an abusive relationship and that I wasn't leaving and that I wasn't disclosing everything, and she was frustrated that she couldn't do more. So I think unfortunately it had, you know, trauma to a secondary person also. 

Dr. Christy Monaghan [00:46:49] On that same note, do you have 

Christie Bhageloe [00:46:52] advice for how to walk that line as a friend or a relative or or a coworker, and trying to express your concerns without pushing them back into the abusers arms or closing off that relationship between the two of you? 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:47:07] I think just constantly being like, I support any decisions you make. I'm here to talk to you because what happens is typically victims will live five to seven or try to live five to seven times before they actually leave an abusive relationship. Family and friends get frustrated, and they sort of say, Well, if you don't, if you go back, I'm not going to support you anymore. Just being that unconditional support, I think, is really the biggest thing that you can do for someone just being that safe person that they can always talk to, that they know that you're going to support them and listen to them and help them. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:47:42] I think that's really important because we do tend to be fixers, and sometimes that's exactly what someone needs at the time. Doctor Monaghan. I was wondering how you feel about therapy over Zoom? What are your thoughts about that's become more popular, especially during COVID? Is it as good as in person or should people come see you in person? 

Dr. Christy Monaghan [00:48:03] Well, certainly the preferable approach would be in-person and in-person therapy with COVID and other factors, sometimes we have used the Zoom, the virtual telehealth, more and more. So basically, I would say it's not necessarily the manner of the interaction, whether it's in-person or virtual. But to make certain that you are finding someone who has the appropriate credentials and training. There are a number of online places now that you can call in and speak with their therapist, but you don't necessarily really know who you're talking with. So I think certainly to just take someone with the appropriate credentials. And then of course, the importance of the match is to someone that you feel comfortable with and someone that you are trusting. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:49:05] Is there a certain reputable website that you recommend to find doctors with good credentials? 

Dr. Christy Monaghan [00:49:12] Yes. The Florida Psychological Association has a directory. Also, Psychology Today has listings therapists in different states with their areas of expertize and their experience. American Psychological Association is is also another very good reference in seeking a therapist that would be most effective for that individual. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:49:40] All right, thank you. And I know we haven't made this a very visual webinar because it's going to be made into a podcast, but never fear I will compile all these the resources you've been hearing about and put it in the follow up email with the recording. And while we check to see if there's any more questions I figured I would see if Alison and Chris Tang have any additional questions. I'm going to put the information in the chat. The number is kind of a long one, so your best bet is the chat or the follow up email. But in case you want to write it down, it's two one zero eight zero eight nine a.m. Nancy. So I will put that in the chat while we see if Alison Chris Tang have additional questions. I don't have any additional questions. Thank you so much for having us. 

Alison DeBelder [00:50:26] I guess I just have one. If people who are attending are interested in doing some kind of volunteer work or other ways that they could help with issues around domestic violence, is there anything that you could recommend off the top of your head? 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:50:41] Yes. So I did look at that participant list and I did see that there are a lot of IFP project attorneys on here. They're all amazing and incredible and doing great work all around the state. So that's awesome. As far as doing things for the shelter, so obviously financial contributions are always welcome. If someone wants to volunteer, even if it's just volunteering to drive, to get groceries or drive a participant to court or something like that. That's always helpful. Betty Griffin has the thrift store. You can donate your gently used clothing and household items there that all goes to helping the shelter and then, most of all, just speaking out and educating others about domestic violence and taking a stand against it. That's really the biggest thing, you know, if you have a zero tolerance for it and you let people know that you have a zero tolerance for domestic violence, that's really going to impact, you know, how others view it and start by believing victims. That's the most important thing because it's hard enough to come forward and say things, but not being believed is almost as bad as being a victim. We see the domestic violence in the news and all around us, it is happening to people, maybe even people on this podcast, it's happening to friends, family, neighbors, coworkers. I just think you know that the most recent the Gabby Petito issue has brought it to light. But you know, there are many people out there suffering, and I think just being vigilant to that is really important. 

Alison DeBelder [00:52:11] Thank you. 

Tania Schmidt-Alpers [00:52:12] Thank you. 

Christie Bhageloe [00:52:14] Thank you all so much for being here, I really appreciate your expertise. And thank you to everyone on this webinar who does this work every day. I really admire all of you. Best wishes to all of you. Have a fabulous week and I will see you next time. Hi, everybody. 

Chris Moser [00:52:32] Trauma InJustice is created by Alison DeBelder and Chris Moser and engineered by Chris Higgins. Thanks for listening. To help us out, please subscribe to the podcast. Leave a star rating and review us on Apple Podcasts and share with others who might be interested.