Dr. O:
Hey, Hey, Hey, welcome to the Black Marriage and Family Therapy Matters podcast where we connect black families to black therapists. Oh, right. We have a special therapist with us today. She is a longtime friend and a colleague that I have worked with before in the past and we are so blessed to be able to share her with you today. Her name is Danielle McDowell. Hi, Danielle.
Danielle McDowell:
Hey, thanks for having me.
Dr. O:
You are very welcome. We are so honored to have you here today. Danielle is a self described warrior who shares her experiences from being broken and confused to a successful resident in counseling advocate, best selling author, and speaker. She’s a former high school teacher and mental health professional. Danielle has channeled her passion for empowering others through coaching and counseling them to identify their assets and uncover their inner warrior mindset and intuitive and results oriented leader herself. Danielle engages and leads her clients through dynamic interactive interactive transformations. She’s devoted to working with adolescents, adults and couples from all walks of life. As a mother of three she knows firsthand the difficulties that individuals face while managing their responsibilities while accomplishing personal goals. With a commitment to serve, she offers the community wisdom, encouragement and supportive resources to help individuals meet their goals using a transparent approach. Her playful delivery style allows for individuals to gain wisdom without all the seriousness. She prides herself in relaying a message to her clients that’s easily understood and provides real solutions to everyday problems. Danielle aims to create a safe and non judgmental therapeutic environment and welcomes her free expression and exploration. She maintains a collaborative approach and encourages her clients to remain curious as they work to achieve their goals. Oh my god, Danielle, if I didn’t already know you, I would want to know you by reading that.
Danielle McDowell:
Thank you. Thank you. I work really hard.
Dr. O:
Good.Well, well, good. But you also work hard in your life to be all of that.
I do I do. And I think I was definitely led by God to be be in this work. And I didn’t… I don’t do this work lightly. So very passionate about helping other families just because I’ve had that on help in my own family. And for my center. Good. So very good.
Dr. O:
Well, I appreciate that. And I’ve said this before on the podcast, and I know I’ll say it in the future. One. I love the way the counselors who come on this show allowed God to use them and place them in people. But I love the transparency. Because as a therapist, myself who’s committed to this work, I don’t see how people can come out here and do this if they’re not willing to go through it themselves. And great. Yeah. And your approach is so personable that it seems very welcoming. So, yeah. So so as you know, you know, I want to talk to you today. And I think I was telling you this before we started this conversation. This topic makes me nervous girl, because it’s so it’s personal. I’m not gonna lie. I am an adult survivor of sexual trauma. People who follow me people have been in my work know this book we got a problem in the black community with is that
Danielle McDowell:
Yeah, most definitely. Yeah. So many layers.
Dr. O:
What does that mean?
Danielle McDowell:
So when you think about trauma, you just mentioned sexual trauma. But there’s so many other types of trauma and layers like generational trauma. So when you talked about the topic, and you get into the word trauma, there’s so many different things with complex trauma. That’s the toxic stress behind different things. So it’s big, it’s like a big thing. And it’s difficult to talk about in a few minutes of a podcast, and I’m hoping that we’re able to tap into some of the information that black families can use so that they can see that there is hope. And there’s help. And there are resources, and there are things you can do when you’re experiencing trauma.
Dr. O:
Oh, gosh, Danielle, you know, I’m a clinician, you’re a clinician, we’ve been trained for this stuff, but a lot of our audience has not so what is trauma?
So trauma is stressed, but it’s like a toxic level of stress. So we all experienced Stress Stress, we tend to think stress is bad, but stress is not bad. Having stress is not bad because you can be anxious about getting married, right?
Danielle McDowell:
Yes,
Dr. O:
That provides a little bit of stress. That doesn’t mean it’s bad. But then there are other situations where the stress can be at toxic levels, and it can cause trauma. It can also be thing that happened to you. So like, for instance, you mentioned about sexual abuse. And that was an experience that caused something traumatic in your life. So when I think about trauma, I think about either a thing, or stressor that’s affecting your functioning and life.
okay?
And your ability to function.
Dr. O:
Okay?
Danielle McDowell:
Something in life that affects your ability to function. In your practice, is there a form of trauma or a form of functioning, that you see more often than other than others that people might need to look out for?
Danielle McDowell:
Well, typically, I see a lot of childhood trauma, things that happened in childhood that are affecting families. So parents are being affected about by things that happened to them when they were young children, and they’re bringing that into their adult experiences. And then their kids are now being affected by things that have happened to them. And I can’t speak to it being just like one specific thing. But individuals who have experienced like really bad poverty, or stressful environments where there was abuse in the home, be it physical abuse, or emotional abuse, and bring those different experiences into their own families, and it becoming a generational thing. So mom experienced it, grandma experienced it. And now I have this teenage daughter in my office that is hurting from things that happen using years ago, but it’s trickling down to her. And so I see a lot of that, with families that I’m working with currently here in the Hampton Roads area.
Dr. O:
And what makes it hard, like, what makes it hard for people, one to recognize that this is trauma, and two to prevent the trauma from being passed on from one generation to the next?
Danielle McDowell:
Well, I think part of it is the education piece. And when we speak specifically to the black community, there are some barriers for the black community when it comes to mental health support. And a couple of those barriers are…
Dr. O:
Please I was like, please tell us what these barriers are… the lack of resources for someone that’s competent, okay. And so when I say competence, we need more black therapists who can connect and be competent and help support our black families, because we have a unique experience. And I know that there are courses where other individuals other therapies, other therapists of other ethnicities can go take this course, and learn our experience. But sometimes I feel it’s a little bit more deeper than just the textbook. And so when I have like families come in, I can relate to them in a way that another person or another ethnicity may not be able to relate, for shared experience. So I think that’s part of it. And also resources. So having families who have limited resources and feeling like they don’t have the money for the support they need. So some of my clients come in, and they can use things like Medicaid to cover but if they need like couples therapy, Medicaid’s not covering all couples.
Dr. O:
Right… right…
Danielle McDowell:
And there are limitations to some of the insurance policies that lower income people can use to seek out the service. And then there are limited services available. And that’s just one piece of the puzzle. The other piece is the distrust that black families have when it comes to mental health support. And they have valid reasons because historically, when individuals of color would seek out support, that could mean that they were hospitalized.
Dr. O:
Girl preach it.
Danielle McDowell:
Or it could mean that they were sterilized and just unfairly diagnosed, unfairly treated. And we still have some of that in our community today, not to the same significance. But we are still seeing trends of black individuals being diagnosed and incorrectly more often. For things like ADHD. I see that so much in little black boys. Yeah, it was just a little black.
They’re being just little boys.
Dr. O:
Yeah.
Danielle McDowell:
So I understand the barriers. I’m hopeful to be a change agent, and my small way to help black families feel safe for her to know that I’m a therapist who gets it. And I’m a therapist, who cares. And I’m also a therapist who has utilized the service so I’m not telling people to go do something that I haven’t had experience for myself because like You I have a shared experience of sexual trauma.
Dr. O:
Thank you for sharing.
Danielle McDowell:
Thank you. I have a daughter that struggled with mental health things. And we’ve had to utilize these services to help heal ourselves.
Dr. O:
Absolutely.
Danielle McDowell:
So when I go speak, and I educate my community, I speak very transparently from a space of I’ve used it. So I’m not telling you to do something that I don’t know firsthand, I’m not speaking from a textbook, I’m speaking from experience, too. And that’s helpful, but we definitely have those barriers in place. So I’m very passionate about this. So you don’t have to just be like, okay.
Dr. O:
No, girl, keep it, keep it coming. Keep it coming. Because we need to hear this. I want to piggyback off of something you just said, because I think it was very powerful. In my practice, and I’m not gonna lie in my personal life, with certain traumatic events have happened, such as sexual abuse, a lot of the language that I hear and have received was, well, it happened to me. And you just said, and you know, you can share as much about this as you’re comfortable with, but she said, You are a survivor of sexual trauma. And then you said your daughter’s had her mental health challenges, but you got her help. You did not say what well, even if you said, well, it happened to me, it was comma, but I’m going to help you. And that sounds like what needs to start to be able to break the cycle to break the pattern. So can you tell our listeners a little bit more about how to get from? Well, it happened to me, because we agree that this is a generational thing has happened to a lot of our parents and grandparents and great grandparents. But the point is, how did the lightbulb go off in your head that says, it stops here, we’re gonna break the cycle. And I’m going to get my daughter some help.
Danielle McDowell:
Really, because of my experience, I was in such a dark place. And for many years, I was spiraling. So I have a twin sister who witnessed my spiral. Yes, in that dark place, I didn’t see hope or reasons for moving forward until I got pregnant with my daughter. So she became my light, and my purpose. And so in parenting her, and seeing that she started to struggle, I didn’t want her to be in that dark place. Because I knew what it was like. And I wanted to do everything in my capacity to help her have a better experience. So she doesn’t go on her 20s in her 30s carrying things, and that she has a better opportunity of healing it now while she’s young, so that when she has her own family, they won’t be burdened by because I take ownership that some of the hurt that I had experienced in my teens, I brought into my mothering experience, and I’m accountable for that. I don’t see my mothering experience as a failure, because I wanted to do some things differently. But I take ownership, that there were some things that happened to me that affected my children, period.
Dr. O:
What well, and let me add to that. First of all, again, I know a little bit about this, just because your sister and I are friends. And that’s actually how we met. But very little, I know what you’re talking about here anything but I have seen the growth as well, because we were actually international in South Africa, I believe, either when you have the baby or when you first you know, whatever. And just to see that for over a decade to go to where you are today. That’s amazing. But I also want to say something else. I’m a parent too now. And we’re it’s not perfect, we are not perfect. And one of the biggest things that we can contribute to our children is letting them know that and let them because I think what we see and I’m curious to hear from you, a lot of parents chalked it up to “Well, I did the best I could” or “you know, I tried it” ect.Like we get it. But you still did some damage. And I feel like being able to say that, you know, my my daughter is obviously a lot younger than yours. So if there are any mental health issues, you know, it’s a little premature to tell that but she’ll she’s quick to let me know if i discipline her and I’m wrong for that. Or if if any, you know what I mean? And it’s so easy for me to say well, I’m the mama, you know, I did the best I could with the information I had. Can you talk to our audience a little bit more about how important it is to be able to say, oh, man, I didn’t know what I did I know. And I want to get it right.
Danielle McDowell:
In and that’s really what it is. And I had this epiphany because my daughter is now 18. She is a freshman in college.
Dr. O:
Go Girl. I love it.
Danielle McDowell:
I’m so blessed.
Dr. O:
That’s the single mother right there who’s now married by the way, but she wouldn’t have done this like, congratulations.
Danielle McDowell:
Thank you. She has her own walking testimony. Yes. So I play a little part in that. She’s the reason why she is where she is. I set with her and I apologize for the things that I Didn’t do just right. And I took accountability for that. And it was something that I’ve learned in this process, because I got a really believe I got into the mental health field, not only just to heal my family, but to heal other things.
Dr. O:
Oh, yeah.
Danielle McDowell:
And in this work, I’ve been able to do some work in my family, but then extend that education out to my community. And so I’m telling, and I’m working with mothers, and I’m saying it’s okay to apologize to your child, when you don’t get it right. Yeah, let them know that you are human. And that sometimes, you’re going to do what you feel is best for them. With the information that’s so weird, as you get more information, and you learn more, then you may change and evolve, but it’s okay to take ownership. If that was the wrong call. Oh, like if I said it the wrong way, if I did something the wrong way, and take ownership of that. And that helped. That helps the young person to see when I become an adult, it’s alright, for me to also not be perfect. Absolutely, there is no manual for parenting. There’s no book that says, go to page 67, to see how to deal with this.
Dr. O:
Right.
Danielle McDowell:
So we do the best we can. But we also need to take ownership, when we could have done things a little bit differently. Also, really empathize with our children’s experience, because it’s their experience. So your perspective may be that what you did was what needed to be done, but your child may see it differently. And it’s okay for your child to have a different perspective. And you can keep your perspective but also ensure that that child feels like they’re being heard. And their perspective is also being respected. And once I make that shift in my family, there’s a different dynamic that me and my daughter have now we’re still working progress. I tell people all the time, I’m still her mother, we are still working through say.
Dr. O:
Yes, yes, yes…
Danielle McDowell:
I’m not the expert, in mothering, However, I’ve been able to learn through this work, that there are things you can do to improve the relationship. And we are improving our relationship each day. And I’m able to help other families do that, and do their work. And see, let parents see that it’s okay to be accountable for things that you feel like you could have done a little differently.
Dr. O:
I love it. I love it.
I find myself often educating parents, and caregivers, you know, or spouses or whatever and letting letting them know how important it is to do exactly what you said, and how traumatic it is to do the exact opposite. And I’m interested to hear from you is do you see, one of the things that I see is sometimes it is worse than the actual traumatic event there to have somebody that you trust, and you care about and you value. That’s where it boils down to is you value this person’s opinion. And this person tells you I don’t believe you, or I did the best I could or your perspective doesn’t matter. I mean, a lot of times, especially in context of sexual assault. I yes, we talk very brief, we talk a lot of my clients will open up and say this happened to me, etc. But it’s the domino effect. It’s mommy saying, “Well, you know, you shouldn’t have worn that,” you know, or daddy said, “Well, why were you playing with him?” You know, “what did you do to cause it?” You know, that is really what’s harming our community? Would you agree?
Danielle McDowell:
I definitely agree with that. And I’ve done a lot of like trauma training. And one of the key things that you see when someone experiences something traumatic from it has a lot to do with their support that they receive. So you can be in pretty challenging environments experience really significant things. But if you have the right support and the right nurting, studies have shown, vast decrease in symptoms, just based on that support. So experiencing that much sexual trauma as we spoke of having a family member there, that’s not supportive doesn’t help. Even if you as the parent, do not believe the child, it is not necessary to say that even demonstrating that thought. Always act as if it happened, so that the child feels that they can come to you when they need to come to period. A lot of times. I don’t think that in our black families, we have been educated on how harmful, it can say the thing like, “why are you wearing that? So why did you put yourself in that situation? Or it happened to me too.” Those are all very dismissive things you’re making the person who was harmed be responsible for something that happened to them. That was out of their control period. It’s the abuser who is responsible for their actions, not the person, that’s the victim. But I think that’s the education piece. And, and we have like, some historical kind of
Dr. O:
Girl, yes.
Danielle McDowell:
Things that we have said to each other, and our families that just keep going from one generation to the next, like the what happens in a house these days and the house and understand where it comes from. But I also think that has hindered and caused a lot of people to carry a lot of hurt, or they feel like they can’t voice it.
Dr. O:
And like you said, there’s not enough of us out there really to voice it to, you know, because you can’t tell it everywhere. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Danielle McDowell:
And I’m very transparent. But I’m very cautious in my transparency. So when I speak to clients, I tell them, it’s, it helps to be able to release it. But you always have to pay attention to the environment. And the purpose behind that release. Yes. Because there can be consequences based on your transparency. And having a safe therapist, we can go in office, shut the door, and know that that person will hear what I have to say, and it won’t go out of this room is so important. So we definitely need more trained clinicians out in the field.
Dr. O:
Yes. Yes, definitely. Wow, you are really blessing us with your insight. today. Can we talk a little bit about history, you briefly touched on some of the things that we say? What about some of the, you know, behaviors are What about? Okay, what about one of the things that I see a lot of is this, and it’s in battle that is traumatic, which is the premises of this podcast, what we’re trying to address those deep seated things. One of the things that I see, and I love my black men, this is not a jab at them. But first of all, what we’re talking about, it happens in all communities, sexual misconduct in traumatic behaviors happens in all communities, okay. But what I think we are struggling with, is being able to acknowledge when somebody is being an offender, and behaving in that way for fear that we might interrupt the black male narrative that black men are aggressive, or black men are, are sexually deviant, you know, and the statistics show that we are no more deviant that other populations. But most, yes, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t internalized those messages. So I know for me, like in my church growing up, one of the people was in the church, and another person was the child of a big doctor, you know, a black doctor, and it was like, these people could never do these things. One of them was a politician. Now I’m just going. So these people could never do these things, because they’re in this position, but it was happening. And I felt like the black community kind of made it harder for me to speak up because I was just a little child, you know, this thing was happening to me, the politician, only black politician in the area where I’m located, y’all do your research, if you want to figure out who that is. But there’s no way he could have been the person that was responsible for this. So what I’m saying is what types of, I don’t know, can you speak on like, why the black community why we do that and why we, I guess, more or less, how we indirectly in our effort to support the black piece. Sometimes we have our children, our children are vulnerable.
Danielle McDowell:
Yeah. And I don’t know, because that’s a loaded question.
Dr. O:
Okay.
Danielle McDowell:
If I could speak to all of you about, I’ll give you some of my personal insights.
Dr. O:
Okay.
Danielle McDowell:
So I think one thing you said messaging, and messaging plays a huge part, and we’re consistently getting messages thrown at us. Like, I’m currently in Lynchburg, Virginia right now, and I watched the news last night here, okay. And the news. The way that they portray the news is very different here in Lynchburg, Virginia than it is in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Okay. And messaging, messaging messaging, the way that you see black families portrayed on TVs on media, messaging messaging. So because we are bombarded as any other ethnicity that’s watching this media, we take that message in. But we also have this internal conflict because we are also black. And we know that that is not 100. Family and the way the media does it, so, okay, always wanting to come out of I feel like this messaging, that’s false messaging. And we feel if we speak to some of the truth of the matter. Yes, yes. Yes. It is causing 10 steps back. Yeah, actually, as a community, we need to combat Yes. Truth in the messaging, because it is true. But also some of the other layers of things that the messaging about like, they don’t talk about the big income gap that we have in the black community, and how Yes, black income gap significantly affects our abilities, to have housing, to have pointed to have the resources we need to deal with some of the things that cause us to be in certain situations like the example you gave, I thought about the income disparity there, this politician person with money this person, yes, absolutely. Can’t be seen as someone who’s harmful. Mm hmm. And then also, I’d have to go back to education, because we seem to think that those who offend must be the scary Boogeyman. Yes. Yes. And that, that is not there.
Dr. O:
Yes. Let’s emphasize this, please, please, please, if you are listening, I read an article as many as nine out of 10 childhood survivors, or sexual trauma comes from the family or someone that you trust. So what you’re consistently doing is we’re teaching our children to be fearful of the 10% that you know, the 10% of cases as a stranger, you know, or somebody that you don’t know, for, we’re completely disregarding the 90% of who you do know, most.
Danielle McDowell:
And that’s so incredibly dangerous. And a lot of it has to do with proximity, and just being close. I mean, who else? I mean, first of all, no stranger really getting access to my child, like I know exactly where they are, right now knows, keeping them, I’m paying them. So they better do what I tell them to do. You know, like, it’s so yeah, so it was very important to be able to understand that thoroughly when you’re letting your children as your children exist.
Dr. O:
Yeah.
Danielle McDowell:
And and to teach children, their own unique individual saying yourself. So I learned with my daughter that I couldn’t protect her. So because I was assaulted by a male who was an adult, I protected my daughter vigitally, right men, right, got it. If I dated someone, I will tell you it’s death… that’s just what it is. But I didn’t think about the children. And so like, little kids, assault others, there’s no gender to this thing. There’s no age to this thing. There’s no race to this thing. There offenders all over the place. And you really have to teach your children how to keep themselves safe. How to know that no kid, no cousin, no. Loved One should be touching you in certain places. Or also teaching them the grooming techniques, so that they are aware of when someone’s grooming them to do something that’s not appropriate. And starting young, I really tell people to stop waiting for your kids to get big enough to hurt hear about before you start talking about sexual abuse kind of too late. They need to know young, they need to know young, not age appropriate for sure, making age appropriate, but also having that dialogue when they’re young. So they understand that people should not be touching them in certain ways. And they’re able to identify when someone’s grooming them.
Dr. O:
That’s very good. And I can’t thank you enough for your transparency. I’ll also share you know my daughter’s four. I’ve talked about her in the podcast many times. And one of the things that we do is we have this saying you don’t touch butt you don’t touch milkies because I nurse her so we call them milkies. And we don’t touch peepee. And she will say that and recite that. So she’s very clear and she’s only four years old. She doesn’t really know what that means. But she knows that it whatever it is, that’s my personal space and you’re not allowed to touch them. And a quick funny story is one day then I tell everybody you know everybody like knows that about us if you keep my daughter and one day my daughter was on The playground with her nanny and her nanny was a she was trying to get caught the monkey bars and it was, you know, her nanny just kind of needed to push her up. And it was convenient to push her up on her butt you know what I mean, it wasn’t anything inappropriate. But my daughter was just very quick to say, No, we don’t touch butt don’t touch milky, we don’t peepee. And Nanny actually came home and told me to just in case, you know, because she knew my daughter was gonna tell me. And you know, we were, but but I want like, basically, what I’m trying to say is I want that narrative that near that conversation should be safe. And if you keep if you’re allowing your children to be around people where they might be offended by something like that, or you know why, you know, I’ve always said sleep overs. Like for you just in case you want my kids to sleep over at your house, you know, you need to know, I need to know who’s going to be there, where the adults going to sleep, where the children want to sleep, for how long, etc, I need to be very clear about those arrangements. And if you feel like I’m asking too many details, or you’re giving too much information, that that’s a telltale sign for me that you know that this isn’t safe. Yeah, because I think that parents should all feel that way. Do you kind of think that’s important as well,
Danielle McDowell:
I totally agree, tell because I work with a lot of teens. And I tell the parents, and preteens that you need to know your teams and your pre teams, friends, parents, and not just know their name and where they live. kind of know these things. Yes. Because these are the people who are also shaping your child’s thoughts and perceptions about life just as much as you are shaping it, they are shaping at home, and you want to know, for safety, what these people are thinking and how they operate. And spend some time with your kids friends, and get to know them to also keep that dialogue open. So your young people, your children know what I need to look out for in these different environments. So yes, I 100% agree it’s a lot of work is speak. Sometimes I get parents pushback, when do I have time to do that? You have to make time. Now you just have to make time. That’s just what it is. be intentional about it. I mean, you can do this, if your kid is young, while you’re brushing teeth. You know, at night when your bedtime storytime, you know, underride the school in the morning, you know, like you were a prayer time when you saying your prayers before grace, you know, their variety of ways. But this is this is very important.
Dr. O:
One thing I think people I see a lot is people think that if they talk about this, that they’re going to expose their children to sexual behavior. But first of all, first of all, somebody’s going to expose them to it, whether you do or not. And also the research shows that it actually delays sexual like promiscuity. It does, you know, because a lot of times the curious. Yeah, I mean, let’s be real, a lot of what you know, we’re sick, we are sexualizing things like, there’s a picture of like a Coca Cola bottle where there’s a piece of ice up there. And the ice is in the shape of a woman’s body. You know, it does, you know, so a little kid is drinking that probably doesn’t have that awareness, but they’re getting, you know, they’re getting in, let alone saying things like, well, “boys will be boys,” or, you know, My son is nursing. So someone might say “get it boy, or something like that,” like something, encourage those type of sexual behaviors, and they don’t know what to do with them.
Danielle McDowell:
Yeah, in the middle, is even in like the cartoons. Yeah. I sat down and watch Disney and not the messaging in some of the Disney show. Yes, that’s just there. So yes, I hope that a parent who hears this podcast will take that they should not allow the environment to teach their children about that part of life, about sexuality, about keeping yourself safe, don’t allow the environment to do that for your children, you need to be the person that shares that knowledge with them and make sure it’s age appropriate. And if you need help their resources, I tell people, you can google just about anything. You have some resources right before hands. If you’re not sure how to start the conversation, look, there are books, children’s books that you can now buy and read to your children that will help you with the dialogue about sexuality, safety, and all these different things. So there’s no excuse to allow the environment to give your children that messaging because they need to hear from you the truth to help limit their ability to get into some really bad situations because if a 10 year olds getting all their advice from other 10 year olds 10 year old wisdom. Period.
Dr. O:
For parents who are so oblivious and think this stuff isn’t happening, like I’ve had a nine year old, looking at pornography in the schools, you know, because they give you these little iPads a lot of the times, and all you got to do is type some stuff in there, even when it has a child lock on it, you can get around it. So yeah, it’s very important to have the conversation. Danielle, I’m going to ask you a couple more questions. And then we’re going to get to our WHAT’S GOOD? segment. But in terms of a history, we’re talking about generational curses. And we briefly spoke about, you know, this was before, you know, we started recording, but you know, our history has some ugly sexual innuendos too. And I’m wondering, how do you think the influence of maybe the shame of that, or the guilt of that, or the discomfort with that kind of plays into some of the blurred boundaries that we have with sexual contact today.
Danielle McDowell:
I definitely think it’s impactful. And also to add the piece that typically you are harmed by someone, you know, love and trust. So, layers, we have the historical stuff, we have our loved ones who we trust, or people that we have in our lives that do these things. And there’s this conflict. So specifically, because I do a lot of work with young people. They’re not able to compartmentalize things. So it’s really difficult for young person to to know that this is my uncle. And my uncle, my family loves my uncle. And he’s part of my family. And I love my uncle, but my uncle does these things. Right? So because we have all these layers, we have to be tackling it. And lots of different approaches. Because it’s there, we can’t change the history. We can’t change the things that have happened. And but we can’t change what’s happening right now. And we could do some things a little different. And one thing is prevention. Yes. Mm hmm. educating our kids so that they understand what to look for, how to keep themselves safe. And then the next piece is really, in a black community, being very comfortable with understanding that yes, there is growth and progress in our community. If we don’t continue to speak to some of the things that are hindering us, we won’t be successful.
Dr. O:
No, we won’t.
Danielle McDowell:
And we really need to be comfortable with identifying and I think part of it is not making it feel like it’s just us. Like you said earlier, we all ethnicities have the same issues to a degree. We have other issues on top of these things that make it really challenging to resolve it, because we’re also struggling with, like you said, racism, and income disparity, the lack of resources, all those things also make it a little bit more challenging. So we have to collectively accept sometimes that there are some issues. Yeah, we need to work on it. Yes. But we can do the work.
Dr. O:
Yes. Are there particular? Are there any signs that parents might look for? Because when you mentioned the uncle, you know, one of the things that came to my mind was a lot of times in my practice, I’ve seen maybe if you know, the person being maybe extra nice to the child, or, you know, requesting alone time with the child. Was there anything that you see that really stands out, that parents can look for if something like this might be happening?
Danielle McDowell:
Those are grooming tactics, things like having little kids come sit on your lap? Yes, playing with them. Yes, tickling them, forcing kids to kind of hug and
Dr. O:
Gosh, I hate that. Yeah. When I was growing up, I wouldn’r want to hug my grandma, I would get in trouble if I didn’t hug people, you know, and I’m like, I don’t want to hug you.
Danielle McDowell:
And so there’s some cultural things there. And I get it, I understand. But I think that we’re in a time now where we really have to pay attention to those who those cultural things that are not helpful. And other areas. Those are grooming tactics. Someone who wants to abuse someone is happy to take those cultural things and utilize it for bad things. So I say pay attention to those things. Really, at having that open dialogue with your kids, so that they can talk to you about things that make you feel uncomfortable when they tell any kid that comes to me follow your instinct. Oh, if instinctually you feel something ain’t right. Listen to that. Listen to that thing that says it ain’t Right and get yourself out of this. Yes.
And parents support your child when they do that. You know, they might not have the language To say, Uncle Johnny feels like a creep. You know what I’m saying, but they know how they feel when they’re around them. And by not permitting your child to do that you’re telling your child that their opinion doesn’t matter, and that they don’t have agency over their body. And that sets them up for adult relationships, you know, where they feel like they don’t have any control. And that’s really, when we start seeing a lot of problems.
Dr. O:
Agreed. Yes, Danielle, are there any myths surrounding this issue? And we’ve kind of indirectly discussed it, but we haven’t actually used the word. But is there any myths that you know about this topic, whether it’s sexual trauma or just trauma in general that you think is important to address that we hold in the black community?
Danielle McDowell:
I think the biggest one, and I won’t say it as a myth, but I’ll say it’s a challenge that we, we think we could just pray everything Ican to say that, you know, just just pray about it. If you if you if you’re hurting, then that means you’re not trusting God. And I think that there, there’s very significant piece of religion. I’m Christian, I 100%. Believe in prayer. I also believe that God trained us and educated for things to use, along with prayer.
Dr. O:
Yes.
Danielle McDowell:
And we can’t just take people who are really hurting, and significantly dealing with complicated trauma, and just say, pray it away. Because when they pray, and it doesn’t go away, then they feel like now. Well, my relationship with God isn’t strong enough. Yeah, cuz it’s just not healed. Yeah. When they’re there things you can do along with prayer is a holistic approach to healing. So we want to tackle the mind, body and soul. So this mist that we need to just pray. Pray and seek therapy.
Dr. O:
Wow. Amazing. Pray to ask God for therapists. How about that?
Danielle McDowell:
And keep looking until you get one. So yeah, please don’t feel like if I go to someone a couple of times, and it’s not a good fit that all therapists are bad. You have to do some work sometimes to find that person that fits.
Dr. O:
Yes, absolutely. And this is something I can just add real quickly, you know, we’re starting off on this podcast. So at the time that it airs, I don’t know where we’re going to be. But we have our own directory. So please, by all means, if you look on the directory in your state, and you don’t see a therapist, then email me contact me. Let me know and I’ll try to find one for you. Because it’s, it’s really that important. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Now, we’re going to go to a segment of the show called WHAT’S GOOD?Okay. WHAT’S GOOD is a part of the show where we apply this information that we’ve discussed today, for that could be could happen in a real life scenario for our listeners. So are you ready?
Danielle McDowell:
Yes.
Dr. O:
Okay. Meet Chantel. Chantel is a 27 year old African American woman. She has one child from a previous relationship and is in a serious relationship. Currently, she finds that she wants to get married and have more children with the man that she is currently. But she struggles in the area of intimacy. She’s never told anyone but as a child, her mom’s boyfriend used to molest her on a weekly basis. When her mother found out that her boyfriend had done this to another child. She kicked him out of the house but never asked, Chantel if it happened to her. She’s been holding on to the secret for over 20 years. How would you suggest she proceed?
Danielle McDowell:
Hmm. Well, I’m feeling for her. Because I can, I can relate, I would definitely want her to seek out some support, and really be able to process what happened to her because I can 100% say that it is showing up in her relationships, and is definitely showing up probably with a child that she’s already parenting. And it’s likely showing up in that intimate relationship, but also affecting other functions of life. And she wants to do the work. So I would commend her. I’m really big on congratulating people for taking the first step of seeking out some help. Yeah, and so she would receive all kinds of praise and positive regard for me wanting to do something a little different. I would want her to tackle on that abuse head first. And then so that I’m really big. I like Narrative Therapy. I like to write. Music is thing as I do a lot of music therapy. So I would tell her, you know, you can tap into growth, healing this in a lot of different ways. And you want to come seek some support, so we can figure out what’s the best way for you to heal what happened to you, so that it won’t continue to affect your current relationship? significantly. You may not agree that I believe When you experience certain levels of trauma, it will always show up in some form of fact.
Dr. O:
Oh,I absolutely agree.
Danielle McDowell:
Yes, but the significance that it shows up, you get to determine that.
Dr. O:
Yes, you do.
Danielle McDowell:
There’s some things that you can do. So so I don’t cosign the 100% healed from sexual race, I feel like I carry it for the rest of the well.
Dr. O:
It’s the who I am. It’s who I am.
Danielle McDowell:
Yeah, part of me. But I get to decide how much that experience will impact my current relationships. And so, for Chantel, I would encourage her, help her figure out what it is that she needs to do to heal that, so that she can move over and be a little bit transparent and letting her know that that you can’t heal from that. And I know firsthand, like, I’m happily married.
Very good. Congratulations, by the way.
Danielle McDowell:
Thank you appreciate. Yes.
Dr. O:
And congratulations on just the work that you’re doing. Before I let you go, first of all, thank you, thank you so much. Your wisdom has inspired me and I know, it will my listeners. But I’m sure they’re also going to want to follow you as I do as well. So how can someone listening be able to get in contact with you.
Danielle McDowell:
I appreciate it, you can find me on social media, through the healing space. Okay. And the healing space is located in Virginia. So that’s where I practice and the state of Virginia. And you can also locate me on Instagram at @achievableandgreat. So, website is www.myhealing.space. And Instagram again is @achievablegreat.
Fantastic. Danielle, it has been a pleasure to interview you today. I’m telling you from the bottom of my heart. I got chills with your vulnerability and your authenticity and just your knowledge about this subject matter. I know my listeners will as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And it’s been a pleasure to interview you today.
Thank you for having me. I appreciate this opportunity. Like I said, I’m about to talk about trauma all day.
Dr. O:
Girl. Well, maybe we’ll have to bring you back.
Danielle McDowell:
I would love to come back. Thank you for your time.
Dr. O:
You’re welcome. Thank you. Have a wonderful day.
Danielle McDowell:
Bye bye.