It surprises and delights me thinking about my writing journey. I began writing in 2015 to share my experiences of the shameful history and horrors of apartheid. I believed reading was enough to write a book, but was soon proved wrong. For me, I needed healing and my healing started when I began to scribble childhood memories on scraps of paper, serviettes, toilet paper, the backs of grocery lists, anything I could find in-between my hundred hour work-weeks. Soon, I’d healed enough to cut back on clinical work and dedicate more time to writing.
Writing courses taught me the art and craft of technical and creative writing, but the writers and mentors I met taught me about trauma. My instructor Cathleen With mentioned Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score, a book about how our bodies change with repetitive trauma. The book gave me the language to explain how stress affects our minds and bodies. It highlighted a vacuum in the traditional medical model and inspired me to turn to fields of study outside of medicine.
Mentors, university courses, and peer writers showed me a new way to listen. I began to pay attention to stories. My patients shared their experiences of racism, prejudice, neglect, and resilience. I learned why certain people suffer more with chronic pain than others, why they develop multiple chronic diseases and why they die young. I became a trauma informed doctor.
My patients also taught me how they survive, how to sit with your pain. When they shared their vulnerabilities, my defenses began to break down. Slowly I recognized my own trauma, the way I’d dissociated from my early years into adulthood, consistently turning away from the painful truth.
Therapy was the next step, EMDR eye movement desensitization and reprocessing and then internal family systems therapy. My therapist, Frantisek Anderko walked with me as I prepared to leave a relationship of forty years. My dearest aunt/sister Elizabeth Hermse and her partner Cathy and my new closest friends, Gina and Val helped me through many phases of guilt and despair. In a month, it will be September 19th 2025, a year from the day I chose my freedom.
I have writing, my loved ones, and my patients to thank for my blessed life.
Death of a Prairie Boy
I remember our first visit, his painfully thin frame, long legs in jeans tucked into scuffed cowboy boots, heels impatiently tapping the blue-grey ceramic tiles of my office floor, Brian gruffly complaining, “I told them specialists I don’t need no damn fool GP.”
Pain Warrior
The provincial College of Physicians and Surgeons had introduced new opioid prescribing regulations. I ignored their first letter, confident I was an underprescriber of the potentially lethal substances. Poor deluded doc. Months later, reams of computer printout had revealed the ugly truth — a long list of patients flagged for my attention. Lisa threatened to scupper my mission to slash the list.
Judy Dercksen
CMAJ April 15, 2019 191 (15) E425-E426; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.180957
A Second Chance
Mary’s name popped up on my screen, her appointment the last of the day. A hollowness thudded in my gut. Six years ago, as her family doctor, I’d failed her and she’d left my practice. Soon after, she’d moved away to a nearby town. But her new family doctor had referred her to me for a chronic pain consult.
I took a deep breath. I promised myself to not let her down today. Since she’d last seen me, I’d learned a lot more about trauma-informed medical care.
Contributed to The Globe and Mail, Published November 30, 2022
Trauma Informed High Impact Chronic Pain
Managing HICP can feel overwhelming, but the process is usually a marathon, not a sprint. Each visit is an opportunity to support the patient on their journey. Even short appointments can be used effectively, by utilizing self-report pain forms, or by introducing patients to education videos. Every appointment can be used to validate patients’ symptoms and reinforce hope.
Judy Dercksen 