Abigail Makepeace is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and the founder of Makepeace Therapy. She is a writer, speaker, and a thought leader on trauma’s impact on relationships. Her TEDx presentation on Parental PTSD brought attention to the role that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder plays in parenting for survivors of childhood abuse. Abigail has been featured as a trauma therapist on the Huff Post
and can be heard as a guest therapist on shows such as, “Rize Up!” on Dash Radio. Her online course, Transformation After Trauma, was created to help adults battling the long term effects of childhood trauma. Abigail teaches workshops internationally, works actively in the field of trauma relief, and has a private practice in Los Angeles, CA.
In this episode we talk about:
- how she ended up at a performing arts high school
- growing up between Florida and Jamaica
- moving to LA to pursue acting when she was 16 and taking education into her own hands to be “legal 18” on set
- the moment that had her quit her waitress job in LA to go to Carnegie Mellon to study acting
- constantly feeling like once I do THIS then I will have my big break
- stumbling into a Craigslist job listing drastically changed the path of her life
- taking acting lessons she learned at Carnegie Mellon to foster kids through her new job and realizing she was really doing drama therapy
- being so impacted by her work with foster kids she chose to go back to school to become a therapist
- how she just recently let go of auditioning and trying to get work as an actress and how she got there
- the similarities in studying acting and therapy
- uncovering that she was suffering not from postpartum after giving birth but PTSD and how her daughter was triggering trauma she had in childhood
- what called her to give her TedX talk and how PTSD isn’t just something that effects war heroes and those that witnessed mass shooting
- how our judgments of whether we experienced trauma or not don’t matter
- how trauma is stored like open tabs in our minds and can get triggered
- how trauma could be physical BUT also emotional or from neglect
- me noticing myself being triggered by my daughter and have been noticing it maybe from my own unhealed childhood trauma
- how adults often won’t allow themselves to see childhood trauma because they feel they have good parents and a great childhood
- how we don’t have to qualify what we are feeling
- what led her to create her course Transformation after Trauma
- Which keychain she chose from my line and why!
Watch her TedX Talk
LINKS to other things/people/music we mentioned!
PS. If we mentioned something and I forgot to include it here leave a comment and I will track it down for you!
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