"Is it possible for trauma to lead to personal growth?”
As a civilian employee, Olive Mazerolle gave thirty-five years of her life to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. At the end of her career, after experiencing both personal and professional traumas, she found herself diagnosed with moderate-to-severe PTSD. Through years of seeking the psychological help she needed, she finally understood that her traumas had led her to Post Traumatic Growth (PTG).
For Olive, PTG was transformative and brought renewed growth after adversity. She turned towards altruism, opened up to new experiences, became spiritually mature and embraced gratitude for the life she now lives, saying, “Without these challenges, I may not be the person I am proud to be today.”
Healing from immense grief and guilt led her to accept that life’s adversities are indeed life lessons. Her cancer diagnosis led to a healthier lifestyle. Addressing sexual harassment in the workplace brought validation and restored her confidence. And most importantly, she recognized that a shift to positive thinking can control anxiety.
This beautifully written, heartfelt memoir of survival, grace and evolution will deepen your appreciation for life.
"Is it possible for trauma to lead to personal growth?”
As a civilian employee, Olive Mazerolle gave thirty-five years of her life to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. At the end of her career, after experiencing both personal and professional traumas, she found herself diagnosed with moderate-to-severe PTSD. Through years of seeking the psychological help she needed, she finally understood that her traumas had led her to Post Traumatic Growth (PTG).
For Olive, PTG was transformative and brought renewed growth after adversity. She turned towards altruism, opened up to new experiences, became spiritually mature and embraced gratitude for the life she now lives, saying, “Without these challenges, I may not be the person I am proud to be today.”
Healing from immense grief and guilt led her to accept that life’s adversities are indeed life lessons. Her cancer diagnosis led to a healthier lifestyle. Addressing sexual harassment in the workplace brought validation and restored her confidence. And most importantly, she recognized that a shift to positive thinking can control anxiety.
This beautifully written, heartfelt memoir of survival, grace and evolution will deepen your appreciation for life.
Trauma and grief followed me at every moment of my life until I finally found true joy.
I never thought of these events as abnormal until I started writing about them and reading them out loud to my writing group. Seeing the expressions of shock and awe from my five wonderful WOWs (Women of Words) made me realize that my experiences were not commonplace.
It’s almost too much! It’s unbelievable that you have lived through these experiences and come out at the other end happy and healthy, said teary-eyed Eveline.
That was an ah-ha moment for me! How did I end up living happily ever after with everything I had been through? And if I could be happy, perhaps I could help someone else go through difficult times by writing a book about my journey to wellness. Would such a book be worthwhile to someone else?
The idea kept nagging at me to go further but how to explain how I got here? Shortly after Eveline’s remark, and as I had done many times before, I did my research on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I read for days. I was surprised to find an interesting article on Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG), a new term coined by Richard Tedeschi, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and his colleague, Lawrence Calhoun, PhD.
According to these two researchers, dozens of studies have shown that trauma survivors can change in profound ways. And it goes well beyond resilience, or bouncing back from adversity. With post-traumatic growth, a person who has faced difficult challenges doesn't just return to baseline, which is what happens with resilience. They change in fundamental, sometimes dramatic, ways.
Today, I realize that Post-Traumatic Growth saved me. There is no doubt in my mind. I knew I wanted to live a better life so I turned towards altruism, opened up to new experiences, and sought professional help. As a result, I became spiritually mature and embraced gratitude for my life which in turn made me a much happier person.
In writing this book, I self-evaluated whether I had achieved growth after the many traumas I had experienced based on the five areas of Tedeschi and Calhoun’s Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory. (It will be indicated at the end of the applicable sections.)
1: Appreciation of Life
2: Relationships with Others
3: New Possibilities in Life
4: Personal Strength
5: Spiritual Change
My greatest wish is that you find optimism and healing from the hard lessons of my life, and if you can take comfort or clarity from this book, it will have fulfilled its purpose.
Olive
Dancing with the Clouds, by Olive Mazerolle
The main focus of this story is Olive who worked as a civilian at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for decades. Throughout her time there and even before she was an adult, she had already experienced tragedies and personal loss; and the trauma from those events followed her for years. She enters the male-dominated para-military government workforce as a 20-year-old hired in her first job. Not the most supportive or tolerant group of people to be surrounded by and she had the additional stress of working shifts, holidays, and weekends, many times without adequate sleep and care. Throughout Olive's tenure at RCMP, she experienced many times the horrific aftermath of criminal behavior against another human being. On top of the past events and the current work experiences, Olive now wrestles with her physical and mental health, eventually also having to experience debilitating chemotherapy. Olive worked hard to find peace and growth throughout her experiences and is hopeful that she also has provided a template of sorts that others with trauma could follow.
Olive Mazerolle's life experiences changed her and changed her for the better. This memoir is of a strong, resilient fighter who finds growth and gratitude because of her darkest moments. She sees open doors when other doors have closed. Her writing style is descriptive and also very personal. The book brings insight into those life experiences that can stack on top of each other and later in life, weigh you down. Mazerolle has carefully described the physical and mental effects of trauma and stress she experienced. I found her writing poignant and she showed a high level of perception even through her darkest moments. Understanding that many would not be interested or able to read about Olive's experiences, Olive told her story well and has provided a way forward for many who have suffered trauma. I have rated this book a 3/5.