TAMMY KAY CHOW
Sacred Attachment Facilitator
MY STORY
I spent a third of my life riding the highs and lows of extreme depression, bulimia, body dysmorphia, low self-worth, sexual trauma, and suicidal ideation. I confidently assume that I could have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, ADD, and borderline personality disorder.
However, I was never "diagnosed" with anything because I was raised in a Chinese family where mental health was never really discussed. I never made it into a therapist's office in my adolescence.
My dad was an alcoholic, and I was told that he was destined to be an alcoholic forever. And that was that.
I had no language to explain the cocktail of emotions I experienced in my teens as a result of my dad's alcoholism - the sneaking around, lying, explosive arguments with my mom, gaslighting, depression, and rage. All of this mixed with the loving, funny, child-like spirit that he was when he was sober.
I didn't have the knowledge to make connections between my family dynamics and my own behaviors, blaming myself for being a complete failure of a person.
When I moved to New York for college, my concoction of drugs, alcohol, smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, promiscuity and Vyvanse were my escape from the emotions that I had yet to process.
I went through many tumultuous relationships, and used my body sexually as a means to receive the "love" that I craved so badly. But the deep feeling of emptiness that I'd always felt only magnified, while re-triggering sexual trauma I experienced throughout my early adulthood.
I was exhausted living in the prison of my restrictive eating disorder, but my stomach would not hold food down and extended to three times its normal size for months at a time. Any doctor I went to told me that this bloating was “normal.”
I experienced ongoing suicidal thoughts and intense social anxiety since beginning Vyvanse, but when I expressed my concern to the psychologist who wrote my prescription, he told me these side effects were also “normal.”
I knew something was up, and I was desperate for help.
My alternative path of healing led me to understand the intimate tie between our bodies and our emotional world, specifically trauma. I learned that I had dissociated and "escaped" my body at an early age in order to cope, and I was living much of my life in a state of immobility and freeze. All of my symptoms and "disorders" were tied to much deeper emotional wounds that I had suppressed for many years.
My practice is informed by the tumultuous highs and lows I've faced through my own lived experience, spiritual journey, and the transformative alignment that I found through somatic therapy.
I had no idea that the path of healing my trauma would open me up to a profound connection with my intuition and inner guidance. It resulted in me finding purpose in my work, art, relationships and led me to the place I now call home.
My deepest desire is helping people remember their sovereignty, so they can live from a place of intuition instead of fear. I am in awe every day by the inner wisdom that emerges, as I witness people like myself coming back home to their bodies.
Experience
Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP)
Somatic Experiencing International
Dynamic Attachment Repatterning Experience Practitioner (DARe)
Dr. Diane Poole Heller
Radical Aliveness Leadership Lab
Ann Bradney
Body Temple Dance Facilitator Training
Adriana Rizzolo
The Broken Mother Field, Challenging Perfectionism, and The Mysteries of Projection Revealed
Sarah Peyton
Family Constellations Intensive New Mexico 2024
Western Constellations Intensive
Somatic Internal Family Systems
Susan McConnell
Non-Linear Movement Method Teacher Training
Michaela Boehm
Compassionate Inquiry Self-Study Trauma Training
Gabor Mate, MD.
Certified Mind Body Eating Coach
Institute for the Psychology of Eating
