A Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner practicing in California since 2011, Juliano is a Compassionate Inquiry-focused prescribing provider who views patient-centered care as family-, community-, relationship- and workplace-focused. He provides diagnostic assessments and ongoing medication management for many conditions. Juliano also specializes in helping people deal with their mortality, chronic HIV/AIDS and cancers, and serving the LGBTQ community’s unique needs.
This post is a short edited excerpt of Juliano’s journey from birth and foster care traumas to adding Compassionate Inquiry to his psychopharmacology patients care. Hear his full interview on The Gifts of Trauma Podcast.
I’m definitely an anomaly, unique and special. I was born premature, barely viable. My first breaths were in a body born addicted to crystal meth and crack cocaine. The substances that harmed me and caused my early birth also kept me alive. I was put in a bassinet and pushed to the side, not expected to live throughout the night. When I was still breathing the next day, the doctor said, “We’d better help this one.” No shit, you’d better help this one! And that’s what they did.
I was born to a woman unequipped to be a mother. Her path had no maternal time or space. For the longest time, I thought I was abandoned, but later when I hired private investigators I learned that I was not. My mother was strongarmed, told she could take $10,000 to give me up or go to prison. She took the money. Good for her. I’m not angry. She put me on a path of extraordinary circumstances.
I was a very hyperactive child, I couldn’t sit still or follow directions. I couldn’t do math, read or walk (I scooted.) A foster system doctor noticed my underdeveloped hand eye coordination and recommended I take swimming classes or ballet, some kind of dance, to help me develop. The family I was in had someone in dance. Not wanting another after school adventure, I learned to dance, and having natural ability, I took to it and learned to love movement, classical music, posture and stage presence. I also learned that even the frail and effeminate demanded attention.
Those years were not easy. Foster care systems were not easy. I was abused sexually and physically. I was tortured and tied to beds. People were not kind to me. It was not ideal, but it was my lived experience and I survived it. As Gabor Maté would say, I’m still here.
I was introduced to Compassionate Inquiry® through an online event. A friend sent me the link and I thought, why not? I’d never heard of CI or Gabor Maté. Right before the lunch break, Gabor sent the participants a question, asking, “If you could go back and say no, would you have said no?” It was a 2,000 people forum where everyone wanted to be heard. When everyone was sending their response in the group chat, I accidentally sent a direct message to Gabor Maté. I typed, “That’s a stupid question.” How could I say no to using crystal meth when I couldn’t breathe, speak and had no voice? What a stupid question.I didn’t think anyone would read it. But oh, did he read it!
When we came back from lunch, Gabor said, “I want to speak with Juliano Innocenti”. When we spoke, Gabor learned that I specialize in child and adolescent psychiatry and prescribe medicine. He learned about my journey of premature birth, born addicted. Then he did something I’d never heard or or seen before. He honored me, saying, “Juliano, can I take a moment and honor you for existing?” Then he called me a warrior, a wounded warrior.
When Gabor honoured me, I was hooked. We were connected. Gabor explained that I have the power to leave, to quit. But something inside me keeps me showing up. There’s a gift, there’s wisdom in my trauma and every bit of me wants to show up and use my gift to help others who are going through similar levels of suffering.
I’m not a therapist or a counselor, I’m a psychopharmacologist. I have an hour to hear a person’s life story and figure out what’s wrong; what medication or alchemy, or combination of therapy and alchemy, might improve some of their debilitating symptoms. Then I schedule another appointment and send them on their way. I always saw those meetings as missed experiences or opportunities. So I asked permission to take the Compassionate Inquiry Professional Training Program with the intention of using some of its language, some of the Gabor Maté-isms and some of its stepping stones.
Once trained, when speaking with people I would check in frequently, “Are you okay to continue? What are you feeling in your body?” I would also implement CI-isms in those 15-20 minute conversations. Adding these practices transformed routine box checking assessments into conversations where we can uncover years of hidden shit. Instead of a pill, a modality, program, book, substance or habit, maybe I can compassionately guide people through their own inquiry. Maybe we can identify the places, times and events that caused them to believe their false narratives. In the few minutes we have together, through their own awareness, they can explain and validate their lived experience in non judgmental ways that may even help them explain and validate the lived experience of the person or people who harmed them, so that now, they don’t have to pass it on. They can stop the cycle.
It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. Sometimes I don’t use Compassionate Inquiry. It’s a delicate dance. The time and feeling have to be right. We wear one another’s processes like garments. When we’ve eaten a little too much, the loose fitting garment stretches, but still flows. And when we need it to hold us, the garment will tighten like a belt.
I can use my trauma, harness my dissociation superpower to go through those things with others, with their permission, when they’re ready. I can dissociate to a stronger version of me who’s able to be present. And when our interaction is complete, I can revert back to this version of me with compassion and empathy. I can hold this fragile version of them in a loving embrace, an angelic embrace. I can rock them, metaphorically, in the arms of an angel, knowing there’s a stronger version of me that can hold me in that space and rock me when I need it. And then, when our time is over, I can say thank you, sign their note and invite the next person to come in.
The Gifts of Trauma is a weekly podcast that features personal stories of trauma, transformation, healing, and the gifts revealed on the path to authenticity. Listen to the interview, and if you like it, please subscribe and share.
