I know from the inside what it costs when systems fail people. I often lived on soup, was late paying my rent and had an out-of-control credit card debt as I cobbled together enough money to pay for the support I needed to stop me from drowning. I hate the idea of others struggling alone the way I did.
I am an author, speaker, educator, consultant and advocate. I challenge the systems that allow trauma to keep happening and build practical solutions to address the gaps. My work spans mental health, trauma-impacted people and families, and veteran and first responder communities.
I speak at conferences, develop and lead psychoeducational programs, consult with organisations and contribute to research and policy. My TEDx talk The Pain of Hiding Your True Self has had over 600,000 views. I hold a seat on a Monash University steering committee investigating domestic violence in veteran families, sit on ERMHA's lived experience advisory committee, and co-chair the lived experience group supporting Darebin's distress support program.
Where my work began
When I was young, a lot of my life didn't make sense. I didn't understand why my dad kept lashing out at me or why my mum kept drinking. I didn't know whether others were doing as well as they said they were, or whether they were all just pretending they were fine the way I was.
The superpower I longed for was to be able to sit inside the skin of another person so I could fully understand what it felt like to be them. In many ways my life and career have been a lifelong quest to get as close as possible to making that superpower a reality.
Whether studying genetics at university, inhabiting a character for a performance, capturing the essence of a person on a page, or researching the way our minds and bodies influence the way we feel, I have spent my whole life trying to understand why people are the way they are, what stops us from moving forward, and how we can make things better.
Lived experience leads
Nothing I do is abstract. It is lived first, validated by the experiences of others, and backed by research. I share personal stories because I know how hard it is to speak about traumatic experiences. I want to help break stigma and fight the shame that keeps us silent. I want others to know they are not alone.
I am driven by ongoing frustration that trauma survivors are not being seen or supported in the way they need. I am baffled that the enormous health, economic and social impacts of trauma are not treated with the urgency they deserve.
I grew tired of waiting for things to change. So I became the change I wanted to see.
Books and programs: what I built and why
My memoir Enemy is about growing up as the child of a veteran. I didn't start out wanting to write a book. I started out waiting to read one. After years of looking for a story like mine, and knowing there were so many other veteran children suffering in silence because the systems don't recognise us, I decided the storytelling was up to me.
Enemy was published by Penguin in 2016 and won the 2017 Asher Literary Award. It has been cited in Pete Yule's, The Long Shadow, and related writing is included in Jess Hill's seminal work on domestic violence, See What You Made Me Do.
Despite the millions of children of veterans worldwide who have lived through similar experiences, Enemy remains one of the only books written about the experience of being the child of a veteran with PTSD. I still receive regular emails from veteran children across the world telling me it is the first time they have felt seen.
Parenting After Trauma began as a response to looking for programs to support PTSD-impacted parents like me and finding none. It evolved after years of conversations with veteran families and research that repeatedly identified the need for parenting programs for this population — and found none existed.
Beyond Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn came out of desperation to understand why, after decades of psychological work, I still found myself being so easily set off. It is the piece of the trauma puzzle I wish I had at the start of my journey and forms a foundation for much of the practical, body-based approaches I take in my programs.
Turn Fear into Courage came from years of reading books on how to achieve success but finding they never addressed the additional barriers of intense anxiety and fear of being seen or getting in trouble that many trauma survivors grapple with.
I don't have all the answers. But decades of living, recovering from and researching trauma have taught me a lot about what actually helps.
If you work with trauma-impacted people, veterans and first responders and their families I'd love to hear from you.
If you’re trying to break the habit of people pleasing and be more authentic in your life and relationships, you might like my TEDx talk about my painful and hilarious journey of taking my real self out of hiding.
Ruth is a regular media and podcast guest who loves sharing the tools and strategies she has used to overcome the adversity of her childhood to help people embrace uncertainty, stay hopeful when times are tough and harness their potential for growth through courageous action.
Ruth shares on sensitive topics with openess, vulnerability and humour, framing her experiences through a well-researched, emotionally nuanced and deeply considered lens. Her eloquence and warmth combined with her capacity to laugh at herself make her a guest par excellence.
>> Listen to Ruth's interview about her book on Conversations by Richard Fidler
Ruth Clare is an author, TEDx speaker, and intergenerational trauma educator whose work breaks silences and drives system change, especially for military families.
Developer of the Parenting After Trauma (PAT) program, Ruth's award-winning memoir, Enemy, was published by Penguin in 2016. Her TEDx talk, The Pain of Hiding Your True Self, has been viewed more than 600,000 times.