Trauma survivors want to help others

    Martins Creek – The local subjects of a documentary airing on the TLC television network visited the Martins Creek Community Center on Saturday night to offer their assistance to trauma survivors.
    Dr. Elaine Dilbeck and Sallie Sompayrac didn’t share their entire story at the meeting, possibly because it would have taken hours to fully comprehend. However, they shared words of wisdom and offered to help trauma survivors in Cherokee County learn to “support each other and start the healing process.”
    “People have a misconception that only members of the military can get [post-traumatic stress disorder], but that is false,” Dilbeck said. “There’s a lot of civilians who have PTSD and don’t understand that’s what they have. So we’re both offering to teach people everything they need to know, so you can have support groups and education.”
    Dilbeck, a sexual abuse victim and former battered woman, survived those struggles to author two books. She, her father Stephen Dilbeck and Sompayrac are featured in the multi-part documentary series Taken at Birth, which is available to stream online.
    The documentary centers around Dr. Thomas Hicks, who allegedly sold more than 200 babies out of his clinic in McCaysville, Ga., during the 1950s and ’60s. Stephen Dilbeck allegedly was one of those babies.
    Today, Elaine Dilbeck runs her own private practice. She trains law enforcement officials in mental health awareness.
    “I want to take that stigma away from our military and our law enforcement so they don’t feel like they have to sneak around to ask for help,” she said.