A Few Facts About PTSD…

“Your mind is a garden. Your thoughts are the seeds. You can grow flowers, or you can grow weeds.”

Knowledge about PTSD is relatively rare and studies are limited. Here are a few facts:

* PTSD is considered an anxiety disorder

* Symptoms are normal and healing is possible.

* Simple trauma from a single event is one possible way to develop PTSD, but it can also be the result of the steady drip drip drip of years of living with negligence or abuse. One reason some folks to not think about PTSD is because they cannot identify “trauma”, especially if theirs was more of a steady stream of uncaring rather than a big event.

* Secrecy is a deterrent to treatment. Shame or fear may cause us to remain silent about our suffering.

* Victims feel out of control after exposure to trauma, this leaves some of us feeling helpless and therefore we do not tell others or ask for help.

* PTSD is our mind and body’s attempt to survive. A little compassion for ourselves is helpful for healing. We are all doing the best we can.

* Our attempts to survive may be misguided, which is why we need support and the experience of others to help us heal and get back to thriving.

How does PTSD feel?

* Helplessness and unable to take initiative

* Shame, guilt, self-blame, self-harm

* Sense of feeling damaged

* Distorted relationship with perpetrator (idealizing them, feeling as if they have all the power, accepting their ideas and beliefs, feeling that “fate” brought you together)

* Despair, loss of faith, giving up on any kind of future

* Vulnerability to revictimization, isolation, distrust, conflict and secrets

* Sleep problems, excessive health problems, eating issues, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts and attempts, difficulty with depression and anxiety, explosive anger, sexual acting out, destructive coping strategies

* Memory problem, dissociation, reliving experiences through flashbacks, nightmares, rumination

* Depression, eating disorders, panic disorder and other anxiety disorders, personality disorder

If you are experiencing symptoms of PTSD, please reach out for help. Help is available; recovery is possible.

Be compassionate with yourself; your mind and body are doing the best they can!

The Walking Through…

A bird sitting in a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because her trust is not in the branch but in her wings.

On January 7th, whether we recognize it or not, most of the citizens of the United States of American experienced an event worthy of triggering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. If you watched the storming of the capitol in real time and in person, on television, or replays, then your brain experienced a stressful life event. The brain, regardless of political affiliation, sees acts of violence as over-stimulating and traumatic. This creates a set of emotional problems that most of us do not even recognize as traumatic.

There are two types of PTSD - one is “simple” - meaning a single incident, usually occurring when we are adults; the second is “complex” - and is from repeated incidents such as domestic violence of abuse. It triggers a cascading broad range of symptoms including: self-harm, suicide, dissociation, relationship and intimacy problems, memory, sexuality, health, anger, shame, guilt, numbness, loss of faith and trust and an uneasy sense of being damaged or broken.

Both men and women suffer with PTSD. Often PTSD and substance abuse travel together. This makes sense. PTSD sufferers have feelings or memories they want to escape or remember, they need “support” to go through the day and often mood altering substances seem like a quick fix (initially), they need pain relief (physical and emotional), they want to self-destruct, or simply because self-care is not on their radar.

PTSD and SUD are treatable. But we need to know that we need treatment!

Another way to view these maladies with compassion is to realize that we may develop strengths via these “gifts of suffering” (which may explain why we sometimes say what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger). It is possible for profound growth to occur as we overcome difficult experiences. We might learn, with the clarity of hindsight, that we have the ability to survive under tough conditions. We might develop the capacity to use imagination and creativity to solve problems. We may gain more depth of character, awaken spiritually, find more empathy for self and others, strengthen our resilience, and even appreciate what we have.

But the key is in the overcoming, the walking through - not running from, denying or fighting against the symptoms that naturally occur when our bodies are exposed to suffering.

Do you ever wonder if some of the issues that you find challenging might be related to unacknowledged and untreated suffering? Tomorrow, we will explore the signs that might help us answer this question.