Category Archives for "Healing"

Keywords: Healing from Trauma

This is a tough question to answer, and there is a lot of confusion around what healing from trauma really means.

The mindset of trying to overcome or get rid of your PTSD symptoms is pervasive but is part of a dissociation response. It is an attempt to avoid “what is,” which is where the emotional hurt lies.

We are educated to overcome practical problems, and so we adopt that same strategy on an emotional level in the belief that it will work out just the same. When you want to learn a language, learn to drive a car, or gain a new skill you have an objective and through effort, you bridge the distance to reach your objective.

When you apply this emotionally you are creating division rather than solution. For example: If you have a lot of anger and you tell yourself you shouldn’t be angry, then you have created division between what is, which is that you are angry, and where you want to be, which is that you shouldn’t be angry.

Dual Emotional States

Those dual emotional states of being angry and telling yourself you shouldn’t be angry will keep each other in place, and over time start to rotate. Living with anger is frustrating, confusing and creates suffering. Out of that suffering, you form the desire to get rid of anger, to be done with it, or bury it. You make an effort to be kind through suppressing your anger, or by avoiding and judging it, and for a while that might actually work.

Whenever you get triggered by something or someone, though, or your energy levels drop, what you suppress will violently surface again, and so you will go round and round from emotional suffering towards the desire to get rid of it and then back again towards suffering.

This process of attempting to overcome one state of mind by another state of mind applies equally to other “negative” emotions.

The mindset of trying to overcome or get rid of your PTSD symptoms is pervasive but is part of a dissociation response. It is an attempt to avoid “what is,” which is where the emotional hurt lies.

Perspectives of Post-Traumatic Stress and Healing Trauma

There is a part of you though--when you start to wake up to the condition of your own suffering--that realizes something needs to be done.

The healthy part of “wanting to get rid of” is that you set the intention to want to heal. You have realized that something needs to be done in order for you to have a better quality of life. That realization is what you derive your motivation from.

It is the orientation of that healing process that often needs a bit of adjusting. Rather than looking for change and solution outwardly or through creating an objective, you have to start looking inward and start to contain the deeper emotional patterns and the overwhelming hurt that is within.

Difficulties in Healing from Trauma and PTSD

When we are overwhelmed inwardly we project it outwardly. This projection happens so naturally that most often you are not aware of it. You will play out your story based on your emotional patterns and get hurt again in new circumstances with new people.

When abuse has been persistent or vicious, or when neglect has been pervasive and has been present from a very young age, then projection, and with it your unconscious expectation that a solution has to come from the outside, will be persistent.

For example:

1. When you have been sexually abused by a family member you might persist in wanting to have a formal apology, disclosure, or justice through revenge. If one of these desires isn’t fulfilled and satisfied, you will hold on to your hurt.
2. When you were unwanted and neglected as a child you will keep searching either to make amends with your parents, or you will look for a “perfect” partner or “perfect” self-image to try to fill the void that you feel inside.
3. If and when you grew up with an abusive and an authoritative parent and you adopted a pleasing response in order to feel accepted and validated, you will keep defaulting to a pleasing response toward others in an attempt to get closure for the lack of love, lack of validation, and failure to be accepted which you experienced as a child.
4. When you grew up with an abusive and an authoritative parent and you adopted a fight response, you will keep trying to compensate for the abuse by engaging in new causes to fight for. Those engagements could show up in relationships as self-righteousness and continuously seeking justice, they could manifest in your being overly ambitious and wanting prestige, or they could project themselves onto fighting for a social or political cause.

Each of the above examples illustrates the persistence of conflict and shows how your initial hurt gives rise to an attempt to compensate for your shortcomings by desiring or working towards their opposite.

Is Healing from Trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Possible?

Healing from trauma becomes a possibility when you realize at a profound level all the above-mentioned complexities.

When you start seeing your own patterns of suffering and desire and how they project and reenact themselves in your life, you will start to get more of a grip on your reality.

When you seriously start to work on the underlying emotions that give rise to desire and its projections, the need for acting out your habitual patterns will start to lessen; you will be able to catch yourself sooner and thus be able to adjust your course of action.

You will also learn that some patterns will always be there and there is no need in persisting to try to get rid of them. Rather, you will make sure not to give over-importance to those patterns and when they get activated. Furthermore, you can recognize that as a warning that you need to slow down and work on your containment.

When you release the emotional residue out of some of your hardwired patterns, the charge within those patterns will be lessened, as will their projections and reenactments.

The reality is, and the more so regarding healing from complex trauma, that some emotional patterns will always be there, and this doesn’t have to be a bad thing! You can learn to have enough resilience and containment to manage your stress levels so that those patterns never fully take over again.

That forms part of healing from trauma!

Keywords: Setting Boundaries.

To open up without being able to set limits is a recipe for getting hurt.

As a child, you don’t have that choice, though. You are naturally vulnerable and don’t yet have the skill sets to defend yourself when that vulnerability isn't acknowledged or honored.

And this is the case with child abuse and neglect, which often leads to Complex Trauma or CPTSD.

Perception of Vulnerability

When your vulnerability is not acknowledged, and you have been hurt; your perception of it changes.

Vulnerability will be perceived as a weakness or as emotionally dangerous, and as a result, if you venture there at all, it will only be extremely cautiously.

As a child, you don’t have that choice, though. You are naturally vulnerable and don’t yet have the skill sets to defend yourself when that vulnerability isn't acknowledged or honored.

And it comes at a cost!

Healthy vulnerability and the ability to open up, without the threat of being hurt, helps you to connect with others; it makes for more compassion for oneself and others and allows opportunity through that connection with others, to come your way.

The Importance of Setting Boundaries for Safety

Those constructive attributes of vulnerability can only be realized when you can set healthy limits.

And there comes another problem with Post-Traumatic Stress which is that you have not learned nor have been given the opportunity to set healthy boundaries. You have managed so far to survive using either; fight, flight, freeze or pleasing.

It’s the ever-pressing question. Can you fully heal and recover after Childhood Trauma PTSD?

Whenever you get triggered, have a relapse and all your Childhood Trauma PTSD symptoms and reactions flood in, it seems like you haven't made any headway at all.

And this is a normal reaction to have.

You feel the same anxiety, hopelessness, despair, and anger and for some time you are fully identified with it. There is no space for observation; to sit with it. It consumes you.

Whenever you get triggered, have a relapse and all your Childhood Trauma PTSD symptoms and reactions flood in, it seems like you haven't made any headway at all.

Negating Default Patterns, Childhood Trauma PTSD & Creating A Constructive Reality

Once you bring awareness to these patterns and constructively act on them, they can help you move into the next stage of your healing process.

Be kind and patient with yourself.

How are you dealing with your childhood trauma and which of the above-mentioned points you resonated the most with you? Leave your comment below.

As much as you might want to, you can’t push for recovering from PTSD. There is a natural readiness to deal with the emotional residue and symptoms of PTSD and CPTSD, that often becomes available only when you have sorted out some of your basic securities.

In other words; your direct environment and the people you interact with are not compromising your physical safety. You might still project danger onto situations and other people, and relive past episodes. But that is very different from being still in harm's way.

There are many factors which make dealing with PTSD recovery possible or become severe obstacles towards recovery. Equally so, there are a number of misconceptions of what recovery from PTSD or CPTSD constitutes.

Setting that Intention to Heal PTSD and Recovering from PTSD

Setting that intention to heal no matter what is crucial to moving out of limiting situations and putting oneself before others in order to heal.

There are many factors which make recovering from PTSD possible or become severe obstacles towards recovery.

You will probably have to go through and attend different meetings, therapies, and modalities that will somehow help you but also, in a way, frustrate you as you may not feel fully understood according to your symptoms of PTSD or CPTSD condition.

This forms part of your recovering from PTSD recovery; to find out what works and what doesn't, but also to learn and get feedback from yourself about your own symptoms and coping patterns. In the end, you are your own healer, and it is others that reflect back you present states of mind. Once you start clearing up more about yourself on a cognitive, somatic and emotional level, you will also start to meet more capable people.

You can only work and resonate with those that are somewhat nearer to your own understanding and level of functioning.

Take all of this in your stride; don’t stay put, and don’t give up!

What Constitutes Healing and Recovering from PTSD and CPTSD

Furthermore, part of you want to forget it all; be done with and overcome it; get rid of it, cut it out—if possible, banish it. But all this is not going to work. Never! You might feel successful for a while, but all those actions are still part of fragmentation and dissociation, and fragmentation plus dissociation will never constitute recovering from PTSD

That said; not wanting to face the pain and suffering viscerally, are normal reactions. They are what has kept you safe and somehow functioning during and after trauma.

To start the healing process entails coming closer to the wound with gentle care; bit by bit. Being able to contain and process the emotional residue still present in the nervous system, body-tissues and deeper parts of the mind.

And this is a process. It is a movement between going carefully into activation and building up enough resilience to stay with what is, without drowning in the activation, nor escaping further from it.

Recovering from PTSD as A Process

Doing therapeutic work, either by oneself and/or with others, is certainly not straightforward. You will have breakthroughs and setbacks. You will fall back into old patterns at times, thinking that you will never get through this. And there will be other times when you start to feel normal, having your zest for life back again.

Healing and recovering from PTSD and CPTSD can be a bumpy ride. Although, as you are learning and progressing in your process, you will start to notice that through the triggers and their duration, falling back into old emotional patterns will start to lessen, and you will surface quicker.

Some deeply engraved patterns might always be there; or when going through some stress, could get reactivated. This is a reality, especially with patterns that have been initiated in childhood.

Because those patterns are still there, doesn't mean that you have not recovered from PTSD or CPTSD.

It is really not about getting rid of old patterns. It is about not encouraging those patterns with new emotional involvement. And when that does happen, under stress, to move out of it with the skill sets you have learned through effective therapy.

Where are you in your PTSD or CPTSD recovery process? Leave you comment below.

Symptoms of PTSD, CPTSD and Childhood Abuse are many faceted, and act themselves out differently within different circumstances and are dependent on whomever you are interacting with, at any given moment.

Some of the more known activated responses of post-trauma are; hyper-vigilance, irritability, inability to relax, feeling emotionally overwhelmed, anger outbursts and tantrums, crying, sobbing breakdowns.

The above mentioned can easily be mistaken for; ADHD, personality disorder, being bi-polar, disruptive mood disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, and many more to mention with weird names.

Nervous System Freeze Responses of PTSD, CPTD and Childhood Abuse

Highs, of fight-flight activation of the nervous system, are, in case of post-traumatic stress disorder, almost always followed by lows which result in; lethargy, feeling depressed, feeling worthless, hopeless, despairing, dissociated and being insensitive to others.

Symptoms of PTSD, CPTSD and Childhood Abuse are many faceted, and act themselves out differently within different circumstances and are dependent on whomever you are interacting with, at any given moment.

This response, from a nervous system perspective, relates to a freeze response but can easily be mistaken for: burn-out, depression, dissociative disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, empathy deficit disorder and many, many more.

The Reality of Childhood Abuse Symptoms and Misdiagnosis

These symptoms are indications of the realities of a CPTSD, PTSD or Post Childhood Abuse state. When you get treated for only a certain set of symptoms without a full grasp of your whole condition, it becomes a hit and miss approach. This is frustrating when you're attempting recovery, as it will start to feel as though you're not progressing at all.

The Complexity of PTSD, CPTSD and Childhood Abuse doesn’t stop here. The fight-flight and freeze responses and their symptoms are often followed by forms of addictions and compulsions such as: binge eating, alcohol and/or substance abuse, self-harming, becoming suicidal, obsessive binge tv/internet watching, a workaholic, being promiscuous, obsessive cleaning, so on, and so forth.

Each of those mentioned have their own disorder labels to them, and along with that, impacting on the physical body’s health and associated health problems. For example; substance abuse disorder, self-injury disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, heart disorder, digestive disorder, immune system disorder, etcetera.

Dealing with PTSD, CPTSD and Childhood Trauma

This lack of a healthy overview of how a variety of symptoms are part of an overall PTSD, CPTSD and Childhood Abuse condition/disorder, hurts both the patient and practitioner.

There is a danger in focusing on one symptom only, because a practitioner along with the one who suffers, may find comfort or security in dealing with only one manifestation of trauma rather than the whole complexity of symptoms of PTSD, CPTSD and Childhood Abuse.

A focus that is partial, will never bring about a fully healed recovery of PTSD, CPTSD or Childhood Abuse, and it can become a life long occupation, exhausting for both the patient and practitioner alike.

How to Help Someone with PTSD or a History of Childhood Abuse

If you feel withheld and defined by a certain set of interpretations and limitations regarding your symptoms; start finding and connecting with people who understand you, and are able and willing to hold your space within their attentive grasp. Unfortunately, nobody apart from yourself is going to do this for you!

Which particular set of symptoms of post-trauma have you become overly focused on? Leave your comment below.

​‘These are some excellent PTSD books on neuroscience, brain development, and trauma to help with PTSD and which I highly recommend reading.’ Roland

Which PTSD self-help books would you add to this list? Leave your comment below.

Keywords: Treating PTSD.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, by its very nature, is complex. When you have crossed a certain threshold, where you would have had sufficient resilience to gravitate back to health after trauma, your condition becomes toxic to body and mind.

PTSD is that psychosomatic toxicity. When you are stretched too much, you snap, resulting in a variety of signs and symptoms that can be very persistent, even while going through treatment for PTSD.

Symptoms depend on the severity of the ordeal(s) that you have already gone through, but the most common one is moving from a low to a high freeze response. Basically, this is where your nervous system still remains in the upsetting event or periods that have set off the post-trauma condition in the first place.

The Highs and the Lows of Treating PTSD and Its Symptoms

Your low will be marked by depression, lethargy, thoughts of suicide, unworthiness; your high will be marked by anxiety, hypervigilance, digestive issues, mistrust, and anger. When the high goes into overdrive at some point, dissociation or a freeze response will likely kick in, making you feel numb, disconnected, and indifferent.

All these different signs and symptoms of PTSD will repeat themselves cyclically and most often will be infused with memories, possibly without specific relation to the past, but projected and reenacted within one's current life situation and/or relationships.

Effectively treating PTSD is challenging, both for the client and therapist. It is delicate and persistent work where vulnerability and boundaries must repeatedly be renegotiated and explored.  Because most PTSD sufferers have strong ties to patterns that have been initiated in childhood, often related to neglect and abuse, the complexity in addressing the various signs and symptoms increases exponentially.

Choosing the Right Helper in Treating PTSD

It takes experience and insight on the part of the helper to safely guide the PTSD sufferer through the minefield of the "hurt" body and mind. Knowledge and education are certainly essential for professionals, but the cornerstone of  success is in being able to hold the sufferer's psychological space in the present without deviation, and having thoroughly put their own personal houses in order.

Trust and reentering relationships are big issues for the PTSD sufferer. Considering the variety of signs and symptoms of PTSD that there are, this makes a lot of sense. Your vulnerability and sense of safety and control are very likely to have been already compromised, hence the onset of your post-trauma condition.

It's imperative, therefore, that you choose wisely; feel doubtful throughout, take your time; read and investigate what the best approaches are before you start treatment for your PTSD.

How is treating your PTSD going for you so far? Leave your comments below.

Keywords: How to treat PTSD.

In the midst of feeling overwhelmed by post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, it seems as though there will never be a way out of suffering;  the more so when it is recurring.

Your emotional state influences how you perceive reality; therefore, it is normal that at these times, your felt experience is that life has no meaning.

You have also noticed, fortunately, that your intense moments of suffering pass over. You have days that are better than others. Our consciousness appears cyclic in that regard.

In the midst of feeling overwhelmed by post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, it seems as though there will never be a way out of suffering; the more so when it is recurring.

This movement of going through tough days followed by better days gives us an opportunity. It gives us a "breather" that allows us to get some things done, or connect with friends, or be with nature.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms and How to Treat PTSD

It also gives us the opportunity to observe our reactions when we are going through triggers, withdrawal periods, and suffering. I am not talking here about analyzing. Analyzing is something you are likely to be doing already, to no avail. I am talking about observing your approach, which is the essence of PTSD treatment recovery.

Instinctive reactions, when we suffer, are "wanting to forget it all" or "attempting to get over it" or "trying to understand" or "fixing it". This avoidance or problem-solving attitude works well on a practical level, but fails miserably when we deal with our minds and hearts.

Something else seems to be needed, and this is really how we approach our emotional issues.

Dissociating or disconnecting, consciously or unconsciously, works only temporarily. It makes our psychological symptoms go away for a while, but they might start showing up as physical pain or immune system issues.

Similarly, a problem-solving attitude has a tinge of judgment about it; that something is wrong and needs "fixing". This prevents you from observing that your reactions, in the wake of trauma, are normal.

How to Treat PTSD: Exploring Ways of Treatment for PTSD

Once you neither disconnect, dissociate, go numb nor get too focused on what you suffer from, that energy will be able to move into awareness.

It is the ability to contain deep wounds with awareness that dissolves our emotional suffering. While we learn and expand in awareness, we are re-establishing our boundaries, our resilience and our capacity to contain. Adversity challenges us. It pushes us to learn how to contain and hold more of ourselves, increasing our resilience and ability, and thereby sets us free.

How is treatment for your PTSD going? Leave your comment below.

Therapy Quotes and Therapeutic Jargon

Trauma-Vortex

A breach of the normal flow of energy within body and mind that has resulted in a constriction pattern, both on a physical and mental-emotional level. It is highly charged, disruptive energy which is often traceable somewhere in the body.

Healing Vortex

A healing vortex is something which is set in motion through the therapeutic process of containment, context, and resourcing in order to help resolve and work through the trauma-vortex.

Dissociation

Dissociation on a healthy level is to shut out certain impulses when you need to focus on a task. When you dissociate as a result of trauma, disassociation fragments the body and mind; it shuts off and disconnects in order to preserve the still healthy functioning parts from the overflow from affected parts.

Reenactment

Reenactment happens mostly on an unconscious level. It occurs when we find ourselves in situations that are somewhat similar to our past. Think of getting involved in abusive relationships, being prone to accidents, repeatedly being in a victim role, putting oneself in danger, or getting attracted to the "wrong" kind of people. It serves a purpose, as the unconscious is looking for a way to resolve past issues. It is not for you to avoid these situations, but to bring them into awareness so that eventually, when fully seen through, there is no need for you to engage in reenactment and it naturally drops away.

Resourcing

Resourcing serves to provide tools to resolve Trauma. An initial trauma is caused by feeling overwhelmed; it is a breach of one’s capacity to deal with the situation at hand. When these emotions resurface during the therapeutic work, it is necessary to provide strengths and energy to move through them. Different approaches can be applied to achieve this: slowing down the unfolding of the therapeutic process, bringing in a new perspective, using breathing exercises, finding a safe place in the body, and many other methods.

Containment

Containment, context, and resourcing go hand in hand. Containment is being able to hold the space for what is happening in the moment. This applies especially when Emotional Residue within the body-mind systems are addressed. Slowing down the therapeutic process is a big help in containment, as is being in a safe place, trust in the therapist, and a willingness to work with all the tools provided through resourcing.

Context

I use the word context to illustrate the meaning and interpretation we give to a certain event or period in our lives. Within the therapeutic process, it is for us to examine if these meanings and interpretations are correct or not, and whether or not it serves a purpose to hold on to certain interpretations.  Additionally, we must examine the relationships between the continuing of Post-traumatic Stress and the narrative about what happened that we keep telling ourselves.

Emotional Residue

Is a high energy charge of the nervous system due to a traumatic event. This can be caused by developmental trauma or incidental trauma. Emotional residue causes disruption of health and normal functioning in daily life.

Therapeutic Process

The whole interaction between a therapist and client can be named a therapeutic process, though I’d like to make a distinction here between talking about one’s feelings and talking into one’s feelings. The latter is what I refer to as the therapeutic process, as it actually addresses, processes, and resolves Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The therapeutic process is facilitated by tracking and verbalizing body sensations.

What did you think of these therapy quotes and therapeutic jargon? Leave your comment below.

Keywords: Post-Traumatic growth.

The healing process of a client is auto-directive. It is not the therapist who leads the therapeutic process, but the inherent intelligence of the client.

It is the therapist, however, who helps to reestablish boundaries where they have been breached, who assists in containing feelings in general, and the strongly related emotions of anger, fear, and sadness in particular.

Post-Traumatic Stress dramatically breaches boundaries of healthy containment and processing of emotion. It derails feeling, emotion, and sensation to such an extent that it becomes destructive, rather than constructive.

PTSD Symptoms, Dissociation, and Post-Traumatic Growth

When the overflow of emotion becomes consistently destructive, it will provoke the usual coping mechanisms to deal with the overwhelming mental storm. Coping mechanisms can be excessive sports, work, or activities; the need for continuous positive affirmation by self or others; overuse of alcohol or other substances, and obsessive or excessive emotional behavior.

Post-Traumatic Stress dramatically breaches boundaries of healthy containment and processing of emotion. It derails feeling, emotion, and sensation to such an extent that it becomes destructive, rather than constructive.

The overwhelming emotion and the habituated coping system become codependent, causing them to rotate cyclically; additionally, these are bound by feelings of shame, blame, guilt, self-pity, and self-reproach.

Ongoing Post-Traumatic Stress is destructive and the suffering continues to be repetitive; however, herein also lies the potential of breaking the cycle, growing, and resolving trauma. A reenacted traumatic pattern can either reinforce itself, or be turned into a constructive force for building strength.

An Insiders look into Childhood Abuse and Neglect

To put this as an example:

Peter suffered neglect and rejection throughout childhood. As an adult, he has trouble moving forward in life and in relationships. He hates his family, and blames them for his anger and incompetence, and loathes himself. His anger is kept alive by blaming, and his sadness collapses in on his sense of self as self-pity, thereby keeping it ongoing.

Even though he suffers from his current situation, he is unable to put any distance between himself and his family or make a change for the better in his working situation. His internal state is clearly reenacted in his outward life.

In this example, which deals with developmental trauma issues, you can see the cyclical locking in of responses and reenactment. He does not want to feel angry nor to feel sorry for himself, but at the same time, he can’t let go of the blaming of his family, and the anger that goes with it, which would allow him to move on in life. It is a pattern that binds him, repeats itself, and helps him to temporarily manage and cope.

Starting the Process of Post-Traumatic Growth

In our sessions, we addressed first the disconnection of feeling anything, towards connecting where he starts to feel emotion, body-sensation, and feeling overwhelmed. Whenever the story takes over: "I am not good enough", "I am a loser", "I am never going to move out of this", I intervene and move his attention to feeling his body sensations, thereby breaking the reinforcement of destructive patterns and moving into a constructive pathway of owning, containing, processing and building resilience. Educating yourself about how patterns and emotions are kept in place through guilt, blame, shame, self-pity, and self-reproach, helps you to give less importance to thoughts of that nature.

Once he has managed to increase his level of containment and reduce his resistance to staying with anger as blaming, and sadness as self-pity, another pattern starts to emerge. There is a need; a demand to be with anger, with sadness, and to project either outward onto his family or inward onto himself. To be without these coping emotions and thoughts would be to feel utterly alone, a result of his seemingly permanent feelings of having been rejected; that’s where the essential, core pain is located, upon which other patterns are constantly building in a way that reinforces them.

The continuous sense of rejection and neglect has prevented him from feeling nurtured, and from developing his sense of self and integrity, making him dependent on the affirmation of his family, his work colleagues, and others. Even though he is not happy with the situation, he's in bondage to it.

Dealing with Childhood Trauma and Working towards Post-Traumatic Growth

It is through the therapist-client relationship that awareness and attention can be brought to the pain of rejection and loneliness, and to nurture that obscure, lost part of yourself. It is bringing awareness to that pain, that lack of bonding and connection from early childhood, that the process of healing begins; the process of lessening emotional dependence on others and loving oneself.

When these core insights are integrated, outward circumstances will start to adjust accordingly: being able to set clear boundaries, maintaining more distance from the family, being more self-reliant and less dependent, changing towards work that is more fulfilling, being more selective in choosing a new partner based on new values, and so on.

Developmental issues are common among all of us to greater and lesser degrees. In the current understanding of trauma, they are referred to as "insecure attachment bonds". They have far-reaching consequences in terms of how we interact with ourselves and others. Healing these deeply held patterns can help you to open up to how you want to live and to express your full potential.

How is Post-Traumatic growth for you? Leave your comments below.