"Abuse comes in many forms: verbal, physical, mental, sexual, and of course emotional, which underlies all other types of abuse.
Those who abuse have not come to terms with their own past emotional issues. Whether it's insecurities they haven't dealt with or the need to maintain complete control of their world, they will rob you of your freedoms in order to feel better about themselves. They will attempt to achieve power by lowering your self-worth because they're threatened by you, or because they don't understand or respect you. Abusers are weak and have personal limitations they have yet not learned to overcome. The less they feel in control the more abusive they get, as they fall into their own limited emotional states which are usually outside their conscious awareness.
This is important to know because, while you are the one who is made to feel inadequate, the abuse you receive seldom has anything to do with you. Unfortunately, we often carry the scars long after the abuse ended.
Ways people abuse you:
Tell lies and half-truths to avoid having to justify actions or ideas
Accuse and blame to divert attention away from them selves
Refuse to take another's point of view and irrationally defend their point of view
Withhold information so the abused will look bad later on ("you should have known that")
Not sharing information someone is entitled to
Not acknowledging another's feelings
Slighting or taking digs in a non-aggressive or joking manner - this allows the abuser to say he was just kidding while still being abusive
Changing the subject to divert attention from them selves
Making someone feel worthless in an attempt to lower their self-esteem and bring them down to the level of the abuser
Threatening or hinting of physical, mental or sexual abuse
Denying anything is wrong (not being responsible and lying to self)
Inappropriate emotional outbursts (a form of distracting attention, confusing the abused or shifting blame)
Controlling others to domineer and limit their freedom or expression
Forgetting commitments and promises
Denying success by placing unreasonable demands, unjustly singling out or constantly placing someone in the category of a loser
Taking advantage of ones weakness or using shame, guilt or fear against another
Manipulating another person against their will
Submissive actions
Cutting some one off so they are not allowed to speak - suppressing self-expression
Eliminating your ability to choose
Inappropriate questions or comments to evoke an emotional response
Humiliating someone in front of others or inappropriately pushing their buttons
Pretending to understand your concerns, and then disregarding them
Slandering some ones name, reputation, associations or activities
taken from http://www.designedthinking.com/Fear/Abuse/abuse.html
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
#10 Merry Christmas and Goodnight!
But wait there's more!
BlastfromthePast - now with added video resources, and a second music list (some of us just can't get enough of that, it seems - sorry they're only partial songs!)
Right column:
Blog Archive, Songs for the Inner Child, Lotus symbol, Songs about Abuse and Healing, Poll, The Bill of Basic Human Rights, Poem for Anna, Common Cognitive Distortions, Flower Essences for Healing, Books that could Change your Life, Recommended Reading, Books to Help Children, Good Memories, Movies that Move Me, Quotes, Art by Barbara, Further Information
The ABC of Resources now includes:
Affirmations, ANP's and EP's (Apparently Normal Personalities and Emotional Personalities), Approval, Aromatherapy, Art Therapy, Assertiveness, The Brain, Boundaries, Breathing, Calming Exercises, Care Alerts, Chakra Balancing, Childhood Development, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Choosing End Goal Feelings, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Comfort Zone, Core Beliefs, Dissociation, Dreams and Nightmares, Dream Programming, EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), Feelings, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Grounding Exercises, Group Therapy, Happiness, Incest Survivor's Checklist, Inner Child Work, Inner Critic, The Johari Window, Journalling, Kinesiology - Applied Kinesiology, Touch for Health, Flower Essences, Laughter, Massage, Meditation, Mental Energy, Mindfulness, Mirror Work, Music, Nurturing Myself, The Nervous System and PTSD, It's Okay, Optimists, Panic Attacks, Planning Positive Things, Progressive Muscle Relaxation, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Questions, Read, Reappraise Relationships, Remember, Reparenting, Responsibility, Safety, Self-Comfort, Self-Esteem, Sentic Exercises, Sexuality, Snakes and Ladders, Somatic Experiencing, The Sun Room, Thought Stopping, Triggers/False Alarms, Understand, Visualization, Water, Exercise, Yoga, Zzzz...
BlastfromthePast - now with added video resources, and a second music list (some of us just can't get enough of that, it seems - sorry they're only partial songs!)
Right column:
Blog Archive, Songs for the Inner Child, Lotus symbol, Songs about Abuse and Healing, Poll, The Bill of Basic Human Rights, Poem for Anna, Common Cognitive Distortions, Flower Essences for Healing, Books that could Change your Life, Recommended Reading, Books to Help Children, Good Memories, Movies that Move Me, Quotes, Art by Barbara, Further Information
The ABC of Resources now includes:
Affirmations, ANP's and EP's (Apparently Normal Personalities and Emotional Personalities), Approval, Aromatherapy, Art Therapy, Assertiveness, The Brain, Boundaries, Breathing, Calming Exercises, Care Alerts, Chakra Balancing, Childhood Development, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Choosing End Goal Feelings, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Comfort Zone, Core Beliefs, Dissociation, Dreams and Nightmares, Dream Programming, EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), Feelings, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Grounding Exercises, Group Therapy, Happiness, Incest Survivor's Checklist, Inner Child Work, Inner Critic, The Johari Window, Journalling, Kinesiology - Applied Kinesiology, Touch for Health, Flower Essences, Laughter, Massage, Meditation, Mental Energy, Mindfulness, Mirror Work, Music, Nurturing Myself, The Nervous System and PTSD, It's Okay, Optimists, Panic Attacks, Planning Positive Things, Progressive Muscle Relaxation, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Questions, Read, Reappraise Relationships, Remember, Reparenting, Responsibility, Safety, Self-Comfort, Self-Esteem, Sentic Exercises, Sexuality, Snakes and Ladders, Somatic Experiencing, The Sun Room, Thought Stopping, Triggers/False Alarms, Understand, Visualization, Water, Exercise, Yoga, Zzzz...
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
#7 Playing with a Full Deck
With so much against me on my road to recovery, it was important to be able to assess what I actually had going for me. It’s easy to minimize the positives when things seem so hopeless – and so, so easy to get stuck in a downward spiral of despair. All of the pain and powerlessness and isolation of childhood returns with a vengeance. The truth could be staring me in the face, and yet at times it was impossible for me to believe it. This is where gratitude has played a huge role.
As often as I go back to count my blessings, I am reminded that those dark dreadful days of the past really are gone – ‘I am a big girl now’, able to protect myself, I know that I am a worthwhile human being, and I am surrounded by people who love and care about me. And I have needed those reminders constantly.
You’ve heard of people ‘not playing with a full deck’. My problem was that I was playing with two decks. One deck consisted of the cards I was dealt as a child – all the things I had come to believe about myself and the world as a result of the abuse, all the distorted core beliefs and irrational conclusions I had reached with my immature, untrained mind in order to keep myself safe and cope with living in such an impossible environment.
The other deck I had collected throughout my adult life, based on mature reasoning and a very different set of experiences. But because the childhood experiences and conclusions had been buried so deeply, I had never been able to examine them in the light of adult reasoning and see them for what they really were. I couldn’t consciously compare the two and see the glaring discrepancies. Ultimately the subconscious internal conflict simply became too much to bear, and the memories began to surface.
Then it took everything I had – every resource I could lay my hands to – to keep me sane and functioning in any degree. We all have resources – internal resources, external ones, and more that we pick up along the way. I couldn’t afford to take any of mine for granted. My primary external resource was and is my loyal and loving husband. If I was a female Frodo in Lord of the Rings, then my husband Leonard would be my Sam. My best friend since I was 16 and he was 21, we married just a year later. It wasn’t a relationship that anyone knowing better would have expected to last. 32 years later he remains my constant companion, faithful and unwavering, who would bear my burdens himself if he could, who would follow me into the river knowing he could not swim, in his dogged determination not to leave my side.
Who can imagine what it must be like for a spouse to have to witness everything that he has witnessed? He has stood beside me in his own agony as I have relived feelings and events that no human being should have to endure. He has held me as I have cried - deep sobbing that had been locked away for decades. He has encouraged me lovingly and admiringly as I have made baby steps into integrating my child and adult selves. He has been patient when I have spent days and weeks in bed, incapacitated by the conflict in my head. He has grown with me as we have forged new paths together, forming a renewed and deepened relationship that only ever comes out of life-changing adversity. We have faced the enemy together. And this is a man who tears up when one of the grandchildren get the slightest scrape. I have yet to meet anyone so simultaneously soft and strong. He is the love of my life, and my eternal companion.
My Fellowship of the Ring consists of my seven amazing, loving, responsible, talented children (they can fight over who gets to be Legolas). All adults now, some already have beautiful growing families of their own. I know that they are all with me to the end. At first what tortured me most was not knowing how much my husband and children had been short-changed in all of this – how much had my partially frozen mind negatively affected my own children’s development? As time has gone on and we have been able to share our thoughts and feelings on the subject, I have to take some comfort in knowing that I did the best I could at the time, and as long as we live and breathe we are blessed with more opportunities to love and nurture each other and heal whatever unintentional wounds have been created along the way.
The next resource that I cannot ignore is my faith in God. When I was 21 Leonard and I became members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We believe in a loving Heavenly Father who knows and cares for each of us as individuals. We believe in the atoning sacrifice of His son Jesus Christ. We also believe in eternal marriage – that the love and progress we share as a married couple here is a relationship that does not end with death.
Part of our membership in the church includes living in accordance with a health code called the Word of Wisdom. We don’t smoke, drink alcohol, tea or coffee, or use illegal drugs. I have always enjoyed living my adult life free of these things, but had no idea how much I had been protected by my faith until I started reading about the predominance of substance abuse amongst people who suffer with PTSD. It is so widespread and common, in fact, that part of recovery usually includes the management of addictions. The unrelenting stresses of the illness drive people into self-destructive behavior just to find some kind of relief.
The Church also provides a wide array of educational programmes including family relationships and parenting. This gave me the foundation that I used to teach my children. On my own I had nothing. Much of their stability and goodness is attributable to what they learned as a result of our religious beliefs. The Church also encourages journaling. It has been a source of fascination to me to go back over my old journals and discover so many signposts that something was wrong – if only someone had known what to look for.
So those three things - my husband, my children and my faith in God - are much of the glue that has held me together. My internal resources have played a part too, of course – but that’s for another day.
PS On the subject of resources, I have been working away at the ABC list of Resources (Post #3) and have added quite a few interesting videos into the mix - be sure to check them out!
As often as I go back to count my blessings, I am reminded that those dark dreadful days of the past really are gone – ‘I am a big girl now’, able to protect myself, I know that I am a worthwhile human being, and I am surrounded by people who love and care about me. And I have needed those reminders constantly.
You’ve heard of people ‘not playing with a full deck’. My problem was that I was playing with two decks. One deck consisted of the cards I was dealt as a child – all the things I had come to believe about myself and the world as a result of the abuse, all the distorted core beliefs and irrational conclusions I had reached with my immature, untrained mind in order to keep myself safe and cope with living in such an impossible environment.
The other deck I had collected throughout my adult life, based on mature reasoning and a very different set of experiences. But because the childhood experiences and conclusions had been buried so deeply, I had never been able to examine them in the light of adult reasoning and see them for what they really were. I couldn’t consciously compare the two and see the glaring discrepancies. Ultimately the subconscious internal conflict simply became too much to bear, and the memories began to surface.
Then it took everything I had – every resource I could lay my hands to – to keep me sane and functioning in any degree. We all have resources – internal resources, external ones, and more that we pick up along the way. I couldn’t afford to take any of mine for granted. My primary external resource was and is my loyal and loving husband. If I was a female Frodo in Lord of the Rings, then my husband Leonard would be my Sam. My best friend since I was 16 and he was 21, we married just a year later. It wasn’t a relationship that anyone knowing better would have expected to last. 32 years later he remains my constant companion, faithful and unwavering, who would bear my burdens himself if he could, who would follow me into the river knowing he could not swim, in his dogged determination not to leave my side.
Who can imagine what it must be like for a spouse to have to witness everything that he has witnessed? He has stood beside me in his own agony as I have relived feelings and events that no human being should have to endure. He has held me as I have cried - deep sobbing that had been locked away for decades. He has encouraged me lovingly and admiringly as I have made baby steps into integrating my child and adult selves. He has been patient when I have spent days and weeks in bed, incapacitated by the conflict in my head. He has grown with me as we have forged new paths together, forming a renewed and deepened relationship that only ever comes out of life-changing adversity. We have faced the enemy together. And this is a man who tears up when one of the grandchildren get the slightest scrape. I have yet to meet anyone so simultaneously soft and strong. He is the love of my life, and my eternal companion.
My Fellowship of the Ring consists of my seven amazing, loving, responsible, talented children (they can fight over who gets to be Legolas). All adults now, some already have beautiful growing families of their own. I know that they are all with me to the end. At first what tortured me most was not knowing how much my husband and children had been short-changed in all of this – how much had my partially frozen mind negatively affected my own children’s development? As time has gone on and we have been able to share our thoughts and feelings on the subject, I have to take some comfort in knowing that I did the best I could at the time, and as long as we live and breathe we are blessed with more opportunities to love and nurture each other and heal whatever unintentional wounds have been created along the way.
The next resource that I cannot ignore is my faith in God. When I was 21 Leonard and I became members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We believe in a loving Heavenly Father who knows and cares for each of us as individuals. We believe in the atoning sacrifice of His son Jesus Christ. We also believe in eternal marriage – that the love and progress we share as a married couple here is a relationship that does not end with death.
Part of our membership in the church includes living in accordance with a health code called the Word of Wisdom. We don’t smoke, drink alcohol, tea or coffee, or use illegal drugs. I have always enjoyed living my adult life free of these things, but had no idea how much I had been protected by my faith until I started reading about the predominance of substance abuse amongst people who suffer with PTSD. It is so widespread and common, in fact, that part of recovery usually includes the management of addictions. The unrelenting stresses of the illness drive people into self-destructive behavior just to find some kind of relief.
The Church also provides a wide array of educational programmes including family relationships and parenting. This gave me the foundation that I used to teach my children. On my own I had nothing. Much of their stability and goodness is attributable to what they learned as a result of our religious beliefs. The Church also encourages journaling. It has been a source of fascination to me to go back over my old journals and discover so many signposts that something was wrong – if only someone had known what to look for.
So those three things - my husband, my children and my faith in God - are much of the glue that has held me together. My internal resources have played a part too, of course – but that’s for another day.
PS On the subject of resources, I have been working away at the ABC list of Resources (Post #3) and have added quite a few interesting videos into the mix - be sure to check them out!
Friday, December 19, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
#5 What do I still struggle with?
It is now four years since the beginning of my 'breakthrough'.
I must admit that in the early stages of therapy I was grossly over-optimistic about how quickly I would deal with it all, thinking that I’d 'have this thing done and dusted in a couple of months'. Anna, my therapist, would regard me hesitantly as I made such flippant remarks. And, of course, as more and more skeletons fell out of the cupboard, reality began to sink in and my resolve was severely challenged.
I came up against a string of inescapably hard truths. My recovery was compromised by a number of exacerbating factors:
· The length of time I had been undiagnosed. Yes, it was 18 years since the traumatic birth, but that wasn’t the primary causal factor for my illness. The fact is I had been undiagnosed since I was a small child. It wasn’t a matter of getting back to ‘who I used to be before the trauma’. It was more a matter of deconstructing a lifetime’s worth of traumas, internal conflict, cognitive confusion, distorted development and maladaptive coping mechanisms, and rebuilding completely new ways of thinking and being almost from scratch – while still holding on to those things that were and are good about myself, that make me who I am.
· The number of abusers. My list includes 7 men and 1 negligent medical team.
· My relationship to the abusers. Five of them were family members (thankfully, my father was not amongst them). But the betrayal of a trusted family member increases the damage exponentially when compared to a stranger.
. The number of abusers involved in any particular incident.
. The severity of the abuse. It's difficult to know how much to elaborate on this, but one incident took me four months to physically recover from.
· The number of incidents. Abuse is not something one ever gets ‘used to’. You do not get ‘used to’ being hit by a bus. Each incident causes more and more damage, reinforcing the distortions that a child comes to believe about her/himself. And we figure I got hit by the abuse bus about 30 times.
· Other stressors. Part of my homework has been to put together a timeline of my life encompassing all the major upsets along the way, including things like the death of my father, the time my sister was almost killed in a road accident, etc. My timeline details over 40 significant disasters, in addition to the abuse. My ability to cope with these was greatly compromised because of the existing damage underpinning everything else. So I have had to go back and re-work my way through those as well.
· Lack of Support at the times of the traumas. My mother, through no fault of her own (we have since discovered that she has an unresolved history of her own) was ill equipped to provide the care and comfort and guidance that I needed as a child. In fact, as a result of her own mental state, the way that she responded to some of the evidences of abuse she saw on me only caused me further trauma, rejection, devastation and isolation. I don't know how many of the incidents she was aware of - it would have been impossible for her to be aware of them all - but there was never a single outward sign to me that it wasn't my fault, that I wasn't to blame, and that there wasn't something fundamentally wrong with me. I was too young then to comprehend the nature of what was happening to me, but I knew I had been badly hurt, and humiliated - and she was just angry. And that is why, I suppose, that as far as the teenage traumas were concerned - even though the earlier incidents were long lost to my memory, I just never spoke to a soul about any of it.
· Religious upbringing. I won’t go into the details of that at this point, but my mother’s sect-like religious views and practices created a chasm between me and the 'real world' that only served to mess things up more royally. Therapeutically, this little nugget has been as difficult to work through and untangle as any of the abuse.
So – getting back to today - the recovery from PTSD and the host of other disorders that usually accompany it in situations like mine is often likened to a game of Snakes and Ladders. You can be doing well one minute - then, just happen to land on the wrong square and it seems like you're right back to the bottom of the board again.
Another analogy - the Brake/Accelerator analogy – they say that as far as your nervous and mental systems are concerned, PTSD is like driving with one foot hard on the brake and one foot hard on the accelerator – it is exhausting, and almost impossible to ever feel ‘at peace’.
In the movie The Flying Scotsman, the minister in the story talks about how his wife, who had been abused as a child (and ultimately committed suicide a few years into their marriage) would describe her struggles with day-to-day living, and it really struck a chord with me. (I would love to get a precise quote, if anybody could help out with that) but essentially she described it as ‘trying to walk through thick mud’, and that ‘nobody else was even aware of her pain’. I used to tell Daggers (Dirk aka “Daggers” Harm, my physiotherapist) that I felt like I was trapped in a swamp. He didn’t think it was a very healthy analogy, and I get his point, but at the same time I still can’t think of a more apt description.
What was the question again? Ah, the symptoms and challenges I still struggle with…
· Dissociation
· Nightmares
· Lack of mental energy and efficiency
· Exhaustion
· Managing feelings of discouragement, loss, aloneness and numbness
. The inescapability of it all
· Persistent old false core beliefs
· Feeling overwhelmed – but this has greatly lessened compared to the early stages , as my skills have improved
· Changing self-torture into self-nurture
· Issues with my mother
· Trouble with my nervous system and intestinal system
· Social phobia
· Body issues
· Difficulty connecting to the future
· Learning to give myself space to ‘be’
· My comfort zone seems to be about 2” square at times - the amount of energy required to converse and interact ‘normally’ with other people, especially outside the family, is like having to part and hold back the Red Sea. I am limited as to how long I can maintain it, and need to pace myself carefully and take time out regularly to regroup and rest. (You'll note that I do have a weakness for visual imagery).
· Challenges interacting with my grandchildren as they reflect different ages that I was when I was abused
· Almost constant internal conflict (remember that conversation that Gollum had with himself in Lord of the Rings?) only with better hair and complexion.
. It really does affect every aspect of life, right down to breathing, eating, sleeping, relationships, finances, socializing - you name it.
That being said, I am worlds in front of where I was. I have had some deeply life-changing experiences and insights, and learned enough new skills to build some confidence now that as I keep hanging in there things will generally get easier. The everpresentness of peaks and troughs is just a part of the deal - as long as I can remember that when I'm at the bottom of a trough.
I must admit that in the early stages of therapy I was grossly over-optimistic about how quickly I would deal with it all, thinking that I’d 'have this thing done and dusted in a couple of months'. Anna, my therapist, would regard me hesitantly as I made such flippant remarks. And, of course, as more and more skeletons fell out of the cupboard, reality began to sink in and my resolve was severely challenged.
I came up against a string of inescapably hard truths. My recovery was compromised by a number of exacerbating factors:
· The length of time I had been undiagnosed. Yes, it was 18 years since the traumatic birth, but that wasn’t the primary causal factor for my illness. The fact is I had been undiagnosed since I was a small child. It wasn’t a matter of getting back to ‘who I used to be before the trauma’. It was more a matter of deconstructing a lifetime’s worth of traumas, internal conflict, cognitive confusion, distorted development and maladaptive coping mechanisms, and rebuilding completely new ways of thinking and being almost from scratch – while still holding on to those things that were and are good about myself, that make me who I am.
· The number of abusers. My list includes 7 men and 1 negligent medical team.
· My relationship to the abusers. Five of them were family members (thankfully, my father was not amongst them). But the betrayal of a trusted family member increases the damage exponentially when compared to a stranger.
. The number of abusers involved in any particular incident.
. The severity of the abuse. It's difficult to know how much to elaborate on this, but one incident took me four months to physically recover from.
· The number of incidents. Abuse is not something one ever gets ‘used to’. You do not get ‘used to’ being hit by a bus. Each incident causes more and more damage, reinforcing the distortions that a child comes to believe about her/himself. And we figure I got hit by the abuse bus about 30 times.
· Other stressors. Part of my homework has been to put together a timeline of my life encompassing all the major upsets along the way, including things like the death of my father, the time my sister was almost killed in a road accident, etc. My timeline details over 40 significant disasters, in addition to the abuse. My ability to cope with these was greatly compromised because of the existing damage underpinning everything else. So I have had to go back and re-work my way through those as well.
· Lack of Support at the times of the traumas. My mother, through no fault of her own (we have since discovered that she has an unresolved history of her own) was ill equipped to provide the care and comfort and guidance that I needed as a child. In fact, as a result of her own mental state, the way that she responded to some of the evidences of abuse she saw on me only caused me further trauma, rejection, devastation and isolation. I don't know how many of the incidents she was aware of - it would have been impossible for her to be aware of them all - but there was never a single outward sign to me that it wasn't my fault, that I wasn't to blame, and that there wasn't something fundamentally wrong with me. I was too young then to comprehend the nature of what was happening to me, but I knew I had been badly hurt, and humiliated - and she was just angry. And that is why, I suppose, that as far as the teenage traumas were concerned - even though the earlier incidents were long lost to my memory, I just never spoke to a soul about any of it.
· Religious upbringing. I won’t go into the details of that at this point, but my mother’s sect-like religious views and practices created a chasm between me and the 'real world' that only served to mess things up more royally. Therapeutically, this little nugget has been as difficult to work through and untangle as any of the abuse.
So – getting back to today - the recovery from PTSD and the host of other disorders that usually accompany it in situations like mine is often likened to a game of Snakes and Ladders. You can be doing well one minute - then, just happen to land on the wrong square and it seems like you're right back to the bottom of the board again.
Another analogy - the Brake/Accelerator analogy – they say that as far as your nervous and mental systems are concerned, PTSD is like driving with one foot hard on the brake and one foot hard on the accelerator – it is exhausting, and almost impossible to ever feel ‘at peace’.
In the movie The Flying Scotsman, the minister in the story talks about how his wife, who had been abused as a child (and ultimately committed suicide a few years into their marriage) would describe her struggles with day-to-day living, and it really struck a chord with me. (I would love to get a precise quote, if anybody could help out with that) but essentially she described it as ‘trying to walk through thick mud’, and that ‘nobody else was even aware of her pain’. I used to tell Daggers (Dirk aka “Daggers” Harm, my physiotherapist) that I felt like I was trapped in a swamp. He didn’t think it was a very healthy analogy, and I get his point, but at the same time I still can’t think of a more apt description.
What was the question again? Ah, the symptoms and challenges I still struggle with…
· Dissociation
· Nightmares
· Lack of mental energy and efficiency
· Exhaustion
· Managing feelings of discouragement, loss, aloneness and numbness
. The inescapability of it all
· Persistent old false core beliefs
· Feeling overwhelmed – but this has greatly lessened compared to the early stages , as my skills have improved
· Changing self-torture into self-nurture
· Issues with my mother
· Trouble with my nervous system and intestinal system
· Social phobia
· Body issues
· Difficulty connecting to the future
· Learning to give myself space to ‘be’
· My comfort zone seems to be about 2” square at times - the amount of energy required to converse and interact ‘normally’ with other people, especially outside the family, is like having to part and hold back the Red Sea. I am limited as to how long I can maintain it, and need to pace myself carefully and take time out regularly to regroup and rest. (You'll note that I do have a weakness for visual imagery).
· Challenges interacting with my grandchildren as they reflect different ages that I was when I was abused
· Almost constant internal conflict (remember that conversation that Gollum had with himself in Lord of the Rings?) only with better hair and complexion.
. It really does affect every aspect of life, right down to breathing, eating, sleeping, relationships, finances, socializing - you name it.
That being said, I am worlds in front of where I was. I have had some deeply life-changing experiences and insights, and learned enough new skills to build some confidence now that as I keep hanging in there things will generally get easier. The everpresentness of peaks and troughs is just a part of the deal - as long as I can remember that when I'm at the bottom of a trough.
Friday, December 12, 2008
#4 Have I had a breakdown?
Well.... yes. And it's not quite over yet. But is it a mental breakdown? No. A nervous breakdown? No. Both of these are connected with mental illness. I am not mentally ill (although - this is the confusing part - this is an issue of mental health).
What then? This is called a Stress Breakdown. A stress breakdown is 'a psychological injury (operative word) which is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation'. My psychologist also likes to call it, in positive terms, a 'psychological breakthrough', which suits me just fine.
To explain a little further, in the words of Suicide and Mental Health Assocociation International:
'A stress breakdown is a normal and natural conclusion to a period of prolonged negative stress. The body is saying "I'm not designed to operate under these conditions of prolonged negative stress so I am going to do something dramatic to ensure that you reduce or eliminate the stress otherwise your body may suffer irreparable damage; you must take action now". A stress breakdown is often predictable days - sometimes weeks - in advance as the person's fear, fragility, obsessiveness, hypervigilance and hypersensitivity combine to evolve into paranoia (as evidenced by increasingly bizarre talk of conspiracy or MI6). If this happens, a stress breakdown is only days or even hours away and the person needs urgent medical help. The risk of suicide at this point is heightened.'
Their site is one of many that provides an overview of Complex PTSD and how it differs from single-trauma PTSD. It goes into detail with symptomology and the many facets of the disorder.
For my story to be understood in context I have to tell it backwards, starting at the age of 45. After ten years of relatively peaceful country living, I, with my husband and children, moved back to the city where all of my childhood abuse had occurred (abuse which had long been lost to my conscious memory). I was extremely, irrationally reluctant to move, yet powerless to come up with a better alternative to suit our circumstances at the time. And so I suddenly found myself daily immersed in a sea of faces and places and triggers and memories that had been pushed into the darkness for far too long.
My whole system began to collapse. Firstly my knee gave out, and ultimately required surgery. My whole body seemed to be protesting at being alive. I couldn't bear to be in my own skin. I started walking, sometimes for hours at a time, but it was more at attempt to get away from myself than to improve my health. My mind seemed to be constantly running on fast forward. It might be more accurate to say it was on fast rewind.
Flashbacks relating to a difficult birth with our twins 18 years previously began to haunt me again, but of course I didn't know that they were flashbacks, then or at the time of the birth - I just knew they filled my head and my body with confusion and pain and horror. This had been happening on and off since I was 27 yrs old. How much self-torture and self-hatred had I gone through, blaming myself for not being able to simply 'get over it'? Why must I constantly dwell on something that was yes, horrible - but I had lived, and so had both the babies. Why couldn't I just put it behind me and get on with my life? There were no answers then - I suppose I was too busily involved in raising my family and keeping my head above water. Now at the age of 45, with my kids finally all adults and out of school, the flashbacks were back with a vengeance, and impossible to pass off as anything inconsequential.
Regular visits to physiotherapy for my debilitated knee would sometimes do my head in. Just the physicality and proximity of a young man 'doing things to me' - extremely painful things -set me on an emotional roller coaster. After my knee was fixed we started some work on my back, and things got really strange, and I would drift off into deep space. I know now that it was dissociation I was experiencing. It was terrifying and yet strangely compelling. The physiotherapist was the sweetest, most inoffensive guy you could meet, and great at his job, with a reputation for arms of steel - but feeling so out of control with my head would unbalance me for days. There was 'something going on' and there was no way I was going to be able to rest until I could come up with an explanation. I was like a volcano about to explode - but it was all internal. On the outside I seemed much the same as ever, except that I became more and more withdrawn and manic about researching things on the internet. I didn't know it - but I was heading into full-blown PTSD.
After several weeks of rising anxiety I finally started googling in the right places, and discovered how frequently PTSD could be linked to traumatic childbirth - although it has only been recognized in the last few years. Wherever I found a list of symptomology for PTSD I found I could tick all the boxes, and then some! It began to dawn on me that I had been suffering from a verifiable, explainable disorder for no less than 18 years, and had never been diagnosed. This both helped and infuriated me. Helped because it explained so much, and gave me a light at the end of the tunnel I had long given up on ever seeing - that there could actually be some help 'out there' that could explain me to myself and give me a way out - but there was also such a feeling of loss, of being let down by 'the system' - so many 'what if's' and 'if only's'.
Determined not to waste any more time, not prepared to live another day without the treatment I knew I needed but had no clue what it would involve, I tracked down the Birth Trauma Association, and began communication with some very helpful people there.
It didn't take long to realize that my problems didn't just end with PTSD as a result of childbirth trauma. In my readings I had also noted that many women who suffer trauma while giving birth also have an unresolved history of childhood sexual abuse. In the beginning I chose to skim over this little bit of information, but then one day I found myself 'zoning out' in physiotherapy again, and I went home feeling absolutely dreadful, and with a dark and forbiding and familiar feeling that I had experienced that same distancing, or detachment, at other times in my life - long, long ago. And I began to rethink some of the things that I remembered had happened to me during my teenage years. Things I had never forgotten, but had never been able to find peace with.
By this time I had chosen a clinical psychologist, Anna Lamberton, from the list of people that the BTA had recommended to me. As I discussed these teenage events with her, and really laid it all out on the table, it became glaringly clear that these were not merely 'unfortunate events that I was too stupid to handle at the time'. They did in fact add up to a dark and ugly list of sexual abuse incidents, with a number of different abusers. No wonder the PTSD kicked in so hard when the childbirth started to go pear-shaped.
That gave us quite a bit to work on over the next year. Woven in and out of the birth issues, Anna and I also began to pull apart my teenage years. I started to write. Document after document started pouring out of me. As more and more memories and insights came to me, the thought of sleep seemed completely irrelevant. I had so many epiphanies, I was just staggering from one day to the next trying to get it all out of my head and down in black and white so that I could run it all past Anna for her professional feedback and hawklike insights. (During the second year I paused one day to do a quick calculation of what I had amassed, and there were over 200 documents on file. I have since discovered a condition -not a disorder - it's not necessarily a bad thing - known as 'hypergraphia' : an 'overwhelming/compulsive urge to write, which is often triggered by changes in brainwave activity in the temporal lobes, which are connected to the limbic system, said to regulate a human being's need for communication'. The term 'lobal warming' comes to mind. I might have to copyright that...)
Things have slowed considerably since those days, but at the time - Ohmigoodness, did I ever need to communicate! And of course, you can't spill your guts to just anybody about this sort of thing. People start to run when they see you coming.
And Anna, the Angel, rather than complaining about my name constantly appearing in her email box, was only ever supportive, encouraging, and delighted that I was willingly working through so much challenging material. She would greet me excitedly in her office week after week, having already followed my progress online, ready with answers to my questions, assurances for my insecurities and cognitive disputations for all my negatively-effected thinking. And perhaps most importantly, she offered me more understanding and compassion than I had ever felt from any other woman on the planet. I have never left her office not feeling better and more hopeful than when I walked in.
There were still many miles to go and surprises yet to come, but after several months I began to feel the terrors of almost dying in childbirth, and simultaneously almost losing one of our twins had begun to lose their grip. And I was seeing my teenage life in a whole new light. I began to feel that I had a bit of head-space again.
I had been severely molested in a powder-keg of a situation when I was 15 - and that person continued to be a presence in my family, abusing and harrassing me many times over the next few years. Just a few months after the 'powder-keg affair' I was raped while on a group date with some friends. The details are just horrific. Looking back now with a rational, adult mind, I groan to think how I hated and blamed myself for such a long time for getting into that situation. I know now that I was not to blame - not in the least. It was engineered and it was brutal. And what I endured at that time, and was left to live with and believe about myself and the world afterwards - there is just no way to measure that kind of damage, except perhaps in years of pain and mental anguish, and money and time spent on therapy and recovery. It doesn't take into account the secondary victims - the people that I love who have suffered and been short-changed over the years as a result of my inability to function with a fully cognisant and efficient brain! But of course I need to forgive myself for that as well. Just be happy that I am able to heal now and do better 'today'.
At the end of the first year of therapy, things weren't looking too bad - I seemed to be emerging out of that initial shock/crisis state - until I started to have peculiar dreams. Nightmares. Waking dreams. Visions of people as they were when I was just a little girl, people doing very peculiar things, in very peculiar places, and saying the most bizarre things to me and to each other. Another huge puzzle was landing in my lap, piece by piece. Bits of conversations, strings of words, visual stills, sensations of the sun rising and setting overhead in just a matter of minutes, while I was locked in a dark shed with two uncles - one my mother's brother, one my father's. They had become good friends over the years. And as more and more memories returned and pieced together, it became clear that there were some unspeakable and sinister reasons for their comraderie and their quiet jokes behind cupped hands holding ever-present cigarettes.
One event involving both uncles occurred when I was 5 1/2 - just a couple of weeks before I started Grade One. I seriously believed I was going to die. It's a story beyond the scope of any Special Victims Unit show I have ever seen. After that one uncle left me alone, for the most part - but the first uncle had found a number of opportunities both prior and subsequent to that occasion to get me on my own and do things he had no right to do. This filled in some mysteries for me between the ages of about 3 and 9.
If only it ended there. Unbelievably it doesn't. My more persistent uncle had grown up in a state of abuse himself, it seemed. My paternal grandfather was also an abuser. And he had also found opportunities to abuse me, causing fear, trauma, damage and confusion. The earliest instance of abuse we have traced back to when I was 2 yrs and 9 months old. It has taken quite some period of adjustment for me to let that fully sink in and comprehend just how many mysteries it explains, and why I have continued to come up against so many immovable blocks in my head throughout my life.
This is both the end and the beginning of my story. I am now 49, and learning to live my life backwards.
What then? This is called a Stress Breakdown. A stress breakdown is 'a psychological injury (operative word) which is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation'. My psychologist also likes to call it, in positive terms, a 'psychological breakthrough', which suits me just fine.
To explain a little further, in the words of Suicide and Mental Health Assocociation International:
'A stress breakdown is a normal and natural conclusion to a period of prolonged negative stress. The body is saying "I'm not designed to operate under these conditions of prolonged negative stress so I am going to do something dramatic to ensure that you reduce or eliminate the stress otherwise your body may suffer irreparable damage; you must take action now". A stress breakdown is often predictable days - sometimes weeks - in advance as the person's fear, fragility, obsessiveness, hypervigilance and hypersensitivity combine to evolve into paranoia (as evidenced by increasingly bizarre talk of conspiracy or MI6). If this happens, a stress breakdown is only days or even hours away and the person needs urgent medical help. The risk of suicide at this point is heightened.'
Their site is one of many that provides an overview of Complex PTSD and how it differs from single-trauma PTSD. It goes into detail with symptomology and the many facets of the disorder.
For my story to be understood in context I have to tell it backwards, starting at the age of 45. After ten years of relatively peaceful country living, I, with my husband and children, moved back to the city where all of my childhood abuse had occurred (abuse which had long been lost to my conscious memory). I was extremely, irrationally reluctant to move, yet powerless to come up with a better alternative to suit our circumstances at the time. And so I suddenly found myself daily immersed in a sea of faces and places and triggers and memories that had been pushed into the darkness for far too long.
My whole system began to collapse. Firstly my knee gave out, and ultimately required surgery. My whole body seemed to be protesting at being alive. I couldn't bear to be in my own skin. I started walking, sometimes for hours at a time, but it was more at attempt to get away from myself than to improve my health. My mind seemed to be constantly running on fast forward. It might be more accurate to say it was on fast rewind.
Flashbacks relating to a difficult birth with our twins 18 years previously began to haunt me again, but of course I didn't know that they were flashbacks, then or at the time of the birth - I just knew they filled my head and my body with confusion and pain and horror. This had been happening on and off since I was 27 yrs old. How much self-torture and self-hatred had I gone through, blaming myself for not being able to simply 'get over it'? Why must I constantly dwell on something that was yes, horrible - but I had lived, and so had both the babies. Why couldn't I just put it behind me and get on with my life? There were no answers then - I suppose I was too busily involved in raising my family and keeping my head above water. Now at the age of 45, with my kids finally all adults and out of school, the flashbacks were back with a vengeance, and impossible to pass off as anything inconsequential.
Regular visits to physiotherapy for my debilitated knee would sometimes do my head in. Just the physicality and proximity of a young man 'doing things to me' - extremely painful things -set me on an emotional roller coaster. After my knee was fixed we started some work on my back, and things got really strange, and I would drift off into deep space. I know now that it was dissociation I was experiencing. It was terrifying and yet strangely compelling. The physiotherapist was the sweetest, most inoffensive guy you could meet, and great at his job, with a reputation for arms of steel - but feeling so out of control with my head would unbalance me for days. There was 'something going on' and there was no way I was going to be able to rest until I could come up with an explanation. I was like a volcano about to explode - but it was all internal. On the outside I seemed much the same as ever, except that I became more and more withdrawn and manic about researching things on the internet. I didn't know it - but I was heading into full-blown PTSD.
After several weeks of rising anxiety I finally started googling in the right places, and discovered how frequently PTSD could be linked to traumatic childbirth - although it has only been recognized in the last few years. Wherever I found a list of symptomology for PTSD I found I could tick all the boxes, and then some! It began to dawn on me that I had been suffering from a verifiable, explainable disorder for no less than 18 years, and had never been diagnosed. This both helped and infuriated me. Helped because it explained so much, and gave me a light at the end of the tunnel I had long given up on ever seeing - that there could actually be some help 'out there' that could explain me to myself and give me a way out - but there was also such a feeling of loss, of being let down by 'the system' - so many 'what if's' and 'if only's'.
Determined not to waste any more time, not prepared to live another day without the treatment I knew I needed but had no clue what it would involve, I tracked down the Birth Trauma Association, and began communication with some very helpful people there.
It didn't take long to realize that my problems didn't just end with PTSD as a result of childbirth trauma. In my readings I had also noted that many women who suffer trauma while giving birth also have an unresolved history of childhood sexual abuse. In the beginning I chose to skim over this little bit of information, but then one day I found myself 'zoning out' in physiotherapy again, and I went home feeling absolutely dreadful, and with a dark and forbiding and familiar feeling that I had experienced that same distancing, or detachment, at other times in my life - long, long ago. And I began to rethink some of the things that I remembered had happened to me during my teenage years. Things I had never forgotten, but had never been able to find peace with.
By this time I had chosen a clinical psychologist, Anna Lamberton, from the list of people that the BTA had recommended to me. As I discussed these teenage events with her, and really laid it all out on the table, it became glaringly clear that these were not merely 'unfortunate events that I was too stupid to handle at the time'. They did in fact add up to a dark and ugly list of sexual abuse incidents, with a number of different abusers. No wonder the PTSD kicked in so hard when the childbirth started to go pear-shaped.
That gave us quite a bit to work on over the next year. Woven in and out of the birth issues, Anna and I also began to pull apart my teenage years. I started to write. Document after document started pouring out of me. As more and more memories and insights came to me, the thought of sleep seemed completely irrelevant. I had so many epiphanies, I was just staggering from one day to the next trying to get it all out of my head and down in black and white so that I could run it all past Anna for her professional feedback and hawklike insights. (During the second year I paused one day to do a quick calculation of what I had amassed, and there were over 200 documents on file. I have since discovered a condition -not a disorder - it's not necessarily a bad thing - known as 'hypergraphia' : an 'overwhelming/compulsive urge to write, which is often triggered by changes in brainwave activity in the temporal lobes, which are connected to the limbic system, said to regulate a human being's need for communication'. The term 'lobal warming' comes to mind. I might have to copyright that...)
Things have slowed considerably since those days, but at the time - Ohmigoodness, did I ever need to communicate! And of course, you can't spill your guts to just anybody about this sort of thing. People start to run when they see you coming.
And Anna, the Angel, rather than complaining about my name constantly appearing in her email box, was only ever supportive, encouraging, and delighted that I was willingly working through so much challenging material. She would greet me excitedly in her office week after week, having already followed my progress online, ready with answers to my questions, assurances for my insecurities and cognitive disputations for all my negatively-effected thinking. And perhaps most importantly, she offered me more understanding and compassion than I had ever felt from any other woman on the planet. I have never left her office not feeling better and more hopeful than when I walked in.
There were still many miles to go and surprises yet to come, but after several months I began to feel the terrors of almost dying in childbirth, and simultaneously almost losing one of our twins had begun to lose their grip. And I was seeing my teenage life in a whole new light. I began to feel that I had a bit of head-space again.
I had been severely molested in a powder-keg of a situation when I was 15 - and that person continued to be a presence in my family, abusing and harrassing me many times over the next few years. Just a few months after the 'powder-keg affair' I was raped while on a group date with some friends. The details are just horrific. Looking back now with a rational, adult mind, I groan to think how I hated and blamed myself for such a long time for getting into that situation. I know now that I was not to blame - not in the least. It was engineered and it was brutal. And what I endured at that time, and was left to live with and believe about myself and the world afterwards - there is just no way to measure that kind of damage, except perhaps in years of pain and mental anguish, and money and time spent on therapy and recovery. It doesn't take into account the secondary victims - the people that I love who have suffered and been short-changed over the years as a result of my inability to function with a fully cognisant and efficient brain! But of course I need to forgive myself for that as well. Just be happy that I am able to heal now and do better 'today'.
At the end of the first year of therapy, things weren't looking too bad - I seemed to be emerging out of that initial shock/crisis state - until I started to have peculiar dreams. Nightmares. Waking dreams. Visions of people as they were when I was just a little girl, people doing very peculiar things, in very peculiar places, and saying the most bizarre things to me and to each other. Another huge puzzle was landing in my lap, piece by piece. Bits of conversations, strings of words, visual stills, sensations of the sun rising and setting overhead in just a matter of minutes, while I was locked in a dark shed with two uncles - one my mother's brother, one my father's. They had become good friends over the years. And as more and more memories returned and pieced together, it became clear that there were some unspeakable and sinister reasons for their comraderie and their quiet jokes behind cupped hands holding ever-present cigarettes.
One event involving both uncles occurred when I was 5 1/2 - just a couple of weeks before I started Grade One. I seriously believed I was going to die. It's a story beyond the scope of any Special Victims Unit show I have ever seen. After that one uncle left me alone, for the most part - but the first uncle had found a number of opportunities both prior and subsequent to that occasion to get me on my own and do things he had no right to do. This filled in some mysteries for me between the ages of about 3 and 9.
If only it ended there. Unbelievably it doesn't. My more persistent uncle had grown up in a state of abuse himself, it seemed. My paternal grandfather was also an abuser. And he had also found opportunities to abuse me, causing fear, trauma, damage and confusion. The earliest instance of abuse we have traced back to when I was 2 yrs and 9 months old. It has taken quite some period of adjustment for me to let that fully sink in and comprehend just how many mysteries it explains, and why I have continued to come up against so many immovable blocks in my head throughout my life.
This is both the end and the beginning of my story. I am now 49, and learning to live my life backwards.
#3 An ABC of Resources for Healing
(Follow the coloured links for more information. This list is a work in progress, and will be fleshed out as I add more links and comments, so keep coming back!)
A
Affirmations: We make them all the time every day anyway, for better or for worse. Consistent thoughts become a person's reality. I have had to weed out the destructive ones and consciously select the things I want to believe and reinforce in my life. Affirming what I want and how I want to be increases my energy and improves my outlook.
"Powerful Affirmations"
ANP's and EP's: These are the 'Apparently Normal Personalities' and 'Emotional Personalities' embodied in a single individual. The more integrated they all are, the more efficient and energetic one's mental capacity is. Learning where the discrepancies are (or the internal conflicts) is key to healing.
Approval: Whose do I really need? I have spent a lot of time and energy striving for love and approval from people who will never be able to provide it. As I have learned to plug those holes I have been able to reserve more energy to live my life happily.
Aromatherapy: Essential Oils activate the limbic system and emotional centres of the brain, i.e. they really can make you feel better! When used in massage they activate thermal receptors, and even kill microbes and fungi. I love bergamot and the citrus ones - mandarin or grapefruit -all are great antidepressants, and relieve stress and anxiety. Ah, bliss!
Art Therapy: Some of the artworks I have made when I have disengaged my logical brain and allowed the creative side to take over have given me the greatest insights into myself. It isn't important to draw well - it is important to let yourself play and explore. This is a way to honour and respect your inner child, no matter what your background!
Assertiveness: Learning it's okay for me to get what I want, in a fair way
B
The Brain: Many aspects of brain function are effected by trauma. It's not just psychological. There can be damage to the amygdala, the hippocampus -influencing its ability to regenerate neurons and oversupplying cortisol levels - as well as to the medial prefrontal cortex, which regulates emotion. (There's a vortex in my cortex!) This explains many of the symptoms of PTSD.
Boundaries: (As I get better at this, I actually feel more and more like a 'grown-up'!) :
. Building Healthy Boundaries - How to Create Healthy, Lasting, Fulfilling Relationships
. Growing Down: Tools for Healing the Inner Child - Building Healthy Boundaries
. Setting Healthy Boundaries - Allowing the True Self to Emerge
Breathing:
. Alternate nostril breathing* improves mental energy/clears mental fog and reduces anxiety
. Diaphragmatic breathing* to relieve panic attacks and anxiety
*These are my #1 tools when things are at their worst.
Try the mantra:
"Breathing in I calm myself... breathing out I smile..." or
"Be still... and know that I am God..."
C
Calming Exercises and Calming Down: These are simply skills that anyone can learn. As I continue to practise, it is getting easier to tune into my mind and body, and take care of myself before anxiety levels get out of hand
Care Alerts: Checking in with myself at regular intervals to make sure that I am grounded, 'present', and not caught in reactionary thoughts and behaviour. Some days I have needed to do this as often as every 15 minutes - a watch with a timer is helpful for this
Chakra Balancing: 'Chakras are like the power stations of our body, bringing it to life and keeping it healthy'
Childhood Development: Understanding the basics of childhood psychosocial development gives me a clearer understanding of myself and why and how I got stuck in different patterns at different ages. (Counselling Kinesiology has been of greatest benefit to me in this regard - see K for Kinesiology)
Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA):
. From Victim to Victor - Overcoming CSA
. Sexual Abuse Help
. Survivor to Thriver - an excellent free manual for Adult Survivors of Sexual Abuse
"Childhood Sexual Abuse always includes other forms of abuse - emotional abuse, physical abuse, neglect. Abuse is a violation that harms a child physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually and psychologically."
Choosing my 'End Goal Feelings' : I am learning how to use my imagination! I never understood that I could be instrumental in my own future - my head was stuck in a bog of powerlessness, helplessness and dread. Learning to imagine 'how I want to be' (not necessarily 'what I want to do') in the future has given me a fresh burst of energy that flows over into all areas of my life.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: What a blessing it was for me to find an experienced therapist with a particular interest in PTSD - so good at what she does, so caring, insightful, and observant. For a long time hers were the only hands that steadied me as I learned to walk.
. Cognitive Distortions
. Are you in a Thinking Rut?
. Mindfulness-integrated Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
Comfort zone: I'm only growing when I'm out of it!
Core Beliefs: This is the digging part - unearthing what is silently and subconsciously dictating my thinking. It is raw, and humbling, but without doubt is also the most life-changing and wonderful part of healing
D
Dissociation: One of my greatest challenges - learning to stay clear-headed and 'present' through triggers and stress.
"Child abuse, especially chronic abuse starting at early ages, has been related to high levels of dissociative symptoms in a clinical sample, including amnesia for abuse memories. A non-clinical sample of adult women linked increased levels of dissociation to sexually abuse by a significantly older person prior to age 15, and dissociation has also been correlated a history of childhood physical as well as sexual abuse. When sexual abuse is examined, the levels of dissociation were found to increase along with the severity of the abuse. The level of dissociation has been found to be related to reported overwhelming sexual and physical abuse. When severe sexual abuse (penetration, several perpetrators, lasting more than one year) had occurred, dissociative symptoms were even more prominent. The amount of dissociation that follows directly after a trauma predicts posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Individuals that are more likely to dissociate during a traumatic event are considerably more likely to develop chronic PTSD. One study found that subjects who experienced early and/or recent trauma were more dissociative." (Wikipedia)
Dreams/Nightmares: Paying attention to the emotions in my dreams (more than the content) gives me insight into unresolved feelings. Some dreams have been profound, heavy with symbolism. It helps to write about the more significant dreams (I could never write about all of them) and look for repeated/recurring messages and underlying themes. I have dreamt a lot about shoes, and mismatched pairs of shoes - it seems that this has pointed more to the fear of being unprepared for what life may present me with than any kind of fashion statement (for those of you who know me well and are thinking about my extensive collection).
. Dream Programming
E
EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques):
. the EFT site provides a free manual and ongoing support
. If you like acupuncture, you'll like acupressure.
. If you like acupressure - you'll love EFT.
. It's something you can learn easily, and use on yourself whenever you feel the need.
F
Feelings are physical experiences - each one a lesson that teaches me something about myself.
I had to learn Emotional Awareness from the ground up - but it is integral to being self-aware
Forgiveness
"Forgiveness and the Freedom of Letting Go"
G
Gratitude: 'Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.' Melodie Beattie
Do the Gratitude Dance!
Gratitude with Deepak Chopra:
Grounding Exercises
Group Therapy: Approach with caution. If my (inner) child is suffering, do I want to deposit her in a room full of other suffering children? Make sure therapy is always overseen by a balanced, rational, preferably professionally trained person. When one of the primary challenges of this illness is 'triggering', listening to other people's stories and dealing with additional stress is often the last thing I need, especially in the early stages of recovery. I have had to learn how to keep myself emotionally safe - in the early stages of recovery I was so constantly triggered that I had no ability to make any connection between what was going on around me and how I was feeling internally. It takes time to learn. And as I get better at regulating myself, I am more able to deal with with life generally.
H
Happiness is Internally Generated: I am learning to take responsibility for my own happiness
Click here for lots of great Authentic Happiness positive psychology ideas and questionnaires
I
Incest Survivor's After Effects Checklist
Inner Child Work
"Who is Your Inner Child?"
Inner Critic: My inner critic is not my friend - I am learning to recognize her voice, to challenge and silence her. There was a time when it seemed that she kept me safe - but ultimately she has only became an enemy and torturer.
J
The Johari Window Technique: A great tool that helps me better understand myself and how I relate to others. In trying so hard not to be like certain people that I had issues with, I had overcompensated - at my own expense - and gone too far the other way. Understanding the process enables me to be more free to make choices in my own best interests.
Journalling: Don't know where I'd be without it. Whether it be hand-written, or typed - messy or neat - a few minutes a day, or much longer. Spelling and sentence structure is completely irrelevant. Experiment - write, draw, scribble, make lists - purge.
K
Kinesiology:
. Applied Kinesiology - Touch for Health*
. Counselling Kinesiology*
in conjunction with Flower Essences/Remedies*(Bach Flowers, Australian Bush Flowers and Desert Alchemy Flower Essences)
*Without these I would be light years behind where I am now in my recovery
A History of Applied Kinesiology and Touch for Health
L
Laugh: Laughter is the Best Medicine
LFIE is MSESY!
M
Massage: There are excellent articles helpful for both therapist and survivor - be safe - make sure you are both aware of the implications of your work before you begin:
. Massage and Body-work with Survivors of Abuse
by Ben E. Benjamin
. Recovering Body and Soul from PTSD
by Pamela Fitch and Trish Dryden
. Releasing Muscle-Bound Memories
by David Drier
Meditation: Click here for free meditation music, guidance and exercise helps
Mental energy and efficiency: My greatest challenge – as I learn to create new mental pathways, the going gets easier. Perhaps one of the hardest things for me to accept - and one of the hardest things for other people to understand.
Mindfulness: "You are not your thoughts. Our thoughts take us away from being here now. If I am thinking about the past, or worried about the future, I am a prisoner of my thoughts." Click here for a brilliant free 30 page workbook "Mindfulness - An Inner Resource for Recovery from Child Abuse by Jim Hopper"
Mirror Work : "Using Mirror Work to Heal Your Life"
Music: An immediate source of solace for me
. Click here for a huge array of music related to abuse and healing
"Talking Post Trauma Blues"
N
Nurture myself: Be my own best friend, eat well, get enough sleep, medicate sensibly, pay attention to grooming
The Nervous System and PTSD : After trauma, the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) continues to be chronically aroused even though the threat has passed, and the energy of the fight/flight response gets stuck in the body - this is a root cause of post traumatic stress.
O
It’s Okay to need help - It's Okay to ask for help
Optimists see and seize Opportunities: Do you see the glass half-full or half-empty?
Click here for a quick Optimism/Pessimism Test
P
Panic Attacks: How to help someone who is having a panic attack
Plan 3 Positive things to do tomorrow (very powerful tool that I use daily)
Progressive Muscle Relaxation : an easy 2 step process of tense and relax
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD):
. Free Booklet - Post Natal Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
. Gift from Within - PTSD Resources for Survivors and Caregivers
. How Does PTSD Affect Families?
. It's not just Psychological - PTSD and Brain Damage
. PTSD and the Autonomic Nervous System
. PTSD - Identification and Diagnosis
. PTSD - What is it and How to Recover
"Individuals need to know that PTSD is caused by extraordinary stress and not weakness"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzUfKTEPnpA
Q
Ask Questions: Better to live with having asked a dumb question than to live with my own dumb answer
R
Read, read, read
Reappraise Relationships: I have had a lot of work to do here, and it is ongoing, but also one of the most satisfying aspects of recovery and working out who I really am and what I really want.
Remember I survived: I am strong in many ways.
Reparenting: Learning to give myself the nurturing, affection, and recognition I need to heal my inner child"
Responsibility: I am responsible for managing my thoughts, my feelings and my actions.
S
SAFETY: I'm learning what it means to feel SAFE in my body (a concept that is difficult for non-traumatized people to understand) and
. How this connects to managing emotional eating
Self-comfort : An essential skill, without which I continued to inwardly agonize and crave for the comfort and assurance I so needed as a child
Self-Esteem: I used to believe that if anybody 'really got to know me' then they would find out how truly bad I was, and then they would undoubtedly hate me and reject me. Anna stumped me one day when she said "What could you have possibly done that was so bad that you would believe that?" I sat with my mouth hanging open. I had no answer.
"Child Abuse Increases Likelihood of Low Self Esteem. People who were abused as children (physical beating or sexual abuse) are more likely to suffer unrealistic low self esteem as adults. This is because of constant repetition of a 'message' that they are of little value or just an object to be used. In a way they have been 'brain washed' by constant criticism or abuse that they are a certain way.When a person begins to question this former conditioning or brainwashing then a healthier and more accurate sense of self can begin to emerge. However the person may have to be de-traumatised so the emotional brain responds differently in future (rather than solely learning to think differently about stuff). The way we think and our assumptions need to be observed, understood and if necessary challenged."
Sentic Exercises : Learn to feel again and remove the armouring that trauma causes
Sexuality:
. Sexual Intimacy after Abuse
. Regaining your Sexuality after Rape
. Positive Sex Play for Survivors
Shame: "Guilt is believing that one has done something bad; shame is believing that one is bad. Shame is believing that one is not loved because one is not lovable. Shame always carries with it the sense that there is nothing one can do to purge its burdensome and toxic presence. Shame cannot be remedied, it must be somehow endured, absorbed, gilded, minimized or denied. Shame is so painful, so debilitating that persons develop a thousand coping strategies, conscious and unconscious, numbing and destructive, to avoid its tortures. Shame is the worst possible thing that can happen, because shame, in its profoundest meaning, conveys that one is not fit to live in one's own community."
The Snakes and Ladders model of Recovery
Somatic Experiencing: a cutting-edge naturalistic approach to healing trauma (though it is such a gentle process that 'cutting-edge' seems a very inappropriate description!)
The Sun Room: Some things I can't fix, or I'm not ready to fix, or they are just too big and overwhelming for me to carry around every day. When I feel that I have done everything in my own power to deal with them, I mentally file them in my 'Sun Room' - the sun is a healer, it sheds light and warmth, it purifies - it even makes things fade over time. But it is also my 'Son Room' - which works the same way in a spiritual sense. When burdens are too heavy, I lay them at the Saviour's feet. I have faith that He can see things more clearly than I can, that He can help me to heal, and that in time, He will deal justly and lovingly with every one of us.
T
Thought-Stopping: Halts downward spirals, endless loops and unhelpful thinking - another great 'take-charge' tool
Triggers/False Alarms: In the beginning I didn't even know they existed, then I came to understand that I was reacting to them all the time! It is incredibly empowering to learn to recognize a trigger (I have dozens) - and then choose to act in a pro-active way instead of the old mindless reactionary reflex. I'm getting my life back! This article was originally designed for sufferers of OCD but works just as well for PTSD - a very simple, powerful technique.
"Triggers and PTSD"
U
Understand that growth is a lifelong process - I am learning to pace myself better and enjoy my life rather than collapse under the weight of trying to 'fix everything' at once. Some lessons need to be learned several times from many different perspectives before they really 'stick'.
V
Visualize how I want to be: Creative Visualization
W
Water: Keep body and brain hydrated by drinking plenty of pure water -it provides electrical energy that works to balance all my systems
EXercise: Walk, Swim, Pound a Pillow to discharge excess energy - or exercise to increase energy when sluggish. Moving maintains the connection between mind and body
Y
Yes, it sucks. Life isn't fair. But it isn't fair for everybody. That's what makes it fair.
Yoga: I WILL get there one day! In the meantime, there are countless yoga videos on YouTube that are actually quite amazing, and even a few minutes dedicated to breathing and stretching helps me to feel more at home in my body and more in control of my life
Great for neck and shoulder tension - one of my favourites:
A Calming, Relaxing Yoga Routine - nourishing the nervous system:
For Sleep, Insomnia, or Deep Relaxation:
Zzzz
A
Affirmations: We make them all the time every day anyway, for better or for worse. Consistent thoughts become a person's reality. I have had to weed out the destructive ones and consciously select the things I want to believe and reinforce in my life. Affirming what I want and how I want to be increases my energy and improves my outlook.
"Powerful Affirmations"
ANP's and EP's: These are the 'Apparently Normal Personalities' and 'Emotional Personalities' embodied in a single individual. The more integrated they all are, the more efficient and energetic one's mental capacity is. Learning where the discrepancies are (or the internal conflicts) is key to healing.
Approval: Whose do I really need? I have spent a lot of time and energy striving for love and approval from people who will never be able to provide it. As I have learned to plug those holes I have been able to reserve more energy to live my life happily.
Aromatherapy: Essential Oils activate the limbic system and emotional centres of the brain, i.e. they really can make you feel better! When used in massage they activate thermal receptors, and even kill microbes and fungi. I love bergamot and the citrus ones - mandarin or grapefruit -all are great antidepressants, and relieve stress and anxiety. Ah, bliss!
Art Therapy: Some of the artworks I have made when I have disengaged my logical brain and allowed the creative side to take over have given me the greatest insights into myself. It isn't important to draw well - it is important to let yourself play and explore. This is a way to honour and respect your inner child, no matter what your background!
Assertiveness: Learning it's okay for me to get what I want, in a fair way
B
The Brain: Many aspects of brain function are effected by trauma. It's not just psychological. There can be damage to the amygdala, the hippocampus -influencing its ability to regenerate neurons and oversupplying cortisol levels - as well as to the medial prefrontal cortex, which regulates emotion. (There's a vortex in my cortex!) This explains many of the symptoms of PTSD.
Boundaries: (As I get better at this, I actually feel more and more like a 'grown-up'!) :
. Building Healthy Boundaries - How to Create Healthy, Lasting, Fulfilling Relationships
. Growing Down: Tools for Healing the Inner Child - Building Healthy Boundaries
. Setting Healthy Boundaries - Allowing the True Self to Emerge
Breathing:
. Alternate nostril breathing* improves mental energy/clears mental fog and reduces anxiety
. Diaphragmatic breathing* to relieve panic attacks and anxiety
*These are my #1 tools when things are at their worst.
Try the mantra:
"Breathing in I calm myself... breathing out I smile..." or
"Be still... and know that I am God..."
C
Calming Exercises and Calming Down: These are simply skills that anyone can learn. As I continue to practise, it is getting easier to tune into my mind and body, and take care of myself before anxiety levels get out of hand
Care Alerts: Checking in with myself at regular intervals to make sure that I am grounded, 'present', and not caught in reactionary thoughts and behaviour. Some days I have needed to do this as often as every 15 minutes - a watch with a timer is helpful for this
Chakra Balancing: 'Chakras are like the power stations of our body, bringing it to life and keeping it healthy'
Childhood Development: Understanding the basics of childhood psychosocial development gives me a clearer understanding of myself and why and how I got stuck in different patterns at different ages. (Counselling Kinesiology has been of greatest benefit to me in this regard - see K for Kinesiology)
Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA):
. From Victim to Victor - Overcoming CSA
. Sexual Abuse Help
. Survivor to Thriver - an excellent free manual for Adult Survivors of Sexual Abuse
"Childhood Sexual Abuse always includes other forms of abuse - emotional abuse, physical abuse, neglect. Abuse is a violation that harms a child physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually and psychologically."
Choosing my 'End Goal Feelings' : I am learning how to use my imagination! I never understood that I could be instrumental in my own future - my head was stuck in a bog of powerlessness, helplessness and dread. Learning to imagine 'how I want to be' (not necessarily 'what I want to do') in the future has given me a fresh burst of energy that flows over into all areas of my life.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: What a blessing it was for me to find an experienced therapist with a particular interest in PTSD - so good at what she does, so caring, insightful, and observant. For a long time hers were the only hands that steadied me as I learned to walk.
. Cognitive Distortions
. Are you in a Thinking Rut?
. Mindfulness-integrated Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
Comfort zone: I'm only growing when I'm out of it!
Core Beliefs: This is the digging part - unearthing what is silently and subconsciously dictating my thinking. It is raw, and humbling, but without doubt is also the most life-changing and wonderful part of healing
D
Dissociation: One of my greatest challenges - learning to stay clear-headed and 'present' through triggers and stress.
"Child abuse, especially chronic abuse starting at early ages, has been related to high levels of dissociative symptoms in a clinical sample, including amnesia for abuse memories. A non-clinical sample of adult women linked increased levels of dissociation to sexually abuse by a significantly older person prior to age 15, and dissociation has also been correlated a history of childhood physical as well as sexual abuse. When sexual abuse is examined, the levels of dissociation were found to increase along with the severity of the abuse. The level of dissociation has been found to be related to reported overwhelming sexual and physical abuse. When severe sexual abuse (penetration, several perpetrators, lasting more than one year) had occurred, dissociative symptoms were even more prominent. The amount of dissociation that follows directly after a trauma predicts posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Individuals that are more likely to dissociate during a traumatic event are considerably more likely to develop chronic PTSD. One study found that subjects who experienced early and/or recent trauma were more dissociative." (Wikipedia)
Dreams/Nightmares: Paying attention to the emotions in my dreams (more than the content) gives me insight into unresolved feelings. Some dreams have been profound, heavy with symbolism. It helps to write about the more significant dreams (I could never write about all of them) and look for repeated/recurring messages and underlying themes. I have dreamt a lot about shoes, and mismatched pairs of shoes - it seems that this has pointed more to the fear of being unprepared for what life may present me with than any kind of fashion statement (for those of you who know me well and are thinking about my extensive collection).
. Dream Programming
E
EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques):
. the EFT site provides a free manual and ongoing support
. If you like acupuncture, you'll like acupressure.
. If you like acupressure - you'll love EFT.
. It's something you can learn easily, and use on yourself whenever you feel the need.
F
Feelings are physical experiences - each one a lesson that teaches me something about myself.
I had to learn Emotional Awareness from the ground up - but it is integral to being self-aware
Forgiveness
"Forgiveness and the Freedom of Letting Go"
G
Gratitude: 'Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.' Melodie Beattie
Do the Gratitude Dance!
Gratitude with Deepak Chopra:
Grounding Exercises
Group Therapy: Approach with caution. If my (inner) child is suffering, do I want to deposit her in a room full of other suffering children? Make sure therapy is always overseen by a balanced, rational, preferably professionally trained person. When one of the primary challenges of this illness is 'triggering', listening to other people's stories and dealing with additional stress is often the last thing I need, especially in the early stages of recovery. I have had to learn how to keep myself emotionally safe - in the early stages of recovery I was so constantly triggered that I had no ability to make any connection between what was going on around me and how I was feeling internally. It takes time to learn. And as I get better at regulating myself, I am more able to deal with with life generally.
H
Happiness is Internally Generated: I am learning to take responsibility for my own happiness
Click here for lots of great Authentic Happiness positive psychology ideas and questionnaires
I
Incest Survivor's After Effects Checklist
Inner Child Work
"Who is Your Inner Child?"
Inner Critic: My inner critic is not my friend - I am learning to recognize her voice, to challenge and silence her. There was a time when it seemed that she kept me safe - but ultimately she has only became an enemy and torturer.
J
The Johari Window Technique: A great tool that helps me better understand myself and how I relate to others. In trying so hard not to be like certain people that I had issues with, I had overcompensated - at my own expense - and gone too far the other way. Understanding the process enables me to be more free to make choices in my own best interests.
Journalling: Don't know where I'd be without it. Whether it be hand-written, or typed - messy or neat - a few minutes a day, or much longer. Spelling and sentence structure is completely irrelevant. Experiment - write, draw, scribble, make lists - purge.
K
Kinesiology:
. Applied Kinesiology - Touch for Health*
. Counselling Kinesiology*
in conjunction with Flower Essences/Remedies*(Bach Flowers, Australian Bush Flowers and Desert Alchemy Flower Essences)
*Without these I would be light years behind where I am now in my recovery
A History of Applied Kinesiology and Touch for Health
L
Laugh: Laughter is the Best Medicine
LFIE is MSESY!
M
Massage: There are excellent articles helpful for both therapist and survivor - be safe - make sure you are both aware of the implications of your work before you begin:
. Massage and Body-work with Survivors of Abuse
by Ben E. Benjamin
. Recovering Body and Soul from PTSD
by Pamela Fitch and Trish Dryden
. Releasing Muscle-Bound Memories
by David Drier
Meditation: Click here for free meditation music, guidance and exercise helps
Mental energy and efficiency: My greatest challenge – as I learn to create new mental pathways, the going gets easier. Perhaps one of the hardest things for me to accept - and one of the hardest things for other people to understand.
Mindfulness: "You are not your thoughts. Our thoughts take us away from being here now. If I am thinking about the past, or worried about the future, I am a prisoner of my thoughts." Click here for a brilliant free 30 page workbook "Mindfulness - An Inner Resource for Recovery from Child Abuse by Jim Hopper"
Mirror Work : "Using Mirror Work to Heal Your Life"
Music: An immediate source of solace for me
. Click here for a huge array of music related to abuse and healing
"Talking Post Trauma Blues"
N
Nurture myself: Be my own best friend, eat well, get enough sleep, medicate sensibly, pay attention to grooming
The Nervous System and PTSD : After trauma, the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) continues to be chronically aroused even though the threat has passed, and the energy of the fight/flight response gets stuck in the body - this is a root cause of post traumatic stress.
O
It’s Okay to need help - It's Okay to ask for help
Optimists see and seize Opportunities: Do you see the glass half-full or half-empty?
Click here for a quick Optimism/Pessimism Test
P
Panic Attacks: How to help someone who is having a panic attack
Plan 3 Positive things to do tomorrow (very powerful tool that I use daily)
Progressive Muscle Relaxation : an easy 2 step process of tense and relax
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD):
. Free Booklet - Post Natal Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
. Gift from Within - PTSD Resources for Survivors and Caregivers
. How Does PTSD Affect Families?
. It's not just Psychological - PTSD and Brain Damage
. PTSD and the Autonomic Nervous System
. PTSD - Identification and Diagnosis
. PTSD - What is it and How to Recover
"Individuals need to know that PTSD is caused by extraordinary stress and not weakness"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzUfKTEPnpA
Q
Ask Questions: Better to live with having asked a dumb question than to live with my own dumb answer
R
Read, read, read
Reappraise Relationships: I have had a lot of work to do here, and it is ongoing, but also one of the most satisfying aspects of recovery and working out who I really am and what I really want.
Remember I survived: I am strong in many ways.
Reparenting: Learning to give myself the nurturing, affection, and recognition I need to heal my inner child"
Responsibility: I am responsible for managing my thoughts, my feelings and my actions.
S
SAFETY: I'm learning what it means to feel SAFE in my body (a concept that is difficult for non-traumatized people to understand) and
. How this connects to managing emotional eating
Self-comfort : An essential skill, without which I continued to inwardly agonize and crave for the comfort and assurance I so needed as a child
Self-Esteem: I used to believe that if anybody 'really got to know me' then they would find out how truly bad I was, and then they would undoubtedly hate me and reject me. Anna stumped me one day when she said "What could you have possibly done that was so bad that you would believe that?" I sat with my mouth hanging open. I had no answer.
"Child Abuse Increases Likelihood of Low Self Esteem. People who were abused as children (physical beating or sexual abuse) are more likely to suffer unrealistic low self esteem as adults. This is because of constant repetition of a 'message' that they are of little value or just an object to be used. In a way they have been 'brain washed' by constant criticism or abuse that they are a certain way.When a person begins to question this former conditioning or brainwashing then a healthier and more accurate sense of self can begin to emerge. However the person may have to be de-traumatised so the emotional brain responds differently in future (rather than solely learning to think differently about stuff). The way we think and our assumptions need to be observed, understood and if necessary challenged."
Sentic Exercises : Learn to feel again and remove the armouring that trauma causes
Sexuality:
. Sexual Intimacy after Abuse
. Regaining your Sexuality after Rape
. Positive Sex Play for Survivors
Shame: "Guilt is believing that one has done something bad; shame is believing that one is bad. Shame is believing that one is not loved because one is not lovable. Shame always carries with it the sense that there is nothing one can do to purge its burdensome and toxic presence. Shame cannot be remedied, it must be somehow endured, absorbed, gilded, minimized or denied. Shame is so painful, so debilitating that persons develop a thousand coping strategies, conscious and unconscious, numbing and destructive, to avoid its tortures. Shame is the worst possible thing that can happen, because shame, in its profoundest meaning, conveys that one is not fit to live in one's own community."
The Snakes and Ladders model of Recovery
Somatic Experiencing: a cutting-edge naturalistic approach to healing trauma (though it is such a gentle process that 'cutting-edge' seems a very inappropriate description!)
The Sun Room: Some things I can't fix, or I'm not ready to fix, or they are just too big and overwhelming for me to carry around every day. When I feel that I have done everything in my own power to deal with them, I mentally file them in my 'Sun Room' - the sun is a healer, it sheds light and warmth, it purifies - it even makes things fade over time. But it is also my 'Son Room' - which works the same way in a spiritual sense. When burdens are too heavy, I lay them at the Saviour's feet. I have faith that He can see things more clearly than I can, that He can help me to heal, and that in time, He will deal justly and lovingly with every one of us.
T
Thought-Stopping: Halts downward spirals, endless loops and unhelpful thinking - another great 'take-charge' tool
Triggers/False Alarms: In the beginning I didn't even know they existed, then I came to understand that I was reacting to them all the time! It is incredibly empowering to learn to recognize a trigger (I have dozens) - and then choose to act in a pro-active way instead of the old mindless reactionary reflex. I'm getting my life back! This article was originally designed for sufferers of OCD but works just as well for PTSD - a very simple, powerful technique.
"Triggers and PTSD"
U
Understand that growth is a lifelong process - I am learning to pace myself better and enjoy my life rather than collapse under the weight of trying to 'fix everything' at once. Some lessons need to be learned several times from many different perspectives before they really 'stick'.
V
Visualize how I want to be: Creative Visualization
W
Water: Keep body and brain hydrated by drinking plenty of pure water -it provides electrical energy that works to balance all my systems
EXercise: Walk, Swim, Pound a Pillow to discharge excess energy - or exercise to increase energy when sluggish. Moving maintains the connection between mind and body
Y
Yes, it sucks. Life isn't fair. But it isn't fair for everybody. That's what makes it fair.
Yoga: I WILL get there one day! In the meantime, there are countless yoga videos on YouTube that are actually quite amazing, and even a few minutes dedicated to breathing and stretching helps me to feel more at home in my body and more in control of my life
Great for neck and shoulder tension - one of my favourites:
A Calming, Relaxing Yoga Routine - nourishing the nervous system:
For Sleep, Insomnia, or Deep Relaxation:
Zzzz
Thursday, December 11, 2008
#2 My Diagnoses
My research stems from my own psychopathology which includes but is not limited to:
(Complex)Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD)
Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (DD-NOS)
Dissociative Amnesia
Structural Dissociation
Clinical Depression
Affect Dysregulation
Somatization Disorder
Depersonalization Disorder
(Complex)Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD)
Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (DD-NOS)
Dissociative Amnesia
Structural Dissociation
Clinical Depression
Affect Dysregulation
Somatization Disorder
Depersonalization Disorder
#1 Intro & Intent
Over the last few years I have amassed a large file of information on the subject of trauma and childhood sexual abuse that so far has been of little use to anyone but myself.
The purpose of this blog is to share what I have learned and hopefully shed some light on the mysteries of the long and difficult process of healing from abuse.
At this stage it is not my intent to use this as a forum to discuss the specific details of my own history, but at the same time questions and comments about the subject in general are welcome.
The purpose of this blog is to share what I have learned and hopefully shed some light on the mysteries of the long and difficult process of healing from abuse.
At this stage it is not my intent to use this as a forum to discuss the specific details of my own history, but at the same time questions and comments about the subject in general are welcome.
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