Is PTSD Running Or Ruining Your Life? 6 Self Help Ideas for Treatment of Trauma

John (not his real name) loved his wife and enjoyed their physical intimacy, as long as he was in control. As their relationship deepened, his wife also wanted to initiate sex. This terrified John and whenever she came close, he froze. Her touch repulsed him and he just wanted to get away. His heart raced and the panic kept him from thinking clearly.Tension arose in their relationship and he feared their marriage was in jeopardy. When his wife questioned him about his childhood, John began to suspect that his reaction to her attempts at intimacy was tied to the childhood sexual molestation. He had no idea, however, of where to begin his healing journey.

In this article, I describe what you can do to for yourself to begin to ease trauma symptoms. By following these guidelines you can take steps to begin to come out of freeze, anxiety or depression that are often accompany trauma. While the steps you take may not completely eliminate all the trauma symptoms, PTSD will no longer seem as though it is running or ruining your life. The efforts you make now will also lay a good foundation for any future work you may want to do with a professional counselor.

How to Recognize Symptoms of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)

If you suspect that you are dealing with PTSD, your nervous system is most likely stuck in a threat response. Somewhere along the line during a threatening experience your nervous system became overwhelmed. It did not get to complete al the biological steps that we animals must move through successfully to avoid PTSD. Perhaps you got stuck in the startle response and now you are jumpy at the least sound. Maybe you never got to actually see where the threat came from or were blocked from fighting or running. Possibly, your body never really got it that you survived the threat and that it is ok to relax. Consequently, the energy that arose in each of these steps at the time of the traumatic event is probably still hanging out in your body.

In general, our nervous systems get overwhelmed when we don’t have enough time or enough space to respond in order to avoid or escape from the danger. This is often true in accidents. Nervous systems also can get overwhelmed when we don’t have enough support; this is particularly significant when we were children. There might not have been a competent protector, who could have stepped in to stop the abuse or neglect. Regardless if our nervous system gets overwhelmed as a result of physical and / or emotional threatening situations, it can show up in some pretty characteristic ways.

What Happens When We Are Stuck in a Threat Response?

The most common symptoms are related to the autonomic nervous system. This means our body functions that happen without our conscious awareness can get out of whack. Muscles can tighten, digestion worsens, immune systems weaken or sexual difficulties arise.

Our approach to life can be one of either needing to fight or run even when the source of the threat is no longer present. This often shows up as anger, physical aggression or having the sense of never being able to settle down.

On the other end of the spectrum, we might prefer to hide or to isolate ourselves. Getting out and engaging with others is the last thing we want to do. Our bodies go into a state of freeze. The spark for life is gone.

If we pay attention to what we say, we may notice that we focus on messages that convey we have to compete or be workaholics to survive. Alternately, we may believe that the world is out to get us. Believing that the world could harm us more each moment, we attempt to protect ourselves by isolating and ostracizing others.

Being stuck in any of these situations can feel as though we are caught in a whirlpool – a big whirlpool that pulls us down and spins us around and around.

Getting Out of the Whirlpool

There IS a way out of the whirlpool. Simply put, it requires that we shift our attention from the whirlpool to that which calms, nourishes, restores, soothes or comforts us. We move from feeling activated to feeling resourced. Where the mind goes, so goes the nervous system.

This approach may seem, at first, too simplistic and its effectiveness highly doubtful. A professional athlete knows first hand, however, just how powerful the mind can be. She knows that if she visualizes the golf swing or the broad jump before she attempts the move, her success is significantly improved.

How is this possible? When the athlete creates in her mind of images of how she would like to swing the club or make the jump, her body will actually go through all the motions on a cellular level that will be needed later to actually perform the swing or jump. The part of the brain that makes this possible does not recognize time. When the image appears, the body acts.

The same principle applies when we turn our attention away from the trauma or stress responses and to what nourishes us. The turning of the attention, however, is most effective when we do this gently and without any expectation that it lead to a certain result. If we hear ourselves saying, ” By golly, this had better work!” or “I’m going to make myself calm down!” we are probably adding another level of stress to the nervous system and won’t help it relax!

6 Strategies to Shift Toward Resource

1.Take a walk down memory lane. Reminisce about pleasant times from the past. Remember the times you laughed or enjoyed being with others

2. Pay attention to what is interesting that is happening right now. Don’t think about what you need to defend yourself against something; experiment with getting curious about something. Pretend you are a tour guide for someone, who just came from another planet and who wants to understand what and why we do things the way we do.

3. Seek out the company of people who are calm. Your brain will “talk” to their brain and their calmness will trigger your own to arise.

4. Find opportunities that delight the senses. Luxuriate in taking a bath or receiving a massage from a loved one; soak in the aroma of food cooking; or listen to music or nature sounds that calm the soul.

5. Notice how the furniture you are sitting on supports your body. Support can be there for you just by you noticing its presence.

6. Scan your body for those areas that feel relaxed, neutral or have less pain. Challenge the mind to appreciate that there may be at least one area, however small, that is not achy. By connecting these observations to your thoughts and feelings, you may discover many other ways that your nervous system knows how to calm itself.

Some Things to Watch Out For Along the Way

Shame or self-criticism
Sometimes we get trapped in the thought that we did not do what we “should” have done when the traumatic event occurred. We mistakenly think that we should have been able to will ourselves to respond differently; as a result, shame can sneak in and take up residence. A reality check can help. Know that how we responded when your nervous system perceived a threat was beyond our conscious control; actions taken to survive are done unconsciously and extremely fast.

Whirlpool energy
The threat response is strong and it is very easy to get caught in its energy. When we first begin to practice turning our attention to resources, we may notice a strong pull to go back into the awfulness of what happened. Reminding ourselves to be gentle, acknowledging the power of the whirlpool, and taking tiny steps toward that which resources us, can make a big difference. Suddenly moving from living in the energy of a whirlpool to floating along very calm waters can feel traumatic to the body! A change of feeling just two percent calmer is significant!

Life On the Other Side of the Whirlpool

So what can be different when we are not in a threat response? To begin, we may feel better physically. As the autonomic nervous system relaxes, our breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, the immune system and digestion can improve. Deep restful sleep returns.

As we come out of feeling shut down, the pain of depression eases. A sense that life is worth living returns and once again we can see the beauty in the world.

A sense of curiosity can replace a defensive attitude. Knowing how we feel emotionally becomes more accessible. Hypervigilance relaxes and we are more willing to take risks to become close to those we love.

Finally, we focus less on how we can compete against another and more on how we can interact in a cooperative manner. This can be especially beneficial to family members and with whom we work because we can approach conflicts with creative thinking and problem solving. The spark for living life returns as we engage more with others instead of isolating.

What Happened to John?

The first steps toward healing from this trauma began with focusing on what resourced John. Playing cards with his wife totally absorbed him and he delighted in the playful competitiveness that arose. His wife was truly his match!

John took this one step further and began to play cards with the men at work. This helped him to relax during stressful night shifts and when he came home he found he no longer needed to drink or turn on loud music to help calm down in order to get to sleep. This experience really convinced him that by engaging with something that brought him pleasure his nervous system could much more easily relax and rest.

This awareness set the stage for additional work with John when he began to look directly at the abuse. Knowing that he could resource himself, he felt more confident that he would be able to move back and forth between the shame and horror of what happened in childhood and the pleasure he knew he could experience as an adult. He could trust he would not get stuck in the whirlpool of the trauma.

Summary

1. PTSD happens when the nervous system gets overwhelmed. Energy that arose when we faced the threat gets trapped in the body.
2. When we are trapped in a threat response, our physical health can suffer, depression sets in, and we think and talk as though we have to save ourselves from further harm every moment.
3. Shifting out of a threat response requires that we shift our attention, gently and without expectation, to those things that nurture or calm us.
4. When we are more relaxed, we feel better physically; we want to engage more with others; and we can face problems with a sense of curiosity and creativity rather than defensiveness.

If You Are Still Concerned About the Impact PTSD Has In Your Life…

it may help to check it out with a trained trauma specialist. Taking these steps to resource ourselves after a traumatic event can significantly ease symptoms of PTSD. If you find, however, that there are lingering symptoms you may also want to work with a professional who understands the physiology of trauma. These symptoms often go away when, with the help of a professional, you navigate the scary territory of facing the source of threat head on. A trained professional will offer the support you need to release this energy gently and without overwhelming the nervous system. Living life inside the whirlpool can then become a thing of the past!

I offer a free 30-minute consultation, in person or by phone, during which we can discuss your situation.

For more information about how trauma may affect you or someone you love, subscribe to my free newsletter Healing Trauma

~Maggie