I am going through a list of best practices for therapist with CPTSD/PTSD clients.  I am stuck on number 5. https://www.blueknot.org.au/Workers-Practitioners/For-Health-Professionals/Resources-for-Health-Professionals/Best-Practice-Guidelines It is cloaked in Psycho-babble terms but boils down to the therapist needs to kindly tell the client they are brain damaged….awesome.  There is no easy way to put this. Really.  I thought for days.  I was shook up when I understood that repeated traumatic events at a young age affected the development of my brain.  I also had a head injury as a teenager which also damaged my brain.  Wow and double Wow.  The fun just keeps on happening.  To top off the whole mess, I have a brain tumor snuggly wrapped around my auditory nerve.  There is no gentle way to say this stuff.  It sucks.  Just like a mother smoking, doing drugs or drinking alcohol while pregnant affects the development of a baby so does abuse affect a growing child.  Picture is looking mighty bleak.

Keep doing research.  I can’t sight the exact articles because I read them quite a while ago.  The brain is capable of recovering or making new patterns from the damage ones or sometimes creates new neuro paths around damaged areas.  One practice for fighting damage is art.  Art is not limited to painting or drawing…..it includes all creative ways of assembling or reassembling materials into new arrangements.  Not just the visual arts either.  Singing, dance, playing instruments all play into this area of creating new path ways in your brain.  Cool thing about art/music/creativity is there are no rules you need to follow.  I am experimenting with pour painting.  They are amazing.  I am doodling and drawing.  I crocheted a small blanket with different patterns sent as a mystery project.  I am down to the last 5 rows.  Don’t let the cost discourage you.  Find old magazines and cut up the pictures and rearrange the colors.  Thrift stores provide many interesting fabrics/materials and someone else’s left over project that can be remade and redone to your own design.  A paper napkin and  pen are all you need to start doodling.  I think it is a beautiful thing that creativity helps heal destruction.