I was raised with a taboo about emotions. I was not taught to recognize and rejoice in my emotions. My mother couldn’t control her emotions so she controlled mine. Worked to. My teen idol was Mr. Spock. I thought I would be perfect if I could show no emotion. I felt totally betrayed when they…
There are times in my life when depression has the upper hand and makes my life miserable. I feel like I need a gold star for getting out of bed. I drag around barely able to function. I do nothing that I enjoy. Life sucks. Self punishment is when I am feeling fairly healthy. I…
One of the interesting things I learned from my counselor was to limit the time I work each day on improving my life with PTSD. He stressed the importance of setting aside only one hour a day to focus on past, journal writing, studying and other activities focused on healing. He explained that I needed…
I am working on The PTSD Workbook, 2nd edition, Mary Beth Williams, PhD, LCSW, CTS and Soili Poijula, PhD. In their book, they refer to another book, A Clinical Handbook/Practical Therapist Manual for Assessing and Treating Adults with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (Meichenbaum 1994) the authors noticed that there are personality traits that influence how much…
I had to look it up because I did not remember the reference to the Star Trek movies. This is a no win test faced by all Cadets in the Starfleet Academy. (Yes, I watched the original Star Trek before it was a rerun.) The meme on Facebook showed a bumper sticker, “My ship just…
The original title for the workbook I am doing was going to be Slogging through PTSD, which I believe is far more accurate than most people want to admit. One of the stories it asked you to imagine you are in a bog, up to your hips in ooze, and as the day heats up…
Rarely show outside scars. Trigger Alert articles may be triggering for some readers. Two articles came to my attention today. One comes from Lilly Hope Lucario sharing how she felt at the beginning of her journey of healing. https://healingfromcomplextraumaandptsd.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/complex-ptsd-is-an-isolating-severe-exhausting-disorder/ Her description so vividly described how I felt so often at the beginning of my healing…
A friend posted a link of what they wanted their daughter to know when things get real. Looks a lot like the list my counselor had me work on to learn to live instead of just survive. Early in my counseling he gave me the challenge “to thrive not just survive.” Game ON!!!! http://www.scarymommy.com/want-my-daughter-know-as-grows-up/ Language…
The ultimate mind games are the ones abusers use with their victims. Convincing the victim they are powerless, without options, and totally under the power of the abuser. Not hard to do to a small child. Children and adults are groomed to accept abuse. As long as they believe they are powerless, nothing changes. …
On Facebook friends posted an article about how complaining rewires your brain. http://truththeory.com/2016/07/11/how-complaining-rewires-your-brain-for-negativity-and-how-to-break-the-habit/ “Spending today complaining about yesterday won’t make tomorrow any better.” ~Unknown The article makes several good points about complaining being a habit, also explains ways to break gripe talk. So why the title? One of the biggies on the abuser’s must do…
PTSD - Accepting, Coping, Thriving 