What if you don’t know what is wrong with you. I first noticed that there was something different about me when I was a teenager. I listened to my friends talk about crushes, school, and family I felt totally out of the loop. I was fascinated by their perspective but my concerns and worries didn’t…
Early on in my counseling, I explained that one of my medical doctors told me that I was depressed and didn’t know it. I felt like “DUH” I would know if I was depressed. My therapist looked fairly amused while I recounted this experience. (I learned to be very cautious if my counselor was amused…
Can become strengths, but not by themselves. I spent years trying to fix me. My counselor cautioned me to stop working so hard on my weaknesses every day. I was puzzled….how could a weakness become a strength if I didn’t work at correcting them. He was trying to help me see if my only focus…
Complex PTSD is well complex. Research is updating what they are learning about why some of the old tried and trued practices for PTSD are ineffective for Complex PTSD. I believe that number 10 in their list of best practices for a counselor treating CPTSD is to stay up to date to what we are…
Can be detrimental to your health and relationships. I mentioned in my last post about Rescuer’s High. This is the feeling you get when you come in and fix everything for someone else. The rush of feeling like a hero even if the solution was detrimental to the person being rescued. I didn’t understand the…
One of the struggles of CPTSD and PTSD is Black and White thinking. Bad is BAD and Good is good and nothing in between. There is no such thing as sort of right. Perfectionism or else and you don’t want to know what ‘or else’ is going to be. My counselor spent many sessions trying…
My counselor was a bit of a maverick. Every year I signed a paper saying that his counseling was not conventional and I was fully aware that he went off the beaten path of “accepted therapy.” I’m so glad he did. He approached my issues totally different than the other people I knew that visited…
In me…..nope-nope-nope. 8. I struggle with believing in myself. As many times as trusted loved ones have told me I’m beautiful, loving, and smart, I find myself completely unable to believe them. https://healingfromcomplextraumaandptsd.wordpress.com/2017/07/16/25-obvious-non-obvious-self-care-issues-complex-trauma-survivors-struggle-with-lilly-hope-lucario/ Judy’s response to this statement: https://theprojectbyjudy.wordpress.com/2017/11/09/self-care-8-of-25/ Even though Judy and I were raised by the same parents are roles in the family…
effect more than people think it does. Every where on the internet and TV are pictures of the disaster of Hurricane Harvey. I cannot even comprehend getting over 3 feet of water in 24 hours with more to come. The VA (Veterans Administration) posted on their Facebook a link to their disaster information. https://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/treatment/therapy-med/disaster_mental_health_treatment.asp and…
I felt like a complete dweeb when I started college. My parents made all my major decisions for me including what to study in college, where I went to college, and basically what I wore to college. Yup, I was controlled that completely. Teenagers don’t magically turn into decision making adults without making their own…
PTSD - Accepting, Coping, Thriving 