Change the question

I asked for years what was wrong with me.  No answers….I asked my parents and my doctor.  Nothing.  Medical test showed I was healthy….then why did I pass out?  My parents told me I was like every other teenager.  I talked to other teenagers and they didn’t react like I did.  I learned two things…

Family Roles

I became unreasonably dismayed that my online art therapy teacher asked me to make a family tree as one of the projects.  I pushed pause and walked away. (Nice advantage of an online class.) I took all day to hash through why I was so unreasonably upset over a simple assignment.  Well, with my family…

Life Changing Experiences

Life changing experiences should change your life.  I am seeing a disturbing trend among PTSD support groups on Facebook.  There is a cry of ‘I don’t want this to change me.’  Frankly, I think it is very disturbing if you are not affected by a life changing experience.  September of 2001 I was diagnosed with…

Slogging Through PTSD

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…

Positively Negative

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…

Learning to rebel

My counselor taught me how to rebel.  I needed to rebel against the label of ‘over active imagination,’ ‘unforgiving,’ ‘unreasonable,’ and other negative descriptions that justified my parents treating me like a 3rd class citizen in my home growing up.  This disconnect between what the outside world saw and what I experienced.  My mother tells…

Second-hand opinion

Growing up a child does not get to choose what is taught.  A child can be taught black is white and hate is right and cruelty is funny.  Yes, I experienced some of these.  So when a child hits teen years usually enough other people are in their life for them to doubt, question or…

Embracing Triggers

I’m not sure I am ready….yet, this was what I did in my 10 years of counseling.  Embraced one trigger, fear, incident, memory at a time, even if they tried to crowd forward all at once my counselor would help me focus on a bit a time. I read this article that set me thinking…