Healing From Trauma

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Permalink Reply by Scorpio on March 8, 2009 at 9:24am

Dear Sierra, I have a post traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) and I'm also healing from trauma. I was not sure if I should answer you because usually I don't speak in public about my medical condition. But on the other side I see it as a chance to talk to a person with the same problem. Last year I had heavy symptoms but in the moment there is only one left: anxiety. But I must say that I took medicine against the symptoms. And this helps a lot. The next thing is that I changed my life. Now I handle myself very thoughtful. And I'm in therapy against the trauma. This is sometimes very hard because I have to deal with the trauma but I think the best way to overcome it. I would be glad if I'm hearing from you again. Scorpio

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Permalink Reply by Sierra on March 13, 2009 at 5:52am

I'm glad you responded & thx for sharing. I hope we can help each other here.

I'd be interested to hear how you handle the anxiety. The book Waking the Tiger has helped me so much with that one. I used to have terrible anxiety attacks where I felt so out of control & scared... I used to walk outside, just feeling like I needed to "get out", "get away", & it was terrifying even though I knew that nothing was threatening at the time. Now that I've been doing some of the somatic experiencing from the book, I'm more comfortable with just being with the feeling. The other night I woke up in the middle of the night & had a feeling of paralysis & intensity at the same time.... They call it the freeze response. Can you imagine being in a car and holding down the brake as hard as you could while simultaneously putting the gas pedal to the floor. Animals experience this when they are caught after running away from a predator. They will run & run with all their might, the adrenaline pumping, and then when they are caught, they collapse & play dead. But imagine all that energy & adrenaline still pumping through their bodies, yet being completely collapsed. To us humans with our advanced ability to think, it is terrifying. I've gotten much better at just noticing how it feels to be all rev'd up, heart pumping, anxiety, fear, and at the same time, being able to be in the moment... looking at my surroundings, knowing I am safe, & just watching the physical sensations. It's really important to know that the primitive brain will go crazy trying to figure it all out. That part of the brain will try to make sense of it. It is trying to "save the organism"... The organism is "us"... our body & our spirit. The primitive brain will try to get us to do something about the situation, while an animal, not having a mind like ours, will just lay there & twitch & then rest. That's what I need to do to get better... just be with the somatic experience of feeling the trauma, & although I thank my brain for trying to save me, I don't buy in to what it says. I just tell it, "thank you for trying to save me, but I'm ok right now, & we can lie here & feel this & then rest." Sometimes I just notice it & will state what is true... like, "right now my brain is trying to save me" or "right now my brain is convinced that this will kill me" or "my brain is telling me that I have to get out or get away or run away" ....

A lot of times, it's just that primitive brain that is desperate, in a state of urgency. When I can be in the moment, in this moment, right now, I usually don't feel urgency.. I usually feel pretty peaceful, & maybe even kind of curious about what's going on. If I feel urgency, I can pretty much count on that it is the brain trying to save the organism, and I have the choice of buying in to it or not. I chose not to buy in to it. I don't want to be run by an urgent fearful brain. I want to be present in the moment, where I am really safe, and healing. Then the energy can be released from my body & I don't feel that trauma, that anxiety anymore. I can feel it when it's there, but I want it to be released and not trapped in my body.

It's a long process & it's taken me a long time to wrap my head around it. It isn't something you can just learn in your head. You have to learn it in your body too. If you can find a somatic experiencing therapist in your area, that would be best of all. I'm in a very rural area & there's no one anywhere close.

I look forward to us sharing more with each other. I hope others' will find us & share their experiences as well.

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Permalink Reply by Felicitas Heyne on March 17, 2009 at 11:10am

Thanks to both of you for sharing. I've been studying "Waking the Tiger", too, but more from a professional point of view as I'm often working with trauma survivors and always on the look-out for helpful ideas and suggestions. I liked it a lot, especially because I, personally, am a very "cognitive" person and therefore during my therapies often focus too much on thoughts and consciousness (at least that's what I think). Therefore, I'm deliberately trying to strenghten those parts in my work that are more body-related and more linked to the unconscious, to gain a better balance. And "Waking the Tiger" was a very good input from this point of view. So I agree with you, Sierra, I think that a good somatic experiencing therapist can be very helpful to many trauma victims for sure.

On a personal basis, I've suffered two traumas myself and therefore know both sides of the coin - the one as a therapist as well as the one as a client. As far as my personal healing process was concerned, there was no somatic experiencing therapist involved, but looking back I think if I had had the chance to see one, the process might have been less enduring and less painful. Not that I think that the techniques my former therapist used were bad - I use them myself nowadays (especially those imaginative techniques described by Luise Reddemann and Michaela Huber) and I find them very useful. However, I think the "memory of the body" is often underestimated and I find it extremely difficult to "erase" it with cognitive techniques. I've gone through this myself: I had long ago successfully finished my own therapy and had been living without any trauma symptoms (except for some nightmares from time to time, but not very often) for almost ten years, when it hit me out of the blue: a panic attack in a supermarket on a wonderful summer day. Others were to follow, and I first had no idea about their origin and couldn't find any pattern. It took me almost half a year (and the sensitive input of a homoepath) to find it: the weather situation! I had worked on any trigger of the trauma I could find during my therapy (the circumstances, the place and so on), but both my therapist and I had missed a very "physical" trigger: The day the original trauma happened was a wonderful, hot summer day with a steel blue sky, no cloud in sight after six weeks of constant rain and cloudiness. And I realized that the panic attacs only popped up on such days: unexpected hot, clear days after a certain period of bad weather ... my body obviously didn't care a damn about exact dates or such things as anniversaries, he simply reacted on this pattern.

When I had found the forgotten trigger, it was no big deal to unlink it from the trauma any more. Today, even the nightmares are gone. But, as you wrote, Sierra, it's a long process. I never would have expected those "left-overs" to show up ten years after my therapy - never! However, we can overcome it. And it's worth it. So all the best to both of you on your way!

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Permalink Reply by Sierra on March 18, 2009 at 9:18pm

Thanks for sharing your personal story. That's so helpful to hear about specific experiences people are having. That a warm sunny day brought up the body memory is so amazing. We are amazing organisms, aren't we? I think it's important to say, and to remember, that our organisms seek healing. And whatever it takes to bring up a remaining block of trauma, the organism, our spirits, our souls, are committed to doing that. I hope that makes others feel as loved & cared for as it makes me feel. I hope it shows us that compassion towards ourselves is key to our healing, & to our freedom. Sometimes the process of healing can feel like more trauma, more victimization, because it is such hard work to heal.... If we can remember that there is a law of healing that is committed to our being free & whole & healthy, maybe we can feel supported by that.

Also, if we can tune in to those moments when our bodies are telling us we are in trouble, like an anxiety attack, or just unease, & be sensitive enough to pick up on that & respond to it when it is triggered by a sunny day, then we don't have to be hit over the head by something like a car accident or a truly traumatizing event. Being sensitive & compassion towards ourselves... wow... what a concept.. for me anyway. I haven't had that modeled for me enough in my life to be really good at it.

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