The Trauma Tool Kit Wins Awards!

I am happy to announce that in the last month, my book The Trauma Tool Kit: Healing PTSD From the Inside Out has won both the 2013 Silver Nautilus Book Award and the Alumni Award for Written Work from Simmons College School of Social Work. Remember, you can read this book for free if you order it to your local library. Over 112 libraries around the world carry The Trauma Tool Kit!

The Power of Persistence (or What you Resist, Persists)

I don’t know how to say this to you any other way so I’m just going to say it:  There is no easy way to heal from psychological trauma.

There is no pill, no elixir, no magic wand, no therapist, no book, no workshop, no yoga class, no blogger that will give you a quick fix from your suffering.  I’m sorry; I truly am.

If you want to heal from PTSD you are going to have to work very hard for a long time. You are going to have to spend money (probably a lot of money relative to your income) to get help to overcome what you feel should have never happened to you. And then you will have to work some more.

In my book I compare the journey of healing PTSD to the journey that Frodo takes in The Lord of the Rings trilogy to cast the evil, all powerful ring back into it’s source: a dangerous volcano hidden inside of an even more dangerous enemy territory governed by an all seeing magical evil sorcerer.  Frodo has two choices.  He can either stay in his comfort zone in the bucolic shire of his childhood and live in denial until his land is ultimately overrun with evil mutant elves and destroyed while the ring has corrupted him (or someone else) completely.  Or, he can man up and take the journey, one that is most perilous and with no guarantee of success and try to destroy the thing forever.

This is basically our choice as well. Is the journey so easy? If it were, everyone would make it.

Yes, I know it sucks.  But suck it up folks. That is the way it is.  I can only say this to you, not because I am cruel and heartless, but because this is a journey that I’ve taken.  I’ve done the dirt time, so to speak, in spades.

It is totally worth it.  The sooner you get over resistance to healing and begin, the better.  Healing PTSD takes a chunk of your life.  Not healing from PTSD takes your entire life (and possibly future lifetimes if you believe in that sort of thing).

Take a moment and review the pros and cons of healing:

Pros                                                                 Cons

Peace of mind                                                  Nightmares and flashbacks for the rest of your life, chronic anxiety

The ability to love and be loved                     Failed relationships; people who are afraid of you; persistent loneliness

Bodily health                                                  Heart disease, migraines, joint pain, digestive issues, auto immune diseases

Wisdom                                                           Ignorance, bitterness, confusion

Compassion for self and others                      Self-pity, entitlement, self-loathing, shame

Money well spent in healing                          Money ill spent in addictions, diversions and distractions

Well, you get the picture. 

So which will it be?  Healing PTSD does have an endpoint.  It brings gifts beyond

compare but only if you finish the job.  You have no more time to lose. Put this at the top

of your New Year’s Resolutions and you will ring in a much brighter 2014.

Blessings on your journey of healing!

Endurance is the most difficult of all the disciplines but it is to the one who endures that

the final victory comes. ~ Buddha

Research is in: Meditation works!

Meditation appears to produce enduring changes in emotional processing in the brain

The good folks at Mass General Hospital (MGH), Boston University and other research institutions have shown conclusively in a research setting, for the first time, that an 8-week meditation program affected brain function in a positive way even when the subjects were not meditating.  The amygdala (our crisis response center) was positively affected by their modest practice.  Highly recommended reading!(Click on the title to go right to the article.)

Help! My Partner Has PTSD: Seven Strategies for Coping as a Couple

If you are partnered with someone who is struggling with PTSD or you both have PTSD, you know your life together is challenged in some very profound ways. Fights can be explosive, resulting in fireworks or endless stony silences. Misunderstandings can abound. The non-PTSD partner may start to develop secondary or vicarious trauma just being exposed to the intense PTSD in their loved one. Life can start to feel very unpredictable, like threading one’s way through a minefield. It can be easy to start walking on eggshells or conversely getting fed up and moving away from each other. Love and connection are harder to feel. PTSD challenges couples like nothing else. Waiting it out doesn’t work and neither do threats or force. What to do?

1) Educate yourself. PTSD is a whole body process that affects every aspect of the human being. It has predictable stages (see my book, The Trauma Tool Kit) and effects on the person and the partnership. You would educate yourself if your partner had a major medical illness, right? This is no different. Forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes.

2) Set some clear boundaries around behavior in the relationship. Just because someone is suffering does not give them the right to be abusive. The anger/fear response is hardwired and amped up in full-blown PTSD. Often people with PTSD dissociate when they are angry and don’t even realize what they are doing. Sit down with your partner, ahead of time, and set rules for what is tolerable and allowed in the relationship and what is not. These can change over time depending on where each of you and your life circumstance. For instance, shouting might be OK if it is just the two of you, but if you have a child in the next room, shouting can become off-limits behavior. Violence or abusive behavior is never to be tolerated under any circumstances.

3) Learn to take time-outs, or, as we call them around here, amygdala resets. Your amygdala is the part of your brain that is the crisis response center. When it goes on red alert it highjacks the brain to deal with threats, whether real or perceived. With the amygdala in the red zone, people are very close to being out of control or they are out of control. Taking 20 minutes, the average reset time, to reboot the brain for both parties, will lend itself to a more peaceful and safe outcome. Either partner should be able to call time-out at any time. Be sure to make it a time out not an end to the discussion. Always come back together to resolve the issue at hand. If it is just too explosive get into couple’s therapy. Which reminds me…

4) Get into couple’s therapy! More research is showing that couple’s treatment can be very helpful in coping with PTSD. Individual therapy is great, but couple’s issues are complex and require their own special interventions. Not all therapists like to do or can do couples’ work well. Look for someone with previous education and training or with a degree in family work, who also is knowledgeable about trauma. Even a few sessions can make a tremendous difference. If you are worried about money (and who isn’t these days) know that there are many organizations that provide these services for low and no cost. If you are a veteran or married to one, you may be even more eligible. If money is still on your mind, remind yourself of how expensive divorces are, as long as you both shall live.

5) Study triggers together. Big rages and emotional swings are almost always brought on by triggers to PTSD. A trigger can be anything at all. I worked with a couple whose partner was an Iraq war veteran. He became severely triggered one afternoon by three events happening in close succession: he saw someone in the parking lot of the restaurant with camouflage clothing; he got a freeze headache, and he got closed in when more people joined his table. The clothing and feeling of being trapped are obvious triggers, the freeze headaches not so much. But it turned out he’d had a number of them in the desert, and it had become a trigger. The more triggers you figure out together, in the calm times, the easier it becomes to avoid setting the PTSD partner off, or resolving it more quickly if you do. This is an empowering step that often brings couples closer together. In this case, the couple avoided, what would have been in the past an angry meltdown on his part. His partner then could respond with concern and compassion.

6) Make healing PTSD a joint task in your relationship. Strategize together. Discuss medical options. Open up lines of trust and communication. Often a spouse or partner is the only person to tell one’s story to with complete safety and trust. Don’t avoid the issues just because your partner wants to. Avoidance is part of the disease of PTSD. Don’t collude with it.

7) Join together in mental and physical fitness. Develop couple’s routines around calming down the mind and body on a daily basis. This could be through prayer, meditation, tai chi, yoga, or long walks. The evidence is pouring in daily about the beneficial effects of calming techniques on PTSD. You will both be better for it!

5 Ways to Manage Post-Disaster PTSD

I just had a lovely interview with Luke Hayes, of MyRecovery Disaster Resilience Radio. We discussed helpful ways to prevent and overcome post traumatic stress around natural disasters, that are increasing in frequency and intensity around the world.

1) Be prepared. Don't think it can't happen to you (denial). Have food and water items stocked. Know what kind of disasters could happen in your area. Make a plan for a quick evacuation. An ounce of preparation is worth a pound of loss later. We don't think and plan well in the midst of crisis. So plan ahead!

2) Know where to find help. Form a community organization. Familiarize yourself with local assistance such as Red Cross, shelters etc. If your community does not have such assistance consider forming a group yourself. People have much less trauma when they feel looked after by their community.

3) Practice control over your mind and emotions now. The first technique I teach my patients about PTSD is a single pointed meditation. Focus on one object for 3-5 minutes at a time. Most of us have flabby mind muscles. This exercise strengthens our ability to focus in a crisis and its aftermath while staying calm. It is easier to keep the mind calm when we have practiced at it ahead of time.

4) If you have severe trauma after a disaster seek help. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Response) is a powerful modality that involves eye movements that dissipates traumatic responses. It seems to work best on those who did not grow up with tremendous amounts of trauma. The results can be surprisingly fast and powerful.

5) Restore yourself and your body after the crisis has resolved. The body is profoundly affected and in some cases permanently altered by trauma. The endocrine system and central nervous systems may take weeks to months to heal fully affecting appetite, weight, autoimmune responses, mood swings, sleep patterns, libido and other aspects of human life. Most people tend to underestimate the results of trauma. Take the time you need to get help and heal yourself. It may take some time.

You are valuable. You are needed. You deserve to heal!

Five Ways to Heal your PTSD

1) Strengthen your "mind muscle" through meditation or mindfulness practice. Meditation is not "making your mind go blank"; it is focusing and calming the mind. The mind is like unruly horses, once you are in control, you can direct the mind where you want it to go. Otherwise it runs away with you (and often into flashbacks). This is the single most powerful aid to healing PTSD.

2) Eat whole, nutrient-rich and easily digestible foods. Our digestion suffers tremendously when we are stressed. PTSD is whole body event that depletes our energy and nutrients. Cut back on sugars, caffeine and alcohol that tax the body and especially your adrenals.

3) Find ways to safely tell your story, even if it is in a journal or through art. Finding your narrative and being heard are immensely healing.

4) Safely release held feelings. Crying is necessary, and sometimes so is shouting. Go fight with the ocean waves, run, hit a ball, or watch a sad movie. All are helpful. Holding intense feelings in becomes toxic over time. So release!

5) Learn to comfort yourself. You have been deeply wounded. It is OK to focus on yourself during this time of healing. Comfort is always healthy and never creates further problems. In other words drinking alcohol is not comforting but avoiding. True comfort involves activities like: being out in nature, taking a long hot bath, getting a foot massage, listening to your favorite music, redecorating your space etc. If you need to wrap up in a large blanket and stare off into space, that's OK. Balance comfort with necessary activity.

I feel for you and your suffering. I hope this helps!