Comments on: Treating PTSD: You Have To Have A Goal

By: Beau Chatham

Beau Chatham — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:18:31 +0000

Michele,

Great minds think alike! I echo your approach in “breaking it down” to smaller pieces. Here’s a warrior’s perspective: http://thewarriornationsitrep.blogspot.com/2010/05/waging-war-on-ptsd-objective.html

All the best,

Beau

By: Susan Pease Banitt, LCSW

Susan Pease Banitt, LCSW — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:37:43 +0000

Goal setting can be a goal itself in the beginning when the overwhelm is like a tidal wave. I recommend really small goals focused on self-care and self-love. ALso goals should reflect the physical needs of PTSD such as calming down the nervous system, eating healthily to support the body through such an intense time and clearing symptoms.

By: Michele

Michele — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:54:25 +0000

@Lorrie – Now THAT’S the way to look at it! I like the image of the ball of knotted chains. If we wanted the chains and decided it was worth the effort we’d sit down knowing that unknotting them would take a great deal of time and patience, things that are also necessary in healing PTSD.

By: Lorrie

Lorrie — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:37:00 +0000

I need to rethink my goals and make them smaller I think I took on to much at once. and when I couldnt do it I felt like I failed. working through this PTSD is like undoing 10 to 20 chains that are so knoted your not sure if you should just throw the ball away. Today is a new day, I will try again.

By: Michele

Michele — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:20:12 +0000

@LeSan & Mike – We’re all thinking alike! Tomorrow’s post is about flexibility. Goals are great and understanding the process is not a direct path is so important.

By: Mike Hinsley

Mike Hinsley — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:04:49 +0000

I worked on the ones that most stopped me having a ‘normal’ life first. It is like untangling spaghetti but at the same time being afraid to go to a mall or be around strangers is much more damaging to life than nightmares or lack of exercise.

As long as you continue to work on what you can see needs work and are able to work on then gradually the spaghetti gets untangled and cleared away.

In the early days I focussed on desentisiation for all the triggers that would prevent me walking out the door. In later years I worked on everything that prevented me having a proper social life.

Through all this time I worked on the source of my nightmares.

There was no perfect plan.

By: LeSan

LeSan — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:36:48 +0000

“How do you plan and strategize your healing process?” I have been trying to find a way to answer this question and not having much luck with it. Not because I don’t have an answer but rather because there are too many.
The first was to give myself permission to let “it” out instead of keeping it in.
Second yet more importantly was to withhold judgment.
The plan was to dump it all out on the table and sort through it after that. Because I had multiple traumas over a long period it was more like unraveling a tangled ball of yarn. I had to allow for incompletion along the way.
There were small daily goals medium and large goals all under the umbrella of the Big Goal. I made sure to surround myself with physical reminders of my sucesses no matter what they were. I would use those reminders like life rafts when I was sinking. I was also very assertive about creating an environment of positive triggers. If I was going to get triggered I might as well make it work for me instead of against me.
There are a million more goals items tasks and so on. Healing something like this is such a layered and complex effort. You have to work with your own mind and how you process things. It requires following your own clues about what is hurting you. You have to be willing to listen to youself and that is probably the hardest part of all.