Treating PTSD: What’s Your Present State?
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 • Uncategorized •
In order to heal you have to be very clear about what you want to heal. Healing “a pain in my head” is very different from healing “that pinpoint of throbbing, searing light located directly over my left eye.”
Achieving recovery depends on having the right focus, intention, desire and plan. It also depends on being very aware of what you want the outcome to be; you have to become very conscious of where you are so you know where you’re going.
You have to become aware of your present state.
How often do you actually sit down and assess how you feel in the present moment? No, I mean really assess how you feel. Not, brush off the question by answering, “I feel lousy” but take a close enough look to say…..
What would you say?
PTSD symptoms are universal and also general. You can’t look at anyone else’s experience and let his or her description substitute for your own. There are subtleties and nuances that are just uniquely yours. You can read other survivors and PTSDer’s blogs and words and in the end you still need to develop a few of your own.
In order to progress your healing from one place to another it’s necessary to define the starting point. You need to be able to describe in detail your daily PTSD experience so you know where to focus, what needs to be changed and what order you want to change it in.
For example, you could decide to focus first on going from depression to joy, or anger to resolution, or hypervigilance to peace, or emotional numbing to feeling.
In order to better define your healing goals you need to know exactly where you are.
So, what state are you in??
BRIDGE THE GAP Exercise
Think you know your present state? Terrific, let’s play a game.
Answer the following questions:
- The problem is….. (describe your PTSD experience in detail)
- I often hear myself thinking …
- I constantly feel ….
- I can see myself …
- I know all of this is a problem because….
- I engage in the creation of this problem by….
- The times of day I have this problem are…
- I have this problem around the following people…
- I have this problem in the following situation(s)…
- What stops me from changing this pattern of experience is…
Shhh! Do you hear that? Oooh, the sound of developing consciousness — love it!
(Photo: creativefi)
Tags: desire, healing, intention, plan, ptsd, recovery, Setting Healing Goals, trauma
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Thanks so much for this post. It has been helpful.
@Kimberly — So simple, isn’t it, and yet an idea we so easily forget! Glad you liked it. Let me know if there are other topics you’d like to see covered. Have a great, forward-healing day.
Today I did something I haven’t done in a long time. I asked my wife of 32 years to go for a walk with me. We talked and walked for part of an afternoon. Our relationship has not been good but insights I have discovered in these readings have helped get to this point and that this person I have shut out for so long is still there and still cares about me. I feel my present state has taken a babystep forward. I hope that this could be defined as my starting point.
@Wayne — WOWOWOWOW! That’s phenomenal news. Healing is like that: our perspective changes just a little bit and we see something differently that leads to us changing our behavior just the slightest bit and…. we discover something we didn’t know we had, in ourselves and others. That’s a beautiful image to share with the rest of us — a man and wife, 32 years of marriage, the simplicity of a walk, the recognition of a connection that remains in place despite the trials. Thank you for all of this, Wayne. It’s moments like these that let us all know what is possible.