Treating PTSD: How To (Re)Discover Your Joy
Friday, November 20th, 2009 • BRIDGE THE GAP Healing Workshop •
How the hell are you supposed to (re)discover joy? You have PTSD, for crying out loud! No one with PTSD can feel joy!!
Actually, that’s not not true. Even though you may be emotionally numb, your ability to feel still exists. That’s an innate trait. It’s a part of you, and attached to you, just as solidly as your skin is attached to you. You couldn’t get rid of it if you tried.
Like so many other things, your ability to feel — and to feel joy — has just been buried beneath a mound of PTSD junk that’s been piling up for a while now. Time to do some excavating. Time to go on an archeological dig for your soul. It’s in there, but you will have to work for it.
I had to work for it, too. It’s not like I just woke up one day and said, “Gee, I feel joyful!” Come on, let’s be serious. Healing post-traumatic stress and its symptoms is an evolution that takes time. It also takes action. The act of looking for joy, for example. The act of seeking and noticing what changes your PTSD state, even if only for a moment.
When I decided I needed to feel something the opposite of that PTSD feeling I didn’t immediately figure out what that would be. And when the idea of joy came to me it was by accident. It might come to you that way, too, as an accident, but you have to be awake enough to be looking for it. You have to be aware enough to notice it.
You’re already good at being hypervigilant; I’m asking you to turn that skill in a new direction. I’m asking you to tune up your instruments to the joy setting and see what you can pick up.
In PTSD we have good days and bad days, bad days and worse days, but in the cycle there are moments we do find something to laugh at, something to smile at, something to look forward to. These are clues. Start noticing them.
BRIDGE THE GAP Exercise
Getting into the joy groove begins with awareness. Sometimes, though, awareness in the present is sparked by knowledge from the past.
Think back over your life. What has made joy flow over or through you? I asked one of my clients this and an enormous smile spread across her face. Her answer: “Riding a Harley!” She had forgotten how much she loved doing that until I asked her to think back to what in her life has ever brought her a feeling of pure joy. And this is a woman who has struggled with PTSD for over 40 years. If she can find a moment of joy, you can too!
Today start thinking back over your life, year by year. Let your mind drift. Imagine you’re walking slowly down a long hallway. On each side of the hallway are closed doors. They are numbered with the years of your life. Keep walking slowly until you come to a door you want to open. Stand in front of it. Reach for the knob. Open the door. Take a step inside.
If you let it, your mind will do the work. You don’t have to force it or will it. Just tell your mind what you want and then sit back and let it do it’s thing. It will give you what you ask for. Be patient. Wait for it.
(Photo acknowledgement on Flickr.)
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Tags: Joy, post-trauamtic stress, ptsd, symptoms, The Healing Power of Joy
I started doing yoga with my daughter the other week. I’ve seen some studies that show it can be helpful in treating PTSD, so why not try it? Yesterday I got down on the floor with her, and the dog decided to come try to “help” me. She started rubbing her head against my stomach, my shoulder, and my neck. I started laughing, and couldn’t stop.
In the early PTSD days, I would have found this annoying, frustrating, I would have yelled and screamed. Yesterday I realized that I’ve come far enough away from that person that I could be amused by what would have enraged me.
Healing comes in tiny, baby steps. Sometimes it feels like you’re going nowhere, and sometimes you feel like you’re falling down. However, finding a few moments to just be you is incredible.
@Donna - I love that — “finding a few moments just to be you is incredible” — it let’s us know it’s POSSIBLE. We are not completely lost. Glimpsing that let’s us know what we’re striving for can be achieved. Thanks for showing it in such a simple way!