PTSD, Guilt, and Shame

Whether the trauma is something that happened to you, or whether it was something you witnessed and were unable to stop – feelings of guilt and shame are a very common reaction. Often, you end up going over and over in your head what you could/should/would have done differently, endlessly punishing yourself for whatever you did or didn’t do.

…Ever wonder why that is?

Well – I have an answer for you.

I’ve written previous posts about how PTSD is based on a survival reflex going awry (and if you’ve missed those, go to the “start here” button at the top of the page – they’re all there and you can catch up).

Basically – PTSD is based on a survival reflex. When something bad happens, your survival reflex kicks in to figure out, “How can I protect myself from going through something like this again?” That’s what your survival reflex is supposed to do – figure out how to keep you safe.

…The problem is, sometimes you did nothing wrong. Sometimes, there’s nothing you could have done differently. The reality is that the world is sometimes unpredictable, bad things sometimes happen to good people, and sometimes, we don’t have control over our circumstances.

Unfortunately, our survival reflex simply isn’t designed to understand any of that – it has one job, and that is to keep us out of harm’s way. When it can’t, it assumes that we did something wrong and we should have done something different – so, it sends our mind in relentless circles of should/could/would haves, and fills us up with feelings of guilt and shame over whatever actions we took.

Feelings don’t create facts; if they did, then everybody buying a lotto ticket because they’re feeling lucky would be a millionaire.

So – just because your survival reflex makes you feel guilt and shame, doesn’t actually mean that you did anything wrong. Those feelings, as intense as they sometimes are – those feelings are simply a byproduct of how reflex works. Your survival reflex is trying to make sense of what happened. It’s trying to do its job and protect you, and it’s getting stuck.

Do your best to keep that in mind; it’ll help to put the guilt and shame in perspective.

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I’d love to have you share your thoughts, comments, and questions. If you do post a comment, please don’t give specific details of your trauma – these may be triggering to another reader. If you’d like to offer criticism, I’ll take it – I know I’m not perfect, and I’m always willing to learn. If you do offer criticism though, I’d really appreciate it if you could do so constructively (i.e., no name-calling, please). Thanks…

You can find me on Twitter and on Facebook.

~ Dr. Dee Rajska, C. Psych.

 

*Fine print: Please feel free to share the link to this blog wherever you think it might be helpful! Reading this blog is a good start, but it’s no substitute for professional help. It takes a different kind of courage to admit to yourself that you’re struggling. PTSD is not a sign of failure – it’s a sign that you’ve been through a lot, and have tried to stay strong for too long. If you need help – you’re in some pretty great company. Reach out, and give yourself a chance to feel better.

**Really fine print: The content of Coming Back Home is copyrighted; please feel free to share the link, but do not copy and paste content. Unless otherwise noted, all original photography on Coming Back Home is the copyrighted property of Larry M. Jaipaul; please do not copy images without permission.

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PTSD: The Role of Reflex, Part 3: Reflex has values

Hi again!

In a nutshell, here’s what we’ve discussed so far: reflex learns as a result of your experiences; but reflex isn’t very smart, so what it learns as “predictors of danger” is a mixed bag of good predictors and random stuff that was going on at the time that the danger happened.

Today we’ll discuss why reflex doesn’t bother filtering good from bad predictors of danger before learning them: because reflex values speed over accuracy.

To illustrate, let’s revisit our old friend, Dave the zebra.

Dave and his zebra friends are out enjoying some delicious pasture.

(I know – last we saw Dave, he was avoiding pasture, because of what happened to George. But he got help for that, and now he’s doing much better. He says thanks for asking.)

Dave catches sight of something out of the corner of his eye that might be a furry tail, like the lion’s. But he only got a glimpse, and he’s not sure.

What should he do – raise the alarm, or try to get a better look?

On the one hand, he didn’t get a good look, it could be nothing, and those other zebras can be pretty snooty if he gets it wrong.

On the other hand, taking a closer look wastes precious seconds that could be better spent getting everyone to safety.

Folks – from the viewpoint of your survival reflex, the only thing that matters is survival. Your survival reflex assumes that it’s better to make a fool of yourself by overreacting, than to hesitate and waste a second.

So – reflex learns by the principle of “better safe than sorry”, and reacts by that same principle.

This will lead to a lot of situations where your survival reflex will be convinced that you’re in life-threatening danger, even though you’re not. It’s reacting to a reminder, even if that reminder doesn’t make any sense to your “thinking” brain.

We’ve discussed how you can have a reaction to a trigger even when you understand that there’s no real danger; we’ve covered how important it is to NOT beat yourself up over this, because it’s an injury and not a personal failing or character flaw.

What you can do instead is use this knowledge to help yourself regain a sense of calm: when you’re triggered, the reaction can make it feel like the danger is very real. So it becomes really important to understand that being triggered does not mean being in danger: you can be triggered when there’s no danger.

It helps to understand that your survival reflex sometimes acts like a kid pulling the fire alarm at school when there’s no fire, but because he doesn’t want to write the math test.

Use this knowledge: when you’re triggered, remind yourself of where you are, and what you’re doing. Remind yourself that you’re safe, and it’s just your survival reflex going off, pulling the fire alarm at a faint reminder of danger. Reminding yourself of where you are and that you’re safe is a way of grounding yourself – and knowing how to ground yourself is an important coping skill.

I’d love to have you share your thoughts, comments, and questions. If you do post a comment, please don’t give specific details of your trauma – these may be triggering to another reader. If you’d like to offer criticism, I’ll take it – I know I’m not perfect, and I’m always willing to learn. If you do offer criticism though, I’d really appreciate it if you could do so constructively (ie., no name-calling, please). Thanks…

You can find me on Twitter and on Facebook.

~ Dr. Dee Rajska, C. Psych.

 

*Fine print: Please feel free to share the link to this blog wherever you think it might be helpful! Reading this blog is a good start, but it’s no substitute for professional help. It takes a different kind of courage to admit to yourself that you’re struggling. PTSD is not a sign of failure – it’s a sign that you’ve been through a lot, and have tried to stay strong for too long. If you need help – you’re in some pretty great company. Reach out, and give yourself a chance to feel better.

**Really fine print: The content of Coming Back Home is copyrighted; please feel welcome to share the link, but do not copy and paste content. Unless otherwise noted, all original photography on Coming Back Home is the copyrighted property of Larry M. Jaipaul; please do not copy images without permission.

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PTSD Triggers: Coping with Thunderstorms

Hi there!

How’s everyone doing? Didya make it through the fireworks okay?

Now that the fireworks are over, a lot of people’s first instinct is to forget about it until next year. If you have a really tough time with fireworks, I can certainly respect that…

But – before you do that, please take a few minutes, and make a mental summary of what strategies worked for you this year and what didn’t. Then, use that information to plan what you’ll do the same way next time, and what you might try differently. Learning to live with this beast called PTSD is sometimes a process of trial and error, and you can get better at managing it by adapting your strategy to do more of what works, and less of what doesn’t.

And while we’re on the topic of coping with sudden loud noises that make you jump, let’s discuss thunderstorms. Chances are, thunderstorms are no longer your favourite thing. Particularly the kinds where a giant clap of thunder right outside your window makes you end up under the bed at 3 am.

Not fun.

Okay – here’s what we’re going to do about it:

– Make a habit of reading the weather forecast. If you know a thunderstorm is coming, then it can’t catch you by surprise. If the weather forecast calls for overnight thunderstorms, your plan is to go to bed reminding yourself, “I’m home. I’m safe. They’re calling for thunderstorms – so I may wake up to the sound of thunder, but I’m not in danger”. Having this little conversation with yourself won’t stop you from reacting, but it will make it easier to re-orient yourself more quickly.

– Invest in a nightlight. Get a couple of pictures of a favourite place, somewhere you go to relax. Put the pictures somewhere you’re likely to see them when you first wake up, like your nightstand. If they’re calling for thunderstorms, turn on the nightlight before you go to bed. Being able to see around the room quickly when you wake up, and seeing an image of a familiar and relaxing place, will help you to orient yourself quickly to the fact that you are home and you are safe.

– Shut the window. I know – it’s nice to sleep with some fresh air. But shutting the window will help you block out some of the noise. If you miss having a breeze in your room, get a fan – as an added bonus, the sound of the fan can help to muffle the noise of the thunderstorm.

These ideas will help you re-orient and calm yourself if you react to the sound of thunder.  However – these tips are not enough to help you stop reacting to the sound of thunder. The best way to do that is a strategy called prolonged exposure.

Disclaimer: If you’re getting treatment, I’d like you to talk to your therapist and get them to help you with this. If you’re not in treatment, and you’re really struggling, I’d like you to get some help from an actual therapist, aside from just reading this blog.

If you’re mostly doing okay, but thunderstorms get to you, then this might be an exercise you can try on your own.

– sit comfortably; stretch; relax.

– set the volume on your computer to where you can barely, barely hear it.

– cue up a clip of thunderstorms on YouTube. Here’s one that I use.

– remind yourself that you are home and you are safe, and this is a sound clip on the computer. Keep doing this through the next step.

– hit play. Keep reminding yourself that you’re safe and this is a clip playing from your computer.

(If it terrifies you, and a minute into listening to the clip at the lowest volume you are still not feeling any calmer, STOP. Get a professional to help you with this.)

– if it’s only mildly unpleasant, keep doing this until it feels boring and pointless, and you’re not reacting to it. The next day, turn up the volume slightly, and repeat again until you are no longer reacting. If you keep doing this, slowly and gently, you will retrain your fear reflex that the sound of a thunderstorm is not dangerous.

I’d love to have you share your thoughts, comments, and questions. If you do post a comment, please don’t give specific details of your trauma – these may be triggering to another reader. If you’d like to offer criticism, I’ll take it – I know I’m not perfect, and I’m always willing to learn. If you do offer criticism though, I’d really appreciate it if you could do so constructively (ie., no name-calling, please). Thanks…

You can find me on Twitter and on Facebook.

~ Dr. Dee Rajska, C. Psych.

 

*Fine print: Please feel free to share the link to this blog wherever you think it might be helpful! Reading this blog is a good start, but it’s no substitute for professional help. It takes a different kind of courage to admit to yourself that you’re struggling. PTSD is not a sign of failure – it’s a sign that you’ve been through a lot, and have tried to stay strong for too long. If you need help – you’re in some pretty great company. Reach out, and give yourself a chance to feel better.

**Really fine print: The content of Coming Back Home is copyrighted; please feel welcome to share the link, but do not copy and paste content. Unless otherwise noted, all original photography on Coming Back Home is the copyrighted property of Larry M. Jaipaul; please do not copy images without permission.

 

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PTSD Triggers: Dealing with Fireworks

Hello again!

Today we’re going to talk about specific coping skills for dealing with fireworks.

If you’re ever been in a position where loud noises mean bad stuff is going on, then you might react to the sound of fireworks, because your threat-response reflex has learned that loud bangs are a predictor of danger. (For more background on how reflex learns, read this previous post.)

If your survival reflex at one point learned that a sudden, loud bang means danger, the sound of fireworks will probably make your reflex react, even if the conscious, “smart” part of your brain realizes that it’s just fireworks.

So – what do you do?

Let’s start off with what NOT to do. Your worst bet is to just pretend like it’ll all be fine and do nothing to try to prepare yourself. That’s avoidance, and it doesn’t help. So – give yourself a pat on the back for being proactive and reading this to help yourself prepare.

We’ll talk about two parts: (1) what to do about your feelings; and (2) what to do about the noise.

(1) You might feel shame and anger at yourself for reacting. If you’ve read any of the previous posts – then I hope I’ve drummed into your head that fear is a reflex, and that you do not choose to feel fear. Fear is part of the reflex that responds to threats. It “learns” to respond to triggers based on what happened to you. You don’t have control over it, and blaming yourself for it makes as much sense as feeling guilty that your toenails grow – it just happens, you can’t control that. So – let’s work on getting rid of that shame and guilt, okay?

A more helpful approach is to accept that you’re going to react to triggers; you’ll be more prepared to cope if you expect to feel fear in response to triggers, and manage it when it happens.

If you hear fireworks, your reflex might be to hit the deck and keep your head down. If that noise had been enemy fire, your reaction might have saved your bacon. Respect your reaction for what it is – a survival reflex. You can help calm your fear by reminding yourself that feeling scared and being in danger are two separate things – your fear in this case is a false alarm, and you are safe.

(2) With fireworks in specific – you may actually find it much easier to cope if you look up and watch them. Seeing the show will make it easier to know where that noise is coming from. You can help to ground yourself by saying (or thinking), “These are fireworks. This is a celebration. I’m home, and I’m safe”.

If that’s not an option – on a holiday weekend when you can expect fireworks, finding ways to mask the noise may be your best bet. That might mean staying indoors, windows closed, playing your favourite music loud enough that noise from outside doesn’t filter in.

Please feel welcome to share this post, and any other on this blog, with anyone who might benefit.

I’d love to have you share your thoughts, comments, and questions. If you do post a comment, please don’t give specific details of your trauma – these may be triggering to another reader. If you’d like to offer criticism, I’ll take it – I know I’m not perfect, and I’m always willing to learn. If you do offer criticism though, I’d really appreciate it if you could do so constructively (ie., no name-calling, please). Thanks…

You can find me on Twitter and on Facebook.

~ Dr. Dee Rajska, C. Psych.

 

*Fine print: Please feel free to share the link to this blog wherever you think it might be helpful! Reading this blog is a good start, but it’s no substitute for professional help. It takes a different kind of courage to admit to yourself that you’re struggling. PTSD is not a sign of failure – it’s a sign that you’ve been through a lot, and have tried to stay strong for too long. If you need help – you’re in some pretty great company. Reach out, and give yourself a chance to feel better.

**Really fine print: The content of Coming Back Home is copyrighted; please feel welcome to share the link, but do not copy and paste content. Unless otherwise noted, all original photography on Coming Back Home is copyrighted. The photo gracing today’s post was taken by Wojtek Rajski, and I’d like to thank him for generously allowing me to use his work. Please do not copy content, including photographs, from Coming Back Home without permission.

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PTSD: Reflex, Roses, and Zebras

Hi there!

Today we’re going to put together what we’ve learned so far. To help us do that, we’re going to re-visit our new friend from last week, the zebra who was triggered by the red roses because his friend George got eaten by a lion while stopping to sniff red flowers.

Well – last week, his survival reflex learned that red flowers are dangerous (because reflex sometimes “learns” to mistake random things for signs of danger). So, his survival reflex sees the roses as a threat, and reacts automatically: before he has a chance to think, his reflex tells him to RUN!!!

Because reflex is automatic, it’s not his choice to feel this way. In fact, the conscious, rational part of his brain might be telling him, “WTF!!! Why am I freaking out? What’s wrong with me? I need to get it together!!!”

He might start worrying that he’s going crazy. He might blame himself, and think that if only he had tried harder, trained harder, or if he was a better, tougher zebra, this wouldn’t have happened to him. He might even tell himself that other zebras have been through worse and seem to be coping better, so he should just suck it up.

So next thing you know, he’s struggling not just with fear, but also with shame and guilt; that’s the foundation of not just PTSD, but depression too.

Look – the point of the story is – don’t be that zebra!!!

When you react to your own version of “red flowers”, by feeling fear – remember, fear is a reflex, and reflex is not a choice. It is not a sign of weakness or failure, any more than not preventing your toenails from growing would be a failure: reflex is not something that we can control by being stronger, by training harder, or by using willpower. Reflex has a mind of its own; it will see something as a danger, even when your rational brain can tell that there’s no risk. Conscious, rational thought is controlled by a different part of your brain than reflex, so it’s entirely possible to be reacting with fear to a trigger, while at the same time being able to realize that it’s harmless.

Knowing this information, you can start to help manage your fear: when your survival reflex goes off, rather than feeling embarrassed or angry with yourself, try to remind yourself that (1) you do not control your survival reflex, and (2) it often sets off false alarms.  These two reminders become the starting point for two important coping tools: one is acceptance, which is learning not to blame yourself. The other is a thought-based grounding skill – a habit of reminding yourself that feeling fear is not a good indicator of danger, and that the fear is just a false alarm.

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I’d love to have you share your thoughts, comments, and questions. If you do post a comment, please don’t give specific details of your trauma – these may be triggering to another reader. If you’d like to offer criticism, I’ll take it – I know I’m not perfect, and I’m always willing to learn. If you do offer criticism though, I’d really appreciate it if you could do so constructively (ie., no name-calling, please). Thanks…

You can find me on Twitter and on Facebook.

~ Dr. Dee Rajska, C. Psych.

 

*Fine print: Please feel free to share the link to this blog wherever you think it might be helpful! Reading this blog is a good start, but it’s no substitute for professional help. It takes a different kind of courage to admit to yourself that you’re struggling. PTSD is not a sign of failure – it’s a sign that you’ve been through a lot, and have tried to stay strong for too long. If you need help – you’re in some pretty great company. Reach out, and give yourself a chance to feel better.

**Really fine print: The content of Coming Back Home is copyrighted; please feel welcome to share the link, but do not copy and paste content. Unless otherwise noted, all original photography on Coming Back Home is the copyrighted property of Larry M. Jaipaul; please do not copy images without permission.

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PTSD: The Role of Reflex, Part 2: How reflex learns

Hi again!

 

Today, we’re going to talk about how the survival reflex adapts and learns from experience: it learns differently than the conscious part of your brain does.

Conscious memory works kind of like a librarian: it organizes things by time and topic. So, if you think of your senior year of high school, the memories that might come up would be: the part-time job you had; the goofy haircut and silly clothes; your biggest crush that year… And so on. All these memories are neatly organized, like in a filing cabinet.

Reflex learns very differently. Let’s look at an example:

Imagine a small herd of zebras, enjoying some delicious pasture.

(Yes, I’m purposely trying to pick a story that won’t trigger anyone… I’m hoping no one here ever got attacked by an angry zebra?)

Anyway – our zebra friends are enjoying their lunch, when one of them catches sight of a lion sneaking up on them.

He yells, “LION!!!“, and all the zebras take off running.

Unfortunately, there’s this one zebra… Let’s call him George. George is a chubby, clumsy little zebra. He’s got the goofy haircut, thick glasses, asthma. He always gets picked last for the zebra softball team – you get the picture. He’s not the sharpest crayon in the box, but he really loves flowers. So, the zebras are all running, when all of a sudden – George sees some flowers. Red ones – his favourite. So – George stops to take a good whiff.

I don’t need to tell you what happened next. The lion says George tasted just like chicken.

Here’s how reflex memory works differently than normal memory: reflex memory is not a librarian. It doesn’t care what happened the day before, the week before, or earlier that year. All your reflex cares about is:

What was going on at the time that could have predicted this?“,

and

What can I watch for next time to keep safe?

The problem is, reflex is not smart enough to know the difference between good predictors of danger, and just random stuff that was going on at the time. So, what it thinks of as signs of trouble is usually any reminders of what happened.

If the lion snuck up behind a big rock, the zebra’s reflex will now learn that big rocks are potentially dangerous – so checking around big rocks in the future may be a lesson learned that saves the lives of other zebras.

But, the zebra’s reflex may also learn that red flowers are dangerous. Now – the conscious, rational part of the zebra’s brain will realize that a lion won’t jump out of a flower. But reflex doesn’t work that way.

So… fast forward to Valentine’s Day. Our little zebra sees bouquets of red roses in the grocery store.

(What’s a zebra doing in the grocery store, you might ask? Simple – he’s doing groceries. He doesn’t go to the pasture anymore; he learned that pasture is dangerous).

His reflex has learned that “red flowers are dangerous”, so seeing the roses pushes his “danger” button; he panics, and feels an overwhelming urge to abandon his cart in the middle of the store and run away.

That, in a nutshell, is how reflex learns. And that’s how it reacts, even when the part of your brain that’s responsible for rational thinking tells you there’s nothing to be scared of. Understanding this little nugget of information can become an important tool in managing fear, and we’ll get into more about that in the next few posts.

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I’d love to have you share your thoughts, comments, and questions. If you do post a comment, please don’t give specific details of your trauma – these may be triggering to another reader. If you’d like to offer criticism, I’ll take it – I know I’m not perfect, and I’m always willing to learn. If you do offer criticism though, I’d really appreciate it if you could do so constructively (ie., no name-calling, please). Thanks…

You can find me on Twitter and on Facebook.

~ Dr. Dee Rajska, C. Psych.

 

*Fine print: Please feel free to share the link to this blog wherever you think it might be helpful! Reading this blog is a good start, but it’s no substitute for professional help. It takes a different kind of courage to admit to yourself that you’re struggling. PTSD is not a sign of failure – it’s a sign that you’ve been through a lot, and have tried to stay strong for too long. If you need help – you’re in some pretty great company. Reach out, and give yourself a chance to feel better.

**Really fine print: The content of Coming Back Home is copyrighted; please feel welcome to share the link, but do not copy and paste content. Unless otherwise noted, all original photography on Coming Back Home is the copyrighted property of Larry M. Jaipaul; please do not copy images without permission.

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PTSD: The Role of Reflex, Part 1: How reflex works

Hi again!

Today we’re going to discuss the first ingredient in PTSD, which is your survival reflex.

What I’d like to focus on first is telling you a bit about how reflex works. It’ll be easier to do this with an example… Have you ever accidentally put your hand on a hot surface? If you have, did you notice how, by the time you realized what had happened, you had already yanked your hand off?

This is a great illustration of how reflex works differently than your normal, conscious thought:

Conscious thought is all the stuff that goes through your head, that you’re actually aware of. This includes making decisions, figuring stuff out, noticing things around you – every thought that you actually realize you’re having.

Reflex on the other hand, is sort of like the autopilot; it’s the stuff that the brain does behind the scenes, without your awareness.

To go back to the example of accidentally putting your hand on a hot surface – before your “manual” (conscious) thought has a chance to catch up and realize that you’re burning yourself, your “autopilot” (reflex) is already reacting quickly to yank your hand out of harm’s way. You don’t choose to move your hand – reflex leads you to get it off the stove before you’re even consciously aware of what’s going on. Reflex works much faster than conscious thought; it’s done by a different part of your brain.

The foundation of PTSD is reflex – you do not choose to have reflex (it’s hard-wired into every animal); you do not control when to activate reflex (it just kicks in when it thinks it should).

That last bit – that bit about reflex being outside of your control – get used to hearing that bit. I will go on about that a lot. It’s important.

A lot of suffering comes from people blaming themselves for getting PTSD, and from feeling like it is somehow a weakness, a failure, a character flaw. It’s not something you can actually control, so it’s kinda like beating yourself up because your toenails grew since you clipped them last week. Goofy, right?

PTSD is kind of like a reflex on steroids: you can learn to understand it and manage it, but blaming yourself for it is worse than useless – it’s how you keep yourself stuck feeling awful…

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I’d love to have you share your thoughts, comments, and questions. If you do post a comment, please don’t give specific details of your trauma – these may be triggering to another reader. If you’d like to offer criticism, I’ll take it – I know I’m not perfect, and I’m always willing to learn. If you do offer criticism though, I’d really appreciate it if you could do so constructively (ie., no name-calling, please). Thanks…

You can find me on Twitter and on Facebook.

~ Dr. Dee Rajska, C. Psych.

 

*Fine print: Please feel free to share the link to this blog wherever you think it might be helpful! Reading this blog is a good start, but it’s no substitute for professional help. It takes a different kind of courage to admit to yourself that you’re struggling. PTSD is not a sign of failure – it’s a sign that you’ve been through a lot, and have tried to stay strong for too long. If you need help – you’re in some pretty great company. Reach out, and give yourself a chance to feel better.

**Really fine print: The content of Coming Back Home is copyrighted; please feel welcome to share the link, but do not copy and paste content. Unless otherwise noted, all original photography on Coming Back Home is the copyrighted property of Larry M. Jaipaul; please do not copy images without permission.

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How to Make PTSD: The Recipe

I know, I know… That’s a cheesy title.

I didn’t want to just title this post, “What is PTSD?”, because that would imply that I’m going to rattle off a list of diagnostic criteria. And I’m not doing that in this post. Today, we’ll talk about the different layers of where PTSD comes from and how it develops.

– The first ingredient in PTSD is a survival reflex that is hard-wired into the brain of every animal. This reflex drives our response to perceived threat, both in terms of how our body reacts, as well as by producing specific emotional reactions. We’ll break down the discussion of this instinct into a number of posts, because it’s a bunch of information. Don’t skip over this stuff – it’s important, and it’ll help you understand what makes your PTSD “tick”. Some of these posts can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here.

– The second ingredient is one that you don’t get in your average, garden-variety, civilian PTSD. That ingredient is your military training. Although civilians get PTSD, and theirs can be just as severe as yours – the flavour of yours is different because of your training. Since PTSD is based on your response to threat, your training gives you a lot more to work with in that department as compared to the average civi.

– These first two ingredients on their own aren’t enough to cause PTSD. For that to happen, you need the third ingredient – and that’s trauma, or a threat to your safety or that of someone else. Trauma overwhelms your ability to respond. After a trauma has happened, it also changes what we see as a threat (for instance, fireworks or crowds may start to feel threatening after you’ve been exposed to combat).

The icing on the cake as it were – what keeps feeding the PTSD once you have it – includes things like a lack of good information; not having the proper tools for coping with your symptoms;  and blaming yourself for not being able to “just get over it”. This is what keeps you trapped and makes it hard to get a leg up on your PTSD.

Once you know what PTSD is made of, it gets easier to take it apart, and that’s really where we’re going with this: PTSD is an enemy that you weren’t trained to fight. Once you have a good sense of what it’s made of and how it works, you’re in a much better position to defend yourself and to fight back.

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I’d love to have you share your thoughts, comments, and questions. If you do post a comment, please don’t give specific details of your trauma – these may be triggering to another reader. If you’d like to offer criticism, I’ll take it – I know I’m not perfect, and I’m always willing to learn. If you do offer criticism though, I’d really appreciate it if you could do so constructively (ie., no name-calling, please). Thanks…

You can find me on Twitter and on Facebook.

~ Dr. Dee Rajska, C. Psych.

 

*Fine print: Please feel free to share the link to this blog wherever you think it might be helpful! Reading this blog is a good start, but it’s no substitute for professional help. It takes a different kind of courage to admit to yourself that you’re struggling. PTSD is not a sign of failure – it’s a sign that you’ve been through a lot, and have tried to stay strong for too long. If you need help – you’re in some pretty great company. Reach out, and give yourself a chance to feel better.

**Really fine print: The content of Coming Back Home is copyrighted; please feel free to share the link, but do not copy and paste content. Unless otherwise noted, all original photography on Coming Back Home is the copyrighted property of Larry M. Jaipaul; please do not copy images without permission.

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