Mindfulness: Learning to Observe Without Judging

As I was saying a couple of posts ago – mindfulness is about learning to be fully present in the moment.

Tall order, I know. Hey – it’s a skill. You know how you develop skills? Through practice.

One of the things that often keeps us from being fully in the present is a tendency to constantly critique what we’re doing and how we’re doing it: chances are, whatever you do, there’s a little voice in the back of your head. Let’s call it The Critic. When you’re trying to do something, The Critic may offer up all sorts of unhelpful commentary:

“Seriously? What’s taking you so long? Do you realize how many other things you need to get done today? You’re already running late! You’ll never get it all finished at this rate – so you’ll have to do some of it tomorrow. You’re already late for tomorrow – you’ve just ruined the whole week!!!”

The Critic quickly fills up your head with unpleasant thoughts coming at you a mile a minute; when you’re drowning inside your own head, it’s hard to focus on what you’re actually trying to do. Your brain is spending a great deal of time and energy bullying you and slowing you down.

So – one important step toward mindfulness is learning to silence The Critic.

How do you do that?

You remind yourself that The Critic doesn’t help you get things done; it just fills your head up with negativity and worry, and slows you down and distracts you.

Start by just trying to notice The Critic when it starts coming at you. When you get good at doing this, you might be shocked at how it criticizes your every move.

Then, once you get good at noticing that it’s happening – start responding. Basically, every time you hear The Critic inside your head – tell it to go pound salt, and tell yourself to go back to paying attention to what you’re doing.

Sounds pretty simple, right?

Yeah – well, simple and easy are two very different things – and this will take lots of practice.

Then, mindfulness is basically paying attention to what you’re doing as you’re doing it, without The Critic commenting on your every move.

Please feel free 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 free 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 M & C Charbonneau, and I’d like to thank them for generously allowing me to use their work. Please do not copy photographs from Coming Back Home without permission.

Share Button

Military Training vs. Mindfulness

I’d like to start on a new topic today: mindfulness. It’s going to take a few posts to talk about it, because there’s a fair bit to say.

If you haven’t heard of it before, I think you’ll like it. Mindfulness is a way to let go of the self-criticism, shame and guilt that often contributes to keeping us stuck in misery.

Mindfuless is so awesome, I could almost say it’s nutritious and delicious, and I’d only be exaggerating a little.

Not only that, but mindfulness is… the exact opposite of everything you have learned in your entire military career, EVER.

So, wrapping your head around it is going to feel a bit like learning to live on an alien planet.

In the military, you learn to push yourself to your limits, and then to push yourself some more. If that doesn’t work, then the answer is to push yourself even harder – never yield, never, ever give up.

Now – I’m not pointing this out to in any way disrespect military culture – your perseverance is something that I respect and admire. I understand that, in your line of work, expecting yourself to succeed against impossible odds is necessary.

Here’s the thing, though: when dealing with your mental health, that dogged determination can contribute to grinding you deeper into your misery.

It’s like this: maybe you went through some stuff, and it rattled you, and you just can’t shake it. But, you might believe that failure is unacceptable, and you feel like a failure that you can’t shake it. You also might believe that the way to success is to push yourself harder (because that’s what life in the military taught you).

The thing is – when you’re depressed, overwhelmed, stressed out, not sleeping well, having nightmares and panic attacks – then pushing yourself harder, and expecting yourself to suck it up and soldier on doesn’t magically make your issues go away. In fact, it often does just the opposite – it might make you feel worse.

In your training and your work in the military, pushing yourself harder is often your best tool. In your mental health, it’s your worst enemy.

So – this is why we’re going to learn about mindfulness. Mindfulness is about noticing our own experience without judging it; no shame, no guilt, no self-criticism, just a “here’s where I’m at now”.

NO, it doesn’t magically solve all of your problems in an instant – but, it gives you a chance to stop being your own worst enemy. And once you stop putting all of your energy into beating up on yourself, well, then it actually becomes a lot easier to cope.

AE2V0091

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 copyrighted. The photo gracing today’s post was taken by Larry M. Jaipaul, and I’d like to thank him for generously allowing me to use his work. Please do not copy photographs from Coming Back Home without permission.

Share Button

Relaxation to Control Panic: What You’re Doing Wrong

So – we’ve been talking about panic – where it comes from, and some basic fears and facts.

You may have read those posts, tried some of the strategies, and concluded that they don’t work.

If that’s the case – let me assure you that they do work; let’s just tweak how and when you use them.

Let’s put anxiety on a scale of 0 to 10. 0 means you’re so relaxed that you’re barely conscious; 10 is a full-blown panic attack.

If you’re living with PTSD, then chances are, you never actually get all the way down to 0; your best day is a 5. Your average day is more like a 7.

That means that on an average day, you’re already over two-thirds of the way to panic. (Yes, this is precisely why I keep carrying on about relaxation – because if you do some sort of relaxation exercise regularly, it will help to bring down that average. Even if you get your average down to a 6, you’ve already given yourself a little extra breathing room).

So – on a typical day, even something small is enough to get your anxiety to start creeping up.

You feel the familiar tell-tale signs – your heart starts beating a little quicker. Your muscles start to tense up. You feel a little more nervous.

And what do you do? Well, if you’re like most of the patients that I work with, you do your best to ignore it.

It’s kind of like a really annoying neighbour. The kind who talks your ear off about nothing, boring you to tears. If that guy is knocking on your door, you might decide to sit really quietly, pretend you aren’t home, and hope he goes away.

Well – it might work with your neighbour. But with anxiety? Here’s what your head is doing while you’re trying to ignore anxiety:

“Uh oh… I know that feeling… Oh crap, are we gonna do this again? CRAP. I really, really don’t want this to happen again. Please, please, please, not this nonsense again….”

Yeah. Just reading that makes you feel a little nervous right? Stop. Breathe. You’re okay.

The point is – thinking that way makes you feel completely helpless, and that makes the panic worse. So, while you’re busy trying to ignore your panic – it just builds and builds. And then, when you get to a 9.5 out of 10 – then you think: “Oh, crap. It’s coming. Quick – what was I supposed to do? Breathe, and tell myself some reassuring stuff? How did that go again?”

Folks – by the time you get to 9.5, trying to remember what you’re supposed to do to relax is a lot like trying to hold back Niagara Falls with a paperclip. It’s not going to do much to help you out at that point.

Your timing’s off. You’re doing the right things, at the wrong time.

Here’s how to tweak it to get more control: the moment you start to feel your anxiety inching up – right when you start to get the urge to try to ignore it – that is when you need to remind yourself that you are not helpless. Now is your chance to be proactive and take control. Yes this will be unpleasant – but it can’t hurt you, and the more you focus on taking control, the more you’ll be successful in making this kind of thing shorter and less frequent.

…And when you start your slow, deep breathing, keep breathing – your panic will make you want to give up after just a few seconds and go, “It’s not working, it’s not working!!! I can’t do this!”

Hey – it’s not working yet, okay? It works. Keep doing it. Give it at least ten minutes of good, focused, slow, deep breaths. It’ll work. And with practice, it’ll get easier.

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 copyrighted. The photo gracing today’s post was taken by M & C Charbonneau, and I’d like to thank them for generously allowing me to use their work. Please do not copy photographs from Coming Back Home without permission.

Share Button

Panic Attacks: Where They Come From, What They Are

Happy New Year, everyone!

I hope your holidays went well. Before you put them behind you, take a quick inventory: what helped you get through the holidays this year, and what didn’t? Taking a few minutes to review this will help you do even better next year.

Now that the holidays are behind us, let’s switch gears, and talk about panic attacks.

There’s a lot to say about panic, so – if at the end of this post you have more questions than answers – hang tight. I’ll cover more in the next post. And the one after that.

If you have PTSD, chances are pretty good that you also have panic attacks. Panic attacks and PTSD are caused by the same reflexhttp://drdee.ca/2013/05/31/ptsd-the-role-of-reflex-part-1-how-reflex-works/. When it senses a threat, your heart rate speeds up, your muscles tense up, you get a shot of adrenalin and you deal with the threat. And then when the threat’s over, if this reflex is working properly, your adrenal glands stop pumping adrenalin into your bloodstream, and you get to feel calm again.

Like PTSD, panic attacks happen when the “off” switch on your threat-response reflex breaks down. Reflex starts to misfire, basically. The triggers for panic attacks aren’t always obvious; often, panic attacks might seem like they’re happening for no reason at all.

A panic attack is one of the most intensely unpleasant things that can happen to you.

I’m going to describe what a panic attack feels like. If you get a lot of panic attacks and they are easily triggered, take a moment now to remind yourself that you’re not in danger; look around the room, take a few slow, deep breaths.

When you’re having a panic attack, you might feel like you can’t breathe; your heart starts pounding like it wants to jump out of your chest; your chest feels like it’s going to explode; you’re shaking, sweating, tingling, numb, hot or cold; you feel dizzy, light-headed or faint; you feel like you’re choking and like you’re going to throw up. It might feel like it’s not real, and you might be (understandably) scared and thinking you’re going to die or go crazy.

Look – I’d love to write a whole book right now, in this blog post, to explain all the biology of how and why they happen, and how you’re going to beat them. That’s going to take a few more posts on my part, and a lot of practice on your part (and hopefully, some real help, because a blog is not a substitute for actual therapy. And if you’re dealing with panic, then I’d really like you to go get some therapy).

What I need you to know for right now, is that panic attacks are not dangerous. Panic can’t make you go crazy, it can’t make you have a heart attack, and it can’t make you die. It is totally, completely awful to deal with. It feels like an eternity, but it usually lasts somewhere between 10-20 minutes for most people. And then it’s over, and you’re exhausted but in no danger.

That’s important information to keep in mind. Because when you have panic attacks, you end up spending a lot of time dreading the next panic attack. So – work on reminding yourself that panic attacks can’t actually hurt you, even if they feel really awful. That’s the first step to taking back your life.

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 copyrighted. The photo gracing today’s post was taken by M & C Charbonneau, and I’d like to thank them for generously allowing me to use their work. Please do not copy photographs from Coming Back Home without permission.

Share Button

Holidays, Part 3: Why is it so hard at this time of year?

So – how’s everybody doing?

Look folks – there’s a million reasons that this time of year is so hard on people. But in a nutshell, here’s how it works: the rest of the year, you may be struggling. You may have PTSD, or depression, or a disability or chronic pain. Even if you don’t, you might have financial worries, or your marriage might be teetering on the brink, or you may be estranged from your family. Hey – your life might be like a country song, and you may have checked off everything on this list and then some…

But, the rest of the year, it’s easier to see that other people’s lives aren’t perfect either, even if it feels like they aren’t struggling anywhere near as much as you are.

Then – along come The Holidays. Christmas carols start playing nonstop on the radio, and suddenly – it seems like all these other people start getting happy and excited about the holidays. It feels like overnight, the whole world took a magic happy pill or something.

It feels like everyone but *YOU* got the happy pill; they’re all suddenly excited about the holidays, and you’re still feeling exactly as awful as you were before.  Only now, seeing how happy everyone else seems just makes you feel all the more alone. It was easier to blend in and mask your misery somehow when everyone else was just “okay”; when they’re this happy, it might make you feel like you just stick out like a sore thumb. And it all just reminds you of how much you’re hurting.

…And that, in a nutshell, is why this time of year is so hard on people who are struggling to begin with.

So – what do you do about it?

First – and most importantly – realize that this feeling, like you’re all  alone and no one else understands how you’re feeling – that’s part of how depression messes with your head. The fact is – $11 billion was spent on antidepressants last year, and they were the most frequently dispensed medication.

Folks – that’s a whole lot of people who don’t feel happy, and they all feel worse at this time of the year.

You are far from alone. But, depression makes you feel alone. It makes you feel lonely; but, it also makes you want to crawl under a rock and be all alone.

So, coping is a gentle balance – it involves not pushing yourself to do too much, but also not feeding the depression monster by giving in and just crawling under a rock.

There’s no quick, easy fixes – especially at this time of year. But, it’s a seasonal thing, so it’s especially important that you don’t stop doing things that were working for you before, and reach out for help when you need it.

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 copyrighted. The photo gracing today’s post was taken by Murray Chappell, and I’d like to thank him for generously allowing me to use his work. Please do not copy photographs from Coming Back Home without permission.

Share Button

PTSD Triggers: Trauma Anniversaries

As far as triggers go, few are as powerful as the anniversary of your trauma.

You probably start to tense up a bit just thinking about it. As the date gets closer, you might get this sinking feeling, like you’re a sitting duck and there’s no escape.

To cope with that feeling, you have to realize that even though you can’t stop the calendar, there are things you can do to cope.

Whether you feel uneasy, tense, nervous, anxious… You’re feeling that way because an anniversary is a reminder. Realize that your feelings are unpleasant but not dangerous.

Use your grounding skills to ground yourself in the here-and-now:

What year did that stuff happen? What year is it now? How long has it been since this happened? Asking these three questions is an important part of reminding yourself that the memory is “back then”, and you are in the “right now”, and there is lots of time separating you from that memory. The memory is a painful one, but it can’t hurt you. Your memory is back then. You are here now. It’s over, and you are no longer in danger.

– Where are you now, as compared to where you were back then? What’s different in your life now, as compared to back then? These are different ways of making the point in your head: That was back then. I am here now; now is different from then; and I am no longer in danger.

It helps to do things to keep busy, especially things that are different from what you were doing on the day when it happened. When the memory starts to creep up, remind yourself: “Right now, I’m home, the year is [now], and I am [doing whatever you’re doing right now]. That happened back in [whatever year], and I was [wherever], and I was [doing whatever]. Right now is different from back then. That’s a memory. I dislike remembering it, but it can’t hurt me anymore. It’s in the past. It’s over.”

Sometimes, your trauma anniversary is not just about something awful that happened to you – it may also involve the loss of someone you care about. If that’s the case, then you may also be overwhelmed with feelings of loss and grief for the person or people you lost on that day. You may think about all the good things that have happened since that they missed out on.

It’s healthy and natural to have feelings of grief. Too often, we think that acknowledging a loss is the same as depression, so we try to avoid healthy, appropriate grief.

So give yourself permission to grieve. Realize that the day will be hard on you; take it easy on yourself. Plan ahead of time to do things that ground you and give you comfort.

When it’s over, take an inventory: what did you do that helped, and what will you do differently next year? That way, hopefully coping might get a little easier from one year to the next.

AE2V6841

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.

This post is shared to mark my own trauma anniversary, and dedicated to the memory of my cousin Pete. We miss you buddy.

Share Button

PTSD: Dissociative Symptoms

Holy feedback!

As soon as I put up the last blog post, there was a stampede of comments and emails saying, “Yes! Talk about this more!!!”

Okay.

So we left off talking about how the “freeze” response is part of the fight/flight/freeze reflex. It’s how we defend ourselves when we can’t fight or run away; it dulls the pain of whatever is happening.

Let’s put this together with some information we have from before, about how reflex learns: it learns that any reminder of the trauma is a sign of danger.

So – a reminder of your trauma might set off a “freeze” reaction.

Here’s what it feels like: you might feel like you’re not really in your body so it’s not really happening to you (this is called depersonalization); or you might feel like the whole thing is a dream, a movie, or happening in slow motion like it’s not real (this is called derealization). You might feel like you’re just losing chunks of time – ‘waking up’ and not knowing how you got to be wherever you are.

Here’s what it feels like to have PTSD do this to your life: it’s terrifying. You feel like you have no control over your mind or body. You want to do everything you can to grip onto reality, but you get sucked into this rabbit hole. You might feel angry at your mind for betraying you this way.  You might feel guilty, weak, and ashamed for not being “strong enough” to somehow hang on tighter and not let this happen to you. It can leave you feeling traumatized again and again, every time it happens, because being helpless to stop yourself from dissociating can remind you of being helpless to stop your trauma when it happened. You might feel depressed, useless, worthless.

…Boy, sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

Look – I won’t try and tell you that getting out of this is going to be quick or easy. If your PTSD includes dissociation, research suggests that, as far as PTSD goes, yours is bigger and harder to heal.

What makes it worse is, every time it happens, you might feel disappointed in yourself, like you should be stronger. This just erodes whatever self-respect you have left. You’d never say stuff like that to a buddy to encourage them when they’re struggling…

You need to start by realizing that this happens to you because you don’t feel safe; so, how you start to fix it, is to work on increasing your sense of safety.

The ability to feel safe is like a muscle – and yours is, well… It’s not so strong. You strengthen it with exercises – stuff like relaxation. Grounding skills. These are your drills: practice this stuff. Be patient with yourself: this might mean that, for now, don’t purposely put yourself in circumstances that you know will be overwhelming for you. What you’re trying to accomplish here is very hard work, so give it time.

Finally – you know that fine print I put at the end of every post? You know, the stuff that you never read, because you don’t think there’s anything important under the pretty picture?

Yeah; it says that this blog is not a substitute for therapy. If you’re dealing with PTSD with dissociative symptoms, it’s extremely difficult to try and heal that on your own. Please consider getting help to give yourself the best chance of recovery.

AE2V7205

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.

Share Button

PTSD: Reflex and The “Freeze” Response

…You know I’m all about feedback, right? You know this is YOUR blog, and I’ll write about whatever you need?

Well – my stats tracker thingy tells me somebody ended up on Coming Back Home by Googling “PTSD + Freeze response”.

And I thought, Huh – I don’t really have a good article on that. I mean, if I was Random Google Person, I’d be a little disappointed.

So – good suggestion, Random Google Person! This post is for you!

If you recall from previous discussions, PTSD is basically a survival reflex stuck in a loop with no off switch. This reflex has three parts, depending on what kind of threat you’re up against:

fight is where you respond to a threat by beating up on it. Military training works to strengthen this part of your survival reflex.

flight is where you run for the hills to get away from the threat.

freeze is what you do when neither of the above is an option.

In this post, we’re going to discuss the freeze response, the way it happens in the face of an actual threat. Next post, we’ll talk about dissociation, which is what happens when the “freeze” reaction gets stuck, like in PTSD or dissociative disorder.

It’s like this: imagine a goldfish.

It’s in a fishbowl. The cat just jumped on the table and stuck his paw into the bowl. What’s the fishy gonna do?

He’s can’t fight off the cat, and he can’t run away, because he’s in a fishbowl. Poor little fishy. The cat is about to enjoy some fresh sushi.

So – what does the fish do? He freezes; freezing helps him feel less pain, both physically and emotionally.

Freezing might feel like time has slowed down; like what’s happening isn’t real; or like he isn’t really there. The goldfish might feel like he’s floating above his body, watching the cat enjoy his sushi.

Feeling this way is a normal reaction to a situation of extreme, life-threatening danger, where you can’t fight and can’t get away.

If you’re a goldfish who’s about to get eaten by a cat, feeling like you’re floating above your body and the whole thing is not really happening is less terrifying, which is why our reflex is built this way.

But – suppose just as the cat is scooping up the goldfish, someone comes along and screams, startling the cat. Poor little fishy lives, but is scarred by this near-death experience: he might get stuck in this “freeze” reaction. He might end up with severe PTSD, and symptoms that we call dissociation. We’ll talk a bit more about that in the next post.

AE2V6880

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.

Share Button

Your Deployment, Your Family, and… THEIR Trauma

Since we’re already on the topic of all the different kinds of trauma that can result in PTSD, I was thinking… let’s talk about families.

As we were discussing in the last post – a “traumatic event” is any situation where you’re exposed to actual or threatened harm.

As we discussed, “actual or threatened” means that even if it doesn’t end up happening, being genuinely scared that it would happen can still impact you.

It doesn’t have to happen to you; it can be something that happens to someone else, while you’re helpless to stop it.

Even if you aren’t there when it happened, learning the gory details of what happened to someone else can mess with you.

So – let’s take a minute to put this together:

Say you’re deployed. Your family stays behind. They spend months on end being bombarded with media reports about the horrible events happening in the place where you went.

You face dangers every day; they’re too far away to be able to do anything other than feel helpless and hope that you come home in one piece.

…what’s happening to your family here – that’s trauma. It’s not the sexy kind of trauma that makes for a great story, but it’s still trauma.

Now, that does NOT mean that your family will automatically get PTSD just because you were deployed – but, it’s trauma, so it certainly might impact them.

Your family might feel pressured to outwardly say nothing other than how proud they are of your service. They might face a barrage of well-meaning friends and strangers offering all sorts of comments – everything from, “You must be so proud!”, to, “That’s crazy! Don’t you watch the news? They get blown up all the time over there!” (This was actually said to the spouse of someone I know…)

To you, deployment is part of your job; to them, it’s hard not to take personally. Privately, your loved ones might feel rejected and abandoned. They might feel angry and resentful that you would leave them behind, to go to some far-away place and risk getting hurt or killed, and leave them worried about your safety for months on end. They might also feel guilt if you made it home safe and other families weren’t so lucky.

So – on top of the emotions that you might bring home – your family members may have some concerns of their own to throw into the mix.

All that can make for a challenging adjustment to family life.

So – how do you get through it?

You try to be understanding of each other. You went through a lot; so did they. It’s not a competition. You’re a team;  adjusting to life after deployment is teamwork. Communication is important; try to talk about your feelings. Try to listen to family members talking about their feelings, without getting angry or defensive.

Most importantly, recognize when you need help adjusting, and reach out for it – whether you need individual therapy, family or couples therapy, or a bit of each.

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 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 photographs from Coming Back Home without permission.

Share Button

The many flavours of PTSD: It’s not a competition!

Today – by request – we’re going to talk a bit about what trauma actually is.

It turns out, different people have different ideas about what’s awful enough to be “real trauma”.

You might have a buddy who went through some really messed up stuff. You might think, he or she “earned” their right to have PTSD because of what they went through.

In comparison, what you went through might not seem as bad. Maybe you have nightmares, and you avoid things that remind you of what happened. And you get angry at yourself. You start telling yourself that if you should be able to handle it, and what’s wrong with you that you can’t.

Worse still – it might be other people telling you this stuff. They might they have a different flavour of PTSD than yours, because they went through different stuff. Somehow they might think that their trauma is bigger and better than yours, and yours isn’t “real” enough.

It’s not a competition.

To put it in perspective, imagine it was a broken leg. You could break your leg getting hit by a stampeding hippopotamus. (Hey, you never know). Or, you could trip over your kid’s toy and fall down the stairs. The difference is, with scenario #1 you get an awesome story… story #2 doesn’t sound as cool. Leg’s still messed up though.

Trauma that causes PTSD is sort of like that too – sometimes, it’s a hippopotamus – it comes with the type of “Rambo” story that movies are made of. Other times, it doesn’t make for a great story.

(HEADS UP: I’m going to describe the kinds of stuff that might cause PTSD. I’m NOT going to use examples, but it still might be tough to read. If you get unsettled, remind yourself that what happened is over. If you need more help coping, try these. )

A “traumatic event” is any situation where you’re exposed to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence.

Actual or threatened means that even if it doesn’t end up happening, if you were scared because there was a real risk that it was going to happen, that can still mess you up.

It doesn’t have to happen to you; you can witness it happening to someone else, and be helpless to stop it.

Even if you aren’t there when it happened, learning the gory details of what happened to someone else can mess with you.

This is the way your brain works; trauma comes in many different flavours.

Maybe you didn’t get your PTSD from combat. Maybe you weren’t even deployed. So, it might seem that your trauma isn’t quite as “sexy” as someone else’s.

Really, people: It’s trauma. It ain’t lingerie. It don’t need to be sexy.

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 copyrighted. The photo gracing today’s post was taken by M&C Charbonneau, and I’d like to thank them for generously allowing me to use their work. Please do not copy photographs from Coming Back Home without permission.

Share Button