Straight Talk about Psychological Trauma
What is trauma? We hear the word bandied about in the mental health community or at 12 step meetings, but what is trauma anyway? Simply put, it’s someone’s subjective experience of a disturbing life event. It overwhelms a person’s ability to cope and leaves them feeling as if they’ll be harmed by someone, or that they’ll loose their mind. You don’t have to have someone validate a traumatic experience for you to know when you’ve been traumatized. Your body and mind start sending you signals telling you something is wrong. Signals that include recurring intrusive memories, bad dreams, feelings of detachment and disconnection, problems falling asleep or staying asleep at night, angry outbursts, headaches, sensitivity to stress, problems concentrating, problems with eating or with alcohol and drugs. In addition to these signals you start getting from your body and mind, you begin to experience difficulties with calming yourself, with soothing yourself, you develop an inability to trust, you loose interest in your life . . . you may even loose hope itself. From where I’m sitting, that’s validation enough that trauma has occurred.
What can make matters even more confusing to the trauma survivor is our society perpetuates old misinformation about what trauma is. It contains a number of misleading beliefs that can barrier you from getting the help you need to move on emotionally to live a fuller richer life.
Here are a number of misconceptions about trauma that our society holds true:
- You cannot recover from a traumatic life event.
- You need to abstain from an addictive substance or behaviour before you can begin to deal with trauma.
- Your body needs to be in danger from someone, or something, in order for the event to be considered a traumatic event.
- You are responsible for the traumatic event(s) that you’ve experienced. It’s your fault.
Do you believe any of these myths about trauma are true? Are any of these myths in the way of you getting the help you may need to heal? For instance, do you believe you cannot recover? Do you believe you will be living in the same frightening state of mind forever? In the relm of psychological healing, our beliefs hold the potential to pave the way to the coveted state of well-being, or on the contrary, keep us locked in a painful and constricted psychological reality. The truth is, you can recover. Many people have done so before you. As long as you are breathing, there is hope. And, depending on your circumstance, the healing process can begin while you are still engaged in an addictive behaviour. You don’t have to stop the addictive behaviour before the trauma work can begin. The two can be looked at at the same time.
Furthermore, trauma is actually a psychological experience of an event where any visual harm to your body may, or may not, have occured. Consider mental and emotional abuse for example. While you cannot see its effects on the body, you sure can feel its effects in your soul. It’s your subjective experience of an event that defines it as a traumatic one, not whether or not there are bruises on your body. And if there are bruises on your body and your gut is telling you you’ve been traumatized . . . you have. You are not responsible for the traumatizing action(s) of another. Ever.
You might want to pause here for a moment and . . . take a big breath in . . . hold it in for a moment . . . and e-x-h-a-l-e d-e-e-p-l-y . . . before we move on. Now that a number myths about trauma have been clarified, what’s next? One option could be to allow yourself to search out the kind of support that would be meaningful to you at this time in your life. This could include finding a competent therapist who is trained in trauma to help you navigate your way across these potentially stormy emotional seas. It could also include finding a skilled Yoga teacher who understands the healing process who would provide you with a safe emotional environment where you could self-explore and resolve long held memories from the past. The point is to consider getting the help you need when you need it.
One final note before we say good-bye. Our mission here at psychologicalhealingandyoga.com is to support you in healing the effects of trauma and addiction. As time goes on there’ll be ’home grown’ products and services available through this venue designed with you in mind, to enhance your power to change. They’ll be created from only the best cutting edge information from the fields of trauma, addiction recovery and Yoga, and will include skilled and innovative support to help you make your way through an emotionally challenging period in your life. To learn more about our developing work, stay tuned for future NEWS updates. In the meantime, take care and stay safe. As always, I welcome your thoughts below.
Thinking disorders: Mental illness, affects 26%, or 57 million Americans yearly. These disorders cost 15% of our GNP, trillions world wide. This is more than all the cancers combined, yet we seem to over look this issue, like we have done from the beginning of time. At 54, I have been fighting mental health issues for 30 years, depression, anxiety, racing thoughts. A few years ago, my body shut down, I lost memory, ability to put sentences together, adding money was a problem, and I lost lots of weight. I was dying and I am not out of the woods yet. During this time {Last few years} it came to me to compile old thoughts and new writings. “A Blessing in Disguise” is available now at several Walden book stores. Internet comments, A Walk in the Spirit, Powerful. These make me realize how important it is to bring Mental Health Issues to the forefront of American discussion. Please help me help the millions now suffering by bringing this issue out of the closet.
Sincerely,
Tim Olen Pickett
May 15th, 2009 at 3:22 pmAuthor
“A Blessing in Disguise”
ISBN 1606727494
You’re right Tim, mental health issues have long been in the background of public discussion in America, and in Canada as well (although slowly but surely more and more compassion is being shown within our larger culture for the psychological and social struggles facing this population). This for many reasons, including the politics of mental illness and the negative stigma that it still carries today. In my work as a counselling therapist I hope I’m doing my part to normalize psychological experience for the folks who work directly with me. It’s a daunting task to bring this issue further out of the closet, as there are political forces surrounding it to keep it where it is. My hope is over time this blog will be a venue for a wider audience to find hope filled reasons for understanding and accepting their inner worlds, and in this way contribute to ushering this important social issue a little further out of the closet. I congratulate you on the publication of your most recent book, and applaud the progress you’ve made so far in healing yourself from within.
May 16th, 2009 at 12:52 pm