ptsd

over and over victims are blamed for their assaults. and when we imply that victims bring on their own fates - whether to make ourselves feel more efficacious or to make the world seem just - we prevent ourselves from taking the necessary precautions to protect ourselves. Why take precautions? We deny the trauma could easily have happened to us. And we also hurt the people already traumatized. Victims are often already full of self-doubt, and we make recovery harder by laying inspectors blame on them.

TRAUMA STEALS YOUR VOICE People get so tired of asking you what's wrong and you've run out of nothings to tell them. You've tried and they've tried, but the words just turn to ashes every time they try to leave your mouth. They start as fire in the pit of your stomach, but come out in a puff of smoke. You are not you anymore. And you don't know how to fix this. The worst part is...you don't even know how to try.

Somatic Symptoms:People with Complex PTSD often have medical unexplained physical symptoms such as abdominal pains, headaches, joint and muscle pain, stomach problems, and elimination problems. These people are sometimes most unfortunately mislabeled as hypochondriacs or as exaggerating their physical problems. But these problems are real, even though they may not be related to a specific physical diagnosis. Some dissociative parts are stuck in the past experiences that involved pain may intrude such that a person experiences unexplained pain or other physical symptoms. And more generally, chronic stress affects the body in all kinds of ways, just as it does the mind. In fact, the mind and body cannot be separated. Unfortunately, the connection between current physical symptoms and past traumatizing events is not always so clear to either the individual or the physician, at least for a while. At the same time we know that people who have suffered from serious medical, problems. It is therefore very important that you have physical problems checked out, to make sure you do not have a problem from which you need medical help.

By listening to the __nspoken voice_ of my body and allowing it to do what it needed to do; by not stopping the shaking, by __racking_ my inner sensations, while also allowing the completion of the defensive and orienting responses; and by feeling the __urvival emotions_ of rage and terrorwithout becoming overwhelmed, I came through mercifully unscathed, both physically and emotionally. I was not only thankful; I was humbled and grateful to find that I could use my method for my own salvation.While some people are able to recover from such trauma on their own, many individuals do not. Tens of thousands of soldiers are experiencing the extreme stress and horror of war. Then too, there are the devastating occurrences of rape, sexual abuse and assault. Many of us, however, have been overwhelmed by much more __rdinary_ events suchas surgeries or invasive medical procedures. Orthopedic patients in arecent study, for example, showed a 52% occurrence of being diagnosed with full-on PTSD following surgery.Other traumas include falls, serious illnesses, abandonment, receivingshocking or tragic news, witnessing violence and getting into anauto accident; all can lead to PTSD. These and many other fairly commonexperiences are all potentially traumatizing. The inability to reboundfrom such events, or to be helped adequately to recover by professionals,can subject us to PTSD__long with a myriad of physical and emotionalsymptoms.

A lot of people don__ heal, and it manifests in a lot of different ways throughout their lives,_ she said once. __ecause when trauma doesn__ get to work itself through your system, your system idles at a heightened state, and so getting more really intense input calms your system down._ Which is why, Meredith said, __ lot of folks who__e survived trauma end up being really calm in crisis and freaking out in everyday life.

The door suddenly jerks open. A wideeyedteenager bursts out. She stares at me in dazed horror. In a strangeway, I both know and don__ know what has just happened. As the fragmentsbegin to converge, they convey a horrible reality: I must havebeen hit by this car as I entered the crosswalk. In confused disbelief, I sinkback into a hazy twilight. I find that I am unable to think clearly or towill myself awake from this nightmare.A man rushes to my side and drops to his knees. He announces himselfas an off-duty paramedic. When I try to see where the voice is comingfrom, he sternly orders, __on__ move your head._ The contradictionbetween his sharp command and what my body naturally wants__oturn toward his voice__rightens and stuns me into a sort of paralysis.My awareness strangely splits, and I experience an uncanny __islocation.__t__ as if I__ floating above my body, looking down on the unfoldingscene.I am snapped back when he roughly grabs my wrist and takes mypulse. He then shifts his position, directly above me. Awkwardly, hegrasps my head with both of his hands, trapping it and keeping it frommoving. His abrupt actions and the stinging ring of his command panicme; they immobilize me further. Dread seeps into my dazed, foggy consciousness:Maybe I have a broken neck, I think. I have a compellingimpulse to find someone else to focus on. Simply, I need to have someone__comforting gaze, a lifeline to hold onto. But I__ too terrified tomove and feel helplessly frozen.

Traumatic events challenge an individual's view of the world as a just, safe and predictable place. Traumas that are caused by human behavior. . . commonly have more psychological impact than those caused by nature.

July 15, 1991Nita: My mother was a paragon of our neighborhood, People always come up to us with hugs, saying "You have the most wonderful mother." l'd think. __on't you see what's going on in this house?_ To this day, if somehow even in jest raises their hand to me, I will do this (raises hands to protect face and cowers) I cringe. Then they look at me like, what's your probem? You don't get that from a great childhood.

Phrases such as "I'm beside myself," "I was frightened to pieces," "I feel lost," "I feel like part of me is missing," originated from a sense of soul loss.

Instead of showing visibly distinct alternate identities, the typical DID patient presents a polysymptomatic mixture of dissociative and posttraumatic stressdisorder (PTSD) symptoms that are embedded in a matrix of ostensibly non-trauma-related symptoms (e.g., depression, panic attacks, substance abuse,somatoform symptoms, eating-disordered symptoms). The prominence of these latter, highly familiar symptoms often leads clinicians to diagnose only these comorbid conditions. When this happens, the undiagnosed DID patient may undergo a long and frequently unsuccessful treatment for these other conditions.- Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision, p5

Miriam is upset. Her voice is stretched and I can't look at her. Perhaps they beat something out of her she didn't get back.

Traumas produce their disintegrating effects in proportion to their intensity, duration and repetition. (1909)

Our work calls on us to confront, with our patients and within ourselves, extraordinary human experiences. This confrontation is profoundly humbling in that at all times these experiences challenge the limits of our humanity and our view of the world...

And I knew then that there would be no telling me what he saw. I understand somehow that certain images, certain sounds, could not be shared and could not be lost.

People who have survived atrocities often tell their stories in a highly emotional, contradictory and fragmented manner.

Understanding trauma and that we each respond to it differently will help us be supportive and nonjudgmental toward each other.

I think I broke Kerri,_ she said. __o fix her,_ Al commanded, unfazed. __e__e got enough broken parts.

The initial trauma of a young child may go underground but it will return to haunt us.