Trauma-Stressor Disorders

Viewing life through the filter of trauma

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If you or someone you know has experienced trauma then you may find some of these familiar:

  • can’t trust anyone[1]
  • intense or prolonged distress caused by reminders of the trauma [1]
  • others will betray my trust [2]
  • the world is competely dangerous [1] and unpredictable [3]
  • I’m completely incompetent (in coping with this dangerous world) [3]

Mental Filters

Each of us, whether we have experienced trauma or not, have mental filters (schemata) as a result of our past experiences, and these affect how we view the world in the present. Trauma affects these mental filters, even in people who do not develop PTSD symptoms. Our past experiences affect our perception of the present –

You are here in this current reality, reacting to events as they occur, and at the same time are influenced by your past reality.

Your past not only filters your interpretation and reactions to current events, but also serves as a template for expectations, assumptions, and a whole array of emotional and physical reactions.
Healing From Military Sexual Trauma, Katz & Hammerslough (2014)

A past which includes maternal abuse or neglect, or awareness through others of the long-term impacts of this, is likely to heighten your awareness of indicators that someone may be experiencing abuse or neglect in the home. But many people in society choose to deny or minimize the reality that some mothers are abusive, and generalize about the positive qualities of ‘all mothers’.

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Rose-colored Glasses – a Defense against Reality?

Common defenses against trauma help with coping in the short-term, but cause more damage in the longer term. These defenses are not only used by the trauma survivor: but also by their families and friends, the media and society.
Common psychological defenses include:

  • Denial – nothing happened, I’m fine
  • Minimization – it wasn’t that bad, other people went through worse, victim-blaming and self-blame
  • Dissociation – e.g., emotional numbing, amnesia for some of the trauma (PTSD symptoms) or dissociative amnesia
  • Avoidance – avoiding trauma reminders (a PTSD symptom), or avoiding emotions like anger or rage (e.g., premature forgiveness), or avoiding any awareness of trauma (e.g. on the news)

The popular film Black Swan, about a rising but naive ballet star who “just wanted to be perfect” contained many psychological and dark themes. Which did you recognize?
Did your mental filter consider the possibility of mother-daughter incest?
Incest survivor Faith Allen gives her views, seen through her mental filter: Black Swan: A movie about Mother-Daughter Sexual Abuse (http://faithallen.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/black-swan-movie-about-mother-daughter-sexual-abuse)

References

  1. DSM-5 PTSD criteria
  2. The PTSD Workbook: Simple, Effective Techniques for Overcoming Traumatic Stress. Mary Beth Williams (2002)
  3. Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD: Emotional Processing of Traumatic Experiences Therapist Guide. Edna Foa, Elizabeth Hembree, Barbara Olaslov Rothbaum (2007).

Related links

http://traumadissociation.com

Forging a Deeper Understanding of Flashbacks: Part II

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Understanding Flashbacks: Part II – from Paul F. Dell

Related articles

Understanding Dissociation

Flashbacks have at least four striking features:

1. Flashbacks are experiential, marked by a sense of reliving, accompanied by sensations and affects).

2. Flashbacks are distinctly fragmentary.

3. Flashbacks are autonomous and involuntary.

4. Flashbacks are frequently associated with dissociative amnesia.

In this post, I will focus solely on the first of these — the experiential/reliving quality of flashbacks.

Why Are Flashbacks Experiential Rather Than Cognitive?

Perhaps the best current answer to this question comes from Chris Brewin in England (Brewin, Gregory, Lipton & Burgess, 2010). Brewin is one of the leading cognitive psychologists in the world. He has been studying PTSD and its intrusive symptoms for the last 15 years or so (see also Brewin, Dalgleich & Joseph, 1996). Brewin proposes that humans have two memory systems for episodic and autobiographical memory: (1) a contextual memory system that represents an event via abstract, contextually-bound…

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PTSD – triggers and humor

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Post-traumatic Stress Disorder involves a range of different symptoms, a core symptom is the re-experiencing of the trauma, for example in the form of a flashback or repetitive and intrusive thoughts about the trauma.

This re-experiencing it’s the hallmark of PTSD. A trigger, which you may or may not be aware of, is a reminder of the trauma which sets off the re-experiencing.

PTSD Triggers

Learning about your Triggers

If you have PTSD you can learn what your triggers are, become aware of when you have been triggered, and then use grounding techniques to reduce or so the re-experiencing. Knowing what the trigger is also also you to work through that post of your trauma, in order to process it, and resolve it. Even processing just a part of it will reduce the severity of flashbacks or other re-experiencing.

Examples of Triggers

  • A person traumatized after an auto accident on a rainy day feels suddenly anxious or scared when it starts to rain during the drive home from the store
  • Someone taps a person on the shoulder, and he jumps in fear because the unexpected touch triggers the memory of a sudden violent assault, and begins having a flashback
  • A survivor of sexual assault feels as someone’s hands are touching him every time he near to a coffee shop, he doesn’t realize it it’s because his attacker’s breath smelt of coffee during the rape (body memory)
  • An child abuse survivor feels very young and afraid every time she sees a police officer, because her violent uncle was in the police. (emotional flashback)

PTSD Humor

I’m reminded of Orville Tethington, inventor of the world’s first steam-powered fog machine. He’s also the guy who, after the Germans invented the flame thrower in WWI, decided to counteract it with his own creation, the candle thrower. The candle thrower was only battle tested once, and after fifteen minutes the war zone was littered with lit candles. Upon returning home after the war, some of the soldiers suffered such extreme and bizarre cases of PTSD that anytime a civilian lit a match or used their lighter, the soldiers would hit the ground and start singing “Happy Birthday.”
― Jarod Kintz, I Should Have Renamed This

Related Links

Accepting and meeting your own emotional needs

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This post was inspired by a blog about being unable to accept your own emotional needs:

I am convinced that 1) my needs are abhorrent and will drive everyone away; 2) I do not deserve to feel anything, nor have my feelings acknowledged as legitimate; 3) if I AM going to feel things, I “should” be “strong” enough to deal with them alone, 4) if I were a “good” person, I would not be feeling so crazy, 5) reaching out when I am distressed will anger or disappoint my loved one, who will be tired of me and my problems, or perhaps not even matter enough to the person I’m reaching out to, for them to respond.
http://thoughtsfromj8.wordpress.com/2014/08/12/the-attachment-link-part-3/

What are the possible ways forward if you recognize these beliefs in yourself?

Some suggestions:

  • Everyone has emotional needs. Absolutely everyone. Emotional needs are normal, and healthy. How long have you had the belief that your needs lead to rejection? What could have caused this, and when?
  • Can you reach back to your younger self or inner child(ren) to validate their needs and show them compassion? Every child deserves to have their needs met, if this did not happen there may be many possible reasons: maltreatment, neglect, or abuse – including emotional abuse, difficult life circumstances, serious illness (yours or in your family), parental abandonment or parents who could not cope. These issues are not your fault. If you reacted strongly to not having your needs met then this was a further indication to adults that something was wrong: you do not need to judge yourself for this. Revisiting the past is painful, it is important to feel ready and stable enough in the present to do so.
  • Can you accept your own emotional needs – no matter how big or small? This does not mean you need to share these needs with everyone. Accepting emotional needs can be seen as improving your self-awareness, and increasing your acceptance of yourself. Validating your own needs and emotions is part of healing.
  • Trying to meet your emotional needs soon after you recognize them may help avoid them building up and becoming overwhelming. You may need to spend some time working out what your needs are, and healthy ways to meet them.

Identifying your needs and Inner Child work (Self Re-parenting)

The first place to start is in identifying your emotional needs. If you have been raised in a way which meant you were not allowed or able to express your emotional needs this may be difficult at first. A pattern of ignoring and denying emotional needs can be difficult to break. Here are a few words to help you start the process – these are typical needs, some may not feel that relevant to you. Identifying needs is the aim, so do not worry about how few or many you can identify.

Top 10 Emotional Needs

Re-parenting or healing your inner child (or inner children if there are several) is the process of recognizing the child-like aspects of yourself and meeting their needs. It isn’t specific to any particular mental health issue or diagnosis, it is simply a way of connecting with yourself and your needs in order to heal them. It is a gradual process, with long-term benefits.

The Inner Child lives within all of us, it’s the part of us that feels emotions and is playful intuitive and creative. Usually hidden under our grown-up personas, the Inner Child holds the key to intimacy in relationships physical and emotional well-being, recovery from addictions, and the creativity and wisdom of our inner selves.
Recovery of your Inner Child, Lucia Capacchione

This is a well-known way of healing emotionally, and covered in many books, including :

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  • Healing the Child Within: Discovery and Recovery for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families (2010)
  • The inner child workbook: what to do with your past when it just won’t go away (1991)
  • Recovery of your Inner Child, Lucia Capacchione
  • Self-Therapy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Inner Wholeness Using Ifs, a New, Cutting-Edge Therapy (2009)
  • Discovering Your Inner Child: Transforming Toxic Patterns and Finding Your Joy (2012)

    • Your thoughts?

    Post a comment to share your thoughts on this article and your ideas about coping with and meeting unmet emotional needs.

    Related articles

    The PTSD mindset – from Michele Rosenthal @changeyouchoose

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    Michele Rosenthal, a survivor of trauma and certified coach has written as excellent blog about her approach to recovery from PTSD.

    My approach to my own PTSD healing was all wrong. I thought I could force it to happen, cause it to occur overnight and then, poof!, 25 years of undiagnosed PTSD and all the memories and emotions tied to 1 life-threatening trauma would just evaporate. Just like that. Wasn’t I optimistic?

    Read about the approach that actually worked for her:

    http://healmyptsd.com/2014/08/meandering-micheles-mind-transforming-our-perception-of-ptsd-recovery.html

    Prisoner of PTSD