(Long past) trauma might seriously exacerbate your complaints

[hippopotamus]

*continuance of my story of my emergence out of trauma*

 

By now, I dont need the cd anymore to get in touch with traumatic stuff. Somehow my mind and body have learned how to connect to traumatic stuff if there is some stuff that needs to be processed and somehow they have also learned how to do this without terrible anxiety coming along with it. But I dont know if I would have developed this ability without the use of the cd. I think I used the cd somewhere about 40 times..

 

 

Also, if I hadnt been giving tools in hand to start to work through my trauma's on my own, I think therapy would have lasted endlessly. Having had a traumatized childhood, there's just an incredible amount of **** that needs to be dealt with.

 

 

Working through the trauma's really is a journey towards myself, towards the unburdened, free and beautiful person I was always meant to be. Every time I go through some stuff and integrate it, it feels like *I* am expanding. I regain parts of myself.... I regain the ability, the room, to be spontaneous, to experience child-like joy, to be immersed in feelings of wonder. I regain playfulness, laughter, connection and love. This is one of the greatest gifts I could have ever been given.

[hippopotamus]

Hi Dalsaan,

 

I'm so sorry to read about your struggle, your struggle to trust, the struggle of not knowing if you will be able to endure life the way it is right now.

 

I dont think there's an easy answer. You're asking, how to develop trust in yourself... the very fact that you're acknowledging the importance of developing trust, the very fact of you asking for help here on this topic, I'd say that's already something to derive trust from. Right now at this very moment, you are reaching out. You are trying to learn how to take better care of yourself. Those things are deeds of trusting, even though it might not feel that way.

 

And surely there's more concrete things you can do to develop more trust in yourself and others. Finding and connecting to trustworthy people who really care for you. Reading about stuff that deals with issues of trust. Emotionally resolving old hurts.

 

Would you like to share more about what you're feeling?

 

(HUG)

 

Hippo

[hippopotamus]

Sunita,

 

I really like the 'dinosaur-picture'analogy you make about the way your traumatic memories always were there and the way that meditation somehow cleared the way for you being able to finally see the dinosaur. But from what I read, it must have been (very) disturbing when the memories came pouring forward, because you experienced such terrible fear alongside with it. How did you cope with that at that moment?

 

And in the rest of the process, was working through your trauma's always accompanied by such fear? And if so, was that fear an important reason the whole process was such a difficult experience for you to go through?

 

For me, my entire childhood was kind of a 'void'. When I compared myself to other people, I was always amazed by all the childhood-memories they used to have and how vivid these memories appeared to be sometimes. Me, I could hardly remember anything from my childhood. There were a couple of important factual experiences I'd remember, but I was always puzzled by the lack of emotion, 'color' and vividness of those memories.

 

It's just recently that I came to realize that I suffered from trauma-related amnesia. This was also one of the tings that made me conclude that I didnt suffer from PTSD-like problems, because I never had any flashbacks. (However I've come to learn that flashbacks can come in a lot of forms and that actually I DID suffer from a lot of flashbacks, but they would be purely emotional, without any historical context attached to them).

[Sunita]

Hippopatamus, I will write more when I can--but just wanted to say that I was very moved by your story and by your incredible journey. I did relate to a lot of what you've been through, though our processes have been so different. I imagine you have tremendous inner strength to suffer so much trauma, hit rock bottom and then reach such a place of such healing.

 

Sunita

[Sunita]

Hippopatamus, just wanted to say how inspired by I was by your story but it looks like I won't be able to reply. I tried a few times and each time I try I feel triggered. I'm not sure why--triggers can still be a bit tricky for me. But wanted to let you know so that you didn't think I wasn't responding. Anyway, I'm honored to have heard the story of your healing process and send you many good wishes.

 

Sunita

[hippopotamus]

Thanks for letting me know Sunita! I'm sorry that my story triggered things for you. I can understand that you cant respond if that's happening. It's good that you're taking your signals seriously.

 

Hug!

 

Hippo

[hippopotamus]

I wonder.. has my story been (too) upsetting to other people as well? This is because no-one has reacted to this topic anymore after I wrote my story down. Was it something else in my story that led to people not wanting to react?

 

Or is everyone just busy with and consumed by other things? (Which is ofcourse perfectly understandable and fine).

 

I'm just wondering.

[Sunita]

Hippopatamus, it wasn't at all upsetting to me--I was actually very inspired by it. It's more that I related very much to your story and it was too intense for me to respond to. Recovering from trauma is so tricky--it helps to talk about process with other trauma survivors, but then talking about it can be too much sometimes. So it helped me so much to read your story, but for some reason responding was too difficult. I don't really understand why myself. I honestly wish I had the capacity to respond because your story validated many of my own experiences and I was truly inspired by it.

[hippopotamus]

Sunita, I understand. I'm really happy to know that reading my story was helpful and inspiring to you. Thank you for letting me know.

 

Feel free to share (parts of)your own experiences when you feel you can and you want to. And please feel free to not share anything if it doesnt feel right.

 

Hippo

[Barbarannamated]

Hippopotamus,

 

I greatly appreciate all that you've shared in this thread! I've been feeling a bit better in the last several weeks and have been getting out more. I haven't been reading or posting on forum as much.

 

It's been good for me to learn to identify when I've been triggered and limit my exposure (my family is primary trigger). It's been nothing you've written!

 

Please continue to share!

 

B

[Barbarannamated]

I have gone steadily downhill over the last 2 weeks and attribute some of it to the change to Daylight Savings Time.

 

However, I can't seem to get past an email message on Saturday of time change from my cousin who i had not heard from in over a year aside from messages when my father showed up in California trying to see me. She lives about an hour away and inevitably gets caught in middle because he stays at hotel she manages.

 

Her message was to ask my opinion on horse she's looking to buy for $10,000 (very $$$ for pleasure horse). She is a kind, dear person who I've been very close with over the years until the past few that ive distanced from my immediate family. She's also the one to benefit from my father's manipulation of his will to punish me for not agreeing to take on my drug addict, criminal sister.

 

Her message triggered an angry, perseverative cycle that I can't seem to break. I feel downright venomous, not toward her but toward my father. Just the contact with family that doesn't see father's manipulation or the pain I've had over the years is eating me alive. My reaction seems out of proportion to the content of the message. I'm certain she has no idea about the will.

 

I feel i have no one to talk with, even my husband who witnessed the last interaction and was also attacked by my father. He told us e are no more responsible with money than my sister because we lost a house in the market crash.

 

And here I go again trying to prove and defend my character to my father..

I know it will never happen. He is locked into his delusion and now says that my sister took care of him and my mother.

 

The few people I've talked to about this have never seen this side of my father and I'm certain they think I'm exaggerating. He's 85 years old and mean as hell to me but looks like a great guy to others. I know I'm trying to reason with insanity yet i can't stop. He sent me an email ending with "I'm not going to be around forever" to try to elicit a response. My reaction to myself was "thank god". Then I'm tortured knowing that I'll have regrets and guilt.

 

I didn't mean for this to be so detailed. I've gone over and over this ad nauseum in my own thread and Toxic Family thread.

 

Why do i feel this insatiable need for someone else to see how he's hurt me?? I feel like nobody has had my back through it all, even though they know my sister is dangerous, they stay away (per father's instruction), but I am the one she has a vendetta against and threatened to kill (also known by father). My mother-in-law is the only one who's stuck up for me against him. My husband has never defended me. He rarely saw my family.

 

My emotions are so convoluted and tormenting. This family dynamic all became crystal clear to me during withdrawal ~ my father's role, in particular. I feel like I'm dealing with two completely different people and it's really screwing with my mind.

 

I don't know what I'm trying to say or ask. It's only recent that I've acknowledged that i have experienced trauma and the anger is overwhelming. I can't seem to talk about it without getting churned up and can't NOT talk about it, if that makes sense.

 

I have no kids or family of my own, only my father and sister. Very few friends who .don't know him.

 

** (I think this is the key point) .. I lost my career to work injury /disability and my father's accusations that i am the same as my drug addict sister who has never had a career or finished college are salt in that very raw wound.

 

Thanks for reading. Hopefully just getting it out will help.

[alexjuice]

In response to what you wrote Barb, I've had similar issues with people from my past and family members and feeling that they could show up and cause havoc at any moment. It's been very destabilizing in my life. I've had some better success lately by trying to think about all the good that could happen from the confrontation. Like, I'll forever be in fear unless I have these confrontations and survive them so random, unfair confrontation gives me a good opportunity to speak the truth and endure the fear and survive it. At least this is how I am thinking of it.

 

Also, to the general thread, I went to Dallas to see a mold doctor, an environmental doctor focused on allergies and chemical sensitivies more than my exact problem, and learned of commonalties between environmental illness patients.

 

The mold doctor did allergy shots. I am in a large room with a handful of other patients getting skin pricks, a longish process. I over hear a conversation between two patients and it turns out both were in the military and experienced some horrific traumas. One guy was captured and tortured in East Europe in the 70s and later developed all sorts of very serious allergies.

 

It's interesting to me. I think that trauma can be of many different types. The Amygdala Re-Training stuff argues for an immune system response to trauma, I think. Anyway, my point -- I wasn't that surprised that in this allergy room between me and these two retired military, that there'd been much trauma previous to our environmental illness.

[Nikki]

Barb....

 

I think it is probably good for you 'get angry'. Getting angry lets out some of built up steam. It is a release and it can prevent depression. Have you ever heard of the saying...

that depression is anger turned inward?

 

I think it's true. Is there a way for you to vent your feelings in addition to posting them here? This is a good outlet, but lots of time we more so we can cut it in half.

 

Journaling, walking with pounding your feet hard on the pavement. Is there a counselor you can see?

 

I had an incident with my mother this weekend and I was really blind-sided. My brother gets angry and can tell it straight to her. Miraculously she stops. I don't do that and wish i could.

 

I do have talk therapy with good friends. In the not-so-distant-future I will be organizing a women's group with friends. We need a good outlet.

 

For now, pick up a pen and in an uncensored manner get your feelings up and out on paper. It really does help alot.

[alexjuice]

I agree with Nikki. Getting the anger out by doing something (like writing a letter or journal) makes me feel much less victimized. I dont get near the same effect from thinking it over or talking it over as I do from actually physically doing something like writing a letter.

 

One thing I've learned, probably the main thing for me, is that doing stuff is better than talking which is better than thinking silently. For me anyway.

 

Sometimes though I am too weak or apathetic to do anything, but that's okay too. I do what I can.

 

BIG HUGS

[Barbarannamated]

Thanks Nikki and Alex. I appreciate your feedback. I didnt intend turn this into another thread about my family.

 

I think the paralyzing rush of feelings and memories triggered by the generally innocuous email message struck me as "PTSDish" so i posted here. I feel like a stranger in my own life and then doubt my judgment and new perspective, wondering if it's due to drugs. I had been doing better but now am back to mornings of horror with immediate thoughts of this situation and the need to resolve it before he dies but realizing that's out of my hands.

 

When I've talked to people, i get mostly platitudes in return which cause me to feel less validated and more victimized. I did give hubby an earful last night. No response, no conversation. Definitely no apology or awareness that one might be in order or that he should be supportive of me. Much like my father.

 

The immunology connection is interesting.

 

Thanks again.

 

Hugs back!

[alexjuice]

It is interesting. It's hard to tell what are the causes, the symptoms and then the ultimate cause? It's just bloody confusing, the correlations and causations ... But something is going on.

[dalsaan]

HI Barb,

 

Someone sent me an interesting saying the other day, attributed to Buddha. 'Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die'. I think that's right. I know I am at my least healthiest when I am holding onto some form of resentment and I think resentment is stronger than anger so the quote still holds. You are the only one who can do something about it, you cant change other people but you can change how you engage the issues.

 

Dalsaan

[Barbarannamated]

I think in my case, i need to experience the anger that i repressed for many years ~ all my life ~ which caused the backlog of emotions, further suppressed by drugs. I never learned how to handle or express anger. I rarely felt anger until recently. I tried CBT many times but that never brought the anger or underlying issues/hurt to the surface so i could process it. I THOUGHT i was just good at not getting angry and letting anger go while i really was internalizing it all my life.

 

This thread expresses it well for me:

http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/2589-express-anger-gabor-mate-md-on-the-stress-disease-connection/page__gopid__47467#entry47467

 

I suspect this is common with trauma or abuse.

 

Definitely can't change other people and that's the very difficult part ~ having to let go of a harmful relationship with my father at his age. There is no in between in an abusive situation.

[Barbarannamated]

I have written this piece because I think that a lot of the people who suffer from withdrawal and side effects might, some more than others, also suffer from the consequences of (long past) traumatization, which can resemble withdrawal and side effects. Also, the interaction between unresolved trauma and side and withdrawal effects, could lead to a cycle, in which one activates the other, which in turn aggravates the other, etc.

 

A lot of the people who suffer from psychological and psychiatric complaints have been traumatized at some time in their life. Traumatization can destabilize the nervous and immune system to a great extent and is known to be related to several medical conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. The symptoms that traumatization can lead to are manifold and almost endless. Also, symptoms can show up immediately after the traumatic event, but can also take weeks, months or years before they start to appear.

 

Symptoms that can be caused by traumatization include, but are not limited to:

 

Anxiety

Panick attacks

Depression

Sleeping problems

Irritability

Agression

Tics

Concentration problems

Feeling numb and emotionally deadened

Social problems

Shyness

A myriad of somatic complaints

 

 

 

When you suffer from withdrawal complaints or side-effects of medication and you have been traumatized or have otherwise had to deal with seriously upsetting emotional business at any point in your life, you may want to consider the fact that unresolved traumatic and emotional business may also contribute to the complaints you're experiencing. Also, it is very likely that side and withdrawal-effects evoke unresolved traumatic stuff, which can in turn destabilize the nervous system even further and thus exacerbating the side and withdrawal-effects.

 

Side and withdrawal-effects can evoke trauma-related symptoms through physiological mechanisms. For example, when the withdrawal causes shortness of breath or heart-palpitations, you may subconsciously be remembered of a traumatic experience in which you also had shortness of breath and heart palpitations. This can then in turn trigger trauma-related anxiety and panick-attacks, also when you're not conscioulsy aware of the link between the two.

 

Another way in which withdrawal and side-effects may trigger traumatic experiences is more psychological. To feel out of control of your body, to feel betrayed by people you should be able to rely on, like doctors and psychiatrists, to feel left alone by friends or family who dont understand you, all those things can trigger unresolved traumatic stuff, which may show up in one of the forms I mentioned above, or in another form.

 

 

What makes this subject even more important is the fact that trauma, in one way or another, might have been the reason you went on psychiatric drugs in the first place. Because the drugs dont treat trauma, but in some cases only suppress some of the complaints, the cause of your complaints has not been taken away. When you go off the drugs, symptoms you experience may not (only) be withdrawal-effects, but might just as well be consequences of the untreated trauma.

 

The vicious thing about trauma is that, when symptoms start to show up and they go untreated, it is not uncommon for symptoms to grow worse and aggravate. So, you may start off with anxiety and depression, but as time goes by, when your trauma is not treated correctly, you may find yourself become progressively worse. One of the symptoms behind this mechanism could be the phenomenon of 'kindling'. (See Robert Scaer, 'The body bears the burden'for more in depth-explanation)

Another way to look at this is through the concept of freezing and re-freezing. This is extensively laid out in Peter Levine's 'Waking the Tiger''.

 

 

Peter Levine writes extensively about the enormous pressure that builds up in the autonomic nervous system in reaction to unresolved trauma. According to his writing, an essential part of resolving traumatic business is letting the body allow to release this built-up tension and frozen energy, in the way the body wants to release it. Shaking and trembling are ways in which this accomplished.

 

The important thing about Levine's writing and about other experts who focus on body-focused psychotherapy for trauma, is that it acknowledges that trauma and emotions are in their deepest essence about somatic and bodily experiences, that are stored in the body and that thus should also be released through the body.

 

In my own process of healing, in which I have gone through a lot of traumatic stuff, I have indeed experienced the very important somatic component of releasing trauma. My body trembles,sometimes lightly, sometimes vehemently. I can not control the way in which this happens. I also tend to yawn a lot when I start to work through traumatic material. This is accompanied by, or alternated by, the emotions that I couldnt process at the time of the trauma's. This process always feels liberating, even though it may emotionally hurt a lot. When I´m done, when its out of my system, I invariably feel very relieved and unburdened.

 

I hope I have helped people with this story. I will refer to appropriate books in the book-section.

 

I wanted to first say thank you for responses the other night. All very much appreciated.

 

I don't want my issue to dilute or minimize the very important points in Hippopotamus' original post so I've copied it here. Thank you, Hippopotamus!

[Barbarannamated]

Bump

[Sparrow]

Thanks for sending me this way, Barb. Extremely helpful and enlightening. I have a lot to think about.

 

Sparrow

[mattinsmom]

Yes Barb, I follow Sparrow's thank you for the link to here. I find the stories reassuring. I know trauma and its ability to isolate and create the emotion of being alone and I still get caught up in believing I'm alone. I don't know that I will ever fully understand or process just how truly alone I was as a child, To have the stories and responses here reminds me that I am not that child (tho she is still here and needs a lot of healing) and that I have access to people and support. Sometimes people's "ah ha" moments open me to my own. 

 

Someone commented on a thread pertaining to toxic families. If there is a link to the thread could it be posted? I know I *should* be able to navigate this site much better than I seem to be. My thinking is definitely off.

[mattinsmom]

Oh, I found toxic families!!!

[dalsaan]

I have struggled with this stuff for a while. I am three quarters the way through the best book I have read on early trauma, it's affects and how therapists need to respond. Here is a link if anyone is interested

 

http://www.drlaurenceheller.com/books.html

[Rhiannon]

thanks for bumping this thread. Timely for me. Recently a friend of mine (male) flipped out and started being verbally and emotionally abusive with me. (I've cut off all contact with him of course.)

 

It's been a challenging trip but a good thing that has come out of it is realizing how much I need to work through the trauma of being married for 11 years to an emotionally abusive man, living with that day in and day out while my children were babies and little. I've done a lot of work on earlier trauma from all the horrific abuse from my childhood but haven't done any trauma processing work about the marriage. 

 

This situation has really triggered that old traumatic stuff.

 

I don't have a therapist where I live. I think I'm going to try those exercises from Gia's site to start. I do have a lot of experience with therapy and working through traumatic material. I prefer to have a therapist but I do most of the work on my own at home anyway.

 

We'll see how it goes. Thanks for the thread.

[Barbarannamated]

Recently, several people have described this *emotional excavation* that happens to some during withdrawal. Any thoughts as to WHY is this so powerful and overwhelming for some and not others? Is it tied to the length of time on drugs or the dissociative properties of serotonin..?

 

Rhi, I hope your situation is calming down.

[Meimeiquest]

For me, it seemed to be the Zyprexa that triggered it. Even my clueless dr. Said that the drug suppresses memories, so going off makes them flood back. I pretty much got a free review of my whole life. Then there is the weirdness of having such an extreme experience that no one else can understand....

[Petunia]

Recently, several people have described this *emotional excavation* that happens to some during withdrawal. Any thoughts as to WHY is this so powerful and overwhelming for some and not others?

 

Here is a possible theory, not very scientific and based completely on my own experience.

 

SSRIs block our ability to experience our emotions fully, emotions are a kind of energy which is triggered by events.  When we aren't able to fully experience this energy and process it, it become trapped in our body, or a level of our body, maybe actually physically trapped in cells or one of those 'subtle' body things which can't actually be measured, but supposedly exists.

 

Depending on how long a person has been on medication and what experiences they have while medicated, defines how much stored 'material' gets released through the withdrawal process.  There would be a lot of variables, but it would be interesting to study this.

 

While medicated, I went through years of a psychologically and financially abusive marriage, some physical violence, a horrendous separation and divorce which exacerbated the abuse to a level I didn't know possible, even medicated, I don't know how I kept my sanity and kept myself alive.  Four separate court cases stretching over 4 years, job loss, loss of studies, loss of a much loved home, potential homelessness, financial problems, loss of social support and struggling to protect my daughter from the fallout from all this.  Then, to a much lesser degree, I went through a somewhat similar situation in another relationship, which is now over.

 

So, I'm thinking, that while the medication perhaps 'helped' me to get through all that and get myself out the other side in one piece, now I get to process all the emotions which were blocked from my experience.

 

But it does seem that I'm also dealing with issues which go back long before medication.  I've got two separate theories for that.

 

One is that before going on medication, I used other methods for avoiding my difficult feelings, all the usual things like food, alcohol, compulsive activity, the normal addictions of our culture, so now that I'm not engaging in any of that, all the previously blocked emotions are coming up too.

 

The other theory is that when we re-experience a recent trauma, in an attempt to process and release it, it often links back to a similar, earlier, original trauma, possibly something we don't even remember, but which still became blocked due to our inability at the time to handle it, that may be why so much of this feels so primal and survival related, because its triggering our earliest survival issues.

 

When I think about all this, and try and see it from this perspective, I can't help but feel grateful in a way because it may actually be working like a catalyst, providing an opportunity to heal from a lifetime (maybe even lifetimes) of unresolved trauma, sort of like free therapy.

[Nikki]

Hippo and GiaK this is a marvelous, eye opening piece of help an healing.  I did use EMDR actually for the Lexapro WD and it brought up childhood traumas.  Boy talk about raw and lots of crying, but it did work and the emotional charge was removed.

 

What I notice is a cycle.  There is trauma, WD brings on the Neuro-emotional response, which brings on the fear due to the association and then it all becomes too much and it hits me in the mornings.

 

I had started to trace the roots of anxiety recently and need to go back and begin where I left off.  My history/pattern is morning anxiety and it did start as a kid and as an adult (like you pointed out Hippo) the emotions from WD or anything else will trigger and anxiety response.

 

I am grateful that I read this post this morning.  Maybe beginning the work again will release me from it's grip....Hugs

[Petunia]

Part of what I've been experiencing over the last few months seems to be these 'neurogenic tremors' contained in the link which GiaK included in the post below (the link contains information about how to learn the technique)

 

oh! some good stuff to release frozen energy is Berceli's work...these exercises are very powerful...!! and the post talks more about neurogenic tremors etc...(the shaking and trembling etc talked about) I've had a lot of that come up spontaneously as well.Trauma release exercises (or tension release too)http://beyondmeds.com/2012/04/04/thebodyspeaks/

 

But for me, they have been happening sort of spontaneously, without the exercises.  I learned about the work of David Berceli over a year ago, and watched some of the related youtube videos, so when I found that my legs were starting to shake and tremble one morning, I recognized it and relaxed and allowed the process to continue, since then, I've been 'doing' these tremors fairly regularly, I seem to be able to start them without any particular exercises though.

 

Here is a complete playlist of videos related to neurogenic body tremors and TRE by David Berceli for anyone who is interested:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5FE8CED7E9FA6348

 

The work of Peter A. Levine is mentioned several times through this thread.  He has a body based program for healing trauma which contains a book and a 60 minute CD, its called "Healing Trauma"  available from Amazon.  I bought it back in 2011, a few months before I went into severe withdrawal, but I never did the program, maybe I will have another look at it now.

 

I agree with Nikki, this is such a helpful and important topic, unrecognized trauma is probably the real cause of so much of what gets diagnosed these days as anxiety, depression and bi-polar etc.

 

 

 

 

[GiaK]

I'm finding this book incredibly helpful...on the trauma front:

 

http://beyondmeds.com/2013/11/19/the-inner-world-of-trauma/

[Rhiannon]

I just got the Berceli book and DVD and tried the exercises tonight. Feeling nice and grounded. Will update as time goes along. I've been having childhood trauma emotional memories emerge lately.

 

I think, you know, we can explain it however we like, but bottom line emotions, body sensations, neurogenic tremors, PTSD, memories, all of these things involve our incredibly beautiful, sensitive nervous systems, which are a symphony of constantly shifting feedback cascades of neurochemicals, all of which gets disrupted by these meds designed specifically TO disrupt them. So right now I don't feel the need to explain the interaction between withdrawal, trauma memories, trauma induced by withdrawal, PTSD all of the above, or whatever; I am just trusting that as I get my brain slowly back to as close as possible to the pre-drug state, and trust my body and my feelings, all of that will heal and normalize.

 

Right now, anyway. I'm looking forward to experimenting with the tremoring in the morning when I'm cortisoled, and when I'm feeling agoraphobic, to see what happens. Could make it worse, who knows, we'll see.

[Zoe]

Hi all-

Rhi , how are these exercises working for you? I am 1/2 way through the Trauma Release book by Berceli & started the exercises yesterday. Boy did I shake! But I must say I felt looser & calmer afterwords. I have held my body so tense for about 30 years that I probably have enough tension to power a train Anyway, I'm going to try them for awhile & see what happens. 

[dalsaan]

Hi Rhi and Zoe

 

I'd be very interested to hear about your ongoing experience with these exercises

 

Dalsaan

[Solang]

I was talking with a friend the other day who suffers from depression and who also had a somewhat traumatizing childhood. She asked me to send her a couple of the books I have talked to her about. So I sent her the following list of books and other resources that I have found very helpful in understanding my trauma and how this has affected my nervous system and how to cope with it. they also helped me to understand and deal with my strong emotions, rather than just feeling bad for having them. same thing for my negative thoughts. please excuse the lack of punctuation and capitalization, I'm doing this with voice recognition software:

 

complex PTSD from surviving to thriving by Pete Walker

 

The happiness trap

 

mind-body workbook for PTSD

 

the language of emotions by Karla McLaren

 

website: beyond meds.com

 

Trauma releasing exercises. There is a really good explanation on YouTube under psychology webinars.

 

Somatic Experiencing.

 

Install a free premium trial of Spotify on your cell phone and listen to the neurobiology of we by Dan Siegel. Geeky but fascinating.

[Altostrata]

Thank you, Solang.