ACTion Steps to Fight PTSD

TRIGGER WARNING: PTSD, ASSAULT with WEAPON, EMOTIONAL TRAUMA

Introducing Mark S. as today’s SoConnected guest blogger. Thank you, Mark for sharing your story with us about your experience with PTSD. We lift you, and all those who suffer with PTSD, with tremendous support, love, and hope.

The knock on your dorm room door is not friendly:?It is a thundering BANG!?You freeze. Who is it? Most of your fellow college classmates have left for the Thanksgiving holiday.

BAM!?BANG!?BAM!?Again, and again!?

Annoyed, yet filled with tremendous fear, you slowly open the door.?Suddenly, the door is thrust open upon you, and you feel the tug on your shirt pulling you outside into the open hallway.?With horror you see your disturbed neighbor, evil eyes flashing, wielding a foot long machete!?He orders you to lie on your back on the floor.?Trembling, you do it.?

Heart racing as if to jump out of its holding place, you feel him lower the small sword onto your bare neck. The blade is sharp against your sweat filled skin. His black eyes are piercing through your soul.

He holds the killing instrument to your neck for what feels like an eternity; you lie motionless for fear any movement would be your last.?The pulsating beat of your heart tries to displace the blade, yet your thoughts move to whether this madman will slice it open.?In your mind hours race by as thoughts of your life, family, friends, future dash through in a fleeting display of what once was.

Now he rises.?He straddles each leg over your terror-stricken body, staring with such hate that you close your eyes.?

You feel him leave and you lie there for a long time.?No one is around; you can’t call for help.?You wouldn’t call for help.?Your shame of letting a madman assault you with a killing blade far surpasses people asking why you have a four-inch gash across your entire neck.

That was 1985.?My sophomore year of college.?I repressed that horrifying nightmare inside my soul for 37 years.?The humiliation, nightmares, and guilt have trashed my mind with anxiety, suicidal ideation, and deep dark depressions that led me to attempts on my own life.?

Trauma.??Whether physical, emotional, or verbal it makes little difference - trauma is excruciatingly painful. Both when it occurs and for years afterward, as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). With PTSD, the dark and dreary waves of shame, guilt, anxiety, fear, gut-wrenching flashbacks, and repressed horrors must be re-navigated every single day of the trauma sufferer’s life, starting the awful moment their life changed so dramatically

Study after study after study but not many answers. Why is trauma repressed? Why does trauma resurface years later as rage-filled outbursts, with violence disproportional to that of the original trauma-inducing event? Why the thoughts of suicide? Why are the agonizing bouts of emotional pain so intense and so deep for the rest of the sufferer’s days??The one known answer is this: Trauma sufferers need constant post-trauma help to ease the scars of yesterday or yesteryear.?

Trauma pain must be given space to surface and be comforted. Anger must be allowed necessary time to rise and dissipate.?Grace can wash away shame and guilt unwarranted but constantly felt.??Nightmares may begin to lessen with loving reminders that the sufferer did nothing wrong but was simply the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time. Never guilt, never shame. Just love and compassion for a life experience no one deserved to suffer though then or to re-live so often for years without resolve.?

Google has general PTSD statistics, ramifications of untreated PTSD, PTSD-sourced depression, anger, anxiety, and much more. Below I provide what has helped my own PTSD, hoping it may help others, perhaps you!

1. Accept what happened and what is!?That is a definite first step. Healing, moving forward, dreaming well again are all impossible without acceptance. It took me over 13 years to figure this concept out; use my experience to help you or someone you love to conquer this step much sooner!
2. Understand what you can control, compassionately.?You cannot control what happened, who the aggressor was, how others responded, believed, nor judged you upon.?But you can control how you react, whether you forgive yourself (and, possibly, when you are ready – your abuser), how self-loving and self-compassionate you are, your thoughts and opinions, your behavior, your actions.
3. Tenaciously, and with gusto, go after that which you can control!! Thoughts become feelings, which become beliefs, which become actions. The question is: Are you going to Just Do It? (to steal from Nike!)

The first letters of each bolded suggestion (proven and experienced advice) spell out the word ACT!?Go ACT!

From the man with so much wisdom, Henry David Thoreau, “I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with unexpected success in common hours.”

Advance through your trauma, pain, gut-wrenching horrors with dignity, grace, God-bestowed grace, and love of thyself.

God Bless You, Dear Fellow Navigators of Life…

Mark S.

Thriving PTSD Survivor

Freelance Writer, Personal Coach & Author

If you or someone you know is suffering from PTSD, reach out for help.

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline ?(also affiliated with?Mental Health America ): (800) 273-TALK (8255).?Available any time of day or night, 365 days a year, this toll-free PTSD helpline has trained volunteers standing by to provide crisis intervention, to offer support for people in distress, and to give information and referrals to people with PTSD and their loved ones.
• Veterans Crisis Line :?(800) 273-TALK (8255) and press “1”.?This toll-free hotline is available for veterans and their loved ones. You can also send a text message to 838255 to receive confidential, free support and referrals.
• Crisis Text Line :?Text HOME to 741741.?This service is available 24/7 and provides free crisis support and information via text.
• PTSD Foundation of America , Veteran Line: (877) 717-PTSD (7873).?Providing referrals, information, and helpful resources to veterans and their families, this toll-free hotline is available 24/7.
• Lifeline for Vets :?(888) 777-4443.?Also geared toward veterans and their families, this toll-free PTSD helpline provides crisis intervention, referrals, and information.