Healing Trauma 12: PTSD And Traumatic Memory

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a clinical diagnosis that has a set of symptoms: hijacked by memory, trouble sleeping, feeling terrified. Our body doesn’t know the danger has passed.

Healing involves a moment-to-moment experience in our body that we are safe. We use that as a secure base to revisit and heal the memories without reliving the trauma. All of the ways that we regulate our nervous system on an everyday basis help with PTSD, and many people need professional help as well.

Through the experience of safety, our system gradually updates and we realize that danger is past.

Transcript

Welcome back to this series on healing trauma.

In this one,

We're going to work with traumatic memory and PTSD.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a clinical diagnosis that has a set of symptoms.

Dr.

Peter Levine is a recognized expert on the subject of PTSD and trauma and memory.

Post-traumatic stress or post-traumatic stress disorder is when circumstances are too overwhelming for us to handle it.

We become hijacked by memory.

We often have trouble sleeping.

We feel scared,

Terrified.

I developed PTSD after I was physically assaulted while riding my bicycle to work in 2005.

At that time,

There was very little knowledge about PTSD.

I was physically assaulted while riding my bicycle to work in 2005.

There was little known about PTSD,

And much of what was known was about veterans coming back from wars.

There are many ways to work with PTSD and many levels of severity.

If we're diagnosed with PTSD,

It's a good idea to get professional help,

And we can also do a lot with building resilience in our nervous system,

Having the direct experience that we're safe in this moment.

One of the keys to healing PTSD and trauma and traumatic memory is to get to know a little bit more about it,

But also to develop the skill to stay here,

This moment-to-moment experience in our body that is safe.

Use that as a secure base,

And then we can reach into and allow the memories to come forward to work with them.

Out of the safety of the present moment,

We're allowing these traumatic experiences to revisit,

But not relive the trauma.

We remain fully aware that right now,

We are not in the past.

We are in this particular situation,

In this particular room that we're in.

We're at this particular time in our life.

We're not actually in the situation,

But our body doesn't know that.

We need to update the timestamp.

There are many ways that we can create safety.

Mindfulness,

Emotional regulation,

Safer relationships,

Feeling more empowered in our body,

And more connected in our body.

We can do yoga.

We can get together with other people for group therapy.

PTSD itself is referring to some specific things that happened that have created an overwhelming sense of trauma.

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In our body and in our system.

There's also complex PTSD,

Which refers to developmental trauma.

This is when we have ongoing circumstances,

Generally as a child,

Where our brain and nervous system doesn't develop in an optimal way because our conditions are hard.

We don't have the safety,

The support.

We're being hurt.

We can get PTSD from ongoing circumstances,

But in this situation,

We're talking primarily about something specific that happened.

We're talking about big T trauma.

We have two types of memory,

Explicit and implicit,

Which means that we know the details of some things.

We think back to a time,

A specific memory.

We might have a visual of it.

We have sounds.

We know the details of what happened.

Implicit memory is when we have more of a felt sense.

It might be a real feeling of dread.

Our bodies get tight.

We might feel very anxious.

We can't handle what's happening in our body.

We disconnect.

When we're working with thoughts and memories,

We might have insights into what happened,

But until our body knows that we're not anymore in that situation,

Then we're stuck in this cycle of trauma repetition.

So revisiting trauma is very different from reliving trauma.

We develop the capacity and ability to look at.

Experience and move through.

All of this has to be at that felt level,

The implicit level through the body's felt sense,

Body sensation,

Aware of our breath,

Aware that we're in this moment.

And gradually our nervous system begins to realize that's in the past.

Safety in the present moment is really the only way that we can heal traumatic memory from the past.

And there are many wonderful modalities to work with that now.

When our body's experience of trauma changes,

Then our emotions change.

When the emotion changes,

We tend to have new episodic memories.

And when they change,

We're able to form a coherent narrative about what happened to us.

Establishing self-compassion can be difficult.

A lack of self-compassion is very common when we're not regulated,

When we're in survival responses.

And establishing a more grounded nervous system,

More of a sense of safety,

Can allow us to begin to feel some kindness and compassion towards ourselves.

Sometimes rituals are helpful.

Rituals of leaving things behind.

We might write out the trauma,

Burn it,

Throw it away.

Rituals of inclusion.

Rituals of connection are also helpful.

It is important that we are witnessed by other people.

You tell your story.

The talking stick goes around.

You call on your community and set up a support circle.

A sense of community happens with people who are warm,

Empathetic,

And understanding.

We can begin to see that even though what happened was terrible,

That we did not deserve what happened,

That it was something that was really hard for us to deal with,

That we also can develop post-traumatic strength.

We can see that we're at fundamentally different levels of different than who we are before.

And we can celebrate who we are now.

We can hang on to what we've learned.

We can focus on,

How can I help others?

How can I establish a sense of compassion for myself and patience?

These things can be hard to let go of.

When I was assaulted,

I thought I was going to die.

A woman riding her bicycle behind me stopped,

Screamed,

Called the police,

And the men who assaulted me left.

My nervous system knew that I could have died that morning.

And for several months afterwards,

I was really afraid.

If I went anywhere in the car,

I locked the doors immediately.

When I was driving,

I was scared that someone was going to randomly come into my lane.

I was scared to walk a quarter block to the store at the end of my street.

And the psychologist that I worked with suggested that I should really do everything possible so that I didn't continue to scare myself.

Walk to the store if I can,

But if I can't,

Get in my car and drive.

Call a friend and have somebody else pick things up for me.

Protecting ourselves from fear is one of the ways that our system gradually gets to know that what happened is in the past,

And what's happening now is that I'm gradually establishing a sense of safety.

My nervous system is starting to come back into regulation.

She encouraged me to not stress my system,

To do things that were comforting.

I watched a lot of romantic comedies during that six months.

I drove out into the country and would sit alone in the wilderness,

Feeling much safer than I felt in the city with other people around.

When that happened,

I had been meditating for about 12 years,

And I was very comfortable with the thoughts in my mind.

I was very familiar with how to use yoga.

And relaxation practices to settle my nervous system.

I was pretty grounded,

Pretty calm a lot of the time,

And I was shocked by what happened to my mind and my nervous system.

And that journey of understanding what was going on,

Really giving myself permission to foster that sense of security and safety.

To build resilience,

True,

But I found that the resilience came naturally as I was feeling safer.

I had fewer flashbacks as I was feeling safer.

Going to court and testifying was very difficult.

And it was also really important to me to be able to do that and to stand in court and say,

This is what happened to me.

We all experience PTS,

Post-traumatic shock or stress.

Some of those are from common experiences,

Communal experiences,

Like COVID-19,

Like 9-11 with the World Trade Centers.

And I was able to do that.

And I was able to do that because I was able to do that.

And I was able to do that because I was able to do that.

And I was able to do that because I was able to do that.

And I was able to do that because I was able to do that.

And some of them are things that happen to us personally,

A car accident,

A betrayal,

Violence.

What's happening with PTSD is that our nervous system does not know that we're safe now.

We have to protect ourselves from being scared.

We have to foster a sense of safety.

There are so many ways now that we can work with this.

It's very possible that we can work with this.

We can work with this.

We can heal from this.

As we do,

Our sense of memory becomes more updated.

We begin to see that's something that happened to me in the past.

It's not gone completely.

We'll always have a residue of it.

And it's not something that's hijacking me all the time now.

Yoga,

Meditation,

Movement,

Somatic mindfulness,

Breathing,

All of the ways that we regulate our nervous system,

On a normal basis,

On an everyday basis,

Help with PTSD.

And it's often a really good idea to get professional help as well.

Our body can come back into an experience of safety.

I've discovered that for myself,

As have many other people.

If you're feeling hijacked by traumatic memory,

By fear in your body,

Keep working on it.

It's possible to heal.

Some of them relate to the fact that we're not able to heal.

We're not able to heal.

We're not able to heal.

We're not able to heal.

We're not able to heal.

Reviews

I will refer to this talk whenever I need a clear, concise and simple explanation of trauma and resourcing. Thank you very much!!

So helpful! Very well explored and expressed. Gave me courage and reassurance. Thanks Lynn.

Thank you very much! I experienced violence for many years and was diagnosed PTSD. Wow I'm leaning into you phrase Post Traumatic Strength...that's where I'm headed

Thankyou so much. I needed some direction & this was very helpful