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Four Categories of PTSD Symptoms
Personally, what helps me is identifying the symptoms I may be experiencing at the moment. That "
Science of PTSD" article states the PTSD symptoms generally present in one of four ways (I added numbers to separate them and make them easier to distinguish):
"The four categories of PTSD symptoms include:
1. Intrusive thoughts (unwanted memories)
2. Mood alterations (shame, blame, persistent negativity)
3. Hypervigilance (exaggerated startle response)
4. Avoidance (of all sensory and emotional trauma-related material)
These cause confusing symptoms for survivors who don’t understand how they’ve suddenly become so out of control in their own minds and bodies."
The article also states that, "
Launching the recovery process begins with normalizing post-trauma symptoms by investigating how trauma affects that brain and what symptoms these effects create."
Know Thyself (& Thy Triggers)
I interpret that last sentence as basically saying "know thyself." I find I can "launch the recovery process," that is, deal with my symptoms, if I first investigate
how and
which symptoms are presenting. That's really important. Then, I could proceed to deal with the symptoms in ways that are unique to my healing needs. I have to know what I need first.
For example, after observing my own PTSD reactions to situational stressors, I find that my symptoms mainly fall in the last two categories, hypervigilance and avoidance. I don't get the intrusive memories nor the mood swings, though I did experience them pretty badly in my twenties (I really should have been on anti-anxiety medication). But, it toned down in the my 30s, and I've continued to mellow out in subsequent years. But the hypervigilance and avoidance are still there, and get
very hard to deal with at times.
You would think they were obvious,
but we can get very sneaky with how we fool ourselves, and symptoms could present in not-obvious ways. Fear doesn't always look like you would think fear should look, same with anger and grief. They can express themselves in very not-obvious ways. I tend to isolate because I feel "safer" that way. Isolation, however, worsens PTSD. It is important to stay around other people. I force myself to open up, but it is too easy for me not to.
The second thing that helps me is to know my triggers very well, which situations or people set off PTSD symptoms. Sometimes these things are avoidable; sometimes they are not. Again, this is tricky for me, especially in a work environment. But, I am getting to know myself very well.
Monitoring & Changing Self-talk
I find that cognitive behavioral therapeutic interventions really help...that is just a fancy way of saying I change my internal dialogue about a given situation, that "self-talk" we all automatically do, which greatly influences our actions and attitudes.
I find that you have to
really monitor self-talk when you suffer from PTSD. Most likely the inner "recordings" that are playing in our heads are either untrue statements that traumatizing people said to us or about us in the past about life or ourselves that had "sunk in" to our psyches. Or, self-talk could consist of trauma statements we created at an earlier part of our lives at the height of our traumatic experiences, which are still playing loudly though they no longer apply anymore, but we're still repeating them like they do. They were survival statements that helped us get through whatever we were getting through.
All in all, I think
knowledge is power, and knowing which symptoms you or a loved one is experiencing at the moment can
greatly help in coping with those symptoms, "normalizing" them as the article states, making them less weird and seemingly unpredictable and overwhelming. I think self-knowledge really does bring a measure of control and relief. It's important to be very honest with yourself, and know that it's OK not to be "perfect," and that one does not have some kind of character flaw just because of experiencing PTSD symptoms. Self-honesty requires a certain degree of humility, I think.
Thanks.
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oh, shuer...if I could just stop it then why won't it turn off! Changing the internal dialog will help to reprogram your brain.
