Are you suffering with PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder) symptoms on a regular basis? Some of the symptoms are depression, unresolved anger, helplessness, flashbacks (negative memory flashes) of the event or events you endured, mood instability, nightmares, guilt, rage, isolation and lonliness, insomnia, panic attacks and many more. If you want to feel just a little better at a time there are a few things that may help. First of all, set realistic goals for yourself. For example, expect to deal with this troubling event you endured for a long time. Memories that are filed in the mind under the influence of high levels of adrenaline are very secure in the memory vault, so they have staying power. Secondly, expect to be able, eventually, to tell your epic story to yourself, your journal or trusted others more smoothly, more gently and with some self-compassion, too. The important thing is to slowly, over time, aim for more relaxed muscles, lungs and mind in the recounting and re-telling of your trauma experience, so that your mind, neurology and emotions know you are safe now.

The psyche cannot tell time. On the interior of your mind there are no clocks. So, inside your mind and body there is no knowledge that now is different from the past. If you want your psyche to discriminate between the timing of your trauma event and your now experience you will have to teach it to do so. Making a timeline of your major life experiences can be a helpful visual to allow the mind to see that this is now, not then. So, draw a line across a piece of paper and plug in the important years to document relevant good and bad events. Be as detailed as possible.

Next, name the year or years of the tragedy and the years after to help your mind get to know there is a difference in these parts of your life. For example, ‘shock’ and ‘moving on’ or ‘horror’ and ‘healing’ or something else. Just give your trauma year/s a different name from your now timeframe.

Be sure to practice your relaxation techniques during any work on your PTSD. For example, exhale fully right now and relax your shoulders and ribcage muscles a little bit. Do this throughout any of your active work sessions on your painful memories. Relaxation in the body gives the mind the ‘all clear’ message so your thoughts can calm a little, too. Each active journaling or therapy session will be more helpful to you if you are calmer during it. Also, tears are healing to us. We do not tear up or cry if we are very stressed. We have to be calmer first, to process painful memories and mourn our losses in meaningful ways. So, any tears are a good indicator you are calmer.

As we learn to stay calmer as we deal with our painful past experiences, any efforts at suppressing or avoiding these same memories slip from our grip. As suppression and avoidance tactics slip away we are free to emotionally deal with what happened in ways that help us move forward towards healing. This is progress. Be prepared to emotionally vent, rant and/or cry. This process of letting the stressful suppression and avoidance techniques slip away via relaxation efforts begins the emotional processing and digesting of our troubled experiences. This healing process can be delayed with suppression in many ways like working all the time, drinking too much or something else. However, it cannot be prevented from happening. All of the suppression and avoidance techniques in the world will not stop it from being dealt with at some point. This is the reason why the body begins to manifest more and more PTSD symptoms overtime. Our body is smarter than our mind a lot of the time and will get sicker until it finally gets us to take it seriously and get some help. So, your symptoms are your best friends to the extent that they wake you up to your bodily needs of care and comfort and help. Be compassionate with you.