June Is PTSD Awareness Month
June is PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) awareness month and you may be wondering who gets PTSD and why, and who it affects.
Everyone is susceptible to PTSD as the result of experiencing trauma. PTSD is a normal reaction to an intense, abnormal, potentially life threatening experience, or an experience that threatens ones sense of safety and well-being. It's very personal. What one person experiences as traumatic, another person may not, and there isn't anything right or wrong about how the person experiences it. Trauma is also cumulative, meaning it builds up over time. If you live with someone who has PTSD you could develop it vicariously.
There are certain populations of people and job situations that could easily lead to someone developing PTSD. Combat veterans, police, fire and other first responders, along with prison guards are at the top of the list as far as I am concerned. They deal with potentially dangerous situations every day.
Anyone who has been physically or sexually assaulted can develop PTSD. People who grew up in highly dysfunctional families or have been in emotionally abusive relationships can develop PTSD. Any kind of accident or multiple accidents could result in the development of PTSD. I'm certain it is under reported.
Non-physical events, events that do not cause injury to the person, create emotional, psychic and spiritual/moral wounds that one can not see. Maybe they can be hidden from others, and usually not for long. Physical event wounds heal faster than the invisible wounds, which do not heal with time. That's a fallacy we have been told and bought into. If it was true, and the various types of talk therapy worked, there would not be many veterans still in therapy. There is actually concern that, because of the brains ability to re-wire itself (neuroplasticity), that talking about the vents repeatedly creates new neural networks that re-in-force the traumatic memories and run the risk of making the PTSD worse.
Along with the obvious symptoms, PTSD can also lead to depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, type II, diabetes, high cortisol levels, weight gain, fatigue. excessive anger and irritability, isolation, alcoholism, substance abuse and other addictions, suicide and a host of other psychical symptoms. That's because there is a direct connection between the mind and body which the allopathic community have discounted since there early 1900s. What ever thoughts and beliefs that exist in the mind, conscious or unconscious, show up in the body as some type of illness, discomfort or distress. In fact, there is evidence that the memories are actually stored, in part, in the body. Structures in the brain, like the amygdala, also play a part in these memories.
The good news is that EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) is highly effective in resolving PTSD and related traumas. There is plenty of documented, peer-reviewed, and published research to support this. And the results are sustainable over time, whereas outcomes using other methods, EMDR being the exception, are not sustainable over time. EFT is a combination of exposure therapy, recalling the painful memory, cognitive therapy, using words to describe the issue and rate the intensity of it and acupressure, or tapping on specific points on the body. This combination rapidly reduces the emotional distress of the issue and allows you to move on from it in a very short period of time, compared to traditional methods.
Just to give you some examples, 85% of the veterans that came through he Veterans Stress Project experienced an average of 63% reduction in symptoms. Similar outcomes have been documented in other countries like Kosovo, Bosnia and the Congo. And EFT works well on many other issues as well. One of my clients lost over 120 pounds and was able to stop all psychiatric medications as well as some other medications as a result of treating her traumatic memories with EFT. That happened after 30 years of suffering, a course of Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT) and multiple therapists and stays in psychiatric wards. She also went from having high cholesterol and Type II diabetes to having normal cholesterol and normal blood sugar. I know, that's pretty unbelievable and yet we have the lab test to back it up.
Do you know someone who has PTSD? You can find a list of symptoms here as well as other articles about trauma and EFT. The list will help you "see" the wounds. If you do know someone who fits the "profile" and has the symptoms please encourage them to seek help from a qualified EFT therapist/practitioner. Additionally, insure them that they are not weak because this has happened to them and they are seeking help. It takes a lot of courage and bravery to face these memories; more that it does to suppress them and keep them "out of the way," which really doesn't happen. They are always running in the background, causing us to behave in ways we would not normally do.
Additionally, the chronic stress of PTSD can lead to Adrenal Fatigue. The adrenal glands produce adrenalin and cortisol and are directly related to the Fight, Flight, Freeze responses associated with PTSD. We know from other research that one hour of EFT can reduce cortisol levels by 25%, compared to only 10% reduction for an hour of talk therapy, and 11% reduction sitting in a waiting room for an hour reading!
EFT often works when other methods have failed.
