Approximately 3-4% of the world’s population struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); the level is certainly higher in some parts of the world. But we also know that not everyone who experiences trauma develops PTSD, and that people who struggle with it can have very different symptoms. So why does this happen with PTSD?
Imagine you were at home and received a call that an important guest or host was leaving. If you look around your kitchen, you’ll see that it’s a bit of a mess. If you have enough time, you can arrange your kitchen the way you like and put everything in the right place. But there’s no time for that, so instead you grab everything on the bench and throw it in any old closet. In a few minutes you have a tidy looking kitchen; nothing seems out of place and you visit without anyone commenting on the state of the room. But later, if you look for a pot in the pot cupboard, you’ll find a tin of beans. And when you look for salt, you find dirty coffee cups and a jar of peanut butter, but salt is nowhere to be seen. It doesn’t take long before you get into the kitchen cupboard stressful and confusing because you don’t know what you’re going to find, so you keep them as closed as possible, switching out the essentials and keeping them in a separate place.
This experience is superficial compared to trauma, but is a useful metaphor for explaining PTSD. In times of trauma, we do what we can because that’s what we have to do to get out of the situation. But we are stressed because and fearwe are not organizing events in our minds in a useful way. The part of us that worries we’re going to die doesn’t shut off next to the part that notices we’ve survived and escaped. The part of us that is terrified can be thrown into the wrong closet, so we no longer have a sense of what is safe and what is dangerous. We soon lose the ability to know which memories and thoughts are safe or when they are big feeling may arise, so we try to control or avoid all memories and thoughts. Instead, we find ourselves living smaller lives than we want, jumping at every sound and waiting for danger to strike at any moment, even when the real danger has already passed. For many people with PTSD, this can manifest as flashbacks, nightmares, heightened fears, or poor sleep. There can be a lot of thinking about the incident, but without all the information (because it’s in the wrong closet), so there is self-blame, regret, and only if.
For people who have experienced multiple traumas, their closets can become so cluttered that they struggle to understand what happened, who they are, or where and when they are safe.
To deal with a stressful kitchen, you need to wait until you are calm and have time, then gradually empty the cabinets and put everything in its place. what is this therapy does. There are a number of evidence-based trauma therapies, including prolonged exposure, written exposure therapy, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). There are differences between each, but they all involve helping people safely open the closets they’ve been avoiding and see what’s in there. When you review the injury, you realize that you did the best you could with the situation, your knowledge and skills at the time, and that the story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. You will find words for the different emotions and bodily sensations you experience when you watch traumatic reassign the event and responsibility to the appropriate place. Cannot disable trauma therapy a memorybut it helps keep all aspects of trauma safely in one closet without falling off any shelf at any time.
In other words, trauma therapy helps you feel about the trauma as you would if it had happened to someone else you care about, rather than to you. This way, you break out of the cycle of blaming yourself, brooding, running away, or feeling like it’s still happening.
I hope that if you are going through a trauma and it is still affecting your life, you can find a therapist and therapy that allows you to feel safe enough to process the experience and store the memory in the right closet in your memory.
To find a therapist, Visit the Psychology Therapy Directory today.
