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Reliving Past Trauma?

   Written by on January 21, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Cheryl Gowin and Dennis Gowin.  Call us at our counseling practice with your feedback, comments, issues, or questions at 434-808-2637.

Cheryl Gowin and Dennis Gowin.  Call us at our counseling practice with your feedback, comments, issues, or questions at 434-808-2637.

Trauma, caused when you experience a violent or horrifying experience, can affect you for years as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  From soldiers to accident victims to rape survivors, people can find themselves haunted by their experiences.

Although first called PTSD in the 80’s, this condition is not new.  In 490 BC, the Greek historian Herodotus described a soldier who went blind after seeing the soldier standing next to him killed.  In the 1600’s, the term nostalgia described a condition when soldiers became listless, solitary, and indifferent to most aspects of life.  During the Civil War, the diagnosis for soldiers who suffered from chest thumping, anxiety, and shortness of breath after battle was Soldier’s Heart.  PTSD symptoms were called shell shock during WWI, combat exhaustion during WWII and the Korean War, and during the Vietnam War, the same condition was labeled stress response syndrome.

Historically, people involved in non-war traumatic events have also described PTSD symptoms.  Samuel Pepys describes his trauma after the Great Fire of London as leaving him with “dreams of the fire and the falling down of houses”.  He reported an inability to sleep due to his great terrors of fire.  Charles Dickens, after a serious train accident, wrote he was “curiously weak… as if I were recovering from a long illness.  I begin to feel it more in my head.  I sleep well and eat well; but I write half a dozen notes, and turn faint and sick…  I am getting right, though still low in pulse and very nervous.”  Dickens was unable to travel by rail, because he constantly felt as if the train carriage was tipping over.

PTSD develops after a terrifying ordeal that involves the actual or the threat of physical harm such as mugging, rape, child abuse, car accidents, train wrecks, plane crashes, bombings, or natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes.  PTSD can develop in the person involved in the event, to a person whose loved one was harmed, or in a person who witnessed a harmful event.

People with PTSD may startle easily, become emotionally numb, lose interest in things they used to enjoy, have trouble feeling affectionate, be irritable, become more aggressive, or even become violent.  They avoid situations that remind them of the original incident, and anniversaries of the incident are often very difficult.  Most people with PTSD repeatedly relive the trauma as flashbacks.  In addition to PTSD, individuals may struggle with depression, substance abuse, or other anxiety disorders.

PTSD affects about 7.7 million American adults.  If you struggle with PTSD, the first step is to accept that there are people who truly care and sincerely want to help.  Then, find help today, and begin by considering these five steps to recover from PTSD.

1.  First, recognize that PTSD is real.  Admit to yourself, to God and to at least one other person that you are hurting and in need of healing.

2. Realize present situations can trigger buried memories.  Sights, sounds, smells, touch, can all prompt emotional and physical reminders of past pain.

3. Look at how your thinking is affecting your behavioral patterns.  Journaling can help you record thoughts and feelings to help you move through the healing process.

4. Investigate emotional and psychological walls you have erected and self-protective tools you have employed.

5. Find a support network, friends, family, and/or professional counseling, to help.  Dealing with painful experiences is not easy but it is critical to healing and to the hope of a promising future.  A professional counselor can help you process flashbacks, dreams, nightmares and other troubling experiences.  Tell your medical doctor if depression becomes severe or chronic.

If you are suffering from wounds hidden deep in your soul, reach out to someone who can help.  Never forget there is a God who loves you unconditionally.

I will take hold of your hand, I will keep you … to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in the darkness.  Isaiah 42: 6,7

Cheryl Gowin and Dennis Gowin.  Call us at our Counseling Practice with your feedback, comments, issues, or questions at 434-808-2637.  

About Cheryl & Dennis Gowin

Cheryl Gowin, Counselor and Dennis Gowin, Director of Discovery Counseling Center. Contact us with your feedback, comments, issues or questions at 434-808-2426 or dgowin@discoverycounseling.org.

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