Healing Trauma and PTSD
You’re overwhelmed, not just sometimes but often.
Thoughts, feelings, and sensations reminiscent of the past race through your mind, and just like that, you’re back in that horrible moment.
You keep telling yourself that it’s over, you made it – but it isn’t. Although you know that it’s irrational to react the way you’re reacting with your friends, family, and environment, the feeling takes over, and you fall apart every time.
You can’t remember the last time you felt like you could relax. Most of the time, you are tense, numb. A successful day to you now is one where you avoid having any feelings at all.
It’s not right to keep living this way, but you don’t know how to make your body, mind, and emotions do what you want them to do. It’s like you have no control over your own body, and you are at the mercy of the past.
Will I ever feel joy again? Will the past continue to rob me of my present and future pleasure? Can I ever overcome this pain?
Conflict triggers Manny’s* experience with domestic violence.
Manny was a victim of domestic violence as a child. Manny’s parents always fought with one another, throwing and breaking things, shouting – it was like living in a war zone. Manny was the oldest child and felt responsible for protecting his siblings from the chaos in his home.
Manny is 40 years old, but when his partner gets angry, he feels fear and a desire to escape. Plagued by a constant state of anxiety and feeling of distraction and disorganization, Manny has a hard time concentrating.
He feels so exhausted by his emotional world that he does what he can to find distractions, such as drinking or watching TV. When he watches TV, it’s almost like Manny is not there.
Finding it impossible to get through to Manny provokes his partner to yell to get his attention. When she screams, he retreats even more, perpetuating a vicious cycle.
Early family experiences haunt Mark*.
Mark grew up in extreme poverty. His father was an alcoholic, and his mother had Bipolar Disorder.
His parents contributed little to his upbringing.
Being neglected for hours every week, Mark was left to be raised by his older brothers. They punished him harshly, made him do their bidding, and psychologically tormented him.
Yvonne’s* anxiety and depression result from seeing suicide closeup.
Yvonne found her mother after she committed suicide when she was 16 years old.
As a result, Yvonne can’t forget the sight of that dreadful day.
Depression and anxiety have been her known companions since then.
What she resents the most is the feeling of never receiving her mother’s approval for anything she did.
Memories of sexual trauma are a reoccurrence in Jen’s* life.
Jen was repeatedly sexually abused by an older family member between the ages of 8 and 14. It was all part of a “secret game.” Since then, Jen didn’t feel like she had a normal childhood.
The repercussion of those events continues to affect Jen’s relationships.
Worst of all, she feels hugely disgusted and guilty for having dragged other kids, including involving her younger brother in the same “game.”
Bryant’s* near-death experience continually resurfaces.
Bryant was in a severe car accident that led him to hospitalization for a month.
After months of physical therapy and follow-ups by doctors, he is doing better physically, but he feels permanently altered.
He is irritable, on edge, and can’t get in a car without having panic attacks.
Childhood bullying altered Tamara’s* social perspective.
Tamara was the scapegoat of her generation in high school. She was targeted as the only biracial kid in the school, publicly shamed and humiliated continuously. These experiences caused her to fall out with her friends.
People divulged rumors about her and her family’s character and values. They invaded her privacy and pranked her multiple times, including being “jumped” by groups of students who cornered her to intimidate and degrade her.
Since then, she has a hard time trusting people, avoids social situations, sticks to the background, and often feels detached from herself, as if she was not there.
Old negative experiences can rule your current life.
All the people discussed above are suffering from traumatic experiences that continue to be triggered by current events and relationships.
Suffering from PTSD and trauma can feel like a hamster wheel of exhaustion, anxiety, fear, and shame. And talking yourself out of your pain feels like a fruitless endeavor.
You may have given therapy a shot a few times by now and still feel like the deepest part of your “brokenness” has not been healed.
Better trauma treatment is available.
Talking about your trauma has its benefits. But as you’re probably painfully aware, talking yourself out of your trauma or traumatic responses doesn’t work. It can make you feel crazier and ashamed that you can’t seem to get better.
The latest research shows that the way to heal trauma is not through talking alone but by working with trauma’s effect on the body.
Instead of talking about trauma, the Integrative Therapy Center focuses on helping your nervous system let go of pent-up material generated from the traumatic event that still lives in your body and continues to make you feel like the past is happening right now.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Therapy and other innovative techniques and interventions, ranging from Somatic practices and Mindfulness among others, can help provide you a path to healing that deals with trauma at its core — your body and nervous system.
If you are ready to address the biggest obstacle in your path to a better and fuller life and want a trauma specialist to help you through it, call (917) 268-9213.
Still not sure if you have been traumatized?
Nowadays, trauma is a word that carries many meanings. Think of it as a spectrum as opposed to a binary light switch.
The recipe for trauma calls for four ingredients, including perceived danger or imminent threat, a perceived or real sense of isolation, a perceived or actual understanding of helplessness, and the presence of a sense of psychological or physical immobilization.
When at least three of these ingredients are present, there is a high likelihood of psychological trauma consequences to emerge.
Some people experience one highly traumatizing event. Others are traumatized by prolonged exposure to a constant “erosion” of related adverse experiences, such as psychological manipulation and verbal and physical abuse (racism, sexism, and other isms can affect).
Not everyone processes trauma in the same way. For some people, the effects of trauma can stay dormant for many years after the event happened.
If in doubt, our trauma-informed therapists help you determine if you have trauma-related symptoms and provide appropriate recommendations.
Please speak to a trauma specialist to help you through it. Call (917) 268-9213 now.
*Names changed to preserve client confidentiality.