Jul 22 2021
In this post, I discuss my experiences at the time with 5 cognitive challenges and the slow returning of 8 cognitive skills. At 41% hyperarousal, I had started to access these skills. At 35%, I felt like I was about 1/3 of the way to full access of what I was just calling higher cognitive capacities.
Jun 25 2020
So, I’m embarking on a writing practice. I’m planning to write at least 10 minutes a day, stream of consciousness, censorship and judgment-free, incorporating body awareness at times to improve groundedness. I went over Seven Benefits of a Writing Practice in my last article, but in the process of learning about writing practice, I’ve actually …
Jun 20 2020
This is a book review of Writing Ourselves Whole: Using the Power of Your Own Creativity to Recover and Heal from Sexual Trauma by Jen Cross in which I discuss Seven Benefits of a Writing Practice, go over my personal experience reading the book and list some of my favorite quotes. I recommend the book …
May 08 2020
Summary: I tell a short story about becoming more and more suicidal when I had acute and untreated PTSD. Then I list 13 reasons I was suicidal when I had PTSD. I list 13 reasons I’m now suicidal, which all relate to CPTSD. This is a personal account but points to some key differences in …
Dec 15 2019
Summary: I tell the story of the day I first learned how to do the “felt sense” that Peter Levine teaches and writes about in his books. In the Discussion section after the story, I cover the following topics: (1.) Believing Yourself to be Dead. Feeling dead and developing the belief that you are actually …
Nov 17 2019
In this blog post, there is a short story about riding the train to a therapy appointment and afterwards, there is a Discussion about the following 5 Topics related to PTSD: (1) Merging with the Environment / Unity Consciousness coupled paradoxically with a sense of Disconnection and Alienation from other people and the process of healing Boundaries and Relationships, (2) The Wiped Memory / Amnesia of one’s past prior to the traumatic events and how it gradually comes back, (3) A Heightened Sense Of The Danger and unpredictability of reality, (4) Sensory Hypersensitivity, and (5) Therapist Search – the challenges related to trying to ind a trauma therapist.
Dec 21 2018
Healing Trauma with Guided Drawing, A Sensorimotor Art Therapy Approach to Bilateral Body Mapping, by Cornelia Elbrecht, is an in-depth instructional textbook for the somatic therapeutic approach Guided Drawing. Based on leading edge understandings about trauma healing and the body (sensorimotor psychotherapy, somatic experiencing, etc.), this book is a treasure trove of trauma healing knowledge, insights and clarifications. Guided Drawing …
Oct 08 2018
Blame the victim mentality is very subtle. It’s sneaky. It doesn’t ever announce its presence. It just sits there like a black cloud, draining you. This is because we’ve been taught to accept it much more than we realize we have been. This is also because we have never been taught to pick things apart …
Oct 08 2018
“Nothing can be loved into something” (song lyrics to Breathe by Seinabo Sey) To me this means that after removing the stain, the shame, of trauma there is nothing. In that empty space truth comes in and purity and from nothing grows something to be loved but before that the survivor feels unlovable. *** This …
Oct 08 2018
What if the Victim Did Make Mistakes? Sometimes, trauma survivors do play some role in getting into situations in which they end up being traumatized, and it can be important to examine potential mistakes, naiveté, and self-sabotage, as one stage of the therapeutic process (generally after other, much more important, symptoms and issues are worked …
