[Melinae]

Please, please share. Anything - books, audiobooks, worksheets, workbooks, meds, specific therapies, writing down triggers, journaling - what?

THANK YOU

[Blake04]

This is going to be a long one so please bear with me.

First and foremost, understanding how my amygdala works. The amygdala is a region in you're brain responsible for handling emotional reactions and it functions beneath your concussions. Its important to understand that as humans, we are hardwired towards survival. This means that if you cut away all the conscious stuff, you're left with a brain purely focused on staying alive. And from a survival perspective, being in a state of fear is actually a rather sane choice. It keeps you on your toes and keeps your adrenalin level up. Adrenalin is energy, and you need energy to deal with whatever nature throws at you.
Yes, being in a state of fear on the conscious level is not at all pleasant. But you're brain dosen't really care about that. Its job is keeping you alive, and its pretty good at that. Everything else is a problem for the conscious you.

Okay so what the amygdala does is pay very good attention to what happens when you enter a new situation. It helps you figure out if whats happening requires a fight-or-flight response. And again, from a survival point of view, this makes good sense. Relying on your consciousness to make survival decisions is not nearly as effective as just having that stuff happen behind the curtain.

Example: You're walking down the street at night, when suddently you hear a loud screech noise behind you. You instantly react to the loud noise, and just as you turn around, a bright yellow-ish light from the street light above blinds you for just a mili-second. You're vision returns rapidly and you see a truck on its side, crashing towards you. You avoid coalition and walks away unharmed.

But here's the things.. That screeching sound and the yellow-ish light is now "permanently" danger signals for you're amygdala. Every time from now on you register one of those signals, the amygdala will issues a flee command. And this happens completely without you're consent or even knowledge. Yes, this is overly simplistic. But the essence holds true.

The way it functions is by having all sensory input stream through the amygdala before it passes to the conscious. Sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch are all processed before you even know about it. And if you once perceived a situation as dangerous, that becomes you're new standard operating procedure. Because again, fear is good. It helps you not getting eaten by a larger animal.

And there's more. In addition to registering and storing previous situations, it also picks you're brain for bad thoughts. Like if you imagine yourself in scenarios with bad outcomes a lot. Like thinking about going to the grocery store and tripping right in front of everyone. If you do that, you're amygdala just goes "Yeah sure, we'll add that to the list of stuff to avoid". And something as simple as grocery shopping is now a situation filled with stress and fear.

But there's hope. Because even though you can't control you're amygdala directly, you can slowly change once negative perceived situations to positive ones. Or at least neutral ones. But you have to be on your toes. The whole process from sensory input to fight-or-flee takes just ½ a second. The first half of that ½ second is beyond you're control but the last half is where you can actually change the outcome. But it takes time, commitment and patience.

Now, apart from our brains job of minimizing dangers it also has a secondary job of maximizing rewards. And it does this by releasing pleasant drugs every time something positive is experienced. Every input is scanned and assessed by this principle. Its either something we want to avoid or something we want more of. Before you even know whats happening, you're brain has already told you if you're motivation is avoid or pursue.

The SKARV-model focuses on the social aspect. It contains 5 domains that all play an equal part in determining how well you're feeling. When you're down, important parts of you're brain becomes inhibited. This means we think less efficiently, have a harder time making sound decisions, focus trouble and it becomes a lot harder to handle change. We basically descend into a bad, downwards spiral.

The 5 SKARV domains are:

• Status: Our relative value in regards to others.
• Contact: The level of safety we feel when in contact with others.
• Autonomy: Our independence or freedom. The level of control we feel about events.
• Justice: About how fairly we, and people around us, feel treated.
• Certainty: Our ability to predict and anticipate the future.

These 5 domains all activate either the primary rewarding network or the primary threat network. Just like the amygdala uses it. For example, if we feel our social status and standing is in danger, the networks are in play as would be if it was our life that was in danger. And in the same way, a feeling of justice being served grants the same positive feeling as if we were handed a stack of money.

Okay now, the way i use all of this in my daily life is simply by reminding myself constantly. One of my problems is that get into flee-or-fight mode when i hear loud unexpected sounds or vehicles approaching. I very rarely make it within that ½ second, but it does help even if you're not that fast. I try to calm myself down by acknowledging that my brain is using a predefined reaction system. And it does work, but you need to stay on top of it.
I recently bailed on an appointment with my coach because i let my guard down on the way there, and started thinking about how much could go wrong. And it just spiraled out of control for me. I did realize fairly quickly what was happening, but it was overpowering. But, in a little less then half an hour, i had myself under control again and phoned my coach. Luckily his a cool guy and helped me not dwell on it and even to laugh about it.

After all, nothing bad at all had actually happened. Everything happened inside my own head, because i let it.

Finally, a disclaimer. I do not have any formal education about any of this, nor can i validate anything i claim here. What i have written is partially my understanding of what my coach teaches me and partially small translated snippets from his homepage.
The guy does however hold two Master of Arts titles, is a certified EMCC coach, certified in brain-based management from The NeuroLeadership Institute and brain-based coaching from NeuroBusiness Group. He furthermore has more than 2000 coaching session behind him.

Okay, congratulations. You made it to the end. For more resources on this, you can visit this link. The 2. and 3. video is in English and there is 3 book recommendations.

I hope this helps someone like its helping me.

[kaliope]

what helped me out a lot was DBT. it helped me tame those reactions i had to things and respond differently. also accepting that i do respond differently than normal people. i had the mantra "this is normal for me" and would say that when i felt i was over reacting or responding to something in an inappropriate way...ie. dissociating at flashing lights..i knew normal people didnt do it and judged myslef harshly for it. i learned to accept it as normal for me and became more loving and accepting of my responses to to things and then i didnt exacerbate my anxiety so i was more in control of situations and was able to let them pass instead of getting all freaked out about them.

[Open Eyes]

Well, that is interesting Blake04.

I will recommend a book by Judith Herman called "Trauma and Recovery". She talks about the three stages of "healing" through PTSD/Trauma.

While I can see the theory behind what Blake is talking about and how it may be helpful to practice the methods discussed in the books or tapes that may discuss ways to help ones self better manage some PTSD symptoms. I think it is also helpful to address things that can come forward in PTSD on a more "conscious" level too. What I mean by that is "therapy" where you build a relationship with a therapist to a level where you can fully trust your therapist so you can openly discuss things you experienced in your past that are now presenting you with "complex PTSD".

What Judith Herman discusses in her book about the "stages" of healing has to do with first making an effort to discuss our past or trauma's which for c-ptsd, can mean an entire childhood. This first stage of "recalling" can be quite a challenge because as we do this we also increase our chances of experiencing some flashbacks or even feeling those memories of the abuse or abuses. It is very common for patients to feel as though they are doing something very wrong when they discuss them, to even feel like some of the abuse is "their fault" too.

Many people will say things like, gotta forget it, don't dwell on things, just deal, just stop thinking about it, just "let go" and move on. But the truth is, we never really "can" forget the things that happen to us, all the things that happen to us go into how we develop and become "ourselves". As Blake is saying, once we experience that yellow light and some kind of "danger" it becomes "part of us" and "our personal history". And if something bad did happen, and we survived it, that is always going to be there too. However, that doesn't have to mean we are at fault or that whatever we experienced that was bad that we have to determine we are now somehow "damaged" or "less than".

While Blake is right about how we can develop responses that just happen without our thinking about it on a conscious level. Often we "react" and do not know "why", the yellow light did happen and we were threatened but we don't always remember that, but we put that experience aside in our brain somehow. Sometimes, children might think that something that is "unhealthy" is just something that happens and he/she is just supposed to learn how to live around it. A child can be under a lot of stress, yet for them that is normal as they don't understand what "stress means" and the "unhealthy" or "toxic" people they grow up around is what begins to feel "normal" to them. If dad yells at mom all the time, and drinks and acts strange sometimes, well, isn't that what dads just do? Often times a girl will marry a man much like her "dysfunctional" father why? Because that is what she knows" and "it feels familiar" to her. Often boys do the same, they may have been raised by a selfish mother that never really recognized them, so they are often attracted to that same kind of woman later on, unaware that they are missing out on having a "healthy" relationship.

It isn't just about learning to find ways to "ignore" yellow lights. It has to do with slowly talking about our past and finding the yellow lights, seeing how they harmed us in ways we didn't know, seeing whatever we missed because of that, having that validated, being able to actually "grieve it and get comfort" and then slowly learning how to build new and healthier ways to move forward "in spite" of these yellow lights. Therapy often also includes when we do know about the yellow lights, have tried to talk about them often but went invalidated and "unheard" too.

So, while it is good to learn how to gain better control, it is also important to also "heal" too.

OE

[Blake04]

@ Open Eyes:

I completely agree with you points. And if it sounded like i was advising against legitimate therapy, i apologize.
Facing and accepting you're problems is certainly the first step towards healing. And something i went through aswell.

But, once i had accepted my problems and was ready to move on, these were the tools that actually enabled me to do it.

I feel its also important to add that the goal is not learning to ignore warning signals. They are still there for a reason, after all. But once i became aware of the process involved, i started sorting out responses as they happened. Even when i go down, im usually able to pinpoint what triggered it, if its valid, and then calm myself down when they aren't valid.

Someone switch me and Open Eyes posts so it seems like we coordinated step based advice

[Open Eyes]

Oh, I understood and actually enjoyed your input too. I had to do therapy, and still do myself because I didn't always know what the trigger was that set me off sometimes. What you are doing I would equate with the third stage of healing, which is slowly developing better coping skills and understanding the triggers to where one gets them more under control.

I have to admit that I still have days where I struggle and I don't know why, but no where near as bad as I used to suffer.

I am glad to hear you are finding the method you are describing so helpful. I have been doing something very similar and yes, it does take time and can be hard work. The important thing is that even though some of the challenges are harder to get under control, even with more difficult triggers with time improvement will continue to take place.

I have heard that DBT therapy helps a lot too. I have not done that myself, but I hear so many positives about it, and some take the course/therapy more than once, which as in anything, the more we practice the better we do.

OE

It's been four years since my breakdown of which I now consider a breakthrough. I got on meds and went into CBT for two years. The nightmares are gone, but I don't worry should they return. All they are is a signal for me to pay attention to and curb any additional anxiety during the day. I've learned so much about myself because of cPTSD and now feel at ease with the way things have been because now my life is better; I truly live in each moment with the assurance of emotional stability. I also practice lovingkindness mindful meditation, thank to my psychiatrist's suggestion that I give it a try. Once the meds got my mood stabilized, meditation augmented into the self-care plan beautifully.