Episode 1 - Introduction
IIn this episode I will introduce myself and my journey to be cured and the path that lead to making this podcast.
Intro 0.00
Hello, my name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The deconstruction of c-PTSD podcast. In this episode I will introduce myself and my journey to be cured and the path that lead to making this podcast. As said before, my name is Johanna and I am a survivor of c-PTSD, though unlike others I didn’t just learn to live with my trauma, I was able to cure it. As far as I know, this is an unusual feat, as in: I don’t know anyone else who managed to do it. But first things first:
My story summarized - extremely 0.41
Starting from my earliest memories around 3 years until I was around 16 years old.I was daily physically (as in violence) abused, occasionally tortured, and later more psychologically.
I lived in constant fear of death, as he made a VERY convincing case that he could kill me and no one would believe he did it nor would anyone really care. If he ever gets close to me, he still verbally abuses me and if kept close longer it goes over into violence. I refuse to have contact with him now. And no, it wasn’t my parents.
I also suffered neglect, bullying, emotional abuse and so much more, but the mentioned before is the main source. And I was a good girl, I got good grades and did what was expected of me, but my health seems to just getting worse. I had severe Depression, since childhood. On and off. I was in therapy for many years, because of the divorce of my parents, but we never truly got to resolve the underlying issue, though it did manage to stabilize me a lot. At least for a while. It was during my psychology studies, when I finally was able to move close to me University, that I got the first worse symptoms. Feeling of being followed, but there was no one even remotely close, but it was a feeling like someone was breathing down your neck. When I sat in my car I saw a shadow sitting in the backseat, who terrified me. And the theme of fear, being followed and shadows became worse and worse. I was in a state of almost constant fear. Until I saw a true shadow even on daylight following me, later it even appeared in my apartment, scaring me to death. I knew, if that figure ever reaches me, I will die. I couldn’t sleep, I had panic attacks all the time, I was literally scared to death. I knew there was no escape. No sleep,no rest, but I needed to sleep so~o badly.
Trying to get help 3.43
While I had alls those symptoms I, as I mentioned before, studied psychology. And fate would have it, that I had in the middle of my symptoms getting worse, the class “clinical psychology”. The topic: PTSD… and naturally some other disorders. … It is never a good sign if you sit in the middle of a clinical psychology class and you see the checklist of your symptoms. I remember cursing in my head. And I immediately called doctors and clinics in the area for help, but most refused me, because my trauma is a old one. We are considered incurable and would need a permanent spot. Except for the clinic of the university, who offered me a spot, to at least get the official diagnosis… , which to be honest wasn’t hard with my back story and they also offered me treatment, … but only if I accepted a non-professional … a student.
She helped me a lot and started setting me on the right path, by asking questions and made me realize that what happened to me was ~maybe~ not as normal as I thought. Yes, I thought it was normal, I still kinda do. I can’t imagine living differently. For me the “normal life” is a weird concept. But soon she couldn’t help me anymore, we couldn’t figure out why, at that moment, but my symptoms got worse again. I moved back to my mum. I said to her on the phone ‘mum, if I stay here I will die’ and I meant it.
I tried to get a new doctor to treat me, but no avail. I met with them, but it usually went nowhere. On contrary I usually felt worse afterwards. So there I was… noticing despite the presence of my mother reducing the worst of it, that I was keep getting worse and I felt so at mercy of those people, who didn’t help me IN. SO. MANY. INSTANCES.
Despite ALL their talk about if I need ANYTHING I should get to them immediately and they would help me. Instead I got insulted, questioned and bad gossip behind my back.
And then -eventually - I hit my breaking point and I said ‘SCREW IT! If they don’t help me, I will help myself’. I thought I can’t make it worse, I AM already dieing, so lets give it a shot.
Going my own way 7.11
So, in my arsenal I had my studies in psychology and a bit biology, and I also had the scientific method. Which goes like this: Try something, if that works, keep it —, if not, drop it. Find something better? Replace it. And so on. I read about the illness, the treatment and everything. I dissected it and learned how to use it for MY situation. Very soon I understood at which point I was in my healing process and which path I ~roughly~ had to go. Those years were hell, but I made progress, much faster than with any help before.
I lost almost everything during that time. Even the relationship to my father, who I was closer than anyone else on this planet with, almost split apart. I lost SO much. I basically had to cut out everyone who harmed me. My only support was my mother. I had a rocky relationship at best until that point, but this made us sit down and talk about everything.
She was attacked by the others, for giving shelter to an actress, a leech, for making everything worse by listening to the tales of her daughter. A story of its own. Between the chairs she didn’t knew what to do. She provided me with a roof and food, but also questions and doubt. As she felt completely lost. She barely understood what I explained to her.
Those years were really hell. But after a few years I finally saw significant improvements. But despite my efforts some symptoms didn’t vanish and we figured out why the doctors didn’t really help me: I was an autist. An asperger. Even a pretty strong one.
And now Autism is added to the mix 9.26
As an autist I deal with emotions differently than neurotypical people or neuros for short. Thats why we can’t (or at least barely can)explain our deeper emotions to neuros. Meaning I couldn’t make a therapy even if I wanted. And it naturally explained A LOT of my rather unusual behavior, which I had shown early on. But it also came with a talent, and mine was in the medical area. Which is a bit complicated to explain, especially since I never fully explored it, but I could understand and see illnesses as structures, like a tree.
Also it somehow provided me with a sort of intuitive understanding of illnesses. Which proved to be rather useful and explained my ability to pick up most of the clinical psychological knowledge almost instantly. But this discovery also set me back, because I first had to take care of my autism, before I could continue. It meant I had to bury my dream of a normal life I had worked towards.
And now survivors guilt… 10.43
I removed more and more symptoms and finally after a few more years, I was at the point where I could consider myself ‘healed or cured’. I became aware of my achievement, when I saw a sunrise and just stood there and perceived its beauty. I never had done this before in my life. I just couldn’t. The beauty just overflowed me. Well healing isn’t a straight process, but I was so… relieved, unburdened, that words fail me. All those years, it worked. Despite no one,even not really me, believing it would. Overjoyed with my success I went and searched for other people like me, … … … but I found NO ONE. NOT ONE! The best survivor told how they get by most of the days, with pills and the problems. But no one removed the trauma. No one was truly free of it. No one was like me. In that moment of realization, I developed ‘survivors guilt’ which gave me symptoms back. Not the worst, but still kind of… ironic. I decided to write a book, a biography, to help and inspire other people and get in contact and so on. But once again, when I searched for similar books, I found none. NONE. But what I found and what got louder and louder in my head were the voices asking for help, asking what is happening, asking what they could do and so on. They were lost… and I knew where they were. Imagine running out of a burning building and you are the only person outside, but you can hear the screams of the people still trapped in the building. So what do you do? My plan was to give instructions to the people still stuck in the building and explain them, how to get out. So they wouldn’t suffer my pain and confusing. As I did many things wrong, because I didn’t knew better. And thats was how the idea of the podcast was born. But first things first, I still had to stabilize myself more. And after many months, it FINALLY was done. I also used the time to write my healing path in a logical order so other can follow it easier. Figuring it all out was bit of a mess, but I think it was worth it. But since I have no experience in this field, I am looking forward to constructive feedback. Same goes for questions, as they also help me not to overlook things. And please, don’t hesitate to ask me any questions and I try to answer them. I am looking forward to them. I think the exchange is one of the MOST IMPORTANT things.
The Idea of a podcast 13.16
My plan was to give instructions to the people still stuck in the building and explain them, how to get out. So they wouldn’t suffer my pain and confusing. As I did many things wrong, because I didn’t knew better. And thats was how the idea of the podcast was born. But first things first, I still had to stabilize myself more. And after many months, it FINALLY was done. I also used the time to write my healing path in a logical order so other can follow it easier. Figuring it all out was bit of a mess, but I think it was worth it. But since I have no experience in this field, I am looking forward to constructive feedback. Same goes for questions, as they also help me not to overlook things. And please, don’t hesitate to ask me any questions and I try to answer them. I am looking forward to them. I think the exchange is one of the MOST IMPORTANT things.
Outro 14.33
And so the plan is, that from now on I will logically explain my path, so other people can follow me out of the living hell that is c-PTSD. Or maybe help a friend. Interrupted by Q&As etc. most likely. We will see how it goes. I have a plan, but I am flexible about the execution of it. I hope I made everything a bit clearer about me and thank you for listening. Next time I will give short overview over PTSD and its variations and parts, so we are all on the same page. Hope you liked this episode and that you leave me some feedback. Also you can visit me on johannadraconis.com.
Episode 02 - PTSD and it's symptoms
In this episode we talk about PTSD, C-PTSD and PTS shortly. After that we dive into the 15 Symptoms that are most common to accompany PTSD. These are the basics, so we are all on the same page for future episodes.
Intro 0.00
Hello, my name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The deconstruction of c-PTSD podcast. In this episode we will go over a short overview of PTSD and its symptoms, just so we are all on the same page.
The concept PTSD 0:18
The first thing you really need to know about PTSD or post traumatic stress disorder, is, that its an umbrella term for a very broad array of severity of symptoms and consequences.
It’s like calling everything from a cold up to lung cancer, lung deceases. That means, that the person who had a car crash gets basically the same diagnosis like the person who suffered decades of abuse. Which then ~can~ lead to some confusion in your social environment, why the way your are healing varies from the other person they know with the same diagnosis.
But no matter to which end of the spectrum you belong to, the core of it all is pretty simple: Your brain can’t sort the trauma in its boxes, therefor it can not be resolved and therefor it remains an issue. Depending on the extreme, length, state of psychological stability, social environment, etc the size of the trauma varies and so does the severity of the trauma.
I will differentiate mainly between PTSD, c-PTSD and PTS. Though I will usually use the term PTSD, unless I want to specify anything.
PTSD is usually based on a short-term trauma, either in the past or recently. It is usually a singular event and can vary in form strength of the trauma.
For example Accidents, loss of someone, witnessing death, assault, etc.
C-PTSD or complex PTSD is usually trauma over a longer period of time and/or extreme forms of traumas. Strong symptoms and usually not considered curable.
For example years of childhood abuse or strong abusive relationships.
PTS is mostly an add on to c-PTSD, its the post torture syndrome. It has additional symptoms and difficulties. I would also consider rape depending on what happened to this category. As the name suggests it usually caused by torture, but not only people in professional torturers hands suffer from torture. But to this topic we talk about more in another episode.
Before we get into the symptoms, I just want to say a few things:
Firstly, remember that a child is more easily traumatized than an adult. What would be no trauma for an adult, can be a trauma to a child. Take that into consideration, when remembering things form the past or dealing with traumatized children. I also expect that war influences the groups, as it is an extreme form of situation and therefor affects the brain. I include in the war segment EVERYONE who was affected by the war environment. That means the soldiers that fought there, the person that witnessed something, the person who had things happen to them and so on.
Secondly, the description I use are VERY basic and just there as an overview.
And most IMPORTANTLY: NO! DON’T compare your trauma with the trauma of other people. Your suffering is as valid as any other suffering. That same goes for their suffering.
Just because the neighbor broke both of his legs and you just one, that doesn’t make your pain any less painful or real. Don’t compare. It will lead you to nowhere, as nothing really can be gained this way. This is about reducing the suffering that is caused by this nightmare, nothing else.
The (15) symptoms of PTSD 4:37
What are the symptoms people usually have? The intensity of the symptoms varies from person and day to day. Not everyone has every symptoms.
So depending on the person and their variation of PTSD, here we have 15 Symptoms and side effects of PTSD:
1. First off we have Restlessness, a feeling of ‘you can’t really find peace’. Its like something is nagging you and you can’t really point at it. Its just there. It just really makes you uncomfortable. Like an itch you can’t really locate and scratch.
2. Sleeping problems (aka insomnia), as the name suggest, it’s when you have trouble sleeping, despite being really tired, having trouble to wake up and/or to sleep without breaks.
That leads to rather unusual sleeping patterns, sometimes even complete inverted. It makes you over time feel like a living undead. I can only recommend to try to get any sleep you can.
3. Difficulty concentrating, be it reading or trying to focus on something, etc. Concentrating can become basically impossible. This means that thinking becomes really hard... but to be honest that also could be because of the lack of sleep and the stress. Either way this causes a lot of headache! In my experience it even went to a point when reading was for me an almost impossible task. I just couldn’t focus. Not even kid books!
4. Nightmares - and I mean the really bad ones. Good thing is you can learn to control those dreams. Not that they change to normal dreams, but you are no longer lost in the dream.
For me it was loads of death, monsters and so on. They were like horror movies. You know those where basically no one survives? A stuffed animal helps me separate dream from reality.
5. Emotional instability, it means you tear up more easily, get upset for little reason and overall feel like you are in an emotional roller coaster and the lack of sleep and the enormous stress surely isn’t really helping. Those strong emotions happen for no apparent reason. This also includes angry outbursts and feeling of complete sadness over a small thing. Ever felt like not really being in control of your life? Someone else controlling your body? This might be the reason.
6. FEAR and with that I mean the whole package: anxiety attacks, panic attacks, heart racing, etc. Without any “REAL” reason. A constant feeling of fear and/or being afraid.
At one point I felt like I would die from all the fear I felt. Felt like a deer hunted by a wolf… or a monster.
7. Hallucination as in seeing something that isn’t really there. Usually it is something specific and not just anything. The more you are at your limit, the more likely you see it.
The good thing is, whatever you are seeing has meaning. Try to figure out what and they usually disappear. Hopefully. Sometimes though just to be replaced by another one.
8. Flashbacks - when you are forced to remember something you didn’t really have intention to remember. Sometimes accompanied by pain, stress, emotional strong reactions, etc.
Which basically means your brain can - so to speak - no longer contain the trauma and the trauma is ‘spilling over’ and you see aspects or moments of it.
9. Triggered behavior, a reaction with strong stress, emotionally strong, for no apparent reason. Seemingly out of nowhere. It can be done by sounds, smell, touch or seeing something. Basically by any of your senses. These triggers are connected to your trauma. This can be helpful, but we get to that in a later episode.
10. Physical symptoms - this includes things, like sweating, pain, sick or trembling. Once again for no apparent reason. It just shows that something is wrong. Its like you have a malfunctioning body. It is usually mostly annoying and confusing in my opinion, but it adds to the stress.
11. Evading of specifics things, that could trigger you. As much as I approve of it while recovering from a bad day, it’s overall a bad move. The more you avoid it, the stronger the reaction and the trigger will be. This can also occur subconscious. So you surrounding might have noticed and might bring this to your attention.
12. Sadly all of this often lead also to destructive behavior, like drug usage, self harm or alcohol. Because people are trying to find a way to deal with the situation.
I understand that, but sadly it makes the situation only worse. As most substances increase psychological instability. Don’t try to get rid both at the same time, that is too much. And try to get help. See if you can reduce it as far as you can and replace it with a harmless addiction (sports, games, etc.) to get you away from it. But please don’t shy away from trying to get help. Speaking about it alone can be an enormous help.
13. Often PTSD is accompanied by other illnesses, like for example most of the time a form of eating disorders accompany it. Depression is usually along for the ride, but so are also impulse disorders. In my experience, once your PTSD gets better, the side illnesses also get better. Because the origin of those side illnesses IS the PTSD.
14. And Chest pain. It strength going from a dull pain to unbearable painful. In my experiences the pain raises the worse your PTSD is. A good warning sign you are getting a bad phase again.That was my strongest symptom. It felt like I was eating alive by those bugs from the mummy, but I just couldn’t die. I just felt this agonizing pain. Like someone was ripping my ribcage open. Later is became only a normal pain, like if I ran too much. But even now I occasionally get a slight pain and I know I have to dial it back, to prevent bad things from happening.
15. Last but definitely not least. All of this also often leads to the breakdown of social environment, which further weakens you. It’s hard to keep relationships and friendships alive during those trying time. But loosing them makes it only worse. Which can lead to Isolation. I know I don’t have to say t his, but try to keep your friendships alive…. But most importantly: Don’t overdo yourself and get worse from it. Friendships can be rekindled and people understand if you can do less at the time. Just contact them once in a while, when you can.
The most important symptoms 13:03
For me one of the most important symptom is still the restlessness, as its usually the earliest sign, that something is wrong. Even often before PTSD usually fully unfolds.
Therefor its a great warning sign, even if you have it, its great for warning you for a dip that is about to happen. It’s like you are being hunted and in danger, but you don’t know form where the threat is coming from. Always on the edge, no deep relaxation and deep down the knowledge, something is there. And its not friendly. In this stage the full PTSD might not have happened yet and treatment is much easier. Though I didn’t really have flashbacks, these are among the most important symptoms too. If you keep remembering something or MORE IMPORTANTLY; If you start seeing something, that isn’t there, thats one clear red flag that there is something the brain REALLY needs to work on.
Because if you try to sub press the memory, its like one of these pool float boards, the more you push it down and the more you put force on it, the stronger it will skyrocket up and go straight in your face. As usual. Therefor the flashbacks and the hallucinations will get worse and more extreme, the more you ignore them. Which is why you should try to figure out what to do as soon as you can. To be honest it’s not really hard to find out that you have PTSD once you know that your symptoms are pointing that way and you are honest with yourself. One big point, especially for people who their tormentor is someone forbidden, like the mother or so, is that they deny that it ever happened. Sometimes its impressive how far the denial can go. Even when presented with pictures it can be ignored. Additionally they were usually taught/ told from early on, that they were imagining things and/or that no one would believe and/or that they deserve what is happening to them.
The biggest enemy and getting support 15:08
I will be honest with you, especially if you had such a conditioning, the biggest enemy for you is yourself. As the mind under PTSD has very self destructive tendencies.
For example: If you heal too fast, your brain will reset that change to back before, if not even more, as it doesn’t want to change anything, even if that means, that it would get better and survive. Our brain is an amazing thing, who helps us survive the impossible, but with PTSD and some other cases, it is sabotaging the healing.
Its like having a translator who really wants to sabotage you, like a false friend would. Though in truth it has more to do, that the brain is trying to stay alive, but the mechanism it uses have the opposite effect. An important part of getting rid of PTSD is to reteach the brain several things. Yes, the brain can be taught things. It’s also not very great that it is not easy to get good help, as in sometimes you literally can’t. They won’t let you. Sometimes they just don’t exist… anymore. Some even prey on the victims.
Some like to use them for themselves and their purposes. Some sell snake oil to the desperate. Pretty much the most disgusting thing I know people do.
But it doesn’t always has to be professional help, alone having someone to talk is immensely helpful. Not just about the PTSD stuff, but overall. Just to talk to someone about your daily worries is very good. I joined a forum where other PTSD sufferer were, who simply understood the sentence “I am so happy, I could do the dishes today!” and knew what an achievement that can be. It felt so good to finally have someone understand your feelings. But everyone is different. Seek the form of communication you feel most comfortable with.
I know it can be really hard to keep up friendship during these confusing times, but just do what you can. Also take care that you don’t overburden yourself.
This is a marathon, not a sprint. So take a deep breath and go steady. You will get there eventually.
Outro 17:32
And that was it for today and the overview of PTSD and its symptoms. I hope it helped you and cleared up a few thing. Thank you for listening. Next time I will go to the heart of the issue and talk about trauma. Hope you liked this episode and leave me some feedback. Also you can visit me on johannadraconis.com. Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.
Episode 3 - Trauma
This time we go into the heart of PTSD, which is the trauma. It's the root for everything. We get into the many factors that influence the extent of the trauma and see what we can do to get rid of it.
Intro [0:00]
Hello, my name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast. In this episode I will get into the heart of it all - the TRAUMA. It’s was causes the PTSD and all its wonderful symptoms.
What is a trauma? 0:15
Since we made out what the problem is, lets go right into the heart of the issue. There is no true consent what a trauma truly means or how its to be tackled, but as its the core of PTSD its also the core of the problem. First off, a trauma is a significant traumatic experience, that does not happen on an everyday life. The trauma can be tiny or enormous, and pretty much everything in between. Examples are: the loss of a pet, friend, family member, etc. Or witnessing a strong crime, violence etc. Now how come some of those turn into trauma and some not? I think the key is; IF we managed to take care of them properly. Did our brain manage to deconstruct the trauma and put its pieces into its place?
A child brain is challenged by this even by small traumas, which is why those usually remain buried, put to side or so, until we can solve them one day.
And naturally they are often forgotten or just get avoided, but that is beside the point. A trauma can usually only occur in 3 circumstances: Something is happening to you, you see something and you did something. And the way the trauma happens plays a very important role in how strong the trauma is. I will list 4 categories and several factors, which all influence it. To make it simple: The more you say yes to them, the bigger the trauma. Those factors might also help you find aspects of the trauma, you were not yet aware of. We go into the circumstances one after another.
The first category is:
The importance is the way it happened - what HAPPENED to you. 1:58
To explain what I mean, let me use being hit in the face for example. I would separate in 4 categories on how painful and bad it is received.
The first category is no one, it was a branch or anything, that just happen to hit you there. You could see it as the neutral pain, as nothing is added to it. Except maybe embarrassment, that it happened.
The second category is us ourselves, we unintentionally hit ourselves, either when we try hit something else or we pushed something down and we loose grip and swing at out face. Embarrassing for sure.
The third category is someone else, but unintentionally. Someone spoke with gestures to wide or something like that, and the hand ends in your face. Person is very apologetic. Now its’ level is depending how sure we are it was accidental…. And how generous we feel about being forgiving in that moment.
The fourth category is someone else, but intentionally. This will be perceived as the most painful and threatening. As it doesn’t just physical harm us, but also bears the threat of further harm to us. And the person harming us, doesn’t have to do it themselves. They can also achieve that through different means.
The fourth category is what we are usually really interested in. The extremity of the trauma is then further determined by following factors and I hope I didn’t overlook some.
Also please take your time answering these questions, as it can become easily too much:
Frequency: How often did it happen apart from each other?
Consistency: How much could you expect it to happen and/or a specific time?
Length: How long was the attack?
Time Span: How long did you suffer under the attacks? (Be it days, months or years)
Force: How strong was the attack?
Cause: Was there a reason for the attack?
Cruelty: How much did happen just to make you suffer?
Life threat: Was there a threat for you life?
Silence: Were you threatened to remain silent?
Psychological: Was the attack psychological?
Person of Power: Was the attacker a person that had power over you? (Boss, Mother, Family member, etc.)
Person of Trust: Was the attacker a person you trusted or needed to trust? (Parents, Doctor, etc.)
Social environment: How much seemed your social environment be supportive of what is happening?
Environment: How stable was your everyday life?
Help: Did you receive any help? Could someone have helped?
Forced Action: Were you forced to do something you don’t want to?
Forced Life: Were you forced to live in a way you didn’t want to?
Personality: Did the attacker try to change your personality?
Entertaining: How much was the attacker entertained by your suffering?
Mercy: Did the attacker respond to your signs of pain?
Regret: Did the attacker show regret and/or remorse of what he did?
Blame: Where you blamed for what happened?
Torture: Was is Torture?
Before you answer the last question, I want to make you aware, that torture doesn’t mean it needs to be a torture chamber and a professional torturer. Torture is defined as “the act of causing great physical or mental pain in order to persuade someone to do something or to give information, or to be cruel to a person or animal”. I want to add “to just enjoy the suffering of the other person.” You see that the definition is way more open than that. Especially someone who suffered regularly abuse should take another look at it. I will talk about torture and PTS in the next episode. I of course will not go into details if I can avoid it.
The second category is:
The importance the way it happened - what you WITNESSED. 6:18
We have basically the same 4 categories as before, just for witnessing it. Little changes in that regard. Additionally the factors pretty much remain the same. Of course this time from the witness perspective.
Accomplice: Where you forced to be an accomplice?
Helpless: How much were you able to help?
Victim: How close were you to the victim?
Attacker: How close were you to the attacker?
Guilt: Did you feel guilty about what happened?
Movement: Where you able to move?
Choice: Did you made a wrong choice?
Hurt: Were you also hurt?
The third category is:
The importance the way it happened - what you DID 7:03
And the same goes here: The 4 categories stay the same, just switched. As in, you attacked something, but it was nothing. You accidentally attacked, etc. Now the factors do vary a bit from the other versions.
Purpose: Did you aim for what happened?
Accident: Was it an accident?
Avoidable: How avoidable was what happened?
Escalate: Did a situation escalate into something you couldn’t control?
Neglect: Did it happened because you neglected something?
Guilt: Did you feel guilty about what happened?
Accomplice: Did you forced someone to be an accomplice?
Victim: How close were you to the victim?
Trust: Did the victim trust you?
Regret: Do you regret what you did?
Cause: Did you caused what happened?
Misjudge: Did you handle on wrong judgment?
Choice: Did you made a wrong choice?
Hurt: Were you also hurt?
I just want to remind you, that for a child, even the first category can be traumatizing, depending on age and circumstances.
How to get rid of the trauma 8:24
Now since we made clear, what the trauma is, let’s see what we can do about it.
So, how do we do it?
You see, a trauma is like a pomegranate or simplified like an orange. You can’t swallow it in a whole, you have to open it up and take it on piece by piece. And its messy, tedious work.
Seriously, pomegranate is for MANY reasons a perfect example. This pomegranate metaphor may sound simple but was my first and major breakthrough. My mountain of problems was in truth just many, many small pebbles… or more or less small pebbles.
So now, how do we to open the trauma?
You need to know what happened. The bundle what the trauma is, consist out of everything that made the event traumatic. Take it on one by one. Its like a cluster, as they are also found in the fruit. Similar to a spiders web, everything that is connected to the trauma will get entangled there and be stuck to it. Making the trauma grow bigger and bigger. This includes things that will happen years after the core trauma. And you can’t just take the core trauma out and everything will just disappear. No. Like the fruit or a pile, you have to remove every piece.
What are the pieces?
Emotions usually. Facts are irrelevant for the trauma and your feelings. They do not matter and if they matter, then only to demonstrate how severe something was. But also memories. Memories buried deep into our brain. Maybe we don’t even know WHY we remember them, but we do.
As for a simple example, lets use the death of a pet. The emotions surrounding might be
- guilt, for not taking better care of the pet,
- loss, as a dear friend is missed,
- anger, because a dear friend was taken from you,
- sorrow, for you now have to move on alone
- fear, for/of loosing more as easily as you just did
- confusion, how could this happen?
- and so on and so forth.
And the Memories might be
- about moments we hesitated to say something regarding the pet
- Moments when we feel we didn’t responded correctly or enough
- Moments when we shoved it aside
- Moments when we realize the pet isn’t there anymore
- Moments when we really could have used the support of the pet
- Moments when we saw a pet looking similar to the pet
- and so on and so forth.
Each emotions source must be discovered, inspected and resolved. Each and every one of them. Some things are faster resolved than others. Some things just take time. Same goes for the memories. But this is the core of the treatment of PTSD, similar to the Pomegranate or Orange, we take it bit by bit. Piece by piece, until nothing is left. Depending on length and severity of the trauma, the pieces form a pile or up to a mountain. It doesn’t matter, it only takes more time. With small but steady steps, we move forward. Big leaps might get you farther, but they are unreliable and more often then not you fall and are further behind then you were by quite a bit. We are climbing a hill or up to a mountain, this is not a race, this is a long climb. As tempting as it may be to rush it, to be over with, its a trap. Similar to climbing a mounting, rushing it make you just more likely to make mistakes and in the worst case, loose grip and fall all the way down, maybe even deeper than before. Just never loose focus where you want to go and go steady. Sometimes you get farther, sometimes not at all. This is OK. As long as we keep on going, everything is okay. There are circumstances where we can travel faster, but about those we talk in a later Episode. It is possible. The biggest lie PTSD tells you is; that its a pointless fight and you never win, how could you? So its better to give up and not waste your energy. Its a lie. You just can’t take it at one piece.
I also used the 5 steps of grieving as a guide. Denial, Anger, Bargain, Depression/Sadness and Acceptance.
Denial, that its there, so you have to find it.
Anger, you have been hurt and you want to hurt back. Or fight the person or whatever it was that hurt you.
Bargain, you try to accommodate for it. Make excuses or downplay it, etc.
Depression/Sadness, you realize there is nothing you can do.
Acceptance, we are not gods. We can’t control or change everything. Sometimes things happen. All we can do is accept them, learn from them and then move on. It’s hard to accept defeat, I know that. But defeat doesn’t mean you give up, you just accept that a battle is lost, but there are more to come. You fight so many battles in your life. And it’s better to call it, then fight endlessly, loose all your energy to it and nothing will change. Better focus on bettering yourself, as on the people that wronged you in the past. And regarding the many factors, don’t worry about remembering them at once or being able to answer them immediately. There will be a link for the transcript or just go on johannadraconis.com/podcast and you can read all the transcripts and download them there.
Outro 14:24
That was it for todays episode, sorry if I sound a bit tired, but sleep has been pretty hard to come by with these temperatures. This week will have up to 41° C, which are almost 109°F.
Hope it will be better for our next episode. Thank you all for listening and I hope I see you next week, when we tackle the topic torture and PTS. Hope you liked this episode and leave me some feedback, also you can visit me on johannadraconis.com for more information. Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.
Episode 4 - In case of an emergency
This episode it about what to do in case you get a phase/episode/triggered/etc. and what helps reduce its symptoms.
It is a basic 4 step plan what to in such situations and of course what you can to preventive methods.
Intro 0:00
Hello, my name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast. In this episode I will tell you what you can do in case you have an emergency and what to do to minimize the damage and reduce it’s duration. Before we start, I just want to say, that I choose to switch this episode with the announced ‘torture’ one, because I realized that many listener come from the US and the 4th of July is often a problem. So I thought this episode would be better this week than later on.
Emergency 0:38
Now, what do we in case something goes wrong? Despite our best efforts, something happened. We got triggered or a nightmare or something else. Whatever the cause we are now in a state of active PTSD, our symptoms are in full swing and we try to not loose the grip on reality, while our body goes crazy. Depending on your level of PTSD naturally.
Usually PTSD is in a somewhat passive state, dragging you down, but not really having strong symptoms. In active PTSD, we have the panic attacks, chest pain, visions, hallucinations, outbursts, hearing things, etc. Depending on your symptoms and level of PTSD. Getting the PTSD active is bad and I mean that besides the obvious feeling bad and having the symptoms, it also in a way weakens you. Sometimes it can take days to recover from one of these active phases. Is passive PTSD a siege on your wellbeing, then the active version is the attack to break the walls. It needs to be stopped as soon as possible to prevent as much damage as possible. To stick with the metaphor: The more often you get attacked, the more damaged your walls, the more likely the next attack, the more likely another attack is happening and the stronger the impact on you. That means sadly, the weaker you are, the more likely you will have an active phase. The better you are, the rarer the occasion. Its like with everything else in life. So we try our best to go up against the active phase as good as possible. With that said, let us go over everything step by step, what to do in a case of emergency.
Preventive: 2:41
Naturally, the best way to deal with an emergency, is to be able to spot it as soon as possible and take counter measures. The sooner we counter it, the better we can prevent the peak from happening and softening the blow. Not always possible, but extremely helpful. You should aim for being able to recognize your typical warning symptoms. Everyone has different symptoms, but they are not random. Those symptoms always flare up when your body is very stressed and/or you are on your limit. Otherwise go for the classics and watch out for strong problems concentrating or focus, being beside yourself, trouble with vision, thin skinned, chest pain and tension. As soon you recognize them, take the next steps methods to prevent worse things from happening. This is not an instruction to get rid of the warning symptoms and carry on, but get out and avoid it from happening.
As such an active phase will take you down for maybe a few days, depending on your case. This is a heavy blow, not just a side effect, and should be avoided as much as possible.
First Step: 4:05
Ensure you are safe. Relatively.
At home that means usually turning all lights on (- or at least in the room you are in). And have no one else in the room, as you can’t be sure what will happening. Except of course they know what to do.
Not at home, find a spot as save as possible and fast. Usually you don’t have a lot of time to find something, before you might loose control. A save spot is away from many people, as quiet and peaceful as possible be. Beware of dark places, as it tend to inspire your brain of darker things. Though safety before light. If you can signal for help, but only do that if you know the other person knows what is going on. Or at least what you are signaling them. As a stranger can be unknown factor and an unknown factor can go both ways.
From my experience it’s best to curl up and hug your legs, because this way you can grab them and have something you can hold on to and squeeze if necessary.
Try to otherwise keep additional stimuli down. Stimuli are signals the body receives from our senses. Taste, smell, feel, hearing and seeing. As they can reactivate the active phase and keep it basically endlessly going. Except you know exactly what stimuli is causing your active phase.
Second Step: 5:35
If you know the causing stimuli, then you can even learn to use a specific stimuli to counter your active phase and reduce its length and/or shorten it. This can also be achieved by an object, with a unique sensation which contradicts the visions we see from the active PTSD. As the stimuli are too different from one another and the brain can’t make them work together. The cognitive dissonance forces the brain to correct what we see. For example the memory is of a very cold night? Hold something extremely warm. Or the memory was in the desert? Plants, moss, trees or something along those lines. It was quiet? Play some jolly music. Or whatever. I used clothes and for my nights a stuffed animals. So when my hands felt it, I knew I was just having nightmares. It had to big enough that I could hold onto, like a safety buoy. This is something you can train yourself, but it can be difficult depending on the person. The most important thing is to reduce the stress as much as possible, as the stress you have, caused by the active phase, just makes the active phase longer and worse.
As the brain is in a sort of panic, we-are-all-going-to-die mode, and the more stressed you are, the more you confirm you brain that it is right to panic. Similar to a person afraid of flying in a plane. Yes, its moronic. And a vicious circle. That’s why we try to relax as much as possible to leave the vicious circle as soon as possible. It is very hard and everyone has different methods.
Mantra 7:22
If you can try using a mantra. It’s best to have trained it before, but if not, it still usually works. What is a mantra? Its a line that you repeat again and again. It starts with the name, where you are, another detail and a positive ending. More variations are of course possible, whatever works best for you. For example:
My name is Johanna Draconis. I am at home. I am recording a podcast with my dog next to me. I am save and nothing bad will happen to me.
My name is Johanna Draconis. I am at home. I am recording a podcast with my dog next to me. I am save and nothing bad will happen to me.
My name is Johanna Draconis. I am at home. I am recording a podcast with my dog next to me. I am save and nothing bad will happen to me.
And so on. It’s important that you actually SAY the words. It hasn’t to be loud, but you have to say it. How does it work? It’s basically a way to override your thoughts. Similar to advertisement, where they want you hear the ad again and again, until you automatically think about it, this uses the same method. By keeping repeating it, it fills so-to-say the head more and more, until the brain accepts it as the main thought. It’s sadly not a guaranty, but it usually at least helps to calm down and take the brunt of the active phase and it’s more likely to work if the brain is already used to it. The important thing is to really focus on it. Not just mumble it. Close your eyes if necessary to focus on it.
Breathing techniques 9:23
Another method is breathing techniques. Often used by pregnant woman as a way to deal with the pain going along with the pregnancy, but since in this situation you can usually barely focus and are easily distracted, we take the simple one. The most simple one.
Focus on your breath. How your breath flows into your body and how it leaves your body. Just - on - that…
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
I even relax more just as I am giving you these instructions. This has a very calming effect and numbs the pain a bit, at least usually. As said before, everyone is different. I would recommend the mantra for stronger cases and the breathing techniques for lighter ones. But it depends what you respond best to. Whatever helps you avoid the worst of it. It is really important, so just see what works best for you. Best not if you are in that moment.
Step 3: 10:53
Survive. Survive the peak. There is no point in fighting it, just let it wash over you. Similar to being pushed underwater in the sea, there is no point in struggling against the wave. Relax and focus your energies, so if the wave passes, you can swim up and breath. This is now all about - how to use what you have left efficiently. There is no reason to go against the stream, except there is a potential lethal danger ahead, go with the flow until an opportunity opens up to get out. In my experience is really just best to wash it over you and no matter how drowning this experience appears to be, it passes. At this point, it escalated too much to really push against it. Just try to focus on the mantra, breathing, object, so it can help you stay afloat. Just hold on.
Step 4: 12:07
It is time to access the damage and head to safety. If you are already home, then of course you are most likely already safe. You are most vulnerable in this state. I recommend treating yourself to a few nice things. Something nice to eat, some nice music, the company of someone you like/love or anything you enjoy doing. Take your time to properly calm down. You are most likely exhausted, it is best to rest afterwards if you can. Your body needs now rest and sleep to recover. Breathe… you made it.
Hopefully you won’t have to deal with this any time soon again.
Outro: 12:55
And that was it for todays episode. I am sorry if I still sound tired, sadly the situation hasn’t improved much, but it should very soon. I hoped you found this episode helpful and you liked it. You can find the transcript on johannadraconis.com, it is written with an h after o, you can find the link in the description. I would love to get some feedback from you, like if I move to fast or you would like me to spend more time on a topic, you can reach me under “contactme@johannadraconis.com”. Otherwise I hope you have to use this knowledge as little as possible and you are alright. Watch yourselves and take care.
Episode 5 - (Daily) Counter Measures
In this episode I explain what you can do everyday to keep your PTSD as low as possible and give your brain the energy it needs to combat PTSD. It can help you to know, what you can do in your everyday life to improve your situation and what is helpful against PTSD.
Intro [0:00]
Hello, my name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast. In this episode I will tell you what you can do in your everyday life to reduce your symptoms and maximize your healing as far as you can. This is will be the “bread and butter” episode, as it contains the most crucial but also basics information that you need basically all the time until you are cured. And even after that is this information quite useful.
Stabilization [0:33]
The most important thing is Stabilization. I can’t repeat it enough. Stabilization is THE determining part of the healing process. Imagine you being a boat and the PTSD is the fire that broke out… the sea is what you influence via stabilization. The calmer the sea, the better and more productive you can take care of the fire. This doesn’t just mean we can do more, but we also have less symptoms and our mind is clearer. We can make choices easier and less destructive. It should also lead to less mood swings and an overall feel of a more steady ride. You feel more in control and less like a ping pong ball. Also this leads to no additional damage which is often caused by a destabilized day. Additionally we need to learn to take care of the fire. So, how we do it? Routine. Basically. But first I want to explain the principle of the energy bar, as I think it’s an aspect of the routine and its effectiveness.
First we do the energy bar, then the prioritization and then the routine.
Energy bar [1:50]
Did you ever play a video game? Then you are familiar with the so called energy bar. One way or another. This bar is the key how you can manage better your PTSD. This bar represents the energy you have over the whole day. And depending how you slept and your overall status it is most likely not even full. It is very important to learn to evaluate how much energy you have for the day. Practice makes it better. We aim for preserving as much energy as we can and best leave a portion left, the bigger the better.
It may seem counterintuitive to leave a portion of energy untouched when we have only a fraction of our full potential, but it’s actually very important. That portion energy we keep is for our brain, because that energy the brain will use to take care of the PTSD. But if we always live to the limit, where is the energy for the healing supposed to come from? If your brain gets the opportunity it will try to get rid of the PTSD, but it needs time and energy. That means that we also need to live energy efficient. So we can get as much energy as we can out of it. Also this portion of energy is the buffer that keeps a trigger from becoming a catastrophe. Because if you go below 0 in your energy bar, your PTSD will come into full action, also known as an outbreak or active PTSD, and you will feel that for days. In that case please listen or read the episode ‘In case of an emergency’, to help you minimize the damage OR listen before to it, so you can hopefully read the signs and avoid it. It’s almost like you take energy away from the forces, that hold back the PTSD, when you deplete that final portion of your energy. Additionally we need to increase our daily maximum energy. So we can do more and get rid of more PTSD. Which then lead to more energy free. It’s pretty simple isn’t it? It’s like moving. You need to open cartons to get more space and the more cartons you open and clear, the more space you have and the more easy you can clear them. Like usual.
Prioritization [4:21]
An important step for energy conserving is to prioritize what REALLY needs to be done. I know it’s hard to stand down, when the work is piling up, but we have what we have, we are what we are. We have to deal with the hand that is given to us. No matter how much we want, that won’t change. Accepting you are sick and just can’t do as much anymore, is one of the hardest things to learn and accept. But it’s integral for any major illness, including cancer for example, to heal. We go from most important down to unimportant. If you have trouble with keeping it all in mind, then I recommend writing a list. So first off; eating, drinking and sleeping is the minimum. Everything else is optional. I would put the things that need to be done in an order. Chores, Paperwork, social events, etc. : From deadline very soon to very far. That is usually the next level. Have a bit of breather? Good.
Maybe some chores you REALLY need to do, or otherwise you loose your living space? And so on. Learn what you ABSOLUTELY HAVE to do. So if you have a bad day you just do that. On better day you do a bit more. I am sure you get the hang of it with a bit of practice. You simply need to accept that you can’t just do what you could when you are healthy. We are now measuring with different measurements. Accepting you can do so little is very hard. Most people struggle with it. It is not a good feeling to feel so helpless, useless and weak.
But how could you be much stronger, when most of your strength is used to hold PTSD at bay? You are doing a great job by just holding on. You are extremely outmatched, but still fighting. Sometimes the biggest act of defiance is to survive. Beating the odds. The main goal is to live, not just to survive, but actually a life worth living for.
Routine [7:03]
The main aspect for stabilization is the routine. And I mean for everything. Routine doesn’t mean it has to be at the exact same time, BUT in the same order and/or similar things.
For example: Wake up, stretch, make bed, brush teeth, eat breakfast, read something, do some sport, relax and so on. It hasn’t have to be the same sports/books/whatever, but it should follow an order. There can be segments between that are basically free for whatever, but they should be kept to a minimum and/or the options limited in this segment. Or whatever fits best with you. Now what you eat should also be pretty settled or reduced to a minimum of choices. Same goes for what you wear etc. Why? Because your brain is lazy and needs a lot of energy for every choice it makes. Wanna do a little experiment to see what I mean? Stand in a doorway, press your arms against the frame, the palms of your hands facing towards the frame. Do that for 30 seconds. Now step out of the doorway. If done correctly your arm should float on their own upwards. It’s pretty fun. How does that work? Like I said our brain is lazy and as soon it realizes, that a command is repeated several times, it goes: well, someone else can do that. Similar to homer Simpson, who put up a bird to hit the y key for yes for him, the brain does the same. So like a dog, you can train your brain. These routines are training protocols for the brain, so this way the brain isn’t really involved, well at least not the main thinking part we usually refer to as brain. I think you understand what I mean. We basically make a part of the brain the assistant of the thinking part of the brain. Like a diva it loads off all the work it can to the assistant. And for everything that assistant section of the brain does the work for the thinking brain part —— the thinking brain part has time to do more things. Like getting rid of PTSD. So everything becomes a routine, even if not immediately successful, a good routine makes symptoms less strong over time and gives us more energy for our day. I just want to add, that sport is good for you, IF you can do it. If not, that’s fine too. I couldn’t either, but if you can that’s great!
Also routine makes it easier to get work done. As the brain expects it to happen.
Sleep [10:08]
Another advantage of routine is sleep, as another positive side effect is, that the sleeping behavior is improved. A set routine, even for healthy people, is very useful, as the body realizes this way, that you plan to go to bed and starts preparing for it. A set routine can be a book you read before sleeping. Or brushing your teeth, walking the dog, doing a tour through your place, etc. Basically anything you do in a set routine before you sleep. That sleeping is important is obvious. But sadly often strong sleeping disturbances accompany PTSD. It would be too easy if it weren’t so, wouldn’t it? If you are still lying awake after 30 min, get up. Do something. Reading, take a walk, etc. Then as soon you feel more tired again, try again. Otherwise your body associates the bed not just with sleeping, but also with just lying there. Which makes falling asleep even harder, as your brain doesn’t understand that you plan to sleep now. I can usually read on my sleeping pattern how out of balance I am. Up to 12h off, which means I am extremely out of balance. Also I usually can only turn to my normal sleeping pattern once I am balanced again. Before that all my tries are doomed to fail. I also want to add, that a lot of nightmares are a hint that you are being affected by a trigger. But regarding nightmares and how they can help us heal, I talk in the episode trigger. Besides that, try to usually get as much sleep as you can, as it usually means more energy.
Reducing the PTSD [12:13]
Now that we figured out how to keep the sea calm, we now have to figure out how to deal with the fire… How can we reduce the amount of PTSD in our lives? Or the strength of the symptoms to be precise.
RPG [12:27]
A good way to reduce your PTSD are roleplaygames or RPG, as in the computer game. RPG s are even used in therapy, they even went so far to create one on their own to maximize its positive effect. How come this sort of game has such a positive effect? It helps against the depression. When you are depressed your brain is sabotaging itself to remain miserable.
That means that any form of joy is getting blocked. Had a game you loved to play, now its just meh? Same for a food, movie, etc.? That’s depression. Taking away any joy you can have.
Until it all just becomes a gray mass. Tasteless, joyless, colorless gray mass. And living becomes a chore. Roleplaygames are able to trick depression so to say. Since the good thing that is happening is happening to your character but not to you, its not really blocked. But at the same time your brain associates itself with the character and gets a small boost. We are basically outwitting ourselves, but hey - no complaining on my side. Whatever works. This way you get success moments, which are so important and help with the healing process immensely. If you can, try it. Sadly I have to make a small insertion regarding loot boxes. Whatever game you want to play please ensure that it has no loot boxes or micro transactions, which are similar to slot machines and HIGHLY addictive. And our happy hormone depraved brains are especially vulnerable to addiction. The amount of preying and manipulation on the vulnerable that is shown with these is so disgusting. Most of the times they can be found in ‘free’ games and in almost all mobile games.
I can only strongly recommend staying away from them.
Success Moments [14:50]
Back to success moments I just talked about. These are extremely important, they are similar to a anchor, who prevents the worse from happening and strengthen positive development. Try to have at least one each day. Games are easy for that, you complete a mission, defeat something, unlock something, etc.
Of course the real life ones are usually better, but it’s important to set realistic goals. It’s better to have a small success than a failed big one.
And most importantly: Reward yourself after you had the success moment, like a treat, movie, series, music, beer, whatever. Anything you would see as an reward.
Take a moment to celebrate the success, no matter what, even if its only that you filled the dishwasher. Depending on your situation, that can be a great success.
Good days [15:55]
We also have to talk about good days and I know how great good days feel. The ecstasy of finally feeling at least a bit good and you are so optimistic and finally you can do stuff!
Like loads of stuff! But please don’t do that. Good days aren’t there so you can do the whole workload, it’s so you can get a breather. Use this opportunity to recover and have a good time. You need that for the days to come. It’s really just a breather. Also people tend to overextend their energy and crash even harder after such good days, because they tried to do too much. Try to make it a great day and this way increase your resilience against the harder days to come and that you don’t crash after the good day.
Just like you do with success moments. You deserve to take a break, you are doing hard work… holding back this illness every day.
Overview [17:05]
An important thing is to keep an overview of your progress. Make notes, have a diary or just try to remember where you were before. Sometimes we only know how far we came, once we look back. The more you feel a deep form of peace, the closer you are to being cured. It’s a feeling of complete balance. But more to that in a later episode.
Outro [17:36]
That was it for todays episode. I hope it was insightful and that I didn’t overlook anything. Next episode we go from the defensive to the offensive with the topic triggers.
So… I hope you liked this episode, you can find the transcripts and all information as usually under johannadraconis.com/podcast, links are also in the description and I hope I see you next time. Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.
Episode 6 - Why triggers are helpful
In this episode I explain why we can use triggers to help us defeat PTSD.
And how we get life quality back this way.
Next week we get into the how.
Intro [0:00]
Hello, my name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast. In this episode I will talk about trigger - what they are and how we can use them to our advantage. They are pretty helpful.
What are Triggers? [0:16]
As said in Episode 2, Triggers are a reaction to a stimuli. By any of our senses. The origin was to spot something and be able to react immediately . You see wolf fur? Immediately triggers an adrenaline rush to be able to run away… or to flight. Very useful and helps us to survive. But as mentioned before, the PTSD makes an useful trait an harmful one.
Now basically harmless things, like for example a firework or a sound of metal, now triggers the adrenaline rush and death scare. There a big and small triggers, most people just know their big ones, which gives them the extreme symptoms. But trigger are also the reason why you explode at a specific topic or you cry when you see something. Reaction may vary.
As an example for a positive trigger I would use a picture of a loved one. Or their smell. But those are usually never called triggers. Only the negative version of them.
Triggers are very harmful, as they weaken the person and make them more vulnerable to more triggers. A vicious circle. The bane of the existence of a person with PTSD.
Trigger=helpful? [1:36]
And yet my title is why triggers are helpful. And they are. The weak spot we can exploit. I know this may sound very counterintuitive, but trigger are not just remove able, but they also take a part of the trauma with them. Yes, I will repeat it: Triggers are REMOVE ABLE. Completely. Yes, completely remove able. Once you removed a trigger, you never have to deal with it again. I repeat again: Triggers are remove able and you have never deal with them again…. IF you remove them fully. Yes I can confirm that I removed like hundreds of triggers. They are so annoying. If I today I stumble upon one, it take me 1 to max. 2 days and all is well and done. After that they are just GONE.
It will take a bit longer if you have no routine yet. Also the weaker you are, the harder to heal up and recover from it. It takes longer, the worse off you are. As usual. Remember when I said, that the trauma is made out of many small parts? Not a big one? Triggers are basically the string that lead you there. And if you pull out the trigger, rout and stem, you also remove a part of the trauma. After that you usually need to recover a bit, depending how big the damage is, but what ‘grows’ there afterwards is healthy. Its like you are ripping a tumor out of your body and afterwards replace it with healthy tissue. Actually cancer is a very good equivalent of PTSD. It infects everything, causing more problems and eventually completely make you unable to do anything. Just that we don’t even have effective meds for removing PTSD.
Plan forward [3:37]
Until now I showed you how to best defend yourself, now we are going into the offensive. And the triggers help us take town the PTSD. Who would have thought that? You see the trigger is like a man shooting, yes he is injuring you, but he is also showing where he is. And he can be taken out. Best with the station he was with. Sometimes finding the trauma can be hard, triggers can then be the direction signs. Depending on your case. Since this is such a crucial part and I think I need to do this extensively, I plan to do the next episode giving examples and explaining in details how to remove them. As I can imagine it being hard to imagine, as I never read or saw it anywhere. But once you really fully understand it, it just becomes routine and you get more and more of your life back. Piece by piece.
Private Words [4:35]
And that is where I am going to end this. I am really sorry that I am kinda leaving it on kinda of a cliffhanger here, but I am moving this Tuesday and it’s pure chaos. We are separating 2 households, we spend weeks trying to get a flat and only got the confirmation that I could rent it last Wednesday. I am a handicapped(as in my arms and my autism) person with a dog and a cat, so I really got extremely lucky getting the flat at all. But I also did some photos and will upload them to my homepage soon, so you know what I look like. Overall I plan to go over the site again and change a few things. I hope you will like it.
Outro [5:24]
That was it for todays episode, next week we are going on how to remove trigger from your life. Root and stem. Should be rather interesting. I hope you liked this episode nonetheless. You can find the transcripts and all information as usually under johannadraconis.com/podcast, links are also in the description and I hope I see you next time. Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.
Episode 7 - How to remove triggers (I)
This week we get into part 1 on how to remove triggers from your life.
Triggers are indeed completely removeable and doing so, greatly improves your life quality.
This is a rather broadly approach, so that as many people as possible can use it.
Intro [0:00]
Hello, my name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast. In this episode I will talk about trigger - this time we go over how we can remove them with the first two steps - the rest comes next week. The hunt and removal of triggers is integral to the healing process.
Warning/Reminder [0:27]
I just want to remind you to NOT do this unless you are stable. Your waters need to be calm, as you WILL take a hit. You will take a small dip after this and need a few days break after it. This is going to take a lot of energy, so REALLY make sure you are stable enough.
Summary [0:48]
So for a short summary, what do we do?
First we ensure we have enough energy and are in a save enough environment.
Secondly I recommend working yourself up from a small trigger to a big one. But if you are not used to it, the small ones are hard to find, as they don’t cause such a strong reaction.
But the big ones are hard to handle, as much as they are easy to find, they also cause the biggest havoc and you also get the other triggers usually. So… it depends?. Pick a target that you think you can manage. With time you will be able to spot them easily. And then move from there.
Thirdly we follow the triggers trail and push right into the heart of it. This is really kind of a rabbit hole and not always easy to navigate, but I will try to do my best to give pointers.
Fourthly we resolve the core of that trigger… and this way remove it. I assume this is the step most people have issues with. That’s why I want to do this step with several examples.
And final step is to make sure the trigger is truly gone and not just dormant. This is the most common mistake people make: Thinking the PTSD or trigger is gone, but its just dormant.
Which then leads for it to return in full swing weeks, months, years or decades later. While quietly leeching of energy.
Invisible trigger [2:28]
The problem with most triggers are, that they are invisible… similar to a hidden trap… until you stepped into it, then its too late… and unlike a real trap you can’t figure a way out of it.
The trigger is invisible, a non visible enemy, so our fight or flight response… just makes us freeze or have a reaction, may it be an emotional outburst or something else.
Your body basically tries to fight a tiger that isn’t there and so the body doesn’t know what to do with this energy.
How to spot a trigger [3:11]
But how do I find triggers? I mean its easy to know when you are triggered strongly, but what exactly was it? It can take hours until the trigger response goes into full triggered mode.
You watched a movie and don’t know what exactly did it? You keep reacting but have no clue what did it? It is actually pretty hard to find them. The most simple instruction is: Go where it hurts. But since that is hardly enough, I decided to make the next episode about just that. Most likely titled: How to hunt down triggers. As you usually have already a few triggers at hand and know pretty well about them, but just not yet how to remove them, I thought it’s best to clear that up first. And once you got those and have gotten the taste of it, you will want to know how to find the rest.
Start it - Find the memory - Step 1 [4:09]
But first let’s clear how to remove them, once you found them.
First make sure the memory is what is causing the trigger. Yes one memory or moment. Most likely one sentence is what is causing the problem. The sentence you thought or said in that moment is that key. You need to know it, as it is basically the position of the trigger. Its hiding spot. Sort of the secret entrance to the enemies secret base. You will get a response when you hear the sentence/the trigger. You have to watch yourself just very careful for that. Try a bit around until you find it. Some examples are:
The song that played during the car crash as the core trigger for what you saw during the crash.
The sentence “you will never make it” summarizing the yearlong emotional abuse of a parent or another authority figure.
The smell of your yearlong abuser, may it be the aftershave, sweat, fast food or other things.
The sound of the Taps played at the soldiers funeral to summarize the loss.
And so on. It must have a direct connection, but not necessarily a logical one. Your brain made that connection. No matter how illogical it seems, but that is the connection that is there. The most famous trigger I heard of from American veterans are the fireworks at July 4th, this most likely connected to the sound of explosives used during combat.
But the same rule applies here: The fireworks aren’t connected to ANY explosion, but to a specific one. One moment that summarized everything or symbolized everything.
Your brain hears the fireworks and remembers that moment. And then everything just flushes over you… or later.
There are many ways to try to locate the memory, but that I will go over in a later episode, but for now we move on.
Step 2 - Facts are not important - emotions are [6:28]
The second step is to find the real problem with the memory. Because facts don’t really matter. A trigger is an emotional response, it doesn’t follow the rules of logic. As said before, it’s emotional. The trauma and the trigger both. That someone died, even if it’s your friend, that is also a fact, as cruel that may sound. You can’t change anything about facts, but you can change how you feel about them. Usually what is really triggering are the emotions and feelings that were involved in that moment. Or that sentence or thought you had in connection to it. But Facts CAN help us, they help us identify the situation and what was all involved. As our brain has sometimes the tendency in strong emotional moments to remember things… differently. This will remain relevant. An example for it is loosing something. The problem isn’t what you lost, but why you can’t let it go. Why do you feel you can’t let it go? Another example is darkness. The problem isn’t the darkness. The problem what you fear HIDES in the darkness. So the trigger is what you fear that hides in the darkness and not the darkness. And so on.
I just want to say, that I have to keep things incredibly broad. This is so that most people can use it, but it is not as helpful for a specific case. I can help better if I know more details or if its about more specific cases. I just try to grab as much of it as I can, to reach as many as possible. I plan to go into the different types of abuse, situations, etc. Later on, to give more specific help. But it is still better if I get question or a specific scenario.
Personal Words [8:52]
And that is where I have to split it. I am sorry, but this episode got way too long and I am in no position to make an episode that long at the moment, nor to be honest would I have otherwise. I just completely underestimated how long this episode would end up being, I mean I could have cut examples and shorten it, but I felt like that wouldn’t have sufficed. So I rather split it. This episode turning into the longest and that is not really a good thing. And then there is the the move of last week, which was chaotic, if you put it mildly.
I ended up having to do 2 moves at the same time. Which was extremely exhausting and took a few of my days. It’s all a looong story. My autism is killing me at the moment. New surroundings, new routine, no familiar person around, a lot I have to decide and I have to set up my flat on the side too. It is manageable and it will be no big deal relatively soon, but autism REALLY doesn’t like moving. Or change at all to be fair. But we get there. I am sorry for the inconveniences along the way.
Outro [10:26]
That was it for todays episode. I hope it helped you, if not, please tell me so. Next week we are going to tackle the remaining steps to remove these triggers.
Despite this being just part 1, I hope you still liked it, you find the transcript and more information as usually under johannadraconis.com/podcast, links are also in the description and I hope I see you next time.
Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.
Episode 8 - How to remove triggers (II)
This is the second part on how to remove triggers once and for all. Triggers are indeed completely removeable and doing so, greatly improves your life quality. This is a rather broadly approach, so that as many people as possible can use it.
Intro [0:00]
Hello, my name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast. In this episode I will continue the talk about trigger - this time we go into the final steps of how we can remove them.
Step 3 - Going down the rabbit hole [0:15]
Step 3 is going down the rabbit hole… until we hit the core. And I tell you the word that is the key to it all… and you will be disappointed by its simplicity most likely, but the word is: WHY. Similar to a annoying child you will keep asking yourself why until you hit the right answer. How will you know? You WILL feel it or most likely cry. There is a feeling of truth when you speak the correct sentence. Because deep down we know the answers, we just have to find them … and/or admit them. This step is harder than you might think at first, because you will try to avoid it. Just as you avoid a hurting joint subconsciously, so are you trying to avoid the core. So we need keep pushing where it hurts, always asking why. Though it might not necessarily hurt, but you will avoid it out of fear … the fear about what the answer could be. Some question we don’t ask, because we are afraid what the answer will be. Same applies here. Sometimes you will not find an answer immediately. Some answer take hours to days until you wrap you head around it, ESPECIALLY in the beginning, when you are still weak. Give your brain the time it might need to think about it… or to swallow it. Don’t forget this is a marathon not a sprint. Some realizations aren’t pretty and you need to be brutally honest with yourself. Only the truth will give you relief. Your truth, not any truth, but the way you truly felt and feel. That’s why other people can’t help you as you can yourself… if you know how. Two examples for questioning (though rather short ones):
Why am I crying because the lion hugs his raiser he hasn’t seen in years? - It’s just so sweet. - But why? - Because I want to hug someone like that. - Who do you want to hug? - A dead loved one.
Why did I respond so hostile toward that man? - He was unfair and rude - Yeah, but why did I respond so strongly? - Because I felt threatened? - Why? It was in public place with many people - I have seen it happen before and I know what comes next - Why do I know it? - Because I seen it - But why do I know? - Because I was assaulted and he behaved like he did when it happened.
The length of the chain may vary, but the important part is: TO JUST KEEP ON GOING. Don’t let it go until you go to the core of it. Take a break if needed, but do keep coming back.
Saying it out loud [3:23]
This may seem rather off, but have you tried speaking out loud? There is a good reason why we don’t say some things out loud, because that means we acknowledge them and they become reality. I am not sure what exactly it is, but the moment we say something it becomes something else. And by saying it out loud I DON’T mean it literally. You can also whisper it. The important thing is that you say it. So how does saying it out loud work in this context? Well theoretically everyone develops their own strategy, but for now I explain you mine.
First you usually have an area of your usually suspects. In my case its the tormentor, my father, my past, the future, my health, etc. You say something out loud along the lines of “I am upset because of my health”… and if that is the correct sentence, you will feel it. If not it will feel false or like you are telling a lie. Once you found the correct main area, you then have to narrow it more down, to smaller sub areas, like in this example “I am upset because of my healing chances”. And so on, until you hit the main spot.
Takes a bit of practice, but once you got your routine going it’s really easy. It can also help to narrow down your everyday problems… or what is REALLY behind them.
This method is also very helpful in hunting down triggers, but more to that next episode.
Step 4 - The prime target [5:13]
Step 4 is dealing with the prime target. Now that you found the triggers core, what now? How do you deal with it?
One way is the 5 stages of grieving I talked about in the third episode already. The stages are Denial, Anger, Bargain, Depression/Sadness and Acceptance. Those 5 steps are for a trigger that can’t be changed. May the cause of the trigger lie in something in the far past or in something forever lost to time. Something we hold on to. That something doesn’t have to be something positive. We also hold on to bad things, because we are afraid of what will happen if we let go. Sounds illogical, but the brain prefers a bad known situation to an unknown situation. And who knows what will happen if you let that baggage go? These 5 steps are really helpful in letting things go.
But what do you do if something is permanent? Basically also the 5 steps, similar how people have to learn to accept they are sick or their handicaps, it also happens via the same steps. I recommend looking for groups with the same symptomatic, as reading how they dealt with it, can be really helpful. Our brain is able to translate solutions from a similar situation into ours. But really most of the time it is enough to find the prime target and just acknowledge it, IF it is not a traumatic experience. But what if something is still ongoing? Then you have 2 options: You can either walk away from it or not. Or in other words: Either change it or leave the situation. Otherwise you will get more and more depressed, because you feel you are stuck. First let us go into; what If you can walk away from it. Are you sure you can’t walk away? Or at least get some distance? What is binding you? Because social norms or rules don’t really count. Family doesn’t either, IF they are being harmful to you or toxic or anything like that. It doesn’t matter if you are related by blood, if those people are toxic toward you and refuse to change. Sometimes a break is good and what was once broken CAN be fixed - but only if both parties are willing. You don’t own anyone anything from birth. So ask yourself - what really binds you to something? This includes work, family, overall situation and simply everything. But you don’t have to be radical about it. If you dislike your job everyday, then you might want to switch within the company or look for another job. It is incredible what a change in surrounding can do to change your situation. Depression can be caused if you feel like you can’t change anything on your situation and just suffer. There is also such a thing called learned helplessness, where the person learned that whatever it wants to do, is pointless anyway, as it will fail anyway. So why bother? Often no matter how bad the situation is, it’s the only one we have. What is left of us, if we walk away from the situation? I recommend establishing an social circle or security circle outside and then slowly transferring there. And cut ties with people who bring misery in your life - long term of course. Your time on this planet is limited, as is your energy, don’t spend it with people who not appreciate you and/or don’t care about your wellbeing.
Secondly, let us go into; what if you can’t walk away from it? And I mean REALLY can’t walk away from it. Maybe it’s your illness, that is harming you. Maybe something else. As much you might not be able to change what is happening, you can change your feelings toward it. Everything is a matter of perspective. I AM being serious. That is not just a motivational quote you can post on social medias to your contacts, but actually true. Of course this is not achieved, by simply saying ‘OK, now I just see my problem positively!’, which is just nonsense. Find the reason why it is really a problem. The methods saying out loud and ‘Why’ should prove helpful in this situation. Then I would recommend the same thing, as if something is permanent. I might do an own episode on just accepting, what can’t be changed. The new fate, life, health, etc. For me it meant, that I needed to bury my old life. The way I thought and lived. Doesn’t mean that everything now is impossible or taboo what was normal before. There are MANY ways to get what you want, but it DEFINITELY is a change of thinking and living. It WILL take some time to get used to the new life. Its a process, so take your time and don’t be too harsh on yourself. The important part is, that you get there.
Step 5 - Is it gone? [11:00]
The 5th and final step is what happens after the 4 Steps -because often then remains this uncertain feeling: Is it really gone? How can you know? I would say by trying to trigger it.
The best way to check if a trigger is gone, is by causing it to trigger. I would recommend careful testing. You can then turn it up. Careful sometimes something triggers 2 different things. For example: Going fishing with your father. The fishing is a trigger and your father too. That is the reason why poking afterwards is so important: First to make sure it’s really dead AND to check if there are any additional triggers left there. Saying out loud a few statement can also be helpful to see if it is truly gone or just calmed down.
I just want to add in the end, that please don’t make the mistake, that just because you don’t have any more symptoms, that you are PTSD free. It is just dormant, and like a sleeper, will become active again over time. And then you are usually older and weaker… it is better to finish it off and be finally free of it, because as long as there is still something left it still drains you and will drain more and more over time. I heard so many times people say they got rid of PTSD, but they just beaten it and it retreated or was dormant. You really need to get it out root and stem. It is VERY resilient. Also you can’t really restore yourself fully if it is still there. You need to be thorough. Otherwise it will always come back.
Personal Words [13:06]
I wanted to just update you shortly about my situation, as I mentioned last week. Sadly, I am still strongly affected by the move, but things have improved lately. My autism is still murdering me… but less now. Also since I have to change how I live… things take a bit longer, since I have to figure out a few things regarding my handicaps. I have to change the way I approach and think about my everyday life. Nothing really dramatic, but its easy to overlook how much is affected by it. It is manageable, but it requires rethinking.
Despite all of that, there have been a lot of improvement and I hope I will be back in full swing soon. And once again I am sorry for the inconveniences along the way.
Outro [14:09]
And that was it, for now. Thank you for listening, I hope it answered your questions on how to remove a trigger. Next time we are going into the hunt for the other triggers. Which will be loads, most likely. If you have any questions or feedback and the like, please let me know at contactme@johannadraconis.com. More information and transcript you can find as usually under johannadraconis.com/Podcast and links are in the description. I hope I see you next time.Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.
Episode 9 - How to hunt down tiggers
In this episode we learn how we can track down other trigger.
There are several methods to do it and how they work.
Basically part 3 of the removing triggers episodes.
Intro [0:00]
Hello, my name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast. In this episode I will talk about hunting down the triggers - may they be hidden or just haven’t been discovered yet.
The theory - Communication with the subconsciousness [0:16]
Now why did I use the word hunt? Well, because we find clues, tracks and follow them until we reach the trigger or trauma. But how does it work? There are several ways to go on about this, I mentioned a few in the last episode, but our biggest ally in this is our subconsciousness. It knows where the triggers are and all that is going on, what you are filtering out. It just has ONE HUGE issue… it can’t speak. Our center for language, speaking, etc. Is not really available for the subconsciousness. So we have to find a way to communicate with it.
And no, there is no magic spell or the like needed. We just communicate via pictures, memories, simulations - also known as dreams and so on. Your subconsciousness is basically trying to communicate to you, where the trigger is hiding, but can’t speak. Similar to a person sitting afar in a loud room, REALLY wanting to tell you something and is trying to make some gestures or the like, so you get what that person is saying./trying to say. This also takes a bit of training and routine, but you can learn the communication with your subconsciousness, if you already knew it, HEY, good. Means progress can be achieved faster.
Dream interpretation [1:45]
First off we take a look at dreams. Yes. There is scientific interpretation. How they figure that stuff out? I have NO CLUE. Like I am really asking that myself, but they do. I think it has a lot to do with symbolism and deduction, but I honestly I don’t know. But what is the theory behind it? Well your dreams are more or less a rework of the subconsciousness of the day or what it witnessed. It is like a child reenacting a scene with dolls. And just like the child is in truth behind all those dolls, so are you. In the dreams from the sub you are everyone in that dream. The person you meet on the street, the person you harmed. Like it is shown in the movie inception. EXCEPT when they symbolize something or actually THAT person is meant. Parents are often the stereotypical father figure or mother figure, not NECESSARILY the actual person. You can learn a lot from these dreams. The core of the trigger and/or trauma, what is really bothering you in the last time, the state of your mental health, warning signs you overlooked while awake, etc. Those dreams can also be reached via daydreaming. But how do you recognize those dreams? Well they are pretty distinct from the chaotic static you often have. They seem to be clear, but somehow still completely confusing. Like often the scenario makes NO SENSE. At all. They seems to be stronger than normal dreams and somehow overemphasizing things? Like really intense somehow? You know it when you see it. Oh and if you don’t get the message, the sub will repeat the dreams, sometimes slightly altered, until you get it. Those are NOT flashbacks or memory dreams, those are not meant by it. You can manipulate those dreams so you can even have sort of an open dialog with your sub, though that requires quite a lot of practice.
Until you reach a level, where you can easily remember your dream and its symbols, it might prove to be useful to have some sort of notebook, so you can write them down fast, before it all fades away. As is a trend, if you might have noticed, you get better the more routine you get. As usual. As it is with everything as far as I know. The interpretation of those dreams are a bit of routine, but you should get the hang of it in no time. You can simple look it up in the Internet, just make sure it says psychological interpretation or so and NOT spiritual or esoteric or the like. Those are different sort of dream interpretation. I will give you are short overview of a few most common or for PTSD important symbols.
List of dream symbols [5:00]
Before I give you the list, I just want to say, that the most important thing you have to look out for in your dream is the mood. Was it happy? Was it scary? Was the air filled with anger?
Those dreams have their own set of rules. Also reminder: When for you a specific thing has a different meaning that it traditionally has, then your meaning overrules the typical interpretation. If for you the color white means surrendering instead of purity, then that is the meaning of the color for you. It must be a strong association though, not just something you connect with it. This list is really just a short overview to what I mean. Usually the explanation and possible interpretation is pages long. I could fill an own podcast with hours of material just going over the symbols.
First is Colors. One of the most important signs. Surprisingly. I still have issues remembering the color of things. There are of course cultural difference in the interpretations of color.
And the interpretation of colors is extremely variant. It influences our mood, appetite, stance toward someone or something, arousal, etc. I tried to summarize the most important colors, but it was just too much. But if you see something important in your dream… write down the color.
Second is murder or killing. As PTSD often lead to very violent dreams, I thought this might be useful. Unless the person you are killing is someone very specific to you, the person you are killing is you. Or an aspect of you, to be more precise. I once had a dream where I just killed a group of people and was really scared of the meaning. But it just meant I had varies opinions on the matter and “killed” the other opinion until I came to the one that seemed right to me. A bit over dramatic if you ask me.
Third is paths. You most likely can guess this one, but it means the direction in life. If the path is obscured it means things are unclear. A splitting path or crossroad, of course, as the saying goes, standing at a crossroad and you need to choose a path. Generally the path you see in your dream is your life path. It is important to check its state, where it is heading and what is left and right of it.
Fourth is the End of the world… it tells you about a deep psychological impact on you. Something that shake up your whole world. Or is threatening to end it. This dream is a strong warning.
The fifth is dusk and dawn. While dawn stands for a new start, hope and a sort of awakening, dusk stands for calm, the end of a cycle and letting go.
The sixth is water. Water stands for emotions, feelings, cleansing, letting go, etc. Though mostly it really takes shape of emotions. Drowning in your emotions so to speak.
Last but not least transportation vehicles. The car stands usually for yourself and who drives it, is the one in control. The bus is us vs the world, the journey together and our role in it.
A ship stands for how we navigate in our and other peoples emotions, our life and if we are being controlled by our emotions. A plane is a hint that we might get ahead of ourselves… or that we made great strides or progress. A spaceship stands for ascending… maybe you reached the next level in your healing process?
Dream interpretation - Afterword [9:27]
Just as an afterword, I want to say, that it is just important what is going on in your dream. Pay attention, try to actively look around and SEE what is going and what is around you.
This is just a tiny excerpt, the information is easy to find and I strongly recommend looking into it. If you want I can take a deeper look into it, but I at least need an episode for that.
This was meant to give you an impression of it and how its logic works.
Music [10:00]
Another way is music. I think I am not surprising anyone, when I say music is affecting us, especially emotionally, strongly. But we can also use it to decipher what we are truly feeling and help us discover memories. Songs are often associated with a specific time in our lives - or phase. So we can use them to figure out when something has happened or the trigger might be hiding. But since your emotions aren’t always clear with PTSD, it also helps us to understand in which state we are in. I recommend having a playlist with all sort of songs. Happy ones, sad ones. Everything. And if you don’t really know what is going on with you at this moment, you just play this playlist and click so long until you find the right track.
I found that method EXTREMELY helpful, as I often felt loss with the amount of emotions that seem to block me.
Smell [11:10]
A very effective way is smell, IF you already have a track. Do you have trouble remembering something specific? The details elude you? Have you tried recreating the smells that are connected to that memory and/or topic? Smell is something the brain can’t block. That is why many shops have specific aroma and smell in their shop, that make you more lax about spending. Fascinating topic, but smell can really bring memories back, that thought to be lost to time. So if you have trouble remembering something, try recreating the smell. It will help you more easily to remember things. It also helps of course with relaxing, getting back to reality and much more.
Speaking out loud [12:02]
Last but not least, like mentioned in the last episode, speaking out loud helps also with the hunt. First it helps us find trigger that are also connected to the trauma/theme we weren’t aware of, as said before. But it also helps us find new triggers. If you feel upset or the like, try by saying out loud a few opinions regarding that situation. As before I recommend starting as broad as possible, to basically throw a large net and simply catch anything. Then narrow it down until you get it.
Private Words [12:40]
Just another short throw in from me; to give another short update. My situation has greatly improved, the worst seems to be over, now I just have to do all the work. The pets have calmed down as well and getting used to their new environment. I hope I can rework the homepage this week, though it would be nice after 3 weeks to be finally able to cook again and not live from, sometimes literal, breadcrumbs. The things you learn to appreciate after a move. But I really do enjoy cooking, especially since I can enjoy this way food I can really enjoy. The last weeks were rough, but that is life. I should be back into full action mode soon. Nonetheless, I apologize for the inconveniences along the way.
Outro [13:41]
And that was it for todays episode. Next week we are most likely going to tackle some trigger cores, but I am not sure which one yet. There are several cores of triggers or traumas I can tackle. Like loss, betrayal, abuse, parents and so much more. Torture has been hanging around here for a while, but that episode is really draining me, that topic is in its own league. I also plan to do an episode for parents or relatives or loved ones of PTSD, as it is also for them an incredible hard time. If you want information for a specific topic, please, feel free to write me under contactme@johannadraconis.com. You can also fill out a contact form on the website if you prefer. I also plan to draw out how this therapy works and the plan of it all. Should happen next week. Hopefully. Either way, thank you for listening, I hope you liked this episode and it helped you. You can find the transcripts as usual under johannadraconis.com/podcast, but the links are as usual in the description.I hope to see you next time. Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.
Episode 10 The plan of my therapy (podcast)
This time I explain the plan or roadmap for my therapy/podcast. Since my therapy isn't as linear as I thought it to be, I realized it is about time I properly explain how the therapy plans out.
Intro [0:00]
Hello, my name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast. Today I will talk about something long overdue it seems - the plan of this whole therapy. What the plan is, how it works, what are the steps and hopefully why like this.
Preamble [0:24]
Truth be told, this episode should have been the first or second episode - but to be honest, I really thought my healing path was linear as would the therapy plan be. I was wrong. The more I wrote and the more I tried to make the instructions as broad as possible, the more I realized, that is pretty much the opposite of linear. In my defense, it IS linear if I make everything for a specific case, but not as an universal instruction. So today I will explain the strategy of my therapy and how the plan looks like.
The Strategy [1:02]
And I mean STRATEGY. It is pretty much the basic of any strategy game or the like.
Secure the base -> defend it -> create more troops -> take all the enemy bases out, while keeping your base safe -> destroy the main base of the enemy and you win. -> Now the map needs to be restored.
We of course take an extra step with the care afterwards, because unlike in those games, we need to restore the map/landscape. But otherwise it pretty much follows a pattern found in many fields:
Basis - Defensive - Offensive - Aggressive . Afterwards I add rehabilitation and back to life. Now I will explain it step by step and I will be using the example of an fortress to visualize it.
Fortress example [2:01]
Now our fortress example is a real one with an outer wall and everything. To be precise:
The fortress has the main fort, the throne room is in there and the like. The inner ring, with the sort of village inside, with blacksmith, baker and so on.
A middle ring, where the more common quarters are and a few more shops. The outer ring, with towers and well fortified. In it some fields and the like.
Basis [2:37]
First we start off with Basis. I see it as the basic knowledge about PTSD as seen in the second episode and the third. Just to establish we are on the same level. This happened during Episode 2, where we talked about “PTSD and its symptoms” and in Episode 3, with explaining trauma. Everything on a base knowledge. In our example this means the basic knowledge about our fortress and the potential enemy - a shadow army, that unlike normal enemies doesn’t want to claim the fortress for themselves, but just destroy it. Until there is nothing left. The shadow army is a mysterious enemy, seemingly spawning endlessly from a cave, using unusual strategy, take nothing, seemingly following no logic. Everything the shadow army conquered you can’t use anymore. You neither get its resources, nor can you craft/recruit/etc something with it. You first have to reclaim it. And depending on your state of PTSD, the shadow army made it potentially even to the main fort. Usually a full PTSD breakout is when the outer wall was breached. Even if you beat them back, the hole in the wall remains. Reminder, that if you loose most of your outer stuff, you won’t get supplies from that and have to life of your stored supplies. Which makes you less effective and weaker. The more you reclaim, the more supplies you get and the better you can act. You are, similar to a player character in a strategy game, not attackable - despite the shadow army will try you to convince you otherwise, but can be made basically immobile. The enemy is expanding and the more they laid claim to, the more limited your movement is. As well your options. Now it is time to find out how to turn the tide.
Defensive [4:53]
Second we need to take care of our defenses. This happens when we fight off the attacks of PTSD as effectively as possible and at best prevent the attacks from happening. How to best shield ourselves. We talked about this in Episode 4 and 5, with “Daily counter measures” and “In case of an emergency”. Or any method you developed to protect you as much as you can. In our examples this would be the guards, the walls, archers, shields, etc.
Offensive [5:33]
Thirdly, we talk about offensive measures. This happens when we use the attacks of PTSD to launch a counter attack, which lays out the basics for our later aggressive strategy.
That happens when we use the attacks of the trigger, to track it down and take it out. Like we talked about in Episode 7 and 8 in “How to remove triggers”. Under offensive measures, I understand using the attack of the enemy to bite a piece of him, while defending our base still. Also this is the phase where we try to learn ways to take down the enemy. With triggers it’s using the trigger to take out the root of the trigger and clearing it from the PTSD. This might also give us an opportunity to learn more about the main core of the PTSD.
In our example that would be taking the closest station of the shadow army, where we learn it uses the places it covers to place circles to spawn more minions. So we learn to follow those minions to spawning points and destroy those and if we can, we try to reclaim the spot that once belonged to us. Most likely the rest of the army works similarly.
We gained valuable insight this way. Also now we can use again what we cleared, no matter how little it is.
Aggressive [7:08]
Fourthly we talk about aggressive measures, also known as taking down the enemy. Now we become the aggressor and launch attacks at the enemy to wipe him out. But still keeping our defenses up. This phase lasts as long as there is an enemy left. The base strategy is simple: Take them out base for base, men by men, stone by stone, until nothing is left. Take a breather if needed. The triggers are showing us the way to get to it, if we don’t happen to stumble on a part of the trauma. The trauma is similar to cancer, it can spread across many places and infects everything around it. Also it is not one point, it is a structure like a bush, so there are many parts and its not really clear cut. That’s why we take it step by step or stem by stem. All of this takes long and it’s not wise to rush it. This topic we only talked shortly about in Episode 9 “How to hunt down triggers”. We now look where the PTSD is hiding and take care of it, after we cleared out the more obvious stuff. With every point cleared you get more energy, clarity and room to breathe. It IS addicting. But what to attack first? That is the question I can’t answer universally. That depends on your shape and form of PTSD. I recommend starting small and then keep on going. Whatever you can get. Take it, deconstruct it into smaller pieces you can swallow, and remove it. That also includes the core trauma. This is important, because to many clearing the field and with most abilities restored - they just stop. But like the cancer, a bush, etc. - the PTSD just regrows slowly and will strike again. Just keep on going until there is really NOTHING left.
For our example there isn’t too much difference. It is usually most wise to work yourself up from camps to bases to forts, but sometimes you don’t spot them right away.
Which can backfire if they come from the side. That is why you only take the next camp, when you have gathered enough forces and are absolutely sure you can take it.
Be aware that the building you free give you boons. The blacksmith upgrades your weapon and repairs damage, the herbalist heals your troops and so on.Once you cleared them out of your fortress you need to go on their turf… and figure out where they came from. Search for clues. Then go to the cave, where they spawn endlessly. Find the source… and DESTROY it.
Once again by deconstructing it until you can destroy them or make them neutral, until nothing is left. Only then the army will stop spawning. This phase takes long - up to many years. Though you usually CAN see the progress, by being able to do more and more, it is exhausting and takes ages. You will need endurance and don’t rush it.
It’s a marathon - its about reaching the goal, not really about getting there first. Try to keep a steady pace.
Rehabilitation [11:06]
Fifthly we talk about rehabilitation. The enemy is defeated, roll end credits! But in life the story doesn’t end there. At the end of the road you will most likely just feel exhausted and weird. Most likely after the first time you reach this phase, you will bounce back into PTSD, because your brain tries to keep the status it knows. Though it IS completely normal to glide back to PTSD, but the spaces between those should become larger and those PTSD phases should become shorter and shorter. Until they are months apart. Keep regularly looking for hidden triggers or other nests of PTSD - so you get the full potential back. It is suspicious if a topic or so is somehow draining your energy. Might be worth taking a closer look. First and foremost I recommend keeping up the daily counter measures, to avoid relapses as much as possible. Then you will have to restore the parts you destroyed… and replace them with new material. This can either mean very little or very much - once again depending on your PTSD. You achieve that by see what was damaged - maybe a truth you held in high regard? - and replace it with a undamaged piece. I got them mostly, by listening others peoples opinion and checking with what I agree and disagree with, until I shaped my own and tested it against other opinions. Every time re chewing it to make it more accurate. This process might take long into your now PTSD free life - but that is what life is like. Constant change. Your life will have changed, maybe just a little. But you usually don’t walk away from an experience like this and don’t get changed by it. Take your time - so you fully recover. You need to be at full health to survive in this world - especially with the harder days to come. I was surprised myself what all was unlocked. I went from being able to life pain free with assistance to being able to work 50h a week. So really take your time. Now for our example, the fortress has to be rebuild. Fully, if you plan to keep on living there. So you have to inspect every building, wall, door, etc for damage and repair it. Priorities on the most important buildings of course. But the enemy is defeated, now you just have to focus on rebuilding. Though there might be some stragglers of the shadow army, better to check every corner if there isn’t a nest you overlooked.It just takes 1 man to rebuild the shadow army, so you really need to be careful. Otherwise the fortress slowly rebuilds, as fast as the workers can - partly still limbing. You need to rebuild everything - especially the holes in the walls, otherwise you are vulnerable to new attacks - not necessarily from shadow army, but all sorts of attackers. This phase may take a while, but at least you should be now free of most symptoms. Don’t rush back to everyday life too fast, I know it is very tempting, but similar after cancer - YOU NEED REST. Really take the time. It is important. You might be surprised how much energy you get back. And slowly return to everyday routine. Build it up - take your time - you have quite a journey behind you.
Back to life [15:12]
Sixthly we talk about getting back to life. This phase is most likely mostly for long term PTSD survivors. Especially when they suffered the trauma in their childhood and/or from one of the people in a trust position. We now have to abandon things we held truths, things we learned like behaviors and so - which will take quite a while to unlearn.
Something like “I am useless” or “I deserve this happening to me” or “If I make a mistake, I deserve punishment “ and so on. Alternatively we associate things with specific things.
Like we hear footsteps and have the urge to run. We stay silent, despite wanting to speak. We automatically look down, when we speak to specific people. And so on. I only can recommend here not to try to unlearn everything at once. Replacing those truth is a lot of work and will take up a lot of your brain space and energy. You didn’t learn those things over night - so you won’t unlearn them over night. But luckily it is faster to unlearn things, than to learn things. It is important to replace those old rules with good new ones.
I recommend philosophy, intellectual debates (Aka no shouting and insult matches), movies or series, books, comics, whatever helps you find your way in life.
In our example these are rules, we thought to be right and valuable, but turn out the be wrong. Either by proving themselves useless and/or counter productive in reality or by being crafted by someone with bad intent. Now the people of the fortress need to find new rules and most importantly, they need to make sure they are right this time - without bad influence and adapted to bad times to come. There will be debates, there will be votes. As it should be. Good things take time.
RECAP [17:36]
So to recap:
Defend your position -> if you get the opportunity use an offensive strike to use an PTSD attack against it - most likely via trigger -> keep on pulling trigger until you get to deconstruct the trauma -> restore yourself.
Private Words [17:58]
Just a small throw in from me. This has been quite a week, but I finally have somewhat a kitchen back. Cooked here for the first time really today - after living here for almost a month.
This was the most chaotic move I ever participated - and I did quite a few, even one across half of the world. I am just glad that I slowly getting back to a normal daily routine.
ALMOST there! Should be able to do the homepage next week. Still, I apologize for the inconveniences along the way. Should be the last time I need to do that.
Outro [18:47]
And that it for today’s episode - hope the road map is now clear and I thank you for listening and I hope you liked it.
If you have any questions or feedback and the like, please let me know at contactme@johannadraconis.com.
More information and transcript you can find as usually under johannadraconis.com/Podcast and links are in the description.
I hope to see you next time. Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.
Episode 11 - How to deal with: Too many choices/lost in the dark/overwhelming
Today we talk about something, many people I help with struggle.They are lost, don't know where to turn to and are overwhelmed.
So we are taking it step by step to get out of that situation.
Intro [0:00]
Hello, my name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast.
Today we are going to do things a bit differently and I would really like to know if you like that.
What many people I help struggle with, is, that they don’t know where to even start. They are lost in the darkness and running in circles.
They know there is so much to do, but every time they seem to grab something it seems to dissolve and they land on the floor.
So today we are going to talk about what to do, if you are lost in the dark and/or with too many choices and/or everything is just overwhelming.
Preamble [0:51]
I remember the darkness, knowing not what to do, where to turn to, while the darkness lashes out and drains you. The longer it takes, the bigger the darkness gets and the more suffocating. It seemed wanting to grab me and hold me and drag me someplace darker. While still my everyday life happened - life must go on - it was somehow bizarre.
I knew it was just in my head, I knew there was actually no reason for it, but still - I was losing that fight. Whatever it was. There were so many options I could still take in life - I just left school and started studying, but still I felt trapped and with my other options just fading out. It’s a feeling of the platform you are standing on gets smaller and smaller - and you can do nothing about it. I was in a storm of voices or thoughts, which were deafening loud and at the same time… silent. There were good days were I barely even noticed it. Other days… I couldn’t even notice anything else. There were too many choices, all fading in and out, and I really didn’t know what to do. - Now I do.
Calm yourself [2:47]
Breathe. Let it flow over you. It is important to calm yourself down. Some days that won’t be possible - which is fine - another day then. As far as I have heard, never has the panicked mind been any kind of help. It is always best to keep a cool head. So just breathe - don’t pressure it. Because pressure is the worst thing you can do - which I know is very hard while feeling all your appointments and undone work breathing down your neck. I still struggle with that to be honest. But the ironic thing really is - you move fastest when you relax and take it slow. Not that that stopped me from still trying it. Meditation is really helpful, it helps to defog your brain and clear things up. The most simple one is just to focus on your breath an let your mind run freely. Just follow your breath in and out of your body. It gives a lot of energy usually and makes things a bit clearer. So just breathe - if you can.
Go with the flow [4:31]
Breathe…just focus on your breath as it flows in and out of you…and let it flow over you. All those thoughts are like a stream and tornado - don’t try to do anything with it. Just breathe. There is no controlling this storm. Let it come towards you… it wants to tell you something after all. So let it come towards you - while you just relax. It will come, no worries about that, so breathe and relax and - wait. Soon you should hear the first words, maybe even sentences. It’s a bit like bait. No need to be hasty or impatient. Breathe, keep on waiting.
Now we will slowly get clearer sentences or even scenes. Maybe just nightmarish daydreams our mind created. Either will do. If you have a sentence or thought that makes sense to you or has a statement in it, then focus on that. Now we got our thought process. Or at least a good shot at it. It is amazing what our brain thinks and what causes it. The cause of a thought can be completely unrelated to the topic, but our brain is able to connect the wildest things. I recommend asking yourself, why am I thinking this? As tempting as shortcuts are, they are invalid. You think you know the answer, but if you did, why do you keep having those thoughts? It is worth to walk the full line of thought. Every step - because every step has the chance to branch off into a new - more hidden - path. There is also the need to sometimes walk the path for the path itself. Sometimes we know something, but we really don’t know it. We didn’t really realize it. Sometimes we just need to walk the walk. Somethings need to be walked again and again, until it finally clicks. Sometimes we just have to admit something to ourselves. Everything is alright. Take your time. It is done, when it’s done. We can’t really control it. We have to do what we have to do, it ends when it ends.
Time of Change [7:42]
Often things need to change. The thoughts of being in the dark, cornered, are usually a statement on and of itself. The walls that surround us are our own rules, social rules or rules we think are there. Often we know things deep in ourselves, but it usually takes a lot to makes us admit to it - depending on the level of our stubbornness. The truth can only be shut out for so long… Those walls used to give us shelter, but now they are trapping us. Breathe. They are easily breakable. But which one turned from a shelter to a trap?
Change is often hard and painful, that is why we shy away from it… also there is no guarantee it is going to be better right? So, its better to stick to the old ways, right? As much as things we know and always have known, give us comfort, at some point they can go from being helpful to hindering. We need to let some things simply go. The good thing is, once we admit to ourselves, that it needs to be done - it does gets done. It can’t even be stopped anymore. You will just flow into the new position - and be able to breathe again. It is a bit like outgrowing your old clothes. Once you got new ones, you realize that you can breathe now better… and move much better. And it’s a nice thing to have, despite your hesitation at first.
Change is pretty exhausting, so have seat, have a cup of tea and relax. I often find it very helpful to keep my hands busy. Sometimes I would just stare into the distance or walk to grab a little snack and awake 30 min later. I stopped asking a while ago and just go with it. Once I made it through, I could breathe and felt so much better. Sometimes you just have to walk through a valley. Breathe, take it slow, you get there. As annoying it is - it just has to be done from time to time. Life is constant change - at least on this planet.
Everything is going to be alright [10:44]
As much the thought of change might be frightening, it is a good thing, it means the dark times will pass. It means you developed yourself, usually if it happens like this, it means for the better. As this reaction from the body - the visions of darkness, the fear, the storm - is a sign that something was imbalance. You don’t feel like this if everything is fine.
What helped me understand this a bit, was, that we are not the same physically. Our body constantly replaces its own cells and therefor kind of itself. You are literally someone else.
You are not the same person you were 5 years ago. And 5 years ago you weren’t the same person 2 years before…. And 2 years before that, and so on. You constantly change.
Which is a good thing, because it means we are learning, as I seriously I doubt you had it all figured out 5 years ago. Though I don’t think anyone has it all figured out.
The important thing is, that we don’t loose sight of what we value and who we are as a person. That we take care of the attributes that we feel define us. Only through practice and engagement stay those attributes relevant. Everything we neglect dwindles, be it muscles or abilities or relationships. There is no goal in life, that when you walk through it, you have it all unlocked and now don’t have to take care of anything anymore. The road IS the goal. And moving or changing is completely normal along the way.
So take a deep breath, if you can’t move at the moment, enjoy the landscape and see what you can do. There is no need to rush. Everyone gets there eventually.
Personal Words [13:10]
Just a few words from me here. Sadly I didn’t manage the website in time, life just happened, as it just does. The situation is often quite frustrating at the moment. It’s fighting against a vicious circle - my autism is causing this, so it’s only annoying, but not threatening. I finally got my freezer today, but those delivery guys didn’t unpack it and placed it facing the wall. Those bastards. That things weighs 60kg or 132 pounds… almost as much as me… and I kinda have 2 half dead arms. Luckily I get visit tomorrow who helps me put it in place.
But nonetheless a freezer means I can finally cook again. Food is important, gives loads of energy and betters the mood. Also the weather got a bit crazy, I went from sleeveless tops to winter coat in 2 weeks. But I am a bit of a Softie regarding cold winds, I freely admit to that. A~and we are off to sleeveless tops again. But all is fine. No out of ordinary weather phenomenon at all. Totally. At least I get to enjoy a bit more sun on my walks with my dog this way - it is really beautiful here.
Outro [14:53]
And that was it for todays episode. I hope you liked it - and that you liked this style - if so, please tell me, as feedback helps me improve the podcast. If you have any questions or feedback and the like, please let me know at contactme@johannadraconis.com. More information and transcript you can find as usually under johannadraconis.com/Podcast and links are in the description. I hope to see you next time. Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.
Episode 12 - Communicating PTSD with family, etc. I
In this episode we talk once again about something many people struggle: About how to break to your family you have PTSD and how to respond to questions. It is difficult to find the proper words when facing something like PTSD and communicate it to ones family.
Intro [0:00]
Hello, my name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast.
Today we are going to talk about how to communicate PTSD with your family, may it be a rather distant family member or to explain it someone you are very close with.
Preamble [0:21]
First we are going to tackle it shortly for relatively strangers, as we have to say something, because often I heard people having issues, to find out what to say. Then we talk about how to explain it to close family members, may it be by blood or not, as it is very hard to find the right words. Many fear sounding crazy or just don’t know what to say. It is easy to overburden non-PTSD people with gruesome information, that is normal to you. That is also something I needed to learn. So we try to find the right tone and harming our counterpart as little as possible, because for them often a whole world collapses.
Distant relatives [1:13]
A situation I often found myself in, in the last years, was, that I did small talk with people and then the typical questions came “what are you doing at the moment?” and “What do you do for work?” and the like. When asked those question, I usually was not really keen on open up about all my personal information, but I also can’t lie. So what to say? Of course it varies a bit depending on your private situation. Also in my country there is a strong stigma with mental illnesses, as it is a sign of weakness or not being right in your head. As no normal healthy human would ever develop a mental illness. Nonsense of course. But the solution was pretty simple, what do people really want to know? They are not really interested in your personal situation, so you give them the information they really want. Often it was for me enough to say, just recovering from a strong illness and I hope to return to work soon. I recommend at this point to look up soon TM. Should there be a follow up question, what it was, I usually said “That is a really long story and not really relevant”… as it isn’t. Neither I nor you have to justify yourself in front of the world. To be fair often the answer “I suffer from PTSD” was followed with sagely nod, but a confused face, as they didn’t want to admit, they had no idea what that was. If they keep pushing and you feel like they are pushing too far, a simple “That information I don’t feel comfortable to share” provided often really helpful. The most important thing to remember is: you are not arrested by the police and this is not a murder investigation. You have the right to remain silent and don’t have to answer questions.
Close relatives [3:39]
The second situation is way harder. Explaining it to the people close to us, which we often don’t do fully, because we do know how much it would hurt them or harm them.
Or we don’t want to admit it if it gotten worse or the like. As we see them worry and then often feel really bad, because they can’t really help us. I will separate it into, breaking the news, explaining PTSD and how explain when something goes wrong, be a trigger, flashback or the like. As this turned out to be way longer than I anticipated, I will separate it after breaking the news. So this episode is split in two.
Breaking the news [4:35]
We start naturally with breaking the news. Though it is not just telling them you have PTSD, it’s also about the questions afterwards that will pop up, that can be difficult. How could that happen? Why? Are you sure didn’t try x or y z? Are you sure it happened? And so on. The first reaction to bad news is often denial. I know it often hurts, to hear those questions, as they seem to doubting you in some way. But we reject information, that is not conforming to our current information status. Also known as cognitive dissonance. Now, there will NEVER be the perfect moment, but there are a few things you should take into account. It should be a normal day, so new special event, no festivities, etc. You know… calm atmosphere. As much as it is cliche, I really recommend having them sit down. It calms people down. Most likely you are going to shake up their world, so take it slowly.
I understand wanting to get it just finally out and done with it, but that is unwise. You also need to take them step by step with you, so they can easily follow your narrative. Start with a question they can connect to, like “do you remember when x happened?” or “Remember when I told you about x?”. From there say how it lead you to the diagnosis, was it by talking to your psychologist? Read up your symptoms? Use soft language. The information is important, not the details. They care about what happened, not necessarily the details. It is really enough to say something like “something really bad happened to me” … or “horrible happened to me” or “something went horribly wrong”. The details can be overbearing to your loved ones, try spoon feeding them or keep it broad. Then see what they can stomach, even if they say otherwise. People who didn’t came in contact with the true darkness of life have no idea how deep and dark the abyss can get, so you have to be careful. Especially when they are older. You don’t have to unpack all you might think you have to unpack. We often get so used and numb to the darkness, that we are often surprised by how little non PTSD people are shocked or convinced by. Also your voice will help you a lot. They will hear the truth in your voice, people who know you for a very long time, know how you sound. There is also a form of truth speaking we recognize as human beings. We just kind of know, when someone in front of us is truthful, the skillful might still be lying, but nonetheless. According to research we only convey 7% of what we say via words, the rest is body language, tone, etc. They will want to know, when and where it happened. Where they were, if they could have done something. Often there is aggression, as they see a loved one was hurt, and they want to fight off who did it. If you can it’s usually better, to use that energy to help you, than fighting the enemy. As it does little to you, except that enemy is still an active threat. It is more important to build you up again - as much as possible. Afterwards the mood is usually down, I recommend given some perspective, like what you plan next or what the next step in the therapy is etc. They will need a goal, it will help them deal with it all. I know the confession is often infused with shame, as it feels like a defeat. There is no need to be ashamed. You might have been a victim to what happened to you, but that does mean that you are bound to that. Be careful, that the victim doesn’t become your main identity, as I have seen it so often. It is important to move on, it happened, nothing can be changed about that, but we need to keep on moving. No matter how painful or hard it is. There is no standing still in this world. That doesn’t mean back to your everyday life, but moving past what happened and trying to get better.
When the family is… refusing [10:02]
Then there is sometimes the case, that the family isn’t refusing the information as a first shock, but as a stance. They doubt you, keep interrogating you, countering you, etc. They don’t seem to listen to what you have to say. Some even will say outright, that they can’t believe x did that or y happened to you. Some may even suggest you are lying to get attention, etc.
It is hard enough to accept what happened or even say it, especially if it is long in the past, that this behavior is harmful. You don’t deserve that. Also check if someone is asking you, if you are OK and if they can help you. Or just check if they show ANY interest in your wellbeing. I had this happen to me too. It was an eye opening experience, at one point I just stopped trying to explain, as it was obvious, they didn’t WANT to know the truth. I checked if it was just the initial reaction, then I cut all contact to that part of the family. My life quality has improved greatly since then. I can only recommend that. No one has the right to make you feel miserable, especially when you are already on the ground. People who have your best interest at heart, will try to help you. They might fail at it, but they will try. You don’t own anyone anything. Gifts are given freely, otherwise they would be contracts. Go your own path and share your life with people, who genuinely care about you. You deserve that - as does everyone else.
Personal Words [12:09]
Another few short personal Words.When my visit came, we also drove to IKEA to buy a few things - as I don’t dare to drive anymore at the moment because of my arms. It took 5 (!) hours! To buy 10 items. This is insanity. Well including driving time and eating there. We left last minute, they turned off the lights as we left the tills. We didn’t expect it to take so long. Still a lot to do regarding my new place, my to do list is hitting the floor at the moment. But now at least I have a dining table, no chairs, but a table. Also I got some plants and kitchen herbs. I even cooked a few times, despite still only having half a kitchen. Unacceptable. But it is really nice to have plants again… especially orchids. Since my time in Singapore I have a special connection to them.
Outro [13:27]
That was it for todays episode, I hope you liked it. I hope it wasn’t too short, but I had to make a choice and I prefer splitting episode, than it getting out of hand. If I missed anything you wanted to know or if you have any questions or feedback and the like, please let me know at contactme@johannadraconis.com. More information and transcript you can find as usually under johannadraconis.com/Podcast and links are in the description. I hope to see you next time. Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.
Episode 13 - Communicating PTSD with family, etc. (II)
In this episode we talk once again about something many people struggle: About how to explain the illness itself, the healing process and some of its symtoms. It is difficult to find the proper words when facing something like PTSD and communicate it to ones family.
Intro [0:00]
Hello, my name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast.
Today we are going to talk about how to communicate PTSD with family and other people close around us. This time we focus on how to explain them the symptoms, the illness, etc. Our closest ones get to witness most of the symptoms we suffer, often they ask questions, I found it really helpful to answer those, as it helps them and reduces confusion.
Preamble [0:49]
Last time we did the initial communication with breaking the news…. And how some family can respond… But let us assume they reacted like they usually do… what now? How to explain the weird things that are happening. How explain how this illness works? How explain the symptoms? Family members often feel helpless, like witnesses of a building on fire, while standing on the sideline. Often wondering if they really CAN’T do anything. It is incredible hard to watch someone you hold dear suffer, the feeling of helplessness is harmful, that is why it is so important to explain and tell them what they can do.
How to explain PTSD? [1:44]
But how do we best explain PTSD? Well there is not one answer for all, but we will take a few routes most people can associate with. Modify it here and there if needed. First off, I found - very surprisingly for myself - the best summary for my healing process figuratively from the movie Room 1408. Though I never watched it, but watched the explanation from ending explained. I just don’t watch horror movies or the like anymore. That movie is definitely not for the vulnerable, so it is a very limited suggestion, but I wanted to mention it. If you are really curious you can also just listen to the ending explained, where the plot and arch are explained. That being said - it is best to use an example in a field, that the person is most familiar with. Our brains are pattern seekers, if they recognize a pattern in one situation, and see similar circumstances, they can apply it to those. That is why examples are so important. Most of the time you won’t find the right words in that moment, that is why it is a good idea to keep thinking about how to explain it and write it down in doubt.
Your brain basically works like any muscles, keep repeating an exercise and you will get better and more refined at it.
How to Explaining PTSD + Co.? [3:26]
We have told them we have PTSD, but what is PTSD? Yes the definition does nicely, but most people not IN it will have issues wrapping their head around it. Even though many horror movies are a good visualization what it is like, that is not something you want to suggest to your older parents… or anyone. Most likely they are out of their mind of worry already. No need for gruesome images. Nonetheless they will need something to picture it, as it is otherwise an unknown… and they will have friends, etc. Ask for an explanation… and most likely justification. So they need to understand it - also for all those snake oil peddlers, that smell desperation a mile away and will come to prey upon them. It may sound a bit stereotypical, but I would use a garden example… or the castle. Or a modern fort. Variations should be easily be able to be done. I used different examples to explain PTSD itself, my current status, how healing works and in case of a trigger/fallout/etc.
Explaining - PTSD [4:53]
So PTSD, what is it? Let’s start with the garden.
Well imagine our brain being a careful tended garden and the PTSD is weed - goutweed to be precise. First, not really a big problem, but since it got ignored, it now infested everything. Now we can barely access anything and the remaining normal plants are being pushed aside by this weed. Now we would like to clean it all out immediately, but oh damn - the weather. It is rather unsteady and in some weather conditions it is really hard to work… even dangerous. It will take a lot of work and a lot of time, but the goutweed CAN be removed completely - if you are throughout. You see where this is going? You should be able to tweak it here and there for better fitting your story. Maybe a drunken who drove into the garden and destroyed a lot, etc. Though I don’t like that the weather is here the complicating factor, as we can’t influence the weather, but we can stabilize ourselves.
But we can also emphasize how important it is to have someone with us in the garden to keep us company - even if the other person is not able to really help, they do help with making the work more endurable. I really prefer the castle or fort example, as it can be better modified to fit to the individual situation. But it is not as peaceful as the garden example. As used before, you are a castle - with a main buildings and walls around it. But now you got attacked by an unknown force. Or you can use a modern fort, whatever you feel fits better. Now the outer wall is breached (aka PTSD outbreak) and there is an hostile army in your castle doing considerable damage. The damage of course varies on the extent of your PTSD. How many things you still have access to? Your favorite movies? Can you still listen to music? Does food still taste? Can you still feel joy? Think about how you want to describe it. Additionally what is the status of your own army? Are they still plenty and good shape? Or are they few and barely holding on? And so on. If you want to disclose that. You can draw a map about the situation or at least about the fort/castle, with or without the enemy army, to help the other better understand the situation.
Now we can also explain the others what kind of role they play in this scenario. Are they like a hidden supply line from a neighboring kingdom, keeping everyone strong under siege and limited supplies? Are they an army from a neighboring kingdom which army might not be able to fight it, but at least poke the enemy force, distracting them and or diverting them? To give your army a bit of a break? Or do they help keep the morale up? It is important for most people to have at least a guideline which they can follow. Something to aim for.
You could also make any example up you want to. For example with a car! But since my knowledge of cars is limited, I didn’t pick it. Pick what suits you the most.
Explaining - Current Status [8:53]
Next up is your current status - or daily form if you so will. In our two previous examples this would be the weather in the garden and the status of the army and building in the fortress example. Or you can use the ship example. Are you out there in the storm with your ship in the wild? Or is there are storm but you are in a save harbor? Or is it a wonderful day for a cruise? Or you can simply go for the simple good, bad, chaotic, off day, etc. Pick whatever helps you communicate it clearly to the other person.
Explaining - The healing process [9:38]
Next up we explain how the healing process works, as I said, people need a guideline. I usually use one main example that worked best so far: stock market. Or any graph with development over time. Let me explain. People separate in stock market between daily form and trend, which refers to how the stock is doing over a long period of time. From weeks to the start of the stock. The daily form is your daily form and the trend is your healing curve. You might have good days, you might have bad days, but over time it should go up. If not, you really need to change something. And everything visualized so easily with a beautiful graph. There is a graph for everyone! Simply find a stock trading page until you find the one you need. You can clearly see on the stock trend graph, if you zoom in, the many small up and downs. This is the same for your everyday PTSD status, it goes up and down, but have a lookout for the trend. If you simply want to explain that your daily status does not mean your overall status, then I recommend the weather example. Because there is a difference between weather and climate. There might be a really hot day in autumn, but that doesn’t mean it’s suddenly summer, but that it’s a hot day in autumn. Same goes for a cold day. Or in a tropical climate there is a colder day, doesn’t mean that suddenly the season exist, but that there was a day not typical for the climate. And so on. The day isn’t the important bit, the long run is. If you just trying to explain it overall: Healing yourself from PTSD is like climbing a mountain. You basically know where you want to go, but there are so many paths, so easy to get lost. It takes a lot of energy and its hard to see how much path you have left. The path are tricky and its dangerous. Supplies can come from outside, but they don’t always really reach you or think you are somewhere else. Or their help can lead you being in peril. It’s just important to reach the top, not how fast or how. Steady, as the way down is fast and dangerous.
Explaining - When something goes sideways [12:32]
Finally we come to when something goes sideways. PTSD has some really weird symptoms, which its hard to wrap your head around, but it is even harder when someone sees you and you have to explain it. And sadly the option to say “Hey, that is not my idea” does not work here. Despite it being technically true. For the symptoms overall I recommend giving the full information, so they get it from somewhere else, that this are normal symptoms to have. My episode 2 or any proper PTSD site will do. But I want to focus more on to explain the more extreme versions, as they can be pretty scary for those not familiar with it. Also they can better help and support you if they know what is happening. First I start with trigger, there are two ways it usually goes. The immediately strong reaction, I would describe like a fire alarm, even though everyone knows there is no fire, you still have to do the exact procedure you were taught. Even if you saw who pushed the alarm. That means getting to safety, as quiet as possible usually, keep your head low and wait until the whole drama played out. But what about the trigger that makes you feel bad over many days and often triggers strong depressive symptoms? I always explained my healing path with mountain climbing. The trigger is a misstep that leads you to falling down, not in free fall usually, but that depends on the sort of trigger. Usually it means you skidding down, trying to stop the descent. You can actually do that mid descent and stop it from going farther down. But I already talked about that in episode 4.
Insomnia is usually explained as having drunken accidentally a whole can of strong coffee or mixed with energy drinks, but knowing you need to sleep to be fit tomorrow. You are dead tired, but on the other side restless because of the caffeine. Though most know what it’s like, as most have suffered at one point in their life from sleepless nights. What about hallucinations or seeing something that isn’t there? Just remind them of a scenario they once had in their mind and relived. Or when they were daydreaming.
It is basically the same, just you are half awake therefor dream and reality kind of mix. Though this remains a very serious and alarming sign.
Personal Words [15:35]
Just another few personal words, seems like I am finally recovering from the visit of my visit. Family can be … difficult. Also we clearly overdid it there. Same as with PTSD, I am still a bit rocky. This chapter is also for me a complete new one and I face many new challenges for myself. Also I wasn’t intended to move so soon, but plans were changed and my worries ignored. But at least the big heat and humidity seems to be gone, that should make sleeping easier again - if my neighbor stops his random drilling. Otherwise I am enjoying living only with my pets.
Outro [16:34]
That was it for today’s episode - I hope you liked it. If you have any points still unanswered or unclear, please let me know. If you have any questions or feedback and the like, please let me know at contactme@johannadraconis.com. More information and transcript you can find as usually under johannadraconis.com/Podcast and links are in the description. I hope to see you next time. Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.
Episode 14 - PTSD therapy methods and abuse I
In this episode we examine the first 3 of the more common therapy methods, we examine what they are, for which form of PTSD they are useful and their downsides. In this case the methods are Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE or PET). The rest will be up next week.
Intro [0:00]
Hello, my name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast. Today we are going to talk about the different therapy methods and later on sadly about the abuse that can happen with them. Not every therapy is for everyone, different traumas work best with different therapies. I will not touch on medications, as there are too many factors to them and I wouldn’t recommend any medications on long distance. This is clearly out of my field of expertise.
Instead I hope to give some clarity and overview, which therapy might work best with you and your form of PTSD and symptoms.
Preamble [0:50]
First I am going to explain the problem with psychological diagnosis at the moment. After that we are going to go over the the therapy methods Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE or PET) in this episode. I had to split the episode, as the topic was more extensive than I originally thought it to be.
Problem with psychological diagnosis [1:20]
But before all of that, I just want to note the special difficulty that people face treating or having psychological problems: There is no effective measurement method. Imagine having to diagnose people by just what they say, even when they are 100% truthful, they still might give false information. Also the information they can give is limited. For an example: “My stomach hurts!” …. Now that might be a hint for some bad food, stress up to a potential lethal illness. Most likely the patient can’t give additional information. Imagine our success rate with those diagnoses IF we just could ask people and had no way of testing them. The importance of that can’t be overstated. There are now ways being developed to get a visual representation (as in form of brain scans, etc.), so that the doctor or therapist has a way to test for mental illnesses. I think this is very important and a step in the right direction and I hope we can soon easily discover mental illnesses this way. Especially since often people don’t even know they have one. At this point and age, the therapist or doctor or whoever can only help you as much as you can give him or her information. That limits them greatly. But before any therapy can effectively take place, you need to stabilize yourself, but we talked about that already in Episode 5 - Daily counter measures.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) [3:09]
The first therapy we take is the most classic therapy, the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT for short, which most psycho therapies usually are, so it is kind of an umbrella term. This therapy aims to change bad though patterns that disturb you from living a good life. Basically talking you out of your problems and getting rid of them and changing your behavior and way of thinking. We humans are social beings, that, if we talk about something with someone, will reopen and re access a memory package or topic package, etc. The therapist in this therapy version of course just not talks, but talks you through several scenarios or uses different methods to try to solve the issue. Important point: He is leading the conversation through his questions and gives the directions and of course tries to counter negative effects, feelings and the like as good as he can. Talking about a topic can also help us get new insights and view the topic form a new light and therefor be able to repackage it. It shouldn’t be so successful, but it was sort of a breakthrough. Before that we mostly treated the symptoms via pills or other methods, but that didn’t cure people… but talking did. We still have to learn a lot about the brain. After that we shifted more and more from the pill treatment and more toward talking treatment… or talking treatment with something to support it. This therapy is basically useful for every form of PTSD, but is significantly less effective, if the person has no or limited or tainted memory of the trauma or issue they are having. Kind of the universal treatment, but not always the most effective one.
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) [5:20]
Second we got the Cognitive Processing Therapy or CPT, it is very similar to the CBT, we just talked about. But there are some key differences.
For me the most important difference is, that in this therapy it is more of a cooperation/teamwork/etc., where the patient isn’t reduced to a passive and responding position. The second major difference is, that this method thinks the problem with PTSD stem from the old way of thinking (or the old you) is in conflict with the new way of thinking (or the new you). A traumatic experience changes a lot of people drastically, sometimes even core aspects who they used to be. It is not called without reason a ‘life changing event’. Some examples for this are your innocence or maybe trust in a person/institution/people/etc. or your whole life plan being thrown outside the window. As this therapy is more of a cooperation, a part of the therapy is to provide the patient with information about PTSD, emotions, the method, etc. So the patient get access to the tools he needs for the therapy. And third biggest difference is, that the person is supposed to write down what happened to him in detail and read it out loud in session and outside of it. The therapist is supposed to help you then with logical errors and wrong thinking in the text, etc. I think writing down the text is a great way to keep an overview of what happened, as it is easy to loose track. And if you try to keep it all in your head, it can be overwhelming and clocking your head.I absolutely think it is crucial to give the patient information about his treatment, the illness and how emotions/trauma/etc. work. The reading out loud part often even out of therapy is taken from the Prolonged Exposure Therapy, which is the next we discuss and I go in detail there regarding constant exposure.But the reading out loud part can be an issue itself, as speaking or saying something make it become some truth, especially often repeated. There is a good reason why for training and brain washing we let people constantly repeat what we want them to learn, because this way you kind of overwrite it into your brain.
You can use this technology in a positive way like with the mantra we talked about in Episode 4 - In case of an emergency. If I ignore the reading out part, then I can recommend it to traumas, where there is a lot going on or where there was no way to keep overview of what exactly is happening.
Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PET) [8:34]
In the third spot we have the Prolonged Exposure Therapy or PE or PET, which on one side aims for making you face the things you are avoiding, but also for the trauma itself. And important part of this therapy is the teaching of what PTSD is, how the therapy works and breathing techniques, etc. to help you control the strong feelings.You are supposed to make a list with avoiding behavior you are doing, so that you can either face them in reality (if safely possible) or imaginative. This is the point where the therapy description splits. Some leave it there and other take it one step further: The patient is asked to talk about his traumatic experience, reliving it, which gets recorded. The patient is then told to listen to his recordings daily or regularly. This way the symptoms are supposed to be reduced. I have a lot of issues with this method and I will talk why in a second, but first let me focus on the positive: I think the list of avoiding behavior is an excellent idea. This way you have it in black and white what you are avoiding and might find some hints about the trauma. I am also a fan of facing the situations you are avoiding out of fear — IF you removed the trigger first. The assisted facing is a great security line, in case you are not as ready as you think or to have someone you can lean on, as it can still be very difficult. Most sources, and I will line myself up with them, underlined the importance, that this makes sense, if the behavior is getting out of control and that normal avoiding behavior can be good. As this is the brain trying to protect itself and if the brain is barely holding on, adding to that situation could be harmful up to destructive. The same as avoiding stairs with a hurt knee makes sense. The aim should be to restore as much quality of life as possible. I do think one of the most important things it to face your PTSD, if you want to get cured. It won’t just go away. Then there is the second part, which is my biggest gripe with this method: The constant exposure to the trauma to reduce the symptoms. This is supposed to make the trauma less and less traumatic and reduce symptoms. But it just makes you the person numb, which is not really a good thing. Imagine you are having an injury on your lower leg from a kick during a football game, what if in response to that the medic would keep hitting it until that part of leg goes numb? This might be a crass example, but it underlines my issue with this method: This is not treating the illness it’s to desensitize the patient to the whole ordeal. Which might work for a while, but what then? The trauma won’t go away like this, you just make it normal and I can tell you, that only lasts so long, before the issue returns. What is supposed to change this way? I really can’t recommend it in any shape or form, on contrary I am shocked that some people think that this is a good idea. Only referring to the second part of course. I think the first part is a great tool for helping you get back into life, dealing with the avoidance behavior and is a good way to improve your quality of life.
Personal Words [12:25]
And this is where I am going to split this episode… might be better because I am really upset about the last method and I want to be fair and neutral to the other therapy forms. I actually had heard of PET before, but had hoped, that I only misunderstood it, but nope. I understand that most of them most likely mean well, but this therapy should have stayed with phobia treatment. It is hard for me calm down, after something that harms people. Especially since I know what it is like. Still I need to be more calm about this and I am curious what your experiences with those other methods were.
Outro [13:15]
That was it for todays episode, I hoped I could give some clarity to some of the more commonly known therapy methods… well 3 of them. More come next week. If you have any questions or feedback and the like, please let me know at contactme@johannadraconis.com. More information and transcript you can find as usually under johannadraconis.com/Podcast and links are in the description. I hope to see you next time. Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.
Episode 15 - PTSD therapy methods and abuse (II)
In this episode we examine the last of the more common therapy methods, EMDR, the eye movement therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing to be precise), things that are helpful, may it be supportive behavior or therapies and patient abuse, which is sadly a thing that occurs and needs to be talked about.
Intro [0:00]
Hello, my name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast. In this episode I will go over the remaining therapy methods and touch on some additional helpful methods. After that we are going over the abuse that can happen during therapy.
Preamble [0:22]
Last week we covered Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE or PET).This week we are going to do EMDR, the eye movement therapy, things that are helpful and patient abuse.
EMDR [0:46]
First we start off with the EMDR, the eye movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, therapy, this therapy is THE topic right now among therapists. Heralded as the solution to all. Which is unfortunately not true. First off, there is no need for eye movement, it is completely enough to just look absent in the distance, so you don’t even need someone waving anything in front of your eyes, but for some it does help to focus. Its a deep form of relaxation, like hypnosis is. There is still a strong debate going on, how it exactly works, but it seems not like the original creator thought it does. It is rather amusing. So what does this therapy do? You are basically going in direct communication with your subconsciousness, while revisiting the trauma with assistance of the therapist. So, what are you doing? You are like in a movie walk into the memory that is the trauma and now can judge it with current state of mind, without being lost to the situation. This method is this beloved for a good reason, it IS wonderful what it does and is quite similar to my method, but goes for a different field of PTSD. What do I mean by that? Well this method is excellent at correcting wrong memories. This method is extremely helpful, if you can gain new insight, by reliving the moment. Also it helps to reduce some symptoms by creating clarity. Unlike Prolonged Exposure it doesn’t just revisit it, but actively interacts with the memory. That means it can correct false memory you have or maybe add things, that add more clarity. Most effective against phobias, as they are usually learned or caused by an exaggerated memory, so this does wonders. But like I said, only IF you gain new insight by revisiting the memory. For example, when you are a child and find a dead body, you will think you murdered him, because no one else is there. With EMDR you can revisit and realize, wait, I didn’t do it, someone else did. Or when there were like 50 things going on, while it happened and you get clarity this way. Or if you feel like you could have done something, but in truth you were far away. The mind plays tricks on us. But for example, if you saw your friend die in front of you, revisiting that moment won’t change that. Nor will it change the memory of rape, abuse, etc. So it’s actually pretty limited for PTSD. I recommend using it if there is any way revisiting the moment with a clear mind would help you and I do think the therapy is a step in the right direction, but sadly it isn’t the solution for all cases as many claim.
Things that are helpful [4:15]
Now we go to things, that are helpful, but not really a therapy (like the ones before) on its own, but can greatly improve your stability and quality of life.
First, the Group therapy. As I said in previous podcasts, we are social beings and knowing we are not alone with something is incredible helpful. It is so good to have someone you can talk about it. As most non PTSD people don’t really understand you and that can make you feel even more isolated. I highly recommend it, especially if you don’t have a strong PTSD support network in your social circle. Additionally the others might have some helpful tips how to handle symptoms and other side effects of PTSD. It might help you deal with some trigger cores. Just be careful, that you are not pulling each other down and solidify your victim role - which shouldn’t happen under guided group therapy.
Second is Art Therapy or Music therapy. Art or music can sometimes articulate something, when words fail or we don’t know what to say. Art and music are a way of communication - without words obviously. Especially if you have trouble describing or pin pointing was is bothering you, this therapy can help you find the answer - you might even not have been looking for.
Third is Food, yes really. Your body needs energy, which he best gets from good food. Our stomach is in some ways connected to your wellbeing, so good food is important. Which I know is hard to make, if you are in full PTSD mode. Just try to let it be as good as it can be and have an look out for it.
Fourth is Sleep and/or Relaxation, as I just mentioned your body needs energy, so no surprise that sleeping is helpful. It is also important to learn relaxation methods. May it be yoga, Progressive Muscle Relaxation (Or PMR), Autogenic training, Qi Gong and so much more. For each person something else works best, so find what works best for you. It is so important to be able to relax, because first you get energy and secondly it helps reduce symptoms a lot. The importance of that can’t be overstated.
Final conclusion [7:19]
In the end I have to say, I find the variety and quality of therapy methods lacking. I am no longer surprised that EMDR is considered the holy grail of PTSD treatment. It is the only one that actively interacts with the trauma and is closest to truly understanding PTSD. The understanding of PTSD was overall lacking. I never thought it would be THIS limited. I actually planned to do 2 more therapy methods, but found them rather fringe methods and pretty similar to the ones mentioned before, so I cut them. It really shows that psychology is still in it’s infant stage and most likely will remain there, until we can run tests for it. I recommend the basic Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT, if EMDR doesn’t apply to you. This really shocked me, as I thought the lack of therapy available was only my problem because of my autism. This triggered my survivor’s guilt, as I had no idea the situation was this bad. I will try to increase my efforts for my method and most likely give it a proper description or rundown on my homepage.
Patient abuse [8:47]
Even while I researched this episode, I found it. Some therapist claiming, that if the EMDR isn’t working, it is the patients fault and that the patient doesn’t want to recover. They are blaming the victim - quite literally. It is a shame, that many therapist can’t keep their own personal view - not opinion - out of the therapy and projecting on the patient. Though that is the mildest form of patient abuse, which we are going to talk about now. And for the patient it is hard to say anything, because most have no idea about psychology most of the time. The patient is at their most vulnerable and trust the therapist to help them - is at their mercy - and then things happen. The patients usually feels guilty and thinks, it is something they did wrong. I mean the therapist knows what he is doing right? And I mean it is to help me right? You always have the right to say no - even if you can’t argue why. If it makes you uncomfortable - you have the right to say stop. Patient abuse can go up to literally sexual abuse - the German times recently wrote an article about it. The actual clinic, doctor, etc abuse I will cover in a different episode - as it is a topic on its own. Even my mother was victim to patient abuse herself - which I helped her through it after the appointment - luckily it was just the mild form. She was very confused and even though she knew better, she thought herself to be wrong, as the therapist was the expert and she felt out of her field of expertise. Typical for an abuse of power position. The problem is, even if the patient recognizes that he was abused, he won’t do or say anything - as the therapist is felt much more believable than themselves. This can cause a trauma. There are abusers who especially take those kind of jobs, because they know their victim would never go up against them and is to helpless or weak to do so. They also have to break a wall of silence. The topic of patient abuse is very extensive and I can go into detail if it is wished, but I feel like this would go beyond this episode. But to make a short summary: A good therapist should help build up your independence and confidence and you should feel save and secure with him or her. Isolating you or feeling like you need him, are huge red flags, which shouldn’t be ignored.
Private Words [12:03]
Just some private words here at the end. As you know I am an autist, a pretty strong one at that. I rated 183 of 200 points in an Internet test - which needs to be taken with a grain of salt of course - but nonetheless. I am having very strong symptoms - but usually can manage. I was tested in the clinic, specialized as 1 of 6 places here in Germany and got the confirmation. Now I filed for my handicap being recognized by the state. Which they didn’t give me, but instead ADD, which doesn’t even count as handicap anymore when you are an adult. And which doesn’t give me access to the support I need. So I filed a lawsuit, as otherwise I am stuck with this my whole life and have no chance of changing it. Which was declined this Friday, because I managed to finish school and therefor couldn’t be handicapped. At least according to the consulting doctor. That I was missing literally 60% of the time and other details were naturally not asked. Good to know that my last weeks of struggle were just my imagination.
Ah bureaucracy - the true religion of Germany. I am sorry, but in those kind of situation only gallows humor helps. I talk with my lawyer, but I don’t expect any help or change soon.
Outro [13:47]
That was it for todays episode - I hope it gave you some insights in the - though limited - options you can take. Please don’t hesitate to speak up if you feel the therapist stepped out of line. He or she is only human too. If you have any questions or feedback and the like, please let me know at contactme@johannadraconis.com. More information and transcript you can find as usually under johannadraconis.com/Podcast and links are in the description. I hope to see you next time. Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.
Episode 16 - Why your brain NEEDS to understand trauma
In this episode we deal with the most imporant part of the therapy - the understanding of the trauma. We go into more detail why it is so important, how the brain works, what the difference between knowing and understanding is, how we can train it and why you can't just talk away the trauma.
Intro [0:00]
Hello, my name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast. In this episode I will talk about the key difference to the previous methods and why it is SO important that your brain understands trauma. I feel like after the last 2 episode I have to do this, as I am truly shook by the situation. This is a key aspect of the removal of the trauma and ignoring it or showing so little focus on it, shows a extreme flaw in the therapy methods explained in the last episode.
Preamble [0:40]
The last episode really left a mark on me. I mean I knew the situation was bad (the official 20 daily suicides of veterans was a strong hint /s), but I didn’t realize the issues were this deep. I thought to create this podcast as a nice addition, as in giving people the support to stabilize themselves and to complement existing therapy. But now I almost feel like I bit off more than I can chew. I think it is crucial to give all the information to the patient, so there is little confusion and the patient can make an informed decision and actively change something. Putting such little emphasis on that shows a true lack of deeper understanding the structure and way of PTSD. Just to be clear: I don’t think there is bad intent by the therapist or anyone - just a lack of knowledge. So in this episode I will try to explain what I see as the key difference: Why the brain needs to understand the trauma and why you can’t just talk it away.
Why the brain needs to understand trauma - How the brain works [1:49]
But why does the brain need to understand it? Let us go back how our brain processes memories, traumas, experiences, etc. They go through several filters in the brain.
If you want to test them out, I recommend trying to listen to someone talk, while reading and trying to speak yourself. Reading, writing, language, speaking and listening share the same filter. And similar to a sorting machine in a factory, each filter is there to send the piece of information to the right section, where it can be stored. Everything needs a place.
If it isn’t stored in a set place, it will roll around and make the factory a harder place to work in. Usually our brain is more than capable of storing the information in a proper way - it is its job after all. You might have noticed, that sometimes you need a bit longer to - so to say - stomach a information. That is what you could consider a mini trauma and your brain has trouble sorting it in the categories. Usually during this time you keep thinking about it, which allows you to chip something away from the trauma each time you do it. Until you brain is finally able to do it itself. But now there is the trauma and there is no way the brain can sort it - so it asked the big brain - aka you - for help by flashbacks, visions or hallucinations, etc. Which you will most likely ignore until the PTSD breaks out. At this point the whole factory is in disarray and you have to fix now all of it. But how do we do it? You need to understand the trauma - because this way you can split it off into smaller pieces. Smaller pieces means you brain can throw it in the sorting machine and it can get all sorted out. If it is properly stored, it will no longer bother you. No trigger, nothing. Maybe an uncomfortable feeling remembering it.
Because if the memory is in a store unit - it is under control. But the trauma is too big and too complex for the brain to do that - unlike you.
Why the brain needs to understand trauma - The difference between knowing and understanding [4:18]
You are - unlike the brain - capable of exchanging information, get new insights and do long term projects. That is what is needed to deal with it. But why such an emphasis on understanding? Well, like in the real world, only if you truly understand something, be it cooking, sports, anything really - you can do it proper.
It doesn’t matter if I have the answer, as me telling you wouldn’t help you. Because as soon a tiny bit changes, you would be at your wits end again and have to ask again. Better for you to understand it truly. It might even be that you KNOW the solution to your trauma, but that doesn’t mean you understand it. What do I mean by that? Well, do you remember school?
Did you ever had the situation, where you thought you know the topic, but in the tests, you couldn’t answer the questions? The difference between knowing and understanding is - that you are capable of applying the knowledge to vastly different situations and that you are able to explain it. Especially in simple words.
Why the brain needs to understand trauma - Learn to explain [5:34]
Because if you can explain it in simple words - means - you are capable of dissecting it and joggle around with its parts as you please. And THATS what you need to do: Able to take it apart - literally. Because if you truly understand something, you understand what parts there are, what they are there for and how it is set together. Like a cooking recipe, car, Lego construction, etc. But how can you train it? Here is what I do: I imagine I am being in a talk show - pick show and host you like, but it has to be an audience there. Size doesn’t matter. We ignore the consequences which would occur if everyone knew. So I am in a situation, where I am getting asked about my trauma, while I have to explain it in terms, that the audience understands it. You can also write it down if that is easier. But what it does is: You are required to explain everything step by step and then you should see the gaps and jumps in your logic. Because you might have noticed, when you explain things, that it isn’t as easy and you often realize, that you don’t have such a clear picture as you thought you had. Want an example? Quick! Tell me how to do jumping jacks and push ups, but without showing me of course. You should know how to do them, so explaining should be easy, no?
So you could say, that you basically have to explain the trauma to your brain. So it can learn and understand it.
Why the brain needs to understand trauma - Summary [7:24]
The key is really, that YOU understand the trauma and yes - you can do it. Maybe you need a little support. I am sure your therapist is willing to help you. I could tell you the answer, but that wouldn’t help you. That is why I use the Socratic method - aka keep asking question - to help other people. Why do you feel like this? Why do you think that? Why do you feel like you have to do this? I have faith in you and your ability to do that - it is okay to stumble, it happens to the best of us - but just ~keep~ ~on~ ~going~. It is a long path, but definitely worth it.
Why you can’t just talk it away [8:11]
But now the question remains: Why can’t you just talk it away? You can reduce the size of the trauma by talking about it, but it just grows back in time. Sooner or later.
That is a big problem with PTSD: It keeps coming back. There is a good reason why I put so much emphasis on removing it and not just treating it. There are a lot of ways to make the trauma small. So that the factory can go back to work, so that is what most people do. Most of the time, PTSD treatment is just to reduce it’s symptoms. So that a normal life is possible again… rinse and repeat. Until you are too old and too weak. I have seen this so often and breaks my heart. I feel them. I thought that that would be my fate.
The problem with talking is: That is does help, but it changes nothing, unless you gain an understanding by it. But that is usually not possible by only talking about it.
ESPECIALLY if you are just the passive receiver. Which happens if you wait for instructions or help from the therapist - because this way you become dependent on your therapist. The cycle repeats itself. It is very hard for people who where dominated for a long time to stand up for themselves and form their own opinion about something.
It is important to support them in finding their own voice, which usually happens by making experiences and training to form an opinion again - best starting at something as trivial as the breakfast egg. So just talking won’t help the issue - but actively gaining understanding will - in which ever form fits you best. Sometimes that is someone talking to you and explaining you step by step, while assisting you.
Private Words [10:37]
A few private words at the end of the podcast. I finally manage to redo the website, at least for now, as a homepage is a never ending process. I try to separate the work into smaller parts. There are now finally pictures of me uploaded, in case you want a face to my voice - as I know how hard it is to have a voice and no face attached to it. As usual I would appreciate feedback if you want that or not. Otherwise I was sadly rather sick - my body is telling me to not overdo myself - but I do have the tendency of overdoing it. Not a wise thing - I definitely can’t recommend it. Not that that ever stopped me. You might hear it in my voice still. The last topic was really hard on me and I slowly stomached it.
Outro [11:39]
That was it for todays episode - I hope I could explain to you WHY it is so important and emphasis it so much. If you have any questions or feedback and the like, please let me know at contactme@johannadraconis.com. More information and transcript you can find as usually under johannadraconis.com/Podcast and links are in the description.
I hope to see you next time. Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.
Episode 17 - Overcoming darkness and signs of healing
In this episode I go over what helped me get through the darkest times of my life, then about signs you are getting betters, then signs you are healed and in the end the difference between healed and cured. I hope with this episode to help people get through dark times and give them something to look forward to.
Intro [0:00]
Hello my dears! My name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast. In this episode I will talk about what might help you through your darker moments and signs you are getting better or healed. I wanted to try a more positive episode, after the last ones have been rather hard. After this we will go more into more practical territory again. For this episode I first want you to give you some tips how to get through the darker moment and what ways you can see you are getting better.
Preamble [0:36]
The last episodes made me realize that I viewed my position in a wrong way… so I try to be more than a mere explainer of a method. I also realized the last episodes were a bit negative and heavy, so I am trying to focus more on positive aspects and support. And do not worry: Healing isn’t linear. It is okay to sometimes fall a bit back. I think the saying is 2 steps forward - 1 step back. As long you keep on moving you will get there eventually. I know how desperate you can get during the worse times of this nightmare - and that you sometimes just need someone to tell you everything is going to be alright. So first I want to tell you what helped me get through my darkest moment, signs you are getting better, signs you are healed and the difference between healed and cured.
What helped me get through my darkest moment [1:44]
Well, to be honest I did get inspiration from Harry Potter for this. A little back story. You might think of the movies and books what you will, but Rowling nailed the description of deep Depression with the Dementors. And pretty well the empty feeling of PTSD as well. Those things guard a prison by keeping the prisoners in a state of deep depression, the reason no one could escape, as all happy thoughts were sucked out of them. But one figured out they could only block happy thoughts. The thought I was innocent, was not a happy thought.
So it still gave him enough energy to survive those years, stay sane and gather enough energy to escape. I did the same thing, but my line was ‘It will pass’. Not a happy thought, as it HASN’T passed yet and no information WHEN it will pass. Another translation could be “it will be over”, but that is even more inaccurate. Es geht vorbei - in case you can speak German. Everything passes, the good and the bad. That is good. Because as bad it is, that good things pass, it means the bad things will inevitable pass. This will not make you smile, but it can be your sheet anchor you can rely on, in case the sea gets rough. Of course this might not be the right sentence for you - you are free to create your own. Just remember it is not allowed to be happy or attached to anything good. Just a matter of fact. Depression and PTSD will turn and twist everything to your disadvantage, that makes a stereotypical mean wife look tame. But they can’t change facts or truths, that is why they are also so important and the key to defeating the illness - as it the only thing able to reach it without being changed. Only the truth will set you free.
Signs that you are getting better [4:09]
There are signs you ARE getting better and more free. Imagine your psyche being a person caught in a net or a set of strings, the more free wiggle room you have - the better you can free yourself from it. But in the beginning - you can barely move - if at all. So what are the signs you are getting better?
Well first I noticed the intensity of my symptoms lessened. Yes the symptoms have kind of a cycle - like moon - where it goes up and down in a rhythm, but the ups got slightly higher and the lows not as low. I mentioned stock market trend lines as a good resemblance of that. A good way to compare it - is either looking back or writing down the symptoms intensity on a scale.
Second I noticed I was able to make better choices. My choices now lead to way fewer times backfiring or harming me or causing me even more trouble. It was like getting out of a fog… a form of clarity in the brain. It is like before something was blocking your brain from making specific decisions… and suddenly you are faster and better at decision making. Thinking is so much easier.
Thirdly, I must say, the best way to see if I am getting better is my sleeping pattern. As soon as it escalated I knew… something is wrong. From up to getting 12h too late to bed, everything inbetween is possible. There is of course also the quality of the sleep. Do I sleep 12h and still feel like I haven’t slept at all and was beaten in my sleep? Then I am clearly not well. So how ‘refreshed’ you feel in the morning is also an indicator.
Fourthly, I noticed that suddenly I just could do things. Usually it would take me ages to get myself to fill the dishwasher, but suddenly I got it done… later even immediately and had even energy to do more. It wasn’t like I felt much different energy wise, but suddenly I could do things with the energy I had - even if it wasn’t much. So if you can do more? That is a good sign.
Fifthly, and this is VERY important, I felt love again. Emotions are also attacked by PTSD… everything is dull, that includes our emotions for people. Your heart is filling with joy of the thought of seeing someone? That is a good sign. Even one of my closest relationship felt like a distant acquaintance. So finally feeling emotions and relationship feelings is a good sign you are getting better. It is incredible what this nightmare takes away from you.
First signs of being healed [7:27]
We have just had the signs we are getting better, but what are signs you are being healed - but not yet cured? It is a safe assumption that the signs you are getting better can be used as well. So no more symptoms, always making better choices, a complete normal sleeping pattern, just be able to do stuff without problem and easily feel love and loved. No surprises here. I would also add, that the stress level is greatly reduced and curve ball coming out of nowhere can be managed quite alright. You can appreciate and absorb beauty.
This is also the point where your brain should stop working against you at - every - turn. Your energy level is significantly increased.
You get your quality of life improvements: Food tastes again, you are in mood for something, emotions aren’t damped anymore, body feels like your own again and so on.
Important are the lack of flashbacks and other typical symptoms are no longer present. If this status persist over several months you are officially considered PTSD free.
Difference between healed and cured [8:45]
Now you might be wondering, why I used the word healed and not cured? Well healed means you reduced PTSD to a rubble, but cured means it is gone. That means you can stomp on your trigger, without being truly disturbed. But there is a stronger sign I want to point out: Peace. The feeling of utter peace and relaxation. No more fear. Truly resting in yourself.
I mean not calm, calm you get by healed. I talk about true and deep peace. The peace that lets you know you could life an eternity with yourself. It is possible, but a long path and I am deeply convinced, that everyone can take it… if they have enough time left. The path from healed to cured isn’t all too long, but you have to walk it. Otherwise you are like the villain in those superhero movies, who walks away from an almost dead superhero and thinks, that this will never bite him in the butt. And we are smarter than that, right? I know that for many this seems so impossible far away and unreachable, but I can assure you it is possible. Just focus on the next section on your path and keep on moving. You will get there.
Private Words [10:25]
I recently realized, that I mentioned my arms, but not what I mean by that. Well the beating I received seemed to have more long lasting consequences than I thought: My arms nerves seem to be damaged. Through coincidence I realized that my fingers are kind of numb, my feet are giving me more input than my fingers. And then I went investigating. While demonstrating the problem I overdid it and we had to go to the hospital. Well it seems they are either dead, “deactivated” or damaged… a measuring of it was supposed to be given the answer. I was told to go to my neurologist, but because of the move and all - it did not happen. Luckily surgeon was never my dream job, as I can hardly control my arm and hand motions. I AM scared of loosing my arms totally, but I also think it would be temporarily - because medicine is making incredible strides - but I REALLY hope it doesn’t get this far.
Outro [11:39]
And that was it for todays episode - I am still trying to fully understand the role I am in now, but I honestly hope that this episode will help you through dark times … or at least give you hope or something to aim for. I know it can be terrifying, but you are not alone and the dark times are not as powerful as they like to appear. Breathe, take it easy and step by step.
I plan to return to the more PTSD side of things. I have a long list of topics I can and want to talk about. As usual, if you have any questions or feedback and the like, please let me know at contactme@johannadraconis.com. More information and transcript you can find as usually under johannadraconis.com/Podcast and links are in the description.
I hope to see you next time. Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.
Episode 18 - Shame (I)
In this episode we talk about shame - in this episode spefically about the shame about your current situation and the shame about telling anyone about it. Shame is sadly a topic that is used by abuser and is something, that keeps lips sealed and wounds open. That is why it is important to talk about it.
Intro [0:00]
Hello my dears! My name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast.
In this episode we will talk about Shame, first as something that makes your everyday hard, then in the next episode we move on to get deeper into the topic of shame until we get to shame as a trigger core.
It is a topic that keeps lips sealed and wounds open and helps the tormentor as a useful tool - so it is important that we talk about it.
Before we even start this episode I want to say that no one deserves to be humiliated and shamed… especially if they confess something that is a deep wound to them.
Shame is important for a mistake we did and shouldn’t have done, it is in our responsibility to act then accordingly and try to make up for what we did wrong. But it also is sadly used as a tool.
Preamble [1:03]
While I was communicating with several people with PTSD via chats and forums - one topic kept coming up: Shame. In several types and shapes. May it be as a tool used, a form of punishment or just as a side effect.
We are going to start from small to big, that means: We first talk about shame about your current situation and then shame about telling it to someone in this episode.
Then in the next episode we talk about shame because of the reactions, then shame about what you did and then shame about what happened to you.
After that we will probably talk about how shame is used a method to silence people.
Shame: Current situation - Status [1:54]
I think I will hit close to home with shame about your current situation, if you are affected by PTSD. Even though it is usually not your fault, as PTSD tends to completely change your life.
It is bad enough as is it, but it is even worse, when you see everyone moving forward and you’re… kind of standing still.
The worst part for me was, I actually couldn’t even give a good reason…. It is hard to put in words what happens during the healing phase. So actually the honest answer to “What are you doing so?”was“I don’t know”.
The questions about that was one part why I stopped meeting strangers. Though later I settled with “I am recovering from a severe illness”… which took me longer than I want to admit to come up with.
When you have basically nothing to do, because you can’t, you also have a lot of time about thinking how miserable you are at the moment. Which makes it all just worse. So I feel you - strongly.
But it isn’t your fault. You are sick, sadly not visibly so. An open wound you can show around and people can see the progress… but with PTSD… what can they see? I filled the dishwasher twice this week? - Rather not.
You might even remember a time when you COULD do more… and can offer no explanation why you can’t anymore.
It is like you are walking in a storm, as if it isn’t hard enough to move AT ALL - you occasionally get hit by something that the storm brought out of nowhere.
Shame: Current situation - Take your time [3:53]
I would like to remind everyone to remember, if they can, the last time they recovered from something big - like an operation, mourning, severe illness and the like. You were just exhausted and done.
The same applies here… I know how hard it is, but take your time. You have such limited amounts of energy in your state, that if you move to fast you just get exhausted and your symptoms will get worse.
Your life story is your own, you don’t need to compare it to anyone. Just to yourself. Don’t think about what the other can do and you can’t… but what you done in the last months to years.
You don’t know the other person life, think about the person you know best… and how little you still know about them. How can you value the lives of others by brief glimpse of their life?
Studies have shown that woman who regularly look into fashion magazine are more unhappy with their body and it harms their mental health.
Social media also spreads unhappiness because of the constant comparing and some other things - as people see a glimpse of the others person life and think they are living the perfect life.
I recommend finding people to talk with… or chat with… especially online has a lot of opportunities… often with people in similar situations who usually respect privacy.
It can be so helpful to have someone to talk to… about anything! Also this gives you positive experiences and feedback, also very valuable.
Your life might be in need of improving, but you are working on it and that is all anyone can ask of you - there is absolutely no reason for you to feel ashamed. You get where you want to go - one step at a time.
Shame: Telling it to someone - The doubts [6:09]
Another thing many struggle with, is, to tell anyone what is happening or their recent situation. They are often too ashamed about what happen and what the reaction will be. To the second part we get soon.
But first let us focus about being too ashamed to tell anyone. It is no surprise… having a trauma is like a defeat… it is not something you want to spread and make everyone aware of.
Secondly there is often the doubt… DID it really happen? Am I imagining things? Am I sure I am not being overly dramatic? Maybe that is a problem everyone had and it is no big deal.
Especially if ridicule was part of the traumatic experience or growing up - speaking up can become this insane hurdle, that makes speaking about it almost impossible. It is like the lips are sealed.
And no matter how much you shout form the inside - you just don’t seem to be able to get it out. It is something very hard to unlearn.
Shame: Telling it to someone - Your rights [7:22]
But first before we get into the why, lets make one thing crystal clear: You DON’T have to tell anyone anything you don’t want to. We talked about that in communicating PTSD with family members.
It is perfectly fine for your to say, that you are recovering from your illness or that you can’t work for health reason. If anyone wants details, say you are uncomfortable to disclose them.
I think you might be surprised how well that works. You don’t own anyone anything, not an explanation, nor do you need to justify yourself. Your health is your private thing.
Secondly, you are doing nothing shameful. Why is it shameful to tell anyone about it? You have the right as much as anyone else to say what is weighing on your soul.
They have no right to talk down to you for it. You are not being stupid, arrogant, selfish or any other word they used to silence you. Why would you be?
The only people who would want you to remain silent, are the ones harming you. Those who care, care about how the others feelings are and care about their wellbeing.
You have a voice. And it is your right to speak as much as does everyone else. Your voice is as important as is everyone else's. Why wouldn’t it be? You are as important as everybody else.
Private Words [9:03]
I apologize for the shorter episode and presumably my voice, I am not sure what I caught, but it is really hard to get rid of and very disrupting.
Besides that, most residents of my building complex and the neighboring ones are coming back, as they are mostly students and their semester is starting very soon.
I rather enjoy being surrounded by them, as they have a pretty much live and let live philosophy and shrug just with their shoulders if they see me behaving uncommonly.
They aren’t really behaving commonly or typical as well… they just started living on their own… and it’s a wonderful thing to watch.
Though I have to admit, listen to some of their worries or thoughts, when I walk past them to go with my dog, are rather amusing to me. Oh my dear… it feels like a century when I was in their shoes.
I wish them the best for their path and journey.
Outro [10:19]
That was it for todays episode, next week we get deeper into this topic and I hope it helped you get insight and be at least a bit freed of this sort of shame.
If you have any questions or feedback and the like, please let me know at contactme@johannadraconis.com.
More information and transcript you can find as usually under johannadraconis.com/Podcast and links are in the description.
I hope to see you next time. Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.
Episode 19 - Shame (II) - Shame caused by the reactions of others
In this episode we talk about shame - in this episode spefically about the feeling of shame regarding the reactions of people. Explaning your situation can lead to unhelpful reactions. So, we first talk about them, the caring and the uncaring ones, then what we can do about them. Afterwards we talk about why this is so effective on us.
Intro [0:00]
Hello my dears! My name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast. In this episode we will talk about Shame again, this time we go a bit deeper - shame about how people reacted. After we talked last episode about the shame of your current situation or telling it anyone, we talk about shame caused by the reaction from others. Once again, before we start this episode I want to say that no one deserves to be humiliated and shamed… especially if they confess something that is a deep wound to them.
Preamble [0:40]
Like many other things, shame has its uses. It is an important tool for us as society to tell a member of it, that it’s behaving wrong. Children learn this way how to behave… as do adults.
Though like everything we have, do and use, it can be twisted into something harmful. It can be used to silence victims and critical voices, one doesn’t like. It is very effective.
So we first talk about shame caused by the reaction of others, the caring and uncaring ones and what we can do about them and why it is so effective on us.
Shame caused by the reaction from others - Caring people [1:23]
So let us get into feeling shame based on the reaction from others. If you feel shame because of how they reacted rather disturbed or looking to the ground or so, it might be wise to remember, that for many this information will come out of nowhere. They often never have heard about it before, nor were they aware, so now you hit them with this information and they don’t even know what to do. Some might even laugh… some deny any of what you said. Laughing can be a sign of embarrassment, or an attempt to cover it up and distract from it. That is also why some people laugh on funerals. The brain is trying to handle the situation.
In this situation it might be better to take a few steps (for your own wellbeing) and then write to them (or whatever way fits you best) and calmly explain the situation.
This will give them the opportunity to give a thought out answer and they don’t feel pressed on the spot to react in a certain way, while they try to figure out what is going on.
Most likely they don’t know what that means, what it all includes and the implications. Maybe you still don’t know yourself, which makes it even more confusing.
Best is to take a few steps back. Breathe. And inform them and yourself if needed. If someone has good intentions regarding you, then they are definitely worth fighting for.
Shame caused by the reaction from others - Non caring people [3:03]
But on the other hand - if the reaction is genuinely negative, shame on them. If you genuinely care about someone, you try to comfort them. You care about their well being.
Making you feel silly, stupid, overreacting, overemotional, unworthy and the like, is not okay. Not in any way, shape or form. You by no means deserve to be treated this way.
But even with logic by our side, it is hard not to fall to the feeling of being ashamed. What good is the truth, when you sit alone in your room? Being right and getting right are separated phrases for good reason. And the pain and the hurt and maybe a feeling of betrayal aren’t lessened by it either. So one thing ahead, it will suck and it will hurt. Why? Because you are mourning the loss of that relationship. You might bargain with yourself, that the relationship you have with them is better than having none at all, but deep down you know that that is not true. But many fear being alone in this world. Additionally is PTSD often causing to act in a self harming way. We seek the punishment, we think we deserve. Subconsciously. Which reaffirms the believes we get from PTSD… and the circle continues.
Shame caused by the reaction from others - Non caring people - What to do? [4:44]
So how do we break it? Best course of action would be of course, to cut all those connections and to look for new ones. This should - after a time of mourning - increase your happiness and stability greatly. But sadly most of the time, you are most likely in a too unstable position to pull it off. So we are doing it step by step. First we need an alternative stabilizing social network. I recommend the web for 2 reasons: First you don’t need to go anywhere and can reach anyone all the time. While connected around the world no one is wondering why you are awake at this hour. Secondly it is easy to get distance if needed. The social network online is becoming too much for you? Just turn it off then. There doesn’t need to be a confrontation if you don’t want to. The third reason I can only recommend for a specific group: So you can keep it secret. Sadly getting in contact with abusing/toxic people is pretty standard for people suffering from PTSD. Those people can spot us easily and know how easily we are controlled… Because deep down we think we deserve to get treated this way. Which is of course wrong, but it sadly still happens. Those people would never let you have any alternative friends or contacts, because they could give you the self confidence that they are so actively sabotaging. So it is best to keep it a secret… if you can’t cut them out of your life right away. It might not feel like this at the start, but you will feel so much better without them in your life. Because in the end of the day, the fault lies with them and not with you. They are acting shameful, for not looking out and caring for their friend. Especially in this time of dire need. If you have trouble determining which those people are - imagine the world is ending in 6 hours. Who would you want to spend these last hours with? Like they are, not the way you wish they were. Who is it? In the presence of who do you feel save, comfort, happy (or least happier) and want to stay with? If there is no one immediately coming to your mind, then I think it is time for new people in your life.
Shame caused by the reaction from others - Why is it so effective? [7:30]
With all that in mind, you might ask yourself, why is all of this so effective on me? Even when I know better, I find it very hard to go against it? Well, there is a good reason why it is such a useful tool. As a person suffering from PTSD you are close to being an outcast. It means usually you are not able to work, your health isn’t the best and you often can’t stand on your own. You have now more or less the status of a handicapped person. Similar to a sudden accident, where you get handicapped, you will most likely have lost a lot of people and are met often with a lack of understanding. With that comes your place at the corner of society, where being friends with you has no real benefit. You have no power in this position and no longer are good for networking. Friends often will leave you. This is often referred to as fair weather friends, I call them hillies. Running to the hill by the first sight of trouble. I know that it is extremely painful, but their behavior is wrong… and you know it. It doesn’t matter if you are actively aware of it, but most likely you are aware of it. That is why you feel under such stress, you can feel you are on the corner and scared to fall off the border. And that is why the vultures and toxic people are circling you. They know you are pretty cornered and therefor can be easily controlled. Because you can barely move and evade their attacks. You are at your most vulnerable, which makes the negative reaction by those around you SO powerful. It is hard to take a hit for something, if you already on the edge. You should tread carefully. But even if you are on the border of society, it does not mean you are worth any less, and if some people think that, they are wrong and you should consider how much you want them in your life.
Private Words [10:02]
I should have known what knocked me out so badly. Every time there is flu season I get it, most of the times even before most other do. This time it is no different. But luckily it is leaving me. We have a saying: The flu comes a week and it leaves a week. So far I can only confirm that. Besides being a walking zombie, it was harmless and I am REALLY grateful for that. I hope it isn’t too audible in my voice. But I can’t wait to be better and make a pumpkin-potato soup. Best thing about late autumn… Oh and of course the sweet chestnuts. And a few other things. I do enjoy cooking a lot. Sadly if you cook by yourself the more extravagant dishes are too much for one person - oh well. I am still looking forward to a lot of great food.
Outro [11:17]
That was it for todays episode - next week we get into the most twisted ways people use shame. As I said we only going to go deeper into this topic. I hope you liked this episode, if you have any questions or feedback and the like, please let me know at contactme@johannadraconis.com. More information and transcript you can find as usually under johannadraconis.com/Podcast and links are in the description. I hope to see you next time. Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.
Episode 20 - Shame (III) - Shame of your behavior and what happened to you
In this episode we talk about shame of your behavior, first as an overview and then in the form of the question "Why did I let this happen?". Afterwards we talk about feeling ashamed of what happened to you, as it is a shame of defeat and afterwards we talk about the feeling regarding what others have.
Intro [0:00]
Hello my dears! My name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast.
In this episode we will talk about Shame once again, this time we hit even closer to home, with shame of your behavior and what happened to you.
Shame is powerful in keeping victims silent and punishing themselves, so we talk about it to reduce its influence and hopefully free everyone we can from it.
Preamble [0:35]
It is hard enough to speak about what happened without the shame. What happened is most of the times a dark story, if told in all its details… unlike the society friendly short version we often tell. The words often come by hard enough, as we tell what hurt us … or is hurting us. There are many good reasons why there seems to be a huge hurdle to overcome to just be able to speak about it. The shame is really an unnecessary addition to it- - which is why we go now after this factor, that makes it harder than needed.
First we talk about the shame of your behavior, first an overview - then ‘why did I let it happen?’ and then about the shame about what happened to you, first the shame of defeat and then of what others have.
Shame of your behavior - Overview [1:35]
There is no easy way to get into this very sensitive topic; the shame of what you did. I try to tread as careful as I can, as I know this is a topic of deep hurt for so many people.
Especially people who fear not being believed will often deny having done anything wrong, out of fear of punishment, loss of all favor and/or people saying they deserve what happened to them. They might be in complete denial of it happening. But we focus now on the shame of what you did, be it because you were told to do so, you feel you had to or you thought you should. Now the reason of these three is not a good way to categorize them. The more important thing is: Where you in power? Were you free to do what you want to do?
People underestimate the incredible power manipulators can have… they can convince you that the action was your idea, even though you can’t even truly explain WHAT you are doing. And others don’t even care enough to make you think it was your idea, they just make you obey, if you want to or not. Just sometimes being unable to disobey.
You might have many questions why you behaved this or that way. One of the question is, why did I just let this happen? If you were a child, the answer is pretty simple: You couldn’t think of it and depending on your opponent, it wasn’t even an option.
I try to address a few as far I am aware of them. Please contact me, if you feel like I missed one or didn’t do it fully. Which will likely happen. There are just so many.
Shame of your behavior - Why did I let this happen? - Adult [3:37]
It is hard to explain to those who are not involved, how people stay in abusive relationships and how they let abuse from maybe even a weaker partner happen.
In general, the power of psychology is greatly underestimated. It is rarely shown in our media, that a person can control and terrify a room, without looking like he could harm them or being extremely buffed or having weapons of any sort. It might also just be hard to pull off. Some people are just capable of controlling a whole room, with scientist still trying to figure out the exact formula. Or just read one of the thousands help books or article who supposedly give this knowledge.
But to simplify it: You need to be able to read them - be able to know what they think, before they do and then stir it in the direction you want. This is why gas lighting is so important.
I plan to get into great detail about manipulation techniques, but that would derail this episode and go beyond it. So I try to summarize it: You were basically manipulated.
First, you were convinced that you do things wrong all the time, it starts little. This leads you to a state of constant uncertainty, confusion and doubting yourself. You are always the one to blame.
Second, you get showered with love, this way binding them to you even more and more punishing in case you do something ‘wrong again’. This is to make you feel bad for thinking bad about them. You don’t ‘deserve them’.
Third, any signs you are drifting away or developing independent thought, get instantly killed off. They know you plan to go away, before you do yourself. As they constantly look out for it, unlike you.
And there we have it, the perfect trap, disguised as a relationship. By it’s nature this relationship will keep escalating in its extremity until one of the two leaves, for one reason or another. With luck they get bored and just completely destroy your character before going to a new target, though that rarely happens. Why with luck? This relationship type can end up lethal. You basically entered a battlefield without weapons and armor and no idea you entering one, while your opponent came well prepared. This is a one sided fight and by its nature completely unfair. This should also answer the question on why you did what you were told… you were manipulated into doing so. And those methods are so effective for a good reason, otherwise they wouldn’t be used. On a side note: Most important signs you are in such a relationship: Isolation from friends or family, ignoring your own needs, feeling you need to justify everything and feeling not save and secure with your partner. Because as much as they can imitate, true warmth isn’t one of those things.
Shame about what happened to you - Shame of defeat [7:17]
Then there is the other feeling of shame, the shame of what happened to you. Especially if the event leads to your life being completely shattered and you are left with the remains of them. This is the feeling of defeat. You feel like you lost. Someone has beaten you, be it literally, emotionally or any other way shape or form. It might make you feel like a failure.
There is absolutely no reason for that. You are not the one who should feel shame for being wronged and someone doing sometimes unspeakable things. Imagine seeing a handicapped person in a wheelchair get beaten up and kicked out of his wheelchair, would you think he should feel ashamed for it happening to him? ´Or do you think the people who did that to him should feel very ashamed of themselves? That they acted shameful and shaming the victim is the shameful act? I know it is hard to go against these voices in your head, who tell you otherwise, but there is no reason to feel ashamed. It wasn’t your fault. Sometimes the most important person to forgive you, is yourself. While I do recommend trying to learn how it happened, to avoid it in the future - I see no reason to blame someone for letting it happen. Try to learn as much as you can from it, so you get something in return. Pain and life is the best teacher in life… but also the most brutal and unforgiving. Don’t be too hard on yourself, it is an achievement to survive such a lesson at all.
Shame about what happened to you - What others have [9:16]
The one thing is what happened to you, but the other thing is what the others have. What increases the feeling of shame of your own fate, is to see what others have, what you could have had… Ever felt like watching another person living a normal life situation and felt like watching it through a screen, feeling like you two live on different planets? And it is not like you wish that person anything bad. You just wish you had a different life? A more normal life? It is one of the hardest pills to swallow, especially if you see those faces slowly fall a bit once you hint what your life looks like at the moment. There is a feeling of everyone running and you falling behind, while everyone just passes you and the others get more and more out of reach. Especially if it all happened after leaving school.
First, there is no reason to feel ashamed, yes I know, easier said then done. But life isn’t a competition, its a long road. And every step you walk on that road is your life. Everyone walks their own road.
Second, it isn’t a race. There is no reward at the end of it. As much our time is limited on this planet, it is important what we do, not how fast. Do what you want to do. At your own pace.
Third, live your own life. You will never be happy if you live the life of another person. Might it be their thought of a perfect career or what partner one should pick. You will have to life with your choices - not them.
Fourth, you get there. I know that the process of healing always takes too long. There is always SO much to do. But take your time. You get there - when you get there. There is no way of speeding it up. So take a sit, drink a cup of tea (or whatever you like) and try make the best of it. We can’t change what happened or happens, but we can change how we deal with it.
Fifth, you determine where the road lead. You might not had a choice in where the road had taken you in the past, but it is your choices that determine where your path will take you. As far as one can.
Private words [12:13]
My dog is very old, I think I might have already mentioned it. Recently I discovered him in my bed. He is not allowed there and hasn’t been there in all his life - over 10 years. For a dog his size that is around 100 years.
I couldn’t believe my eyes and ordered him out, I wouldn’t even have noticed, if it wasn’t for his fur color being a strong contrast to my bedclothes.
As I was telling others about it, I look to the side and he is back there!
I ordered him out again despite his sad puppy eyes, but realized, if a dog suddenly behaves like this, something is wrong. Then I saw he was having issues getting up from his dog bed.
But when we walked he was still jumping and running around like a young foal. So of course I get him a orthopedic bed, as any would, if their dogs need it. And voila. No more trouble getting up and down the bed.
Though occasionally he lies half on the bed, half on the floor… the logic of that eludes me, but whatever makes him happy. That is the most important thing of them all.
Outro [13:46]
That was it for todays episode and most likely the last episode for Shame for now, as I now get into territory that cuts into others topics too much. Also I think the same topic three times in a row is enough.
Nevertheless I hope it helped you and as usual, if you have any questions or feedback and the like, please let me know at contactme@johannadraconis.com.
More information and transcript you can find as usually under johannadraconis.com/Podcast and links are in the description.
I hope to see you next time. Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.