Camila Williams | Living Well CBT

What happens in the body during Trauma

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When you are in a threatening situation your body automatically goes into fight, flight, or freeze mode. This is your survival instinct and it is hardwired in your biology. (You can read more about the symptoms of PTSD here and here, and why PTSD develops here). Lets breakdown the automatic physical reactions that happen in a traumatic event and explore their purpose:

  • Blood pumped to big muscle groups and away from small muscles (pounding heart, increased blood pressure, hands/feet get cold and clammy) – this prepares your body to fight back or run away
  • Fast, shallow breathing or hyperventilating – this fuels your body by taking in more oxygen
  • Tense muscles – this prepares your body to fight (throw a punch) or run
  • Dilated pupils – this allows you to take in more light and see your surroundings better
  • Flushed skin and feeling hot and/or sweaty – your body is an engine that is overworking, this allows your body (your engine) to cool down and keep running on high alert
  • Fear, anxiety, panic – these emotions are natural and are telling your brain to keep your body on high alert because there is danger
  • Thinking part of brain shuts off (hard to think straight) – if you stop to think if its better to run away from the lion or climb or the tree or play dead, you wasted precious time and its probably too late. Thinking shuts down to allow your body to react quickly to keep you safe (most therapy for PTSD involves learning how to turn the thinking part of the brain back on).
  • Tunnel vision (hard to focus on anything else) – ensures that you stay focused on the danger in front of you and eliminates distractions.
  • Digestion shutting down (stomach problems and dry mouth) – when your body is in survival mode all resources go to fight, flight, or freeze. If you’re not going to be alive in a moment why waste precious energy digesting food? Your body automatically redirect those resources to fight, flight, or freeze. This is why many people with PTSD have stomach/indigestion problems.
  • Immune System shutting down – Similarly your body is not going to waste precious resources fighting off a cold if you might not survive the immediate danger, so all energy goes into survival mode. This is why people with PTSD get sick more often and suffer from many chronic illnesses.

…read more

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Mental Health First Aid Kit

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You probably have a first aid kit somewhere in your home, car, or work. You are ready for any mishap from a paper-cut to a gash. Are you as prepared for a mental health emergency? You know when you feel that panic attack coming on, or your anger is going through the roof, or your depression is nose diving into despair. It is just as important to be prepared with a mental health 1st Aid Kit to help you survive those intense moments on that emotional roller coaster. Below are some suggestions of things to include in your 1st Aid Kit but you can be as creative with this as your heart desires. It is supposed to be a personalized grab bag of things to help you slow down the intense reactions in order to think more clearly. I previously wrote about making a soothing kit for coping with symptoms of PTSD, this is the same concept. The goal here is to remove the thinking part out of the equation when you’re in panic mode or despair. The last thing your brain can do when emotions are riding high is think clearly. So prepare a 1st Aid Kit with pre-planned things to do to help settle your mind and get back in control of your emotions.…read more

Filed Under: coping, Self Care Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How to Cope with PTSD: Arousal Symptoms

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The arousal symptoms of PTSD most commonly overlap with the symptoms of Panic and Anxiety. Imagine your body is like a car engine. With PTSD (and anxiety/panic) your engine is always revved up and ready to go. It’s like you have your foot on the gas pedal and on the brake, this way all you have to do it let off the brake and off you go. The flight, fight, freeze survival system our body has does this on purpose so you do not waste precious time accelerating, which makes sense if you are in a life and death situation, the problem is when your body starts to react like this to regular day to day stress. Imagine what happens to a car engine if you constantly rev the engine while holding down the brakes. It gets worn down and starts to break down. This is what happens to our body when it is under the constant strain of anxiety. Fatigue and exhaustion are all common experiences for those who suffer from PTSD, anxiety, and panic. With PTSD, the body is always revved up and ready to go, aka it is in a state of arousal; that means muscles are tense, breathing and heart rate are fast, and blood pressure is high. People with PTSD often feel on edge, on guard, easily startled, and hyper vigilant. This also primes them to be more easily irritated and angry. It is also very hard to concentrate and sleep. So the primary way to cope with symptoms of arousal is slow the body down through 1) Breathing and 2) Soothing.…read more

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How to Cope With PTSD: Symptoms of Re-experiencing

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I previously wrote about understanding the symptoms of PTSD here and learning about how it develops and factors that maintain it here. Today’s focus is how to cope with the cluster of PTSD symptoms called re-experiencing or “intrusive” symptoms.

What are Re-experiencing Symptoms?

Re-experiencing or Intrusive symptoms of PTSD are symptoms where you feel as if you are re-living the trauma or being haunted by the trauma. The memory of the trauma plays out so vividly for you that you feel as if it just happened again. The most intense version of this is when you have a flashback and for awhile you forget that you are safe and you believe you are back in the trauma again. These memories are “intrusive” meaning they pop up and intrude on your day at the worst times. These memories also cause intense emotional and physical reactions, leaving you feeling very upset and very worn out.

Why do we Re-experience the Trauma?

…read more

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Why Does PTSD Develop?

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Last week we reviewed what PTSD looks like (you can read about those symptoms here). This week we are going to review why PTSD develops. The focus will be on the role our Fight – Flight – Freeze survival response system plays in the development and maintenance of PTSD.

Fight – Flight – Freeze Survival Response System

Is our instinctual survival system that keeps us safe and protects us from harm:

          Fight = stay and fight off the danger/threat

          Flight = run away from the danger/threat

          Freeze = shut down physical or emotional pain to just survive when you know you can’t escape or fight back.…read more

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3 Types of Trauma No One Talks About

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When we talk about trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) we think of specific events: Combat, Rape, Assault, Fire, Car Accident, etc… However, there are 3 other types of events that occur daily, little by little, over a long period of time that are also traumatic and can lead to the development of PTSD in some people:

Uncertainty

One night you make your partner’s favorite meal: steak. You go out of your way to get it just right and look forward with hope to see the smile on his face when he sees you remembered his favorite and nailed it. Dinner goes smoothly. He loved it and praised your excellent cooking skills. All is good. Two weeks later you decide to do the same thing. Surprise him with his favorite steak dinner. This time though, as soon as he realizes it he starts berating you for wasting money, steak is expensive! He blames you for all your financial troubles starting with buying steak! Then he berates your cooking: overdone, under seasoned, etc… You are no good, you’re stupid, you’re lucky he’s even with you! Uncertainty. You never know if what you do will please him or upset him. You and everyone else walk on eggshells around him. Life is an uncertain mess and because of that you are always on guard, always on alert, just waiting for something to go wrong. Another example: …read more

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A Major Pitfall of Self-Medicating to Deal with Stress

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You’ve been there before: you have a long, stressful day at work, and you can’t wait until you get home to kick off your shoes and have a drink. It is a way to unwind from the cares of the day. There is nothing wrong with that, right? Or perhaps your family is very intense, you love them, but man the only way to survive a family dinner or backyard BBQ is with a cold one in your hands. After all, that is what keeps you from telling Aunt Sally what you really think or from getting into a political debate with Grandpa Joe. There is nothing inherently wrong with either of these scenarios. The problem begins when turning to alcohol to “unwind” or to “tolerate others” starts to become your go-to, your default mode of dealing with stress. This is the biggest pitfall of using alcohol to deal with stress:

It makes you LESS able to handle stress

…read more

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4 Stages of Emotions and Treatment After Sexual Trauma

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Although everyone responds differently after sexual trauma, certain phases of emotions are common among survivors. Therapy can help with each of them. Follow the link to read an article I wrote for Good Therapy on this important topic:

https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/4-stages-of-emotions-and-treatment-after-sexual-trauma-0418185

Filed Under: Book Review, coping Tagged With: , , ,

What is PTSD?

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Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that some people develop over time after having experienced trauma. It is normal to experience nightmares, be extremely upset by bad memories, want to avoid reminders, feel sad and angry, and feel on guard after a trauma. When these symptoms persist over time is when it may turn into PTSD. There are so many factors that affect whether or not someone gets PTSD but the important thing to remember is that it is NOT a sign of weakness. Rather, it means your body is extra good at staying in survival mode. Therapy can help you learn to slow down that survival mode and begin to enjoy life again. You can learn more about PTSD here: https://www.ptsd.va.gov/…/PTSD-over…/basics/what-is-ptsd.asp

 Let’s break down the name PTSD:
Post (meaning after)
traumatic (meaning a very stressful event)
stress (meaning it causes anxiety)
disorder (meaning you reacted to the event and struggle with it)

 

So another way to think of post-traumatic stress disorder is: after – stress – anxiety – reaction. This doesn’t sound as foreboding as post-traumatic stress disorder but still captures the essence of it. I also like to think of PTSD as a Normal Reaction to an Abnormal Event. It is important to remember that our mind and body is designed to survive and trauma kicks on our survival response. PTSD occurs when you struggle to turn off that natural trauma response in your regular day to day living. There are many trauma focused CBT treatments designed to help you learn to slow down your mind and body’s trauma response and move from automatically reacting to situations to choosing how you want to respond in situations.

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