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October 26, 2018April 27, 2021

The Blackout Aspect: Living With and Healing From Trauma on a Daily Basis

Dissecting the Blackout

A couple of weeks ago, we focused on the shame aspect of trauma. You can find that discussion: “The Shame Aspect: Living With and Healing from Trauma on a Daily Basis” here. Today, we will discuss the blackout aspect of trauma.

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What is the blackout aspect of trauma? The blackout aspect of trauma consists of several different things. First of all, not everyone, but for some people living with PTSD/trauma, there is something that happens with your body’s sense of being able to handle the transition between light and dark if that makes sense. For myself, it was so significant that at first, I had to have a lot of lights on in the house. If I didn’t, I would feel like the darkness was closing in on me.

Old Experience with Blackout

When my kids and I were homeless, and waiting for God to give us a place to live, one of my friends took us in for five weeks. At this time, my issue with blackout was so bad, that the darkness made me scared to fall asleep. I would wake up in a panic, and have to calm myself down so that I could feel rested. I felt like I had gone from a forty something year old woman to a child afraid of the dark again. So, not only was it scary, but I was filled with shame.

New Experience with Blackout

What I noticed the situation is now, is that I have such a sensitivity to light, that I have to have it completely dark in order to fall asleep. If there is any light coming in from the blinds, I know I am going to have trouble falling asleep. If I don’t have the light blocking my face, even if I’ve had 8 hours of sleep, I will have extreme layers of bags under my eyes that will look like I haven’t slept in days. Also, my whole body will be in an extreme case of exhaustion.

Two years ago, I had to serve at the concession stand at church for basketball season. It was a pretty gloomy day in general, and since it was early evening when I got dropped off at the church, it was even darker. I stepped into the church’s kitchen to begin my serving shift, when everything started closing in on me.

My old techniques were immediate panic, but right then, I reminded myself of where I was, that it would eventually stop, and that engaging in conversation with others around me would help me to get grounded in the present moment. I would just have to ride it out.

When is the blackout aspect really bad? This is during the time where there is changing of the seasons, especially when it starts getting darker closer to winter.

I do a better job of handling it now, but in the beginning, it really rattled me to be honest. Feel free to drop a line in regards to your blackout aspect, and how you handle it.

God bless and have a wonderful weekend.

October 22, 2018April 27, 2021

Episode 4: Unhealed Brokenness & Toxic Relationships

Healing Our Brokenness Podcast Series

Episode 4: Unhealed Brokenness & Toxic Relationships

00:00 / 00:22:13

I am blessed to be airing Episode 4: Unhealed Brokenness & Toxic Relationships. Last week I aired Episode 3: Broken People Judging Broken People, and it can be found here. I am not a mental health professional. I am speaking on this topic based upon my relationships with individuals in the last twenty years where toxicity existed.

I pray that if you are dealing with any of the signs/symptoms in a relationship, that are mentioned in this podcast, that you seek professional help in navigating this dynamic, and that you remove yourself from the toxic dance before it’s too late.

Unhealed Brokenness & Toxic Relationships Podcast Outline

Background on My Unhealed Areas of Brokenness
Signs and Symptoms of Toxic Relationships/Personality Disordered Individuals
Woman At the Well
Woman with the Issue of Blood
When to Get Out

C-PTSD, bullying, personality disorder, toxic relationships, ptsd, trauma, emotional health, mental health, depression, anxiety, spiritual help, abuse, emotional abuse, judging, criticizing, unhealed brokenness and toxic people, healing our brokenness, valley of grace, blog, podcast, Christian, family issues — Photo by Sarah Pflug at Burst by Shopify

Bible Verses for Meditation:

John 4: 7-26

⁷When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ⁸(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

⁹The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.^a])

¹⁰Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

¹¹“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹²Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

¹³Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,¹⁴but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

¹⁵The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

¹⁶He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

¹⁷“I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.¹⁸The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

¹⁹“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

²¹“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²²You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

²⁵The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

²⁶Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

personality disorder, toxic relationships, ptsd, trauma, emotional health, mental health, depression, anxiety, spiritual help, abuse, emotional abuse, judging, criticizing, unhealed brokenness and toxic people, healing our brokenness, valley of grace, blog, podcast, Christian, family issues, bullying, C-ptsd — Photo by Sarah Pflug at Burst by Shopify

Mark 5:25-34 New International Version (NIV)

²⁵And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. ²⁶She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.²⁷When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, ²⁸because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” ²⁹Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

³⁰At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

³¹“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

³²But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. ³³Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. ³⁴He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

Matthew 18:15-17 New International Version

(NIV)

Dealing With Sin in the Church

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

October 12, 2018June 7, 2022

The Shame Aspect: Living With and Healing from Trauma on a Daily Basis

Dissecting the Shame

Last week, we discussed “The Changing Seasons Aspect: Living With and Healing from Trauma on a Daily Basis”, which can be found here. This week, we will be dissecting “The Shame Aspect: Living With and Healing from Trauma on a Daily Basis”. One thing about shame is that when it creeps in, it can do a lot of destruction.

Trauma itself can produce a lot of shame because of its symptoms. Depending on what symptom you are trying to control, it can leave you feeling isolated, and wanting to self protect for fear that someone will not empathize with you for your condition. I harbored shame for three reasons: the swinging/aggressive impulse that it caused, the good memory that God had blessed me with had been had been significantly damaged, and last, the physical condition that the trauma left my body in.

Shame of Lost Memory

I took for granted the memory that I was blessed with. It just had always been there. The ability to memorize telephone numbers, social security numbers, birthdays, and spelling bee words all came easy until the trauma. Even names of people became a blur. When you go from having all this, to trying to remember if something happened a week ago, or three weeks ago, because of the time aspect of trauma, it can do a number on you. Even now, my brain hasn’t fully recovered. Sometimes, I am standing with friends and talking, and for the life of me, I just can’t seem to remember their name. At this point, I will try to tell myself to relax, and then not to overthink it, and the name will come to me. I feel so blessed that God has recovered what he has.

shame, guilt, trauma, anxiety, PTSD, depression, emotional health, mental health — Photo by omar alnahi on Pexels.com

Shame of Aggression

The second part of shame that has taken me a long time to talk about is the aggression. When the aggression hits, it leaves you with the impression of wanting to hit something. Since trauma gets stored in your body, the only way for this aggression to improve, is to get it out. I do this at home by doing a kickboxing style type of move to release the anger from my body. Also, if you don’t go to therapy where it’s safe to talk about the trauma, it just remains stored in your body. Unfortunately, this symptom of aggression from trauma stemmed from seeing my mother abused when I was a kid. I didn’t know it was traumatic until the trauma of my ex-husband’s behavior in the home right before my divorce, coupled with the fact that my daughter was eleven years old at the time. He was planning on leaving the home, and this brought my childhood surface of trauma to the forefront. I was also eleven when my dad left the home. His exit was also traumatic for me. It involved coming home, and then almost everything you own being gone from the house, including him.

shame, guilt, trauma, anxiety, PTSD, depression, emotional health, mental health

Shame of Physical Burnout

The last part of shame from trauma that I dealt with is the physical aspect. I was in a compromised state. Since my ex-husband wasn’t paying the proper amount of money, I figured that I had to go back to work to make ends meet. I got a job that came with a high price: toxicity. From start to finish of working there, it mirrored the emotionally abusive marriage I had just left. I should have quit halfway through when my body started falling apart, but I didn’t. It was nine months of Sodom and Gomorrah, and everything in between there. I was in such a jacked up state, that I couldn’t think straight. At one point, I probably should have been hospitalized because of physical exhaustion, thyroid crisis, and adrenal gland crisis. I also suffered with chronic fatigue on a daily basis. It took a good almost three years before my body starting responding to the thyroid medication again. More shame crept in because during these three years I was more concerned with living up to everyone else’s expectations than living with reality of my situation. It was also at this point that I should have filed for disability, but I didn’t.

Hope from God

What does God tell us about shame of any kind when we are dealing with it? Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion; instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot; therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion; they shall have everlasting joy. Isaiah 61:7. I hope that this discussion on shame has been a source of healing and encouragement.

God bless,

Katina

October 4, 2018April 27, 2021

Run For Your Life!

Background

Have you ever been in a situation where you had to literally run for your life? I have, and I tell you, it is no joke. I had to run to safety. I was right in the middle of going through a divorce, and there was an issue that came up for visitation to be ceased for a few days. Unfortunately, the order was ignored. My daughter and I continued to get call after call, and doorbell ring after doorbell ring. I told her to stay away from the door as both of our nervous systems went into hypervigilant mode. There is more on the hypervigilant mode of trauma here. And if you have been through any type of PTSD/trauma, you know this moment is like fear on steroids X 100 with you watching and waiting for when and where something will happen.

My dear friend called me while this was taking place. I was supposed to be attending a Divorce Support Group that night. There was no way that I was going to leave my daughter at home to deal with this situation. I texted two members of the group, telling them to have fun, and that I had serious situation going on at the homefront. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake the fear. My system was jacked up with adrenaline, anxiety, and fear. That’s when my friend advised that I spend the night at her house. She said that I could have trouble on my hands all night if I didn’t. At this point, I was tired of getting the police involved.

PTSD, run, anxiety, depression, trauma, hypervigilant, emotional health, mental health — Photo by Michael Foster on Pexels.com

The Flight

I packed up our night clothes, my important papers, and clothes for the next day. I also had to call my son and get an okay for him to spend a night at a friend’s home. I told him that he was not to return home for any reason.

My friend pulled up to the garage, and my daughter and I ran to get into her jeep, and as she sped off, the three of us quickly glanced to the right, noticing a figure hanging over pretending as if it were limp.

We didn’t get much sleep that night because we were in hypervigilant mode, waking up every 20 minutes or so, having to both shut our phones down from the incessant ringing.

Biblical Analysis

Like myself, David was on the run for his life. Saul’s jealousy turned into anger, and his anger turned into madness: “And Saul was furious and resented this song. “They have ascribed tens of thousands to David,” he said, “but only thousands to me. What more can he have but the kingdom?” 9And from that day forward Saul kept a jealous eye on David. “1 Samuel 18: 8-9

Once David found out that Saul was going to kill him, he fled, having the king of Moab to house his parents, as I had to house my son overnight: From there David went to Mizpeh of Moab, where he said to the king of Moab, “Please let my father and mother stay with you until I learn what God will do for me.” 4So he left them in the care of the king of Moab, and they stayed with him the whole time David was in the stronghold.… 1 Samuel 22:3-4, BSB

However, David wasn’t able to stay there long. He was advised to leave, running from place to place, cave to cave for safety, but God was with him: Then the prophet Gad said to David, “Do not stay in the stronghold. Depart and go into the land of Judah.” So David left and went to the forest of Hereth.…1 Samuel 22:5, BSB

1 Samuel 23:7-14 King James Version (KJV)

⁷And it was told Saul that David was come to Keilah. And Saul said, God hath delivered him into mine hand; for he is shut in, by entering into a town that hath gates and bars.

⁸And Saul called all the people together to war, to go down to Keilah, to besiege David and his men.

⁹And David knew that Saul secretly practised mischief against him; and he said to Abiathar the priest, Bring hither the ephod.

¹⁰Then said David, O Lord God of Israel, thy servant hath certainly heard that Saul seeketh to come to Keilah, to destroy the city for my sake.

¹¹Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into his hand? will Saul come down, as thy servant hath heard? O Lord God of Israel, I beseech thee, tell thy servant. And the Lord said, He will come down.

¹²Then said David, Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul? And the Lord said, They will deliver thee up.

¹³Then David and his men, which were about six hundred, arose and departed out of Keilah, and went whithersoever they could go. And it was told Saul that David was escaped from Keilah; and he forbare to go forth.

¹⁴And David abode in the wilderness in strong holds, and remained in a mountain in the wilderness of Ziph. And Saul sought him every day, but God delivered him not into his hand.

Even when we are at our lowest point, and in the depths of fear, God is with us.

Dear God,

We thank you for being our refuge when there is nowhere else to go. We pray that during times of crises, we would seek you like never before, knowing that you have an angel of armies running with us.

In your name we pray,

Amen

Have a blessed night all!

Katina

October 1, 2018April 27, 2021

The Changing Seasons Aspect: Living With and Healing from Trauma on a Daily Basis

Background Story

Last week, we discussed the Regulating Emotions Aspect of trauma. That post can be found here. We are starting another season, and along with changing seasons comes another issue: a ton of grief. Thus, this week’s discussion: The Changing Seasons Aspect: Living With and Healing from Trauma on a Daily Basis. For some reason, when you are living with and healing from PTSD/trauma on a daily basis, the grief from the changing of seasons comes with the territory. It usually takes about a good month of the season setting in before the grief eases up.

Analysis of the Grief

Unfortunately, when this happens it is usually not just one thing that you are grieving about. The changing of the seasons can take you through literally a good 15 to 20 different things from over the years that may have been done in that season. The best thing to do when this happens, is to allow the grief to come out. Holding it in only leads to more problems. The hard part about this particular time is that a lot of the grief feels raw. Even though you may feel like you are going backwards because of this rawness, you’re actually not. It’s one of the those that we have to ride out, just like the other trauma symptoms.

PTSD, trauma, anxiety, stress, fall, changing seasons, depression, emotional health, mental health, self-help

When the grief is this intense, I find it helpful to release from my stomach going upwards, if that makes any sense. What happens with trauma, is that the trauma and emotions get stuck somewhere inside of your body. When it is this hard and heavy, it is usually in the stomach area.

Self-Help

It wasn’t until I had enough courage to start releasing the grief that I understood the meaning of what one of my friends said. We were discussing grief one day, and she told me that her grief was always trapped in the midway point of her face. Some of the things that may help you out during this time are:

PTSD, trauma, anxiety, stress, fall, changing seasons, depression, emotional health, mental health, self-help

praying
reading Psalms
talking to a friend
going to therapy
listening to music
taking a walk
journaling
painting
giving yourself grace
learning something new

PTSD, trauma, anxiety, stress, fall, changing seasons, depression, emotional health, mental health, self-help

All photos from Burst by Shopify

September 20, 2018April 22, 2021

The Regulating Emotions Aspect: Living With and Healing from Trauma on a Daily Basis

Background on Dysregulated Emotions

Last week, we discussed the Depression Aspect: Living with and Healing from Trauma on a Daily Basis. If you’d like to refer back to the discussion you can click here. This week we are discussing: The Regulating Emotions Aspect: Living With and Healing from Trauma on a Daily Basis. For someone living with and healing from trauma on a daily basis, regulating emotions can be a challenge.

Having difficulty regulating emotions is a sign that your amygdala has had a beating from all the trauma. There are times when I have had a full two weeks straight of dysregulated emotions. What I have managed to figure out recently is that it usually occurs for one of three reasons: 1) when my system is overloaded with grief, and I am having a hard time getting it out, 2) I am in a place where I feel that I need to get up and go to the bathroom to grieve because it needs to be heavy release, 3) the trauma is causing my mind and body to self-protect, and I don’t feel safe enough to let it out.

anger, dysregulated emotions, PTSD, trauma, emotional health, mental health

Getting it Out

Dysregulated emotions isn’t the worst thing. However, it is not the most pleasant either. Once your emotions are dysregulated, then it makes you wonder if you shouldn’t have just gotten it out anyway. For example, when the emotions are dysregulated, your face may be showing something different than how you feel. The worse thing is being around other people when this happens. You almost feel like you have to put on a fake face to show that you are not in agony from being pinned up with emotions. On the flip side, you could also end up being way over the top in expressing the emotion that you are feeling.

anger, dysregulated emotions, PTSD, trauma, emotional health, mental health

Anger is one of those emotions that this can happen with. It’s best to try to be honest with the people that you are around by letting them know you’re having problems regulating, and that you need to excuse yourself to grieve. The best thing that I can advise, as I had to remind myself the other day, after having dealt with a two week flareup: “Better out than in”. Try to let the grief out as soon as possible. It prevents your whole emotional system from going haywire, and you having a long drawn-out episode that could have been avoided.

Until next time!

Katina

September 14, 2018April 22, 2021

The Depression Aspect: Living with and Healing from Trauma on a Daily Basis

Introduction to the Depression Aspect

This is the fifth part in the series “Living with and Healing from Trauma on a Daily Basis. The fourth part in the series, “The Overwhelmed Aspect: Living With and Healing from Trauma on a Daily Basis”, can be found here. Without having trauma, people living with anxiety and depression on a daily basis can find them both debilitating. When you add trauma to the mix, it takes things to a whole new level. What I have been able to finally realize within the last year is the difference between regular depression and trauma depression.

trauma, identity, depression, mental health, emotional health, healing, PTSD, The Giant Drop — Photo by Matthew Henry

Regular Depression and PTSD Depression

The difference with regular depression and PTSD/trauma depression is that there is no in between, or gradual shift into depression. Sometimes, you might be sitting in a group talking to people, and they happen to mention one word. That word might not have any major significance for them, but for you, it could be the opening of a traumatic experience that consists of twenty different things. The next thing you know, your whole system has dropped without warning, like the ride called “The Giant Drop” at Great America. The worst part about PTSD depression, which is similar to regular depression, is that it is felt at a deeper level if you are already dealing with other life events causing emotional stress.

Depressive Job Experience

A few years ago, I accepted a job at a manufacturing company, thinking that it was the ticket to getting out of debt, and more financial security for my kids and I. It was my worst nightmare. I stuck out like a sore thumb. From start to finish, the entire process that had played out in my twenty year marriage played out at this company. I went from being a trophy to being discarded like a broken toy. I didn’t fit into the culture of anything and everything goes, so there was a plan set in place to fire me , with a good majority of the employees involved. The workplace was a constant lion’s den of bullying, emotional abuse, and the “workplace untouchables”, so to speak. It was God’s great mercy and grace that I was let go. My whole system was wrecked with trauma when I started. By the time I was let go, I was in worse shape emotionally, mentally, and physically than when I started. The Holy Spirit had shown me what would take place from start to finish three months before I got fired. I am not sure what was worse: knowing what would happen, or the anxiously waiting for it to happen.

Fighting for Normality

I was not prepared for what happened afterwards. The “Giant Drop” occurred without any warning. When I explained how I was feeling to my therapist, she gave me a good analogy. I was a deflated ball when I started. So basically, the “already deflated ball” was kicked around. One friend tried to encourage me by telling me not to let the job get me that down. I was glad to be done. However, my system had been through so much compounded trauma, that in turn this is how it responded. I thank God that he slowly brought me out of it. It took a few months for the “giant drop” to leave, but a few more years after that to even start feeling significantly better. Have a blessed night!

Katina

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Isaiah 26:3

September 8, 2018April 22, 2021

The Overwhelmed Aspect: Living With and Healing from Trauma on a Daily Basis

Introduction to the Overwhelmed Aspect

The Overwhelmed Aspect is another section in our series: Living With and Healing from Trauma on a Daily Basis. One might ask, “What is the overwhelmed aspect?” When I am discussing the Overwhelmed Aspect with my friends, they know what I am talking about because I have given it the nickname of “The Movie Reel”. Another one of my friends call the “Overwhelmed” Aspect a Whirlwind. So, my new combined nickname is the Whirlwind Movie Reel. It may sound funny, but believe me when I say that it isn’t a laughing matter.

What I have realized after having experienced compounded trauma in such a short period of time, is that the ability to handle stress is significantly lessened. Not only is your stress fighting abilities lessened, but your brain processing speed is affected as well. The overwhelmed aspect is a combination of the following:

Four Parts of the Overwhelmed Aspect

An acute traumatic panic attack.
Replaying the details of the stressful event(s) in your head over and over again.
The feeling as if you are literally in a whirlwind and can’t get out.
Images of the stressful/trauamatic events going around inside of the “whirlwind”, literally like a movie reel of events.

PTSD, trauma, healing, overwhelmed, depression, mental health, emotional health — Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com

My Experience with the Overwhelmed Aspect

When I first experienced this, it totally knocked me off my feet. The whirlwind/movie reel effect was slower. Now, since God has increased my brain processing, the movie reel is faster, which makes me feel even more out of control when it happens. To be honest, there is no time table on when this will happen. It isn’t something that can be predicted. One day, one of my friends posted an article on Facebook. I decided that it was a good read since I have a teenage daughter. I clicked on the article to read it, but the article wouldn’t load properly. After trying for so long, and getting more frustrated by the moment, I figured that I would just read it later. I was disappointment because the topic seemed really good.

With trauma, sometimes one word can send you into a tailspin. After finally making peace with the fact that I would just read the article later, my brain opened up every traumatic event that I had experienced as a child. The whirlwind movie reel took over, and it took me a good thirty minutes or so to get out of it. What I have noticed as of lately if it happens, is that it is best to try to see if I can allow myself to come out of this whirlwind by giving myself permission to feel the pain from some of the events. I just recently learned that when this happens, this is a coping mechansim/form of dissociation as well. If we can feel the feelings a little bit at a time, we can more easily come out of it, and sleep better as well.

I hope that this series has been helping those of you who live with and are healing from trauma on a daily basis.

Have a blessed weekend!

Katina

August 30, 2018April 22, 2021

The Dissociation Aspect: Living with and Healing from Trauma on a Daily Basis

Background

This is the fourth part in our series of “Living with and Healing from Trauma on a Daily Basis”. A couple of weeks ago, we discussed the triggers aspect. Today, we will be discussing the disassociation aspect. Due to the response that I received from my ex-husband years ago, I started stuffing my feelings. I can remember very clearly the exact moment that I decided that I would not cry anymore. I was on the middle level of the townhome, not realizing I’d been heard. At this point, I had been crying for almost an hour. He told me that I should quiet down or the kids would possibly wake up. He kept asking me for the reason behind my crying. I refused to tell him because I had already figured out that the knowledge didn’t transfer over to things getting better.

healing, trauma, triggers, dissociation, grief, crying, mental health

Handling the Pain

Fast forward several years later to 2012, when it became clear that we were heading for divorce, the pain, crying, and feelings came on with full force. I hadn’t cried for so long, that I had to relearn how to feel the feelings, if that makes sense. Grieving was difficult because I was afraid of being out of control, and the crying not stopping. This was due to stuffing my feelings for so long. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

What happened before, during, and after the divorce, including now, is that I have been living with managing trauma on a daily basis. When I finally felt safe enough, I was able to start grieving a little at a time. I quickly realized that the more you grieve, the less trauma that is stored emotionally, mentally, and physically in your body. The less you grieve, the more trauma that is stored emotionally, mentally, and physically in your body.

The Dissociation Process

What I didn’t realize is that along with living with trauma on a day to day basis, you are still constantly having more trials, bringing more compounded trauma, and your brain gets on overload. This is like a computer that has too many processes running at one time. What ends up happening is that everything locks up, and you can’t do anything. You have to reboot. It’s the same way with trauma. When you are so overloaded with compounded trauma, the one thing, no matter the intensity of it, becomes the straw that broke the camel’s back. You start numbing out, and then dissociating. Dissociation is a mental process of disconnecting from one’s thoughts, feelings, memories or sense of identity.

Prayer for Relief

You are probably going to laugh at this one. At first, I started feeling out of control because my feelings started coming back on line, and then I start feeling out of control when my brain starting disassociating from the feelings to protect me. I can remember one time in particular when the kids and I were living at our last residence, I was loaded up on trauma. It was so bad, that I started dissociating. Back then, I didn’t realize that dissociating helps to protect your mental state in these cases. I prayed real hard, because I starting feeling out of control in the state that I was in, asking God to get rid of the dissociation. He answered right away, and then all of the feelings came flooding through, with no bottom to ground me. That’s when even in this bad state that I was in at the moment, I laughed, and told God that I guess I’d better be careful for what I pray for. Now, I know that I just need to ride it out. Everything happens for a reason.

Please feel free to send an email or respond with a comment down below if you are so led as to how you deal with the dissociating side of trauma.

Hope you have a blessed night!

Katina

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

¹⁹The righteous person may have many troubles,
but the Lord delivers him from them all;
²⁰he protects all his bones,
not one of them will be broken.

New International Version (NIV) Proverbs 34: 18-20

August 17, 2018April 22, 2021

The Triggers Aspect: Living With and Healing from Trauma on a Daily Basis

Triggers

The “Triggers” aspect of living with and healing from trauma on a daily basis can be daunting at times. There are days when my brain, emotions, and intuition are right on target. It is almost like nothing ever happened. Reality check! However, there are other days when I am going back and forth trying to decide whether my intuition and the Holy Spirit are trying to tell me something, or if I am just being triggered. In the beginning, almost everything was a trigger. Now, I am more evened out where most days are decent, but then other days my symptoms are running rampant, and I have to remind myself that my identity is in Christ, and it is the trauma talking and trying to take over, and to just ride it out. What I noticed is that with trauma triggers, the more you feed into it, the more your anxiety gets worked up, and thus, the more intense are the triggers. It can become a vicious cycle.

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Dissecting the Trigger Cycle

One of the hardest things about previously being in a relationship with someone emotionally abusive, and having that person gaslight you almost every day, is that initially it makes you think that every person you talk to who is lying is trying to gaslight you. Because of the fact that our brains have been through so much, and is trained to react to certain patterns, it takes a while to get out of this mode. Full disclosure to help people out who have teenagers, and live with trauma on a daily basis: This can be some of the hardest times for you, as it has been for me, because teens take words and change them around from what it is that you are actually saying. This is part of their development. However, again, for someone who was in a relationship where they dealt with emotional abuse, and you were gaslight, and everything got turned around and twisted to make it seem like you were the problem, this can be rough. Reminding yourself that this is a trigger, part of their development, and will get better was essential for me. My therapist even reminded me, with these words: “This is going to be a hard time for you.” She wasn’t joking. Initially, I was discouraged. However, after time, things got better with this particular trigger. I pray that it will for you as well.

I hope that this series is helping someone who is needing encouragement as they live with PTSD and trauma on a daily basis.

You will keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.

Isaiah 26:3, NKJV

Blessings,

Katina