Navigating Triggers: 6 Tips To Prepare Yourself to See a New Doctor
I circled the date on my calendar in red and gulped. I really didn’t want to do this but I’d canceled once already and knew I needed to make this appointment. Again. Ugh. I closed my eyes as my constant companion for the past 30 years of my life, nausea, barreled into my consciousness. The…
Read MoreIntrusive Thoughts, Part 1
A few weeks ago I was going about my day, getting ready for a business lunch meeting. Showered, shampooed and shined, I was applying my makeup in my big, round, brightly lit make-up mirror, when seemingly out of nowhere, there it was. THAT thought. And then the NEXT one. The thoughts inside my head sounded like a noisy…
Read MoreChildhood Trauma Influences Teenage Obesity
I was a pale, skinny child. Pictures of me at five and six show a thin, fair tow-headed kid. But several years later the pictures changed. I began putting on weight shortly after our next-door neighbor abused me. I don’t remember how old I was at the time. I do remember I didn’t tell anyone…
Read MoreWhy People Don’t Respond to and Heal from Trauma the Same Way
“We’ve offered advice and you ignore it. You’re using your trauma as an excuse to abandon us.” My friend’s words stung, but they didn’t surprise me. For several years I’d been trying to sort out my PTS symptoms–fear, psychological/emotional paralysis, numbness, triggers, and the confusion that had overtaken my life– and explain my struggles to…
Read MoreHow to Help a Spouse or Loved One with Military PTSD, Pt 2
Our thanks to Jeff and Alisha for sharing their story to help provide understanding and insight for other military families who may struggle with trauma and those who love them. I went to Iraq from Oct 2003 to Mar 2005 as an Army Infantryman. I have struggled through reintegration with the world ever since. Alisha…
Read MoreHow to Help a Spouse or Loved One with Military PTSD, Pt. 1
This week I had the privilege of talking a good friend of mine whose husband is an Afghanistan veteran who battles with complex post-traumatic stress. I met *Alisha (not her real name) a few months ago through a group for caregiving spouses. We quickly discovered shared experience with caring for loved ones with PTSD. And…
Read MorePTSD and Cancer Patients
Cancer, an international interdisciplinary journal of the American Cancer Society, recently published a study of South-East Asian patients that demonstrates that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may become persistent or even worsen in cancer patients up to four years after their diagnosis. “Our data underscore the risk of developing persistent PTSD even years after cancer diagnosis and treatment,”…
Read MoreParent Trauma: When Your Child Is in the NICU
Cici gave birth to twin daughters prematurely in her 34th week of pregnancy. Both were placed in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). At the time they were born, Cici and her husband also had a five year-old daughter and a three year-old son at home. Cici remained in the hospital with the babies for…
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