How I’ve overcome my PTSD
PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder, is a disorder caused by trauma.
The word “trauma” can be very cryptic, because, when someone thinks of trauma, the first thing that comes to mind is injury and physical abuse. Although psychological and emotional abuse are now more widely associated to PTSD, still most people don’t understand what abuse and trauma really mean, and tend to think of verbal abuse, or of the fights happening in toxic relationships.
Trauma is instead any event that happens to us and around us, and that alters our perception of reality from then on, by either making us “unsee” anything that would re-trigger the trauma, creating blind spots, or by activating our fight or flight mode, therefore forcing us into fear and to become tools of our ego and of the collective ego in society.
The main possible outcomes of trauma, therefore the main shapes that PTSD can take, are 2:
1) We develop a narrative of reality that doesn’t correspond to the truth, by selectively avoiding to perceive (mostly subconsciously) part of our reality: this is something that mostly happens to individuals who, as kids, have been gaslit, heavily abused by those who were supposed to love them, or who have become enablers of narcissistic abusers. Indeed, for enablers, seeing that they are enablers of the abuse perpetrated onto others and that those who they help are indeed abusers - and therefore don’t love them either - forces enablers to develop a sort of curtain that filters their reality. As adults, despite they begin realizing the truth, they (often consciously) decide to avoid acknowledging it, because if they would do so then they would also be forced to acknowledge that they are enablers, that their entire self esteem is based on a lie, and that their entire reference system (who is the abuser, who is the victim, who is the enabler, and so on) is completely false. Placed in front of the choice of seeing and acknowledging a reality in which they are the “bad guy” they often prefer to continue with the lie.
2) Our fight or flight mode (ran mostly by the amygdala and the basal ganglia) takes control of our behavior, and our brain areas in charge for consciousness and mind clarity (mostly the cortex) become atrophied: this usually happens at a later stage in development, and/or when the pre-frontal cortex is already developed (which for some may happen very early in life). By doing so, the amygdala becomes hypertrophic and deactivates our prefrontal cortex, preventing us from thinking straight and from being conscious.
In both cases, the PTSD is characterized by an abnormal activation of the amygdala and the basal ganglia, the part of our brain that is called “reptilian brain” due to being the most ancient one and the least evolved.
If the fight or flight mode activates early in life, individuals become what we today call “narcissists”, i.e. people who are completely driven by their amygdala and basal ganglia, and who have developed their cortex areas accordingly, developing Machiavellianism as well as an opportunistic and exploitative personality.
In the first case, we tend to hypoactivate (= lesser than normal activation) the fight or flight mode, or to hijack our capability of activating it by disconnecting from reality and therefore removing the triggers, the cues, that would otherwise trigger the fight or flight mode and fear (and re-traumatize us), and we begin living in a world that feels like a fairy tale, clueless of the dangers surrounding us, and therefore vulnerable of being exploited.
In the second case, we hyperactivate (= higher than normal activation) the fight or flight mode, and therefore we live of fear, we are moved by fear, and we continuously strategize for survival purposes, developing obsessive compulsive thinking, intrusive thoughts, and extreme stress, leading to psychosomatic pathologies and secondary disorders.
Surprise surprise: stress is the actual cause of the great majority of the pathologies affecting humans - from cancer to metabolic disorders, to mental disorders and pathologies. Indeed, this hyperactivation of the amygdala and of the basal ganglia triggers a continuous state of stress that affects our entire body, inducing biochemical changes in our body and in our brain, and overall shaping who we are day by day, forcing us into a loop of continuous health decline, and increasing our probability of developing lethal disorders, and even sudden death. In fact, the amygdala also regulates heart’s function, and therefore its hyperactivation induces heart diseases.
In addition to that, the reptilian brain and the prefrontal cortex deactivate each other, therefore when we are in fight or flight mode we can’t think straight, and when we think straight we are not in our fight or flight mode.
The main issue with the amygdala is that it only deactivates when the triggers cease. But once the PTSD hits the basal ganglia, where habits and compulsive thinking are generated, then our own mind and thoughts, to stop which we should deactivate the amygdala, become the very trigger of our amygdala. Therefore we enter into a state of extreme stress, in a never ending loop of compulsive thinking and brain fog that we are completely unaware of, because we are in it.
Not resolving PTSD leads to bipolar disorder and other cluster B personality disorders, which are more difficult to handle and to treat because at that point it means that PTSD has changed our brain anatomy already.
I’ve been through a lot of stress and abuse in my life, and I often didn’t have the resources to receive help, so, I had to handle it on my own, and I have developed several methods to do so.
There are also established methods to manage PTSD and to deactivate the amygdala. One is the method of the witness: start observing yourself as if you were someone else, not in a judgmental way but by disidentifying from your own mind, from your thoughts. By doing so, you’ll get out of the fight or flight modality using a trick: it is not you being in danger, is someone else you are observing. The witness character resides in the cortex, and therefore triggers the activation of the pre-frontal cortex, deactivating the fight or flight mode.
However, often times I have found myself being under continuous abusive situations, in which I would receive attacks nonstop. In that case, despite observing myself and therefore avoiding to trigger my amygdala from the inside, the continuous triggers would keep reactivating the amygdala from the outside. Once the amygdala is turned on, then it goes on its own, and reactivating the prefrontal cortex become challenging because the amygdala itself deactivates our capability of realizing that we are unconscious.
So, the second method I have developed is to create internal and external cues that would take me back to the witness modality without having to rely on my prefrontal cortex. By doing so, every time my amygdala is triggered, the fight or flight mode activation becomes the trigger for consciousness and for my prefrontal cortex.
The internal cues are as follows: every time I begin to compulsively think, which is the sign that I am in my fight or flight mode, I immediately start observing myself (sometimes it takes time to realize it, but better late than never!). Basically, I have used another trick: I have used PTSD as internal cue to trigger my consciousness as part of a habit. Habits reside in the basal ganglia, not in the cortex, and are therefore available to be used when the fight or flight mode is triggered. A habit is a biological circuit made of neurons that work automatically, independently from our consciousness. Therefore, I have created a biological and anatomical instruction inside my basal ganglia that triggers my prefrontal cortex as soon as my reptilian brain activates. Then, it is my prefrontal cortex that, once activated, deactivates the fight or flight mode, and takes me back to reality and to consciousness.
The external cues can be quotes written or framed on your walls, objects around you, or keeping your place tidy and clean - so that your surroundings trigger the prefrontal cortex by making you feel in a peaceful environment or by reminding you of something that the amygdala makes you forget -, or listening to music that triggers your prefrontal cortex, like psychedelic music and music medicine and - last but not least - tattoos. Yes, tattoos can be your best friends! It doesn’t need to be a permanent tattoo, you can get a permanent marker and create tattoos that will last a few days, and then if you like it you can get a permanent tattoo of that. By having these external cues, every time you’ll enter in a deep unconscious state due to PTSD, looking at your external cues and at your tattoos (that are always with you and that can be phrases, reminders, memos, or symbols that are meaningful to you) you’ll immediately get back to your conscious self, or to the witness modality, and will be able to recognize the fight or flight mode and to slowly decrease the size of your reptilian brain, while increasing the size and activation of your cortex - the most evolved part of our brain.
However, avoiding to trigger PTSD even under extreme external stress is really the goal here!
To do that, I have developed a routine, that I have written down and that I have used as temporary tattoo for a while, until it became a habit.
The routine is as follows: every time something triggers my anxiety, which comes before the compulsive thinking and leads to that, I immediately start following a specific sequence of steps:
S: STOP: I stop any action and reaction for a few seconds
B: breathe: I re-take control of my breathing rhythm, which in turn affects the heart, which in turn affects the amygdala, decreasing its activation state
G: grateful: I remind myself that I am lucky for all I have, and for living in this beautiful world, even for the tiniest things
RF: reframe: I disassociate from the situation and I reframe it logically and analytically (so, using my prefrontal cortex, which deactivates my amygdala)
F: feel the re-frame: I replace the feeling of fear with the feeling that the re-framing allowed me to perceive by making me understand the situation from a conscious perspective
A: accept: I accept any reality that comes from the re-framing, even if it’s ugly, cruel, or potentially hurtful, as a fact that has nothing to do with me and that is just how the world works
D: deal with it: I deal with the new reality and I proceed to use problem solving from a conscious, unfearful, standpoint.
Still struggling with PTSD? feel free to email me at info@360holisticcoach.com for help, advise, support, and to start a journey together towards your highest self!
