I yelled angrily at my partner this morning because he was insisting on driving up the coast into the path of the cyclone – how bloody stupid! As I stormed out of the room I saw our little cat slinking away from my anger. As I stopped to reassure her, my tears came and I went back to explain I was just afraid for him. Just now, in preparation for writing this article I’ve sat down to reread my notes from the AHA workshop I attended on “Hypnosis as a Cure for Trauma and PTSD” by Richard Margessan, and realised why I’d been over-reacting. (PTSD = Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, AHA = Australian Hypnotherapists Association)
The TV reports this morning had taken me back to childhood, and those scary times when my parents would grimly race around, taping windows, filling the bath tub with water and actually have the TV on during the day. My body has a tense memory of the TV/radio cyclone warning siren before an update. I can still feel the wildness of the wind and rain smashing into our home, the eerie stillness as the cyclone eye passed over, then more wind and rain pounding from the opposite direction. A window on the opposite side to the wind had to be open to equalise the pressure to avoid the windows popping. When the power went off we sat with candle light, and weren’t allowed to open the fridge. No one wanted to go to our separate bedrooms.
There are different types of trauma & PTSD. Primary Source is from your own personal experience. For example ‘trauma’ from being in a serious car accident , or ‘Trauma’ from being in a serious accident that involved seeing death, limbs severed, incineration etc. Secondary Source is when you watch the accident, for example on TV. In your imagination you associate into someone else’s traumatic experience. That creates a memory for you which then can be projected into the future so you can imagine experiencing that event yourself. The more images & sounds you experience, the more you create, the more your brain gets hard wired to create more of the same. The tendency then is to experience more and more generalised fears, building to anxiety. All from the comfort of your lounge chair.
Protect your children from the TV news. Minimize your exposure as well. Remember, the more senses engaged, the stronger the imprint. Memory is in your whole body, in your multiple brains: head, heart and gut. Compare how to feel reading an article without images vs watching and listening to a TV report where they also interview someone obviously upset. Every negative image and thought adds to your stress bucket. (That includes Facebook posts.) PSTD is contagious! It starts small but like a virus silently grows over time.
Remember too, some are more sensitive than others. My partner can watch violent crime shows before bed then sleep soundly, but I have a horrible night’s sleep. You just need enough factual information to keep yourself and your family safe. The rest actually stops you from being effective in a real life situation as your brain has been fogged with sensory overload and ‘borrowed’ trauma. TV actually hypnotises you – that’s why you find yourself ‘stuck’ in front of it, unable to tear eyes, ears, body away.
“You’re only as good as your last memory.” Prof Joseph le Doux.
For trauma and PTSD hypnosis and Neuro Linguistic Programming are initially used to reduce the levels in your stress-bucket to a safe level. A particular technique is then used to interrupt the learning-storing-retrieving loop, and store a different memory for you to retrieve moving forward. Long term sufferers will also need therapeutic coaching support to deal with the associated secondary gain, self-judgement, identity and life-rebuilding issues.
Seek professional help sooner rather than later. For dealing with daily reports on our natural and other disasters, remember to minimise your exposure to images and sounds. Learn self-hypnosis* to manage your stress levels and to help yourself re-program positively. Remember to breathe, in for a count of 3 and out for 6, to calm and re-centre yourself.
*Learn Self-Hypnosis audio CD and download available from www.growingcontent.com.au/shop-now
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