Experiences that rank highest on the stress spectrum are called traumatic and are so stressful that we are unable to reconcile them. The mark of these stressors becomes a distortion that affects all aspects of our “beingness.”

When a traumatic experience occurs and goes unreconciled, the mind will adjust itself to accommodate the unreconciled event by modifying the person’s behavior to protect itself and compensate for decreased functionality. The modifications become inevitably self-destructive and are similar to the effects of an auto-immune disease. The emotional effects have collectively been named Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. It’s estimated that approximately 12 million people in the United States share these common PTSD behaviors:

INTRUSION (RE-EXPERIENCING)
Intrusion includes recurrent intrusive memories, traumatic nightmares, and flashbacks. The person suffering from this is unable to control thoughts that repeatedly take them back to the trauma, and they are doomed to relive the experience again and again. They are re-traumatized every time they relive the original experience, creating a living hell and predisposing them to interpret new unrelated experiences through the lens of fear.

PERSISTENT AVOIDANCE OF STIMULI
Those people employ persistent avoidance of trauma-related thoughts and feelings and/or objects, people, or places associated with the traumatic experience. Because the individual is predisposed to anticipate every new experience from the condition of fear, they have already decided that they don’t like the potential of the new experience and avoid encounters. This behavior assumes many of the features of another mental health diagnosis identified as agoraphobia. The individual attempts to reduce or eliminate stimuli that will be more than they can handle and are deemed unpleasant.

NEGATIVE ALTERATIONS IN COGNITION AND MOOD
With negative alterations in cognition and mood, sufferers are often unable to see things as they are and assume distorted beliefs about themselves or the world. They may experience ongoing feelings of shame, guilt, or emotional detachment, even towards those they once considered loved ones. They may feel disconnected from others and activities that were once essential to their enjoyment of life. Often, they are unable to recall details of the traumatic experience or will unconsciously alter the details of the traumatic experience to make it more palatable.

MARKED ALTERATIONS IN AROUSAL AND REACTIVITY
The symptoms include a state of constant irritability, hypervigilance, reckless behavior, sleep disturbance, or difficulty concentrating. The person may experience regular tension. They become short-tempered and may have outbursts disproportionate to the experience they are having. This may often result in violent behavior directed towards family members or friends who are trying to be helpful or supportive.

What is important to understand is that all of these characteristics are predicated upon the initial interpretation by the individual of one or more experiences that seriously challenged the upper reaches of the stress spectrum. If the initial traumatic experience hadn’t been beyond the person’s ability to reconcile at the time of the experience, it’s highly improbable that any of these behavioral characteristics would have developed. The key to healing is reconciling the initial traumatic event, which removes the gap in the person’s life experiences. Once this is accomplished, the person can usually modify their behavioral characteristics to remove the aberrant behavior and find or return their “condition of being” to a more stable state.

After the initial traumatic experience (one or multiple experiences) is reconciled, it’s often the case that the person can find their more stable self through the self-application of self-analysis and introspection by using their awareness. However, it may be necessary to work with a therapist to find or expedite their healing. However, whether the guidance of a therapist is required or not, complete healing becomes possible. It doesn’t matter how long ago the traumatic experience occurred. The curative effect is the same whether the traumatic experience occurred last month or 50 years ago.

The tools employed by the author to facilitate the described dramatic personal transformations in this article do nothing more than focus the awareness of the person to discover, isolate, and release the traumatic experience from their life experiences. There isn’t any “magic” to the process other than how it permits the person to employ their inherent healing tools to balance their life. The pain and suffering manifesting from the traumatic experience can be disproportionately debilitating to many people, but it is no longer necessary to live with these unwanted conditions.

Books by the author, Dean Graves, are available on Amazon:

Enlightenment Plain and Simple

The Identity Model, Understanding and Healing Mankind’s Stress and Suffering

Edifying Children of a Lesser God, Answers to Existential Questions

The Enigma of Consciousness, a Spiritual Exploration of Humanity’s Relationship to Creation

To schedule your appointment, call 901.486.2787 or email deangraves@forwardcounseling.com. The author states that he can usually resolve initial trauma in less than 30 minutes.

By Dean Graves