Polyvagal theory and trauma
The experience of trauma is a whole-body one. Many distressing symptoms of post-traumatic stress are felt in the body, such as a tightening sensation in the chest, a lump in the throat, sinking or dropping feelings in the stomach or a state of chronic fatigue or exhaustion.
Losing and grieving
According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), grief is a normal response to loss. It can be in response to a disaster or traumatic event or can be in response to a loss in terms of expectations, losing a loved one (human or animal), losing a job, relationship, sense of identity or home. “Grief can happen in response to loss of life, as well as to drastic changes to daily routings and ways of life that usually bring us comfort and a feeling of stability.” (https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/) Common grief reactions include:
Trauma is not what happened to you
Last week I shared a bit of a recap on trauma, which was something of an introduction to trauma. This week I want to expand that conversation a bit to provide a framework or a lens through which we can hopefully make sense of what we mean when we use the term trauma. Trauma is an interesting word because the official dictionary definition of it looks like this:
Trauma Recap
Helping clients deal with and heal from their traumatic experiences is at the very heart of the work that we do at Thea Baker. Starting with a little Assisting clients to understand what trauma is and how it is impacting their lives is probably the first step for many of them because oftentimes they have accessed our mental health care system (I’m writing from an Australian perspective here, though believe this to be indicative of many other ‘western’ countries) they have had their symptoms assessed and have probably come out the other side with a clinical diagnosis. This starts with a presumption of their being something wrong with a person.
Mindful May
I think that mindfulness sometimes gets a bit of a bad wrap and because I was looking for a little bit of alliteration-based inspiration this week, at the start of the new month of May, I thought I’d spend some time looking at all things ‘mindful’.