My reading Genesis Chapter 11

I live in fear, it is what keeps me back. I use my past hurts as an excuse to protect me. If I was not abused then I would be who I set out to be. But, this is not what God wants for me, or for you. He wants us to be fearless. I mean after all we have His power in us. To access that power is a whole nother process.

Fearless

In today’s reading we hear about the tower of Babel. How when people come together with a common goal, and common language they can do anything. Let’s look at this from the perspective of conquering our fears.

Hebrews 10:24-25

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Coping With Emotional Trauma

How I cope with emotional trauma has not been healthy. I know it has not, but it is what has kept me somewhat sane. If not sane, but kept me from going into a psychiatric hospital regularly. Through my coping with emotional trauma I raised three special needs kids, stayed married to a man with brain injury and am now homeschooling my youngest child.

How I learned to cope is to hide from the world. I do not go out of my house very often. I use the excuse that my knees hurt to much for me to get out, or that it is too expensive as I need to use the taxi. I do not even like going to see the doctor. I know this is not a healthy way to live, but it is what keeps me sane.

My connections are my daughter who lives with me, and my husband that I talk to regularly on the phone or on the internet. The reason my husband and I do not live together is some of the reason why I live with PTSD. Maybe I can share some of that story in another post. But, just to say right now my husband is growing and changing. The Lord is working on his heart and mind.

Now at 48 years old I am tired of living like this. I need more, I deserve more, God needs more from me! I started counseling recently through Faithful Counseling online. That is when I found out I have PTSD. They helped me find out how my past traumas affect me and why I do things I do.

Then Teresa did an interview with Sanda Allyson. I do the show notes for every podcast Teresa does. So, I have the privilege of hearing the interview before anyone else. God started speaking to me about how a lot of my struggles are from spirits that generational sins, trauma, and my own sins let in. That I needed to let God do the battle for me by fully submitting to God.

It is a process of letting God search deep in me, to find and expose my deep hurts, sins, and spirits. Stuff that has been there for many many years. It takes awhile, a lot of prayer, journaling, and changing how I live my life. I cannot say it is always fun and easy. Far from that, it is painful, a bit scary to let go of what has become part of me. But, I know it has to be done. I know God has a great plan for my husband and I, but first we need to clear out all the old cobwebs of a life lived for our flesh.

If you recognize any of this in you, if you find you are in a similar struggle. I would love to come aside and we can support each other in healing. God made us to do life in community and that is why He called me to start my community website. Please feel free to check out my site and see if it is for you. Finding God Community

PTSD is Not Just For Veterans, But Anyone

Today I would like to describe what exactly is PTSD. How PTSD is not just for veterans. I will be using an article from the National Institute of Mental Health.

Have you ever experience a very extreme scary event in your life? Think of the emotions that happen. Or rational thinking tends to go out the window, your muscles tense up, your heartbeat races etc. What these reactions are called is your fight or flight response. For some people this response changes things in their brain and they have harder time moving past it. Anything that reminds them of the event can trigger the flight or fight response in them.

I know for me, so many similar trauma’s plus my brain injury makes it hard for me to move past the fight or flight response to my triggers.

PTSD is not just for veterans 

Signs and Symptoms

Not everyone who has PTSD has been through a life threatening event. Some experience severe emotional trauma like death of another, emotional abuse, so on. The symptoms can come on as early as 3 mo. after the event or even years after. But the deciding factor on if it is PTSD or not is if it affects a persons daily living and relationships and lasts more than a month.

For me, I do not remember when I have not been the way I am. Not many like to be around me because it is hard to know when I will react irrationally to things. I do not have any friends other than my husband and in laws where I live. Everyone is online. My traumatic events are sexual abuse many different men in different times in my life, and my brain injury.

ptsd is not just for veterans

diagnosis criteria

• At least one re-experiencing symptom
• At least one avoidance symptom
• At least two arousal and reactivity symptoms
• At least two cognition and mood symptoms

My qualifying criteria

• I re-experience my fear symptoms every time my husband and I try to be intimate
• I avoid intimacy or even facing people because I have been hurt
• I quit regularly get very angry to the point of blind rage
• I have depression, and anger issues, plus I cannot think straight when I am triggered

To further explain these symptoms I would like to share more of the article and add how the show up in my life.

Re-experiencing symptoms include:

• Flashbacks—reliving the trauma over and over, including physical symptoms like a racing heart or sweating
• Bad dreams
• Frightening thoughts

I sometimes get crazy nightmares and cannot sleep well. When it comes time that I want to be intimate with my husband my mind gets triggered. I want to love my husband, but my brain says no, I get scared. Then also it seems in some conversations, I lose all control of my emotions. I think this was first affected from all the fights I had with my first husband. When I see anyone being belittled, treated badly, or if anyone suggests anything that appears to go against me in any way triggers me. I shake, I say nasty things, I breath fast, get tunnel vision etc.

Avoidance symptoms include:

• Staying away from places, events, or objects that are reminders of the traumatic experience
• Avoiding thoughts or feelings related to the traumatic event

I do both of these. I hide at home so I do not have to possibly face people in the world that could trigger me. I also do not like to think or feel negative feelings. When I get so blind angry I then get very depressed and blame myself. Then I feel like pulling away from what triggered me. I am in a women’s group, I get triggered regularly by someone in the group. I left it once, but I am now determined to have God help me. I am staying in the group but, that does not mean that the urge to run does not happen often.

Arousal and reactivity symptoms include:

• Being easily startled
• Feeling tense or “on edge”
• Having difficulty sleeping
• Having angry outbursts

Out of these my biggest issue is angry outbursts. My biggest need to help me cope with life is to feel I have control. I believe this is because I lost control of my life to so many abusive people. So, if it appears anyone is getting close to taking any kind of control from me I blow up emotionally big time. I can be very mean and ugly with my words. In raising my kids, I could not control them, so they often got the brunt of my rages.

When I am in a group of people I am always tense, waiting for something to hurt me, or someone to hurt me. Waiting for someone to say how bad and wrong I am, what a terrible person I am.

Cognition and mood symptoms include:

• Trouble remembering key features of the traumatic event
• Negative thoughts about oneself or the world
• Distorted feelings like guilt or blame
• Loss of interest in enjoyable activities

Wow! I fit all of these!

Between my brain injury and abuse I do not remember my past much at all. I remember some of the abuse, who did what. But it is all like a fog most of it.

Negative thoughts about me or the world?! Ya! I do not like myself at all, I am scared of the world. I am scared of living with my husband again.

[spp-tweet tweet=”Guilt or blame, ya I blame myself for all the men I brought into our lives. I feel guilty for all the pain that happened. “

Loss of interest? Hum, staying home all the time say anything about my loss of interest?

PTSD is not just for veterans

Do you recognize any of this in yourself? I would like to encourage you strongly to seek professional help. It is not easy, but there is a way out. Between God, counseling, and spiritual warfare there is peace and healing God wants us to live with.

If you need to talk, please do not hesitate in joining my site as I seek healing for my life.

Finding God Community

PTSD, Christianity, And Me What Does One Have to do With The Other

I am so happy to be accepted as an author for Unresolved Life! I believe we all have unresolved lives, that is until we get to Heaven. I pray some of my

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