Tonight I finished up the first chapter of the "Body Keeps the Score" Workbook. It was a quick read, so I checked out the actual books first chapter as well. It is a little longer and goes into much greater detail.
It delved into Dr. van der Kolk's time at the Boston Vetern's Administration Hospital in the late 1970's and working with veterans and helping them deal with their trauma. Most of which were Vietnam Vets. It wasn't until the 1980's that PTSD started to become recognized, just to give you a reference of where they were in the timeline of how vets and others were being treated for traumatic stress.
Let me me circle back here before we go any further. Before starting the Workbook, I wanted to get a better handle on what Trauma actually was by definition.
First there is the academic definition from Merriam-Webster for the definition of trauma:
a disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from severe mental or emotional stress or physical injury
That was great, but that was Merriam-Webster's definition. However, I wanted to know what definition most mental health professionals may be working with. So I went to the American Psychological Associaction's website and foound the following:
Trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, crime, natural disaster, physical or emotional abuse, neglect, experiencing or witnessing violence, death of a loved one, war, and more.
Okay, now we have trauma defined. So, let's start again. So Kolk was working with veterans and what he discovered was that:
- Trauma has long lasting effects, even after the original event has taken place. Many symptoms were common across different traumas (think war and domestic abuse).
- Shame and self-hatred are feelingss central to trauma.
- Trust of anyone that doesn't have a shared traumatic experience is hard.
- The way the world is perceived changes and damage's the minds ability to play and use imagination.
- The advent of PTSD as its own diagnosis dramatically imrpoved the medical professions understanding of the traumtized brain.
So my exercise for this chapter was to:
Reflect on a traumatic incident in your life. This can be something you suffered from, witnessed, or inflicted.
My reflection tonight takes me back to this post I made on August 2, 2023 titled It Could Have Been Me.
As I stated in the post, I was supposed to explore this more with my threpist at the time. Suffice it to say, this never happened. I tried, but it seemed the threpist I was seeing at the time wanted nothing to do with the discussion and would change the topic. This was very frustrating, but after a while I just stopped trying to discuss it.
Now that I have a new therapist, maybe we can explore why I relate to Corporal "S" so much and why that crash, his death, and the death of the others have stuck with me for so long. Why they continue to torment me at times.
I mean I didn't even know him, his fmaily or any of the others. But somehow I projected myself onto him and it has stuck since.
Sometimes I resent him for haunting me like this, sometimes I resent myself for resenting him. Then there are times I mourn for him and have nothing but sorrow for his family and those young kids that never grew up with a father. Of course, there is also numbness I get, the feeling of nothing, which scares me more than anything.
How should I feel? I guess, that is for noone to answer but me and me only. What I would like to feel is normal and not dwell on this in an irregular manner.
But is it irregular? I feel it is, as I have witnessed dead people before. I have experienced traumtic events before. None seem to stick with me like this one though. It is extremely odd.
Then again, I guess that is why I am reading this book, doing this exercise with my therapist, and sharing some thoughts with you here on Hive.
Until next post.
Thanks for reading,
Joe
Notes:
-All content is mine unless otherwise annotated.
-Images are my own unless otherwise noted.
-Photos edited using MS Paint and/or iPhone SE.
-Page Dividers from The Terminal Discord.
