Tag: PTSD

Freeze trauma response

frozen river photo taken by Monica Cassani for Freeze trauma response

It seems that a lot of peoples most common trauma response is *freeze*. Americans feel helpless. Learned helplessness might also be considered a trauma freeze response. The first action one must take is to become aware of the potential for freezing. Once you recognize it you can start listening to the freeze and responding to your own body and how it wants/needs to unfreeze. It's critical that we all learn to unfreeze now. Look/feel within and follow your heart. Your heart knows the way out of freeze. Your journey out of freeze will be your own. Trust/feel your body and respond. Get creative. It's within us all. The body is the only way back to humanity.

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Decolonizing mental health

decolonizing mental health graphic on fiery red background design

I'm starting to share responses to general trends I'm reading in social media. I don't partake much in social media anymore. Not like I used to, but I am still ghosting around and seeing what is happening on the front lines of thought in critical psych and social justice. Below are some of the responses I've had to common themes that I felt like sharing.

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Chronic illness, pharmaceutical injury

fun design

This is my experience after what, at this point, amounts to thousands of hours of mindful presence with the chaos in my body. ~~ Chronic illness, pharmaceutical injury ~~ One learns when one focuses attention. One learns a whole lot. That is meditation. Focused attention. So, my experience of chronic illness: Chronic illness is the body saying no to the toxic societal structures that we have internalized…healing from chronic illness is healing the whole human shebang. ~~ To be clear healing does not mean curing. There is no cure to this being human. ~~ ....

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Trauma release in an internet age

trauma release in an internet age

Part of the success of this website has been my willingness (and need) to speak things that many of my readers were thinking but not yet saying. As I've gotten deeper into my trauma release and healing I've backed away from this site in many regards and ventured into dark areas of the psyche which even many people who had followed me for a long time no longer wanted to partake in. I've continued to post difficult material much of which continues to be trauma release, both for myself and for those who also, like me have wandered far into the abyss, by necessity, for their healing. Most of the people I've had the privilege of helping on this site have a radically different history than I've had. This is rarely acknowledged or understood. Most of the people with histories like mine are totally and completely swallowed by psychiatry and lost forever. I don't actually know anyone like me who has made it as far as I have off the drugs etc. It's a tragedy that hurts me. And so...this site, in part, is trauma release in the internet age.

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Keep going on…pandemic 2020, we got you…

I lay awake at 2:20 am this morning after going to bed at 8 pm. I was feeling a bit forlorn and I've had a really rough, homeless several months. Things are calming down now and I have a place to live for now but the chaos lingers in my body as it continues to... Continue Reading →

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To everyone who is struggling with isolation:

To everyone who is not okay in isolation: it's not your fault. Your nervous system is in overdrive and you've not learned how to manage it. This is a radical experience that many are not ready for. Stay online and connect. It's better than nothing. We are communal beings meant to live with others. This... Continue Reading →

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Trauma, detox (physical and mental) and other odds and ends

photo by Monica Cassani at Craggy Gardens, NC

Trauma is not an aberration. It is normal. This needs to be appreciated. The human being uses trauma to evolve and grow and come into awareness. It's just part of the deal. We are a traumatizing species. ...

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Their trauma is not an excuse to be a shitty person to you. Really?

Actually it kind of is. Certain kinds of trauma hack the nervous system in such a way that drama ensues even in light of awareness. Then it's just your job to steer clear with great compassion and love in your heart. People who treat others badly because of their own trauma do need to become aware and avoid situations where they act like assholes until they better understand and are able to not behave in that way. We can help them by making clear boundaries while minimizing our judgments. ...

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Mindfulness / Meditation, Complex Trauma: Rewards and Risks

dog on beach

What media hype and those selling mindfulness don’t tell you is that mindfulness is a process that can radically transform you, and it’s not always safe, nor is it easy or straightforward. We make it safer by being aware of the risks and learning to listen to our own bodies about when it is or isn’t okay for us. No one else actually knows.

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Let’s go crazy…

photo of prince on stage, with Let's go crazy on the graphic

I never gave up on the good that was emerging in all that confusion that was labeled and pathologized by psychiatry. I was trying to emerge from the ugly conditioned toxicity of our society. And yeah, that's hard work, especially for traumatized sensitives which, if we've been labeled, drugged and institutionalized by psychiatry, we likely are. Crazy is a necessity if one is to become free. We need to provide safe places for folks to move through it. It is not what psychiatry tells us it is. Not at all. ...

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