OK, so you read the previous post on reaching out and you thought, “Hell, no! I’m not ready to be a Chatty Cathy.”

That’s cool. No need to rush into healing head first. You can sidle around the idea; circle it like a puppy before he chooses to lie down on a big fluffy pillow.

For now, reaching out can actually be done in private in the comfort of your own home. (This is just in the beginning – don’t get too comfortable with the fact that you can always reach out without personally interacting!)

The first step toward reaching out does not have to be a big one. Often I write and speak about the proactive things we need to do to heal. However, sometimes reaching out means sitting still and doing nothing at all but listening to the voices around us. In order to fully reach out and engage in healing and the world outside PTSD – which is where you eventually want to end up feeling comfortable and functional – it helps to hear that others are thinking the way you do, are as confused, troubled and stumped as you are, and are working as hard at figuring it all out, too. Do this more. Find a wide range of PTSD bloggers you can check in with every day. Learn from them. Educate them. Befriend them.

Look, this is easy to do – you’re already doing it (you’re here on this blog, aren’t you?). I’m just asking you to do it a little more. There are plenty of us speaking out about PTSD. Are you listening to the others? Some bloggers chronicle their daily struggle; others approach things from the academic point of view. We’re all in a similar boat.

If you take little time to find the other PTSD bloggers out there, you’ll expand your range of information, emotion and experience. This is good to do. It gives us perspective. Carefully choose who you follow so that you’re reading posts that benefit rather than depress or trigger you. There are several bloggers who are honest in their struggle but not self-destructive or self-indulgent. The quest is to find bloggers writing about PTSD in a proactive, self-aware voice.

When you’ve got a good list (this can be between 3 – 5 blogs) begin to engage in the conversations. Every blog post is an open invitation for someone to jump in. Are you leaving comments on the posts that resonate with you? Why not?? You are an expert in your experience. What you think, feel and understand is valid and might lead someone else to a new comprehension. It’s time to begin letting your thoughts out into the blogosphere.

BRDIGE THE GAP exercise:

Today, reach out in the smallest of ways: As you surf the net begin to leave comments on the blogs that strike a chord in you. Is there something I’ve written in an earlier post that you thought, “Oh, yeah! I feel that way, too!”? Go back to the post and leave a comment. You can do this anonymously. You can begin to flex your reach out muscle without any of us asking you for a bigger commitment.

When you find other PTSD bloggers who write clearly and with emotion, use all of our words to tap into your own experience, and then reach out to tap into the energy of the collective community. Make at least 5 comments on blog posts that ring a bell in your own self. This can be 5 comments on one blog, or spread the love around and meet some new bloggers. The point is to respond to what bloggers are saying by telling them you agree or disagree, that you feel that way or similarly, that you’ve discovered this has helped or that has hurt. As long as you’re respectful you can say whatever comes to mind so: Read and feel and then translate that into words that reach out and bridge the gap between you and the blogger and his/her community.

To get you started, I offer you these three PTSD bloggers:

Catatonic Kid has a great post today about fear and love. I already left a comment because her words so completely tapped into my own experience.

PTSD, A Soldier’s Perspective today has an in-depth exploration about why vets’ patience, value structure and sense of self change in the post-combat environment.

Broken Brain – Brilliant Mind chronicles daily life with a mild TBI and PTSD.

Do some sleuthing and searching. Read with an ear for your own heart’s voice and an eye for appropriate opportunities to engage in the discussion, whether that means adding to one that’s ongoing or writing the first comment to kick off a conversation.

And then come back here and let us all benefit from your adventure! If you come across other PTSD oriented blogs that you feel have a great voice and focus on valid topics, post the links in the comments.

Reaching out means getting comfortable letting people know your PTSD self. That’s it. I’m not asking you to strip down to the whole you – yet. But stop being content to let the rest of us do all the work. You have thoughts, ideas and opinions that matter – let the world hear them!

(Photo: unfocused mike)

A lot going on recently. We wrapped up PTSD Healing Resolution No. 2. Today, we begin PTSD Healing Resolution No. 3: I WILL REACH OUT.

I want to begin by telling you a brief story:

Every Presidents’ Day weekend in Jupiter, FL, we have Artigras, an enormous art show featuring some of the best artists from around the country. It’s a juried show, so the quality of art is very high. My mom and I always go together to ramble through the stalls and spend the day together outside in the Florida winter sun.

This year, there was an exhibitor whose art is backpainted glass. Eric Lee of Presteau Studios does things with color that make me want to jump into a vat of paint and splash around. I’m not a visual person, but I fell in love with the vibrancy of the colors and the way he uses his brush to create swaths of life-affirming brilliance on the glass. Eric wasn’t in the booth, so I got to chatting with Pam (his wife and business partner) who is the kind of person you immediately feel comfortable with and want to sit down with for a long chat. Her eyes are bright, her smile quick and her laugh even quicker. She’s a happy soul. You feel good just being around her.
After looking through all of the pieces for sale, I chose a piece of art for my office – a long, horizontal electric-over-late-evening-blue piece with a wave coming out of a sort of mist at one end trailing across the glass to the other end. (If I was more tech savvy – which I will be soon – I’d upload a picture. For now, you’ll have to use your imagination.)
As we discussed the piece, I told Pam I wanted it for above my desk. I’m doing a lot of PTSD advocacy work, I told her, and the blue will add a calming and soothing but creative energy to the room. To which Pam replied, she’d had PTSD, too. You can imagine how the conversation deepened and unfolded after that. We compared notes, commiserated, exchanged ideas on healing and became fast friends.

This is what happens when we do the most simple kind of reaching out: We easily and immediately find others like ourselves who are wanting and willing to share. We find we are not alone. We begin to build a community that celebrates our similarities instead of making us feel isolated in our uniqueness. We make friends whose insights and contributions to ways of thinking and healing become invaluable on our journey.

Last month on Parasites of the Mind we took a long, good look at the value of talking. Specifically, that meant finding ways to communicate the story of our trauma. This month, exploring the I WILL REACH OUT resolution will build on those skills in less specific ways. We will discover venues to reach out both in person and virtually, plus methods to do this that make us feel safe, secure and strong. The goal will be to widen the mix so that by the end of the month we are less alone, more surrounded by people who understand us, and more engaged with the world outside our PTSD.

Standing behind the booth chatting with Pam, I did not tell her the details of my trauma. It was enough for us both to say, “I had PTSD.” We instantly understood the road each other had traveled. She, too, has healed. When I asked her how, she said simply, “Love.” Pam reached out and connected with a man who has restored her faith in love and the world and whose relationship with her has encouraged her to discover and find her whole self again. It’s a wonderful thing to see, and even more wonderful to know her and now count her as a friend and so benefit from her wisdom. This kind of connection can happen any day. You never know when you will cross paths with someone whose past is similar to yours. You will never find those people unless you develop ways to reach out, and then act on them.

Since today is the birthday of Dr. Seuss, it seems appropriate to end with this Seussism, which I think would be a great healing anthem for us all:

T0day you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than you.
We should all celebrate who we are - traumatized, healing or healed. In honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday, do something that appreciates You today. Any suggestions on what kind of things this would be? Leave a a comment or shoot me an email.

(Photo: Chat in the Hat)

“Telling a person with PTSD to ‘get over it’ is kind of like trying to heal a broken bone by hitting it with a hammer.”

This is so true, isn’t it?

The effects of PTSD only get worse when people who don’t understand it or us start declaring what we should do about it. The metaphor should remind all of us that sometimes people watching from the outside just don’t really get what’s going on on the inside. But that’s OK. We know what’s going on, and our ability to communicate it is another value of talking.

Today’s the last day of the second month of our BRIDGE THE GAP PTSD healing workshop and our 2009 PTSD New Year Healing Resolutions #2: I WILL TALK.

A quick recap of the top 10 healing steps we’ve covered this month:

1 – the importance of talking in the healing process

2 – 10 reasons you don’t want to speak; and the one reason you really, really should

3 – the importance of integrating memories

4 – learning to talk

5 – tips for outlining the story

6 – putting the story on paper

7 – crafting the script

8 – learning to say it out loud

9 – preparing to share the story with someone else

10 – letting the story out

It’s not easy to begin telling our story, but it does get easier. It’s like walking: first you stumble forward and do a faceplant, then you learn to hold onto things nearby so you don’t fall. While you do this you learn how to rhythmically and with balance put one foot in front of another. You develop a level of comfort and proficiency. You begin to walk a little faster, a little farther. One day: you run great distances. That’s the future for all of us.
But you don’t have to take my word for it that talking and choosing the words helps. Maybe you’d like a scientific and medical reference for the value of writing out the story and then telling it; no sweat:
This TIMES ONLINE article, ‘Feel upset? Writing it down helps you calm down, scientists say’ explains that recent research findings “suggest that one of the main motivations for writing and verbal expression… is the way such activity brings peace of mind and relieves stress.” The article goes on to say that, “The research could also be medically useful, as it suggests that writing therapy could help people suffering from psychological conditions such as social anxiety disorder, phobias or post-traumatic stress.”

So there. If you ever questioned what we’re doing here, rest assured: I do my homework. More importantly though, I lived it. I’ve done it. Our traumas and healing journeys are all individual, but our symptoms are universal. The best self-healing practices are, too.

(photo: Darren Hester)

Recently I read this quote in a thread on PTSD Forum:

“Telling a person with PTSD to ‘get over it’ is kind of like trying to heal a broken bone by hitting it with a hammer.”

This is so true, isn’t it?

The effects of PTSD only get worse when people who don’t understand it or us start declaring what we should do about it. The metaphor should remind all of us that sometimes people watching from the outside just don’t really get what’s going on on the inside. But that’s OK. We know what’s going on, and our ability to communicate it is another value of talking.

Today ends the second month of our BRIDGE THE GAP PTSD healing workshop and our 2009 PTSD New Year Healing Resolutions #2: I WILL TALK.

A quick recap of the top 10 healing steps we’ve covered this month:

1 – the importance of talking in the healing process

2 – 10 reasons you don’t want to speak; and the one reason you really, really should

3 – the importance of integrating memories

4 – learning to talk

5 – tips for outlining the story

6 – putting the story on paper

7 – crafting the script

8 – learning to say it out loud

9 – preparing to share the story with someone else

10 – letting the story out

It’s not easy to begin telling our story, but it does get easier. It’s like walking: first you stumble forward and do a faceplant, then you learn to hold onto things nearby so you don’t fall. While you do this you learn how to rhythmically and with balance put one foot in front of another. You develop a level of comfort and proficiency. You begin to walk a little faster, a little farther. One day: you run great distances. That’s the future for all of us.
But you don’t have to take my word for it that talking and choosing the words helps. Maybe you’d like a scientific and medical reference for the value of writing out the story and then telling it; no sweat:
This TIMES ONLINE article, ‘Feel upset? Writing it down helps you calm down, scientists say’ explains that recent research findings “suggest that one of the main motivations for writing and verbal expression… is the way such activity brings peace of mind and relieves stress.” The article goes on to say that, “The research could also be medically useful, as it suggests that writing therapy could help people suffering from psychological conditions such as social anxiety disorder, phobias or post-traumatic stress.”

So there. If you ever questioned what we’re doing here, rest assured: I do my homework. More importantly though, I lived it. I’ve done it. Our traumas and healing journeys are all individual, but our symptoms are universal. The best self-healing practices are, too.

(photo: Darren Hester)

Yesterday, I spoke about PTSD to a group of survivors and caregivers at a local hospital. A large part of the discussion came to revolve around the idea of how survivors see themselves after their trauma. One cancer survivor said that he was having trouble reconciling how he saw himself (as weak) after his cancer struggle versus how his colleagues viewed him in recovery (as strong). This is another value of speaking: in addition to finding the words to express our trauma, we also begin to find words to express what we’re thinking and feeling about it. When we can tell people what we’re struggling with we can work through the ideas so that we begin to see things in a better, more healthy way. By the end of the discussion this man began to see how others might perceive his recovery as strong even though he himself knows that he had weak moments. Hopefully, as he goes through the next few days he’ll revise his own opinion of himself and see the strength his recovery represents.
There’s a balance to be found in perceptions; talking helps us find it. Through talking we learn to reperceive events. This is incredibly helpful in healing, especially because so often our perceptions – muddled by emotion – are incorrect. I’ll give you another example:

There was a moment during my trauma when I felt myself leave my body. There was a tunnel ringed with white light. I was moving toward it. In the midst of all my pain it felt GOOD! I wanted to go there and get lost in it. This memory, both incredibly intense and also fuzzy around the edges, haunted me for years. I thought about it constantly, strove to find that peace again, and wished more than anything that I could have remained in that other place. I knew myself there, I recognized myself; back here in the normal world I did not recognize myself at all.

After my PTSD diagnosis I did a lot of research to understand what was happening to me post-trauma. In all of that research I came across the idea of dissociation. I didn’t fully understand the concept, so I found Holly, a trauma therapist, to sit down with. I interviewed her about dissociation. I grilled her for all of its meanings and implications. I learned that dissociation is what the psyche does to preserve itself when an experience threatens to overwhelm it. Ultimately, our discussion caused me to learn these very important things:

1 - Part of my PTSD was struggling with recurring dissociative states of depersonalization and derealization. I needed to address these things in order to heal.

2 - I’d been looking at that tunnel memory all wrong. It was not supposed to be life-defining; it was supposed to be life-preserving.

3 - Instead of wanting to get back to that out of body experience and live there, I should respect the intelligence of my psyche and appreciate how it worked to support me in a traumatic moment.

4 - I should honor that some deep part of me knew what needed to be done and when, but also understand dissociative states are not ones in which I am meant to live, nor are my memories supposed to define my future.

5 - I’d been chasing (and chased by) a memory that was supposed to be a brief moment in time, but my own thoughts and emotions had created it into The Meaning of Time.

6 - My lack of understanding was hindering my healing.

Geez, that’s a lot to learn just from talking about one thing! The fact is though, once this misperception was corrected my healing moved to a new place. Talking can do this: it can remove our inaccurate perceptions and correct our journey so that we can heal.

Just another reason to consider letting the words flow. You might actually heal when you do. Talking leads to understanding leads to healing. Now, wouldn’t that be worth talking about??

Have you experienced something similar to this, in your trauma or healing? Leave a comment or shoot me an email.

(photo: PhOtOnQuAntiQuE)

By now you’re thinking about with whom you’re going to take this next step in healing and share your story. How’s it going? Have you decided who it will be? What are you thinking as you mull over the choices?

One benefit of beginning the talking process is that it will help improve your relationships with friends and family. I know if I had talked earlier it would have really saved my family a lot of grief. They could see I was suffering, but they didn’t know what was wrong or how to help. (I could see I was suffering, but I didn’t know what was wrong either. Talking gave me a way to figure it out.)
Another point: my erratic and aggressive behavior often made my family feel like they were the problem and so a wide gulf was often created between us. Not a nice way for them to spend family dinners, vacations, and holidays. Especially vacations and holidays. I ruined many.

It’s hard to live with and love a person with PTSD – we are foreign to people who are not suffering and they are foreign to us. The only way to bridge the gap between them and us is with words.

[Note: Maybe your family is the problem. All the more reason to find someone outside of it with whom you can share and find support for healing. Later you can heal your family relationships if you choose. Even that will come down to words.]

You can prep people before you tell your story by showing them this article, ‘What I Wish My Family Had Known About PTSD‘. A guide for friends and family to understand us, this article explains the basics of our PTSD experience and how they might relate to every part of it.
Now that you’re imagining to whom you might share your story, take that thinking a few steps further and consider:

1 – The best time for this discussion. What would provide the right circumstances for this type of conversation? When will you have some private time you can invite someone to sit down and listen? Look at your calendar and choose a day that you will have time to prepare and center yourself (for example, by doing some breathing exercises or meditation). Speaking about our trauma can be stressful; choose a time you will not feel rushed, and a time your listener can give you his/her full attention. Also, choose a time you will not need to go or be anywhere afterward so that you can gently unwind from this conversation, perhaps with some more breathing and meditation techniques.

2 – The best place for this discussion. Do you think it will be easier to discuss this in the privacy of your home? Which room will make you feel most comfortable? Think of every room in the house and decide which one will make you feel most relaxed. Or, you might choose to have this conversation in a public space. Sometimes, when we’re out of our personal environments we are more able to view and act objectively and in a controlled emotional state. DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS CONVERSATION IN THE ENVIRONMENT IN WHICH YOUR TRAUMA TOOK/TAKES PLACE.

3 – The best way to tell the story. First, let’s say this: You do not need to be perfect in how you get the story out. The more you tell it, the easier it will become. I stuttered a lot when I first began relating the chronology of events. I couldn’t think of words, I lost my place; I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say or how to say it. You have a script – take it with you. Break it out into bulleted forms or put large spaces between paragraphs so you can refer to it if you get lost. Second, let’s say this: You do not need to be perfect in how you get the story out. Even with all of our preparation we can’t always tell the story without stopping and starting to gather our thoughts and control our emotions. That’s OK! There are no points or awards for perfection. Healing isn’t about being award-winning in our communication; it’s only about communicating so that we begin to find and receive the help we need so our struggling eventually ends.

In opening up we must be in a situation in which we feel safe, secure and believed. We must decide the level of detail we desire to share. In choosing the person, place and time, make sure that all factors will come together so that you are feeling comfortable and prepared for what you are trying to do.

Lastly, remember this: I suffered in silence for 20 years. As you know from your own situation, those were not happy years and I missed a lot of life because I was not willing to dive into what was wrong and come out the other side. Don’t make the same mistake. Be brave. You can do this. Open your mouth and let the words and emotions and past come out. Let the past come out so that the future can come in.

(photo: revod)

Posted by Michele Rosenthal

In order to survive the aftermath of my trauma, ‘I’ was a word that conjured too much fear and confusion for me to say. What slowly emerged as my post-trauma self was a girl who denied everything, beginning with the need or right to speak and extending to everything that might have been good or pleasurable. Joy was denied. And happiness. Religion. Trust. Faith. Medicine. Love. I believed in nothing, not peace or gladness. Neither glory nor pride. Everything became suspect. Everything became a potential trap into which I might fall and the result would be an overwhelming blight of emotion, an empty vortex of disillusionment, a catastrophic event.

Nothing seemed safe, so I never achieved a major step of the healing process: I didn’t “acknowledge the harm … [of] experience and discharge … feelings of grief, anger and despair.” Fear ruled me, and regardless of how often my mother offered to talk (which she did since the day of my hospital release) regardless of how often she suggested I might feel better if I did, I raged in anger at the idea until she, too, fell silent. And so, rather than move through denial and depression and anger toward a new understanding of myself, over the years I sank deeper into a definition against rather than of the new ‘I’. Plus, I sank deeper into an internal silence until finally, there was no voice at all.

I was 13 when my trauma occurred. I was 17 when I first spoke about it. In the intervening 4 years I couldn’t come anywhere near the subject.

And then something broke inside of me and what gushed out one impromptu day was something I don’t even remember. All I remember was that my mother and I were out to lunch and the next thing I knew I was sobbing and she was holding my hand and it was the first time I admitted to myself that I was struggling with the past.

It would be another 20 years before I realized I could be healed; before I made the choice to become healed and do whatever it takes to make that be so.

What I do vividly remember from that day with my mother, as we lunched at a local diner and then drove to New York City for the afternoon, was the huge feeling of release. The feeling that I was no longer carrying around a secret – from myself and everyone else. It would be years before I spoke about it again, but I still remember the tremendous feeling of a weight being lifted. And also, my surprise that it could be lifted just by my attempting to talk.

For the past 3 weeks we’ve been building up to the moment that you share your trauma with someone else. Over the weekend, I posted the voices of other survivors who are finding the words. Now, it’s your turn.

BRIDGE THE GAP EXERCISE:

Your mission this week is to determine one family member, friend, or professional practitioner with whom to share your story. Make a list of the possible candidates in each area.

Carry the list with you; refer to it during the day. If you do not immediately know whom you wish to open up to, let your inner voice guide the way. When you randomly look at the list you will feel a reaction to the names on it. Which name has a positive reaction associated with it?

[Note: If you have already accomplished this step of speaking to family, friend and practitioner, your focus should be on whom you will tell the secrets you still keep. I went through years of therapy without admitting to my therapist what the real driving force was behind my PTSD. I talked about the horror of my illness, but I didn’t mention my continual flashbacks about leaving my body or how those flashbacks were driving the day to day life I was trying to lead. When I finally did tell him this, it brought me to a new level of healing. We cannot fully heal if we keep secrets. Now’s the time for you to get comfortable with the idea of letting out the last bits of information you’ve kept to yourself.]

Some points to think about:

1- The goal is not to go around telling our suffering to unspecified people who may or may not want to hear it. The plan is to reach out appropriately by developing the ability to have a dialogue with a support network: specifically chosen family, friends and practitioners.

2- Anyone to whom we tell the story should be in the position to have chosen to hear it and indicate how much detail he/she desires to know. Be up front about the nature of what you wish to share.

3 - In choosing to whom you will talk, consider the qualities that person possesses. For example, is he/she kind, empathetic, compassionate, respectful, understanding, supportive? You do not need to share with someone who does not have the characteristics to understand the courage it takes to do what you’re doing, and the conscience to know what the right response will be.

4 – Do not feel shy about your right to speak. One of the effects of PTSD is our detachment from the world. This is a major impediment to healing. If we are suffering without support, then telling the story is not a self-indulgence; it is a necessity. Healing cannot occur if we are all alone with our thoughts.

(photo:Elephant Soap)

Do you see where I’m going here? The will and desire to heal are not a straight line. We will be pulled toward healing just as we’re pulled toward not healing. Healing is frightening. Healing asks us to go into the dark believing we’re going to come out into the light. What we must do is have faith that the healing process will bring us to a better place.

Not that faith is an easy thing. Pulling together our thoughts about our trauma and the healing process can bring up new stuff we weren’t (and, thank you, didn’t want to be!) aware of.

I’ll show you what happened when I started writing. I had just moved to Florida from New York City and bought my first house…

A lush tropical garden of weeping French hibiscus, bougainvilla, jasmine, huge red lobster and white birds of paradise surrounds our patio. It is the perfect place for me to stalk the past. While the humidity curls damp tendrils on my neck, I’m slowly beginning to look at events, recount facts, develop a chronology; mine my memories with deliberate consciousness. In the end, there will be something that resembles a plot with characters, conflict, climax and resolution. I will have followed the proper academic protocol for story writing, but will it get me anywhere? Are Charcot and his cronies correct in thinking that telling the story heals trauma? More recently, is Horowitz et. al. correct in assuming that the “repeated replaying of upsetting memories serves the function of modifying the emotions associated with the trauma, and … creates a tolerance for the content of the memories”?When I am through with this very thorough reconstruction of events, will 1981 seem inconsequential? Will I be able to see myself after all? Or is this just another way to honor the trauma because as I get going and get the swing of laying out the facts, telling the story seems pretty damn easy compared to examining, exploring and exposing the deeper meat of it all, aka, Those Things We Don’t Discuss About Trauma.

The acute and sudden sense of overwhelming powerlessness.
My surprise at being so powerless; the seismic shock of that surprise.
The internal and external measures I took (and continue to take) to accept that shock.
How acceptance of shock causes an identity to splinter.
The disorientation splintering brings.
The ways in which disorientation forces the sculpture of an unrecognizable self.
How much that new self is not an entirely comfortable place to be.
How frightened I am that no place will ever be comfortable again.
How I no longer trust myself, anyone else, or anything in the universe at all.
How difficult it is for me to talk about any of this.
How much I want to speak but can’t.
How distressed I am at this unexpected absence of words.
The fact that I am lost. I am overwhelmed. I am afraid.

Doesn’t sound like things are going well, does it? But a wonderful thing happens when we begin telling the story: We start looking beyond the facts and see ourselves and what’s really driving us. We start understanding the why of PTSD instead of just living the what. We begin learning what it will take to heal.

The past 3 weeks of focusing on the I WILL TALK healing resolution has brought you to the point that the words are moving out of the dark of your mind and into the light of the world. This is a terrific accomplishment. This act of bridging the gap between you and the rest of the world will lead to a new level of healing.

Next week we’ll start looking at strategies for choosing the 5Ws of telling our story – the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the right person, place, time and method for bridging the gap between the story controlling us and us controlling the story.

Over the weekend, take some time to 1) finish revising your trauma script, 2) practice reading it aloud to yourself.

Freedom is coming, friends. Let your words lead the way!

(photo: lotusfee)

As I rewrote and reworked the script, I added to the revision process by reading the characters’ lines out loud. This disturbed Bret. He’d come home from work and hear a few different voices speaking in my room, and then, when he stuck his head into say hello there would just be me sitting at my desk, pencil and script in hand, looking up at him as if he’d just interrupted a deeply fascinating conversation.

The first time this happened Bret carefully looked around the room and then back at me.

“Who are you talking to?” he asked cautiously.

He looked worried. I was, although we didn’t know it at the time, deep into PTSD, so he was used to me being a little off and needing some looking after, but having whole conversations with myself was something new.

“There’s no one here,” he said.

“I know.”

“But I heard voices.”

“Yes,” I said, “I’m revising.”

What I had discovered during rehearsals was that two things were happening: actors’ verbal interpretations of my writing gave different inflection and meaning to my words, and also: sometimes the words that sounded so right in my head sounded really awful when put together on the tongue.

I am not the Magellan of revision – for centuries poets, playwrights and other writers and orators have been revising their work by reading it out loud. For us writing our trauma scripts there are some great advantages to reading it aloud before we speak it to anyone else:

[For those of you who are already speaking with great ease, you are not exempt from today’s exercise! We all hold back. We all keep some details, images, or instances secret for ourselves. Sometimes it’s because we just can’t bear relating them, other times it’s because we don’t know how. Now is the time to figure out how to say what still haunts you.]

1 – You get used to hearing the story yourself. We can’t help it, we get emotional at the thought – much less the act – of relating what happened to us. If we don’t practice what it sounds like before we speak to someone else then we’re hearing it all for the first time at the same time we have an audience. This is not necessarily a recipe for success. We’re dealing with our own emotions about the past at the same time we’re feeling very emotional and vulnerable in the present. Not the best way to go.

2 – You get to hear how the words sound. When we’re writing, we can tend to overdo it a bit. Big fancy words and long explanations sound wonderful when we’re speaking to ourselves, but you’ll lose your audience this way. Likewise, if the phrasing is ambiguous and lacking detail the audience won’t get the whole picture which, in this case, is extremely important. By rehearsing out loud you can decide if there are better words to express what you mean, more succinct ways of telling it or more facts that should be conveyed.

3 – You get to practice the feeling of speaking and remembering at the same time.
We deal with enough unwanted flood of emotion without bringing it on ourselves. Let’s not take the positive step of beginning to tell the story and sabotage it by not being prepared for how it feels to hear it and feel it at the same time.

4 – You get used to how it sounds when the ideas, memories and emotions exit your head and enter the world. In our heads memories can loom so much larger than life we can’t imagine shrinking them down to world-sized pieces. But we can. When we put them on the page they shrink a little. When we speak them out loud we get to see that they are only memories, after all. They are not happening in the moment and, though we may be a little psychologically skewed, we are still strong enough to pull it all together and share the burden with someone else.

I could go on; this is just a starter list for the benefits of speaking. These items only relate to where you are in the process today of writing it out and getting it ready for public consumption, which is a topic we’ll tackle next week.

For today, to continue the BRIDGE THE GAP healing workshop your goal is to begin reading out loud the script you wrote a few days ago. Find a quiet place where you are isolated and alone. Block out at least 30 minutes when you can read your script out loud, revise it, and read it through again.

Look for phrases you stumble over, words that just don’t fit, ideas that don’t really get the point across when you hear them out loud, and gaps in the narrative that need to be fleshed out.

Trust your instincts. When something doesn’t sound right you’ll know. Stop, revise, start over again from the beginning. The goal is to be able to read through the entire script without feeling the need to revise anything.

Final tips:

Play with your voice. Experiment with how high or low, strong or weak, full or thin it is. Find a register that feels comfortable. Don’t fake it. Be real.

Control your breath. Read slowly. Do not be in a rush to get out the story. Take your time. Breathe. Speak slowly and clearly. This will help your audience take in and understand what you’re saying, and it will also help ground you. The breath is an extremely strong source of calm to the body. Use it to your advantage.

(photo: EmazingEm)

An interesting study was released this weekend (conveniently in time for the biggest collective kissing day of the year) that indicates cortisol levels are reduced by locking lips. This is a tough nut to crack for PTSD application. I mean, here we are dealing with symptoms of emotional numbing, anger and the detachment of dissociation – and scientists are proving that if we did just the opposite, if we passionately smooched for a while – it would actually be very healing for us. A conundrum, yes?

Just like the rest of the PTSD riddle what we need to do to bridge the gap from PTSD to healing is a bit of a big jump. But I still think this info is good to know, so that when we’re having a bad day we can stop ourselves mid-stride, say to our partner, “Come over here and kiss me!” and feel a little better afterward. Sort of a new twist on cognitive behavior methodology. And not a bad one to get us thinking that maybe the isolation in which we cocoon ourselves is not the best way to go. Let me know what you think about this.

Getting back to the idea that TALKING is part of the healing process, today’s the day to look over what you wrote last week and get it into the shape of a script. That’s right, today you’re a playwright putting the finishing touches on a climactic monologue.

Using a highlighter, read back over the story you wrote out. Pull out the sentences and paragraphs that you feel tell the story in the best possible way. Rewrite the piece so that your favorites lines, explanations and descriptions are all in one place in one stream of information. Good. Now you’ve taken the burden of telling the story in the moment right off your shoulders.

If you’re anything the way I was, I could not tell the story. I could get out jagged bits of info in completely unrelated sentences one at a time. I could not look at the person to whom I was telling the story. I could not think straight while I was telling the story. And I usually couldn’t get out enough of the details for the other person to get the whole idea behind the story. Usually, I’d abruptly say, ‘That’s all’. By the time I was finished trying to formulate the throughline I’d be a black emotional mess and my thoughts were all over the place. I think the main reason for this was that bringing up the memories in the moment and sifting through them was too much of an emotional overload.

Having a script helps us lessen and get over these issues. With a prewritten script we no longer have to rely on our own clearheadedness to get the point across. We can memorize the script and then go on autopilot. We have a guide; we don’t have to do the guiding of the story. We know what to say without dipping into the past in the moment of the present to get there. Now that’s my kind of healing!

Today, sit down with your recollection. Think about it like a big lump of clay. You’re going to take that blob and transform it into a piece of art. You’re crafting the story. You’re choosing the words. You’re hand-picking the memories. You’re rising up just a little at a time to take back your power and control. You’re the artist of your healing journey. Create. Create. Create.

(photo: wacky_tom)