Un-break hearts to heal PTSD

Un-break hearts to heal PTSD
by
Chaplain Kathie

Research has shown changes in the mind after trauma leading to PTSD. An event, or multiple events, end up changing how the mind works. What happens after is not "one size fits all" because there are different kinds of traumatic events. When men and women are participants in the events, law enforcement and military, instead of bystanders or victims, surviving the events it can cut deeper into them. This makes it harder for them to heal because usually it's not just one event that needs to be addressed, but many of them.

Trauma is a bottom feeder. One event may not be so bad, but the door is open into the soul and then comes another event, doing more damage. Then comes a series of events feeding off the earlier ones. While one memory may be the dominate one, it is not the only one to heal from. This is also one of the reasons it can take years of therapy to reverse the damage done. The longer it takes, the less reversal healing.

The good news is that it is never too late and much can be healed provided all of the person is taken care from. The chemical balance in the brain can be treated with medication to get the balance back. Medication should never be used by itself. Therapy needs to be included to enable the survivor to heal. Therapy needs to take care of the memory but there needs to be spiritual therapy as well simply for the reason that PTSD is a wound to the part of the brain where emotions live. The body needs to be treated to heal as well. When all "parts" of the human are treated, then there is true healing.

Think I'm wrong? Then look at it this way. We live our lives with a basic base of our character. Changes in our lives set of changes in our character, for better or worse. An event, a powerful traumatic event, changes "us" deeply and the result can be seen not only in how we act but by medical equipment seeing into how our minds work. How it is reversed is injecting another event to reverse it. If an event set PTSD off, then another one can set off the healing. The healing event is intervention.

No "one size fits all" answers this because everyone is different with different histories. This is why therapy needs to have many approaches. Sooner or later they can find what works for them. The key is to address the whole person, body, mind and soul.

I had a young Iraq veteran, a member of the National Guards, face what he was haunted by. He told me the whole thing. Then I had him think about what happened right before it. Once there, he told me what happened before that and we backtracked to things he had forgotten. With the whole series of events in order leading to the haunting event, he was able to see himself as no longer evil, but remember what was in his heart. His heart was broken because he never thought he'd be capable of doing what he was forced to do and it ate away at him. It made him question everything he knew about himself. When he looked in the mirror, he saw a stranger. Every other event after that made this event worse. It was the one that haunted him the most.


That nightmare ended but while he should have stayed in therapy at the VA and on medication, he felt healed and stopped treatment without consulting me. His healing could have been more complete had he remained in therapy with medication to address the rest of the events until he was stronger. I am not a therapist, just a Chaplain, I addressed being human with a grieving soul. This needs to be included in therapy but cannot replace the other parts of therapy or it can be easily undone. To this day I worry about him and wonder what could have been possible if he stayed in therapy with the VA. His Mom told me he moved away.

The mind is reset after trauma and can be reset again leaving them stronger than before because of what they survived. The problem is making sure they have what they need to do it. Based on what I've been reading about what has been the approach by the military, they can't get there from where they are. They fail to even understand what opens the door to PTSD yet they expect to be able to heal them?

U-M study sheds light on the biological roots of post-traumatic stress disorder
ANN ARBOR, Mich.-University of Michigan researchers say they have identified what appears to be a crucial step in the chain of biological events leading to post-traumatic stress disorder.

(Media-Newswire.com) - ANN ARBOR, Mich.—University of Michigan researchers say they have identified what appears to be a crucial step in the chain of biological events leading to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Their findings support the idea that exposure to a traumatic event can trigger genetic changes that alter the body's immune system, leading to post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is a severe anxiety disorder that develops in some people who have been exposed to events involving the threat of serious injury or death.

"We think we have uncovered a key biological step in the process that leads to PTSD," said Monica Uddin, a molecular epidemiologist at the U-M School of Public Health's Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health.

"Diseases in general, and psychiatric diseases in particular, involve an interplay between social and biological factors," said Uddin, an assistant research scientist in the U-M Department of Epidemiology and lead author of a paper scheduled to be published online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"In the case of PTSD, traumatic events can get under your skin and literally alter your biology, with significant physical and mental consequences," she said. "That's the main message of this paper."

The researchers used data from the Detroit Neighborhood Health Study, a five-year project funded by the National Institutes of Health. They examined more than 14,000 genes using DNA from blood samples provided by 100 Detroit residents. Twenty-three of those individuals suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

The researchers identified numerous genes—most of them involved in regulating the immune system—that appeared to be more active in people with PTSD. Previous studies have posited a link between altered immune function and PTSD. The new U-M findings support that model and go a step further by identifying a specific biochemical reaction that may be involved.

go here for more
http://media-newswire.com/release_1118743.html