Month: January 2021

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Trauma of abandonment

The feeling trauma of abandonment can affect not only a child who was left at the hospital without a mother to love it. Abandonment will leave a child feeling unsafe, not important enough to be cared for, and especially loved. Unfortunately, this can leave an imprint on the child. They could heal if they are given the necessary loving emotional needs even if it is not from their original parent.

A cared child even if they were adopted and were giving love, were cared for, will develop a good self-esteem. Self-worth, and safe in their own world. They will be able to build and stay in a healthy relationship as an adult. Even if he knows he was abandoned as a child.

Abandonment also affects someone as an adult. Abandonment comes in many forms, getting a divorce from someone who you thought loved you and would stay with you no matter what. The death of someone you loved.  A friend, who you considered a special friend who you two were un-separable, then, she got married and your relationship changed. Understandable, but why are you feeling this way? I had a friend like that, she stopped talking to me, without an explanation. I got married but wanted to continue our loving relationship. But up to this day, we separated and I tried writing to her, left her notes at her house, left messages on her landline phone. Never heard from her again.

I kind of understand why, but not connecting at all? It hurt me, but life does go on. I will never forget her. I did give up after years of trying to communicate with her. It has been over 40 years now. I still miss her. She abandoned me. Maybe it hurt her for me to get married and she felt like I abandoned her by getting married. I guess I will never know, we have moved to other states away.

For children, this could lead to illnesses as an adult, they could develop eating disorders, to find something to make them enjoy the feeling food gives them. Substance abuse could become another form of feeling numb or good, covering the pain and suffering.

One of the ways to start healings is maybe trying to find their parents, where their parents have gone on with their lives and maybe even have another family now. This could hurt too and just make your emotional issues get worse. You may start to have suicidal thoughts. Please get help.

Get help from a mental health professional. You are not alone, others are survivors. There are support groups that you can go to, and find others who can help you.  It can be of enormous help for you to get together with others who know exactly what you’re going through and who have already discovered a way of responding to the awfulness and misery that you are going through. Please get help.

You have many friends and other people who love you and miss you if your answer is suicidal. If you have children, how will you affect their lives? They still need you and need a good example, for when they too become adults?

Let’s say you feel you don’t have anyone to reach or to talk to? Please call 1800-273-8255. Reach out to someone to talk to. This national suicidal prevention lifeline is open 24/7. Please call and talk to someone that can help.

Many blessings and may your understanding of a higher source give you strength and courage to stay and get the help you deserve. God bless.

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Healing Trauma with Music

I had a client who tried in many ways to give his wife all he knew how to try to make her happy. Later in their relationship, he discovered that she had suffered violent and traumatic traumas. Without knowing, and being a musician himself, he gave her the greatest gift she has ever received- music, where she could write her songs and heal from her traumatic past by composing music and singing.

Little did I know that writing your songs, and singing them, was another form of healing. In my research, I have discovered that cultural modalities play a very important role in helping to recover from trauma. I like Mexican music. I always used music, as a motivational tool, when my house needed to be cleaned, laundry needed to be done, and clothes folded. I used the broom to sweep and dance with it. It has made such tasks, fun.

In my research, I understood that individuals suffering from PTSD used sports and games to cope with their trauma. I also learned that poem writing, writing your story, writing and singing your story, or learning to play an instrument is a way of healing and coping from trauma.

Children created musical compositions to assist them with their feelings of feeling unsafe at school. Music therapists and music programs along with the arts programs in school or the community, get very little recognition as a mechanism for recovery for children’s trauma and adults as well.

But despite all the positive and effective positive examples of art and music therapies, there is a need for recognition of these evidence-based coping styles. These programs are not given the credit needed to be implemented in school programs.

These programs are designed to reduce stress, improve coping with trauma together with crisis situations, by drawing and special techniques along with musical songwriting and singing, together with relaxing the mind, body, and spirit with music.

A bright light turned on in my head, karaoke, sing-along songs, is a very healing way of coping with trauma as well. Even if you cannot carry a tune, you can do this in the privacy of your home or bedroom. Look for your favorite sing-along songs.

Children also use the karaoke machines and sing their favorite sing-along songs. Make it a karaoke night. Have the children pick the songs they would enjoy singing to. There are so many. Your children will love it and at the same time healing with songs will become some of the favorite ways of feeling much better and heal from almost anything.

Doesn’t this make a lot of sense? It’s a way of releasing your feelings, your negative energy, it’s a fun way of healing, you may find yourself crying and releasing heartfelt pain. At the same time feeling much better, a little sad maybe, so sing another song with more pep in it.

Check on your emotional state of mind. You will see and feel different. Remember, it might take a couple of songs to write or sing, next thing you know you’re feeling good.

You will wake up and you just could feel some relief in your song and be free of some unexplained pain. Continue doing what you are doing to heal the suffering too. It’s a beautiful feeling.

Please do not look for the pain and suffering, because it will come back if you stop singing or songwriting. If you are feeling some sadness and some disappointment in your life, singing is just a tone away.

Voice your feelings and turn them into songs. I know this artist who turned into a famous singer, singing about her traumas and became very famous and popular singing about her losses in her life. She recounted them in songs and now she is famous and making a lot of money as well.

Many Blessings and healings from your song. God Bless.

 

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Trauma Triggers

The smell of freshly made bread, biscuits, or freshly made tortillas, brings back wonderful memories from I was still at home and reminds me of my beautiful mom. The happy times of family. But what happens when, due to a violent or sexual assault, you remember the smells surrounding the tragic incident, like it was raining. It is so amazing to me how certain things that you do not remember, can be triggered by little things.

For example, seeing things reminds you of a traumatic event. Hearing someone argue verbally in a certain tone. A certain place, an area, or a house, that you were walking by.  Many things could trigger someone and to cause them all of a sudden to stop and get lost in the traumatic event taking place as if you were right back there as it pays out in your mind’s eye, or it could be even more severe as if you are experiencing the traumatic incident in the flesh again.

In certain cases, you may not realize something is triggered until you have a reaction to it. It was my client’s birthday, during a session, as I wished her a happy birthday, she remembered an incident that happened while she was celebrating her birthday with her boyfriend’s family. They decided to hold her down and spank her, I guess that’s was a tradition in that family.

My client stated that she started screaming and crying and telling them to stop. She said she continued to cry and sob and telling them that she was ok, but at that moment and time, she did not know why she started crying and sobbing? The family felt so bad and apologized over and over again.

But if you teach yourself, to subconsciously know that this is over and you are no longer in danger, this too will help. By getting professional help, you can heal faster. Be less afraid. The world is no longer a safe place for you. Even before all this happen, you felt the world was already scary, you could be even more traumatized and scared now.

Even seeing a movie could re-traumatize you all over again, for me it was “Sleeping with the Enemy” starring Julia Roberts. Avoiding certain movies is a good suggestion and good advice. I could not sleep after I saw that movie.

Sometimes, you could be just writing a letter or a text. Now, these days can also experience trauma triggers as a bad feeling, as if someone is going to hurt you somehow, you can feel the electricity of it as if it is crackling in the air.

I pray and surround myself with the white light of the divine spirit when I start having a thought or an unexplained feeling of doom, it is an unknown trigger and just comes out of the blue.

Tell someone you trust who is not judgmental. Talk about what you are feeling to that person, someone that you have talked to about this traumatic event, and you feel better after you talk to them or feel safe when you ae around them. A therapist can help identify most if not all your triggers.

Get to know your senses and yourself well enough, your body’s vibes. Be connected to all your senses in your body to know the different ways you can understand your feelings, tingles, stomach, and gut feelings. You have become so connected to yourself, you question many of your feelings, especially if you are in a different safe environment and you are not too sure of that. Crazy huh?

What could trigger some of these memories?

  • Movies show certain emotions.
  • An object, a color, maybe a physical feature on another person, long hair, bread, mustache, a scar on their face. Etc.
  • A certain smell, they are strongly attached to a memory.
  • Something on the news report, or post online.
  • Hearing something like a vehicle backfire or a police car with sirens and flashing lights speeding by.
  • Pain, like a headache, a touch at a certain place on your body parts.

You are the only one that can sense if you are safe in a certain area, and for a while, ask a friend you trust to accompany you to go like the grocery store, outside to walk your dog. See someone to help you with these feeling of sensations, thoughts, and emotions. A therapist could help.

God bless and heal you from all this negativity and these trauma triggers.

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Trauma Caused by the Church

When I was young, about 12 years old, my mother would send us to go clean the church and our priest’s house. One day when I was cleaning and dusting his office, the priest startled me when he playfully grabbed me and placed his hands on my breast and said “you have grown into quite a young lady” and started to molest me. When I mentioned what this priest did to me to my mother, she slapped me and shouted, “Do not lie about God’s chosen saints!” My mom did not believe me.

I did not want to clean his office, clean the church, or go to mass for that matter anymore. But my mother forced me. I asked my sisters if this had happened to them when they had cleaned his office? They did not respond to me. Why?

They just continued to clean. We would take turns with another family to clean the church and the office. How many other girls was this man doing this to? I never will know.

The outcomes of these incidents can be overwhelming to us young people. Even though the world was not paying as much attention at that time and era, but equally important is long-term destructive effects in the lives of abused victims.

The damage to victims and the emotional damage as well, also the belief in our religious background. I remember him giving a sermon on keeping clean, staying away from lust, and sexual desires. I did not know what to do but feel disgusted based on what I had already experienced and keep things to myself.

Some of us cannot have normal or healthy emotional relationships with other people because of the distrust of other male people just wanting to be a friend or an acquaintance.

When does this emotional feeling go away? With time and work on yourself with the help of a professional.

Getting rid of all that shame, guilt, and our accusing God of allowing this to happen to me. One day, the priest was no longer there. He was gone. This made going to church more comfortable.

  • I went on to learn the ritual prayers.
  • Celebrated my holy communion, just to please my mom.
  • I made my mother proud when I got married in the church. In a white dress and I did not feel guilty about being married in a white dress, as if I was a virgin because I was blessed by doing that act with a priest “a man chosen by God himself” according to my mom (that was my justification).
  • I did leave the church soon after I got married.

Has this experience taken my belief in God away? It did at first, but now I understand, that they (priests) are “after all, just a man.” Not “made in the image of God” Genesis 1:27 as well.  This verb is a reference to man and indicates that man was created with a difference from animals.

Clergy are charged with the habitual conformity of all Gods power, to do the will of God and to the will of his powers to the will of God clearly discerning, his will in embracing his chief good without error in his knowledge, passions, or his appetites, and senses, also being all, to wisdom and enjoyment of his facilities in all his ministry and pray to restore our souls.

That’s a lot of responsibilities to place on a man’s shoulders. If so, that is probably the reason clergy are mostly men, ministry, men, church leaders, men. Today there are women in the ministry as well.

Healing will come as well,  getting help, by seeing a professional, or a good therapist.

 

 

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Family Feuds and Trauma

I bet you love your family. Have you gotten into an argument, face to face shouting with one of your favorite brothers or sisters, or someone in your family, mom or dad? Ever?

I have, several times in my life. I believe each of us has. Sometimes, you feel like you never want to see them again, especially when you are still upset at each other, at that moment. Yes, it felt like that, been there done that.

But do you really want to do that? Can you imagine how that would affect your life? What will you be missing in both of your lives?

Without this sibling, your parent, or another person in your life, how would you feel? Because you will miss them, so you could probably replace them with another special friend. I have seen this happen as well.

People replace a sister or a brother with hanging around someone else who can replace that missing person in your life. We do that. When we get what we are needing from this other person. So much so that if they plan to move, you just may move to wherever that may be so as not to lose that connection with the other person. Of course, you could call this co-dependency disorder.  Well, that’s another story.

Maybe, just because we are related to each other, and had the same upbringing, we are made out of different ideas, have different feelings, or opinions as adults. When the shouting and name-calling starts, all shit breaks loose. Old feelings come out, you are upset and you will start saying things, that you wish you would have not brought up. These hurting words will not always go away. It can tear families apart

You may apologize a million times, but sometimes it is still there.  We do not always see things the way others do, even if they try to explain, or sometimes pride gets in the way making it unlikely that you could admit that you were wrong. Sometimes that gets in the way of making peace. Other things could be.

  • Our ego or pride.
  • Something they, family or siblings, made fun of you or were just being silly or sarcastic, but you were serious, whatever it was.
  • Someone trying to give some family advice, who really does not know all the facts.
  • Family gossip, someone says something, you told them in confidence.
  • Siblings resentments.
  • Arguments, only one other person took seriously, and they are no longer speaking to you or others.
  • We said something negative about their children.
  • Someone said something negative about mom or dad.

Sometimes, you taking the initiative to assess the situation, and be the first to apologize, for the sake of peace this makes you the wiser person. Your family member will respect you more for being the first to apologize. This will show that you care and may even be understood. Does this look on their face, make you just want to keep the peace?

Your family member will have more respect for you and will listen to you with more openness. They will feel safer talking to you about others in the family that together with you will try to help keep the family peace. Setting a good example of open communication is very important and plays a role in family discussions. The pecking order is important too, but you will discover that people in your family will have more respect if you show your love for the family.

Do you agree? Yes.

May you receive many blessings and peace in your family. God bless.

 

 

 

 

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Parents and PTSD Disorder in Children

As a parent, do we know how to help a child, our child if he or she is suffering from a traumatic event, be it violent, sexual abuse, or bullying in school? Bullying in school is not a threat, right now, due to the pandemic, but what has been going with your child lately? He is crying, (I will use he, but mean both male and female) screaming, wakes up screaming, and or crying. What is going on? Then, what? Now he has wet the bed.

He is too afraid to talk about it. Remind him, just like they talked to him in school, he can talk to you, and you promise not to get mad. If he says “nothing has happened.” He is not ready to tell you about it, don’t rush it. Let him know that he can talk to you about anything, and you will not get angry at him.

He could be worried about what will you do to the person who has hurt him. He could get in trouble by telling you who is doing something to him and what is going on.

There could be many factors that might prevent him from opening up to you. Assure him you love him and let him know that he can talk to you about anything. Look him in the eyes, and tell him you love him, and as you hug him, listen to his tone and notice his body reactions. Is he trembling as you hugged him? Did he start to cry, or did big tears just drain his eyes?

Children absorb emotional support. They need reassurance that they are safe with you. PTSD is a very common mental health affliction that could be visited upon anyone who has suffered a traumatic event of violence, or sexual abuse. This condition is often accompanied by depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. They may keep getting frightened, confused, and have flashbacks.

This may get worse, so, please get professional help.

In teenagers

This condition could get worse as he turns into a teenager, his anger could get seriously worse. There are other signs of PSTD symptoms, depressed mood, headaches, stomach pain, lack of concentration, focus, lack of sleep, bedwetting, and many other negative reactions.

Report to a therapist, other disturbing things you have seen that might be important for the therapist to give assistance and attention to.

Coping and support

There will be many ups and downs potentially tantrums from your child and family living around the same household where the dramatic event took place. It can be frightening and energy-draining for the family as a whole.

You can find resources for help by calling “Center for families” they are open 8 am to 7 pm. and Saturdays from 9 to 1 Please call 617-355-6279. That can give more information for help and direct you to the right resources.

  • Tell your child it is “OK” to ask you any questions he/she may have about his PTSD.
  • Tell them it is OK for them to come and talk to you or another person they truly trust..
  • Set a certain rule that they could follow just in case he may need help. Repeat certain rules to make sure they are understood.
  • Go to family therapy. Be honest during the sessions. Adults should be good examples of how to talk and share.

Do relaxation exercises with your child to help soothing as needed. This could help during episodes of depression, anxiousness, or other chaos-causing episodes. This can be helpful for any other household member including dad.

  • A quick and easy relaxation technique to soothe anxiety is calm breathing. Have your child practice this by taking a slow breath in through the nose for about 4 counts. Then, have them hold their breath for 1 or 2 counts. Exhale through the mouth.
  •  Wait a few seconds and then repeat for 5 to 10 breaths or until they start to feel calm
  • Other helpful soothing techniques that your child can learn include guided imagery using playful characters or visualization of parks or other pleasant imagery.

Dealing with this unfortunate experience with a beloved child may be very difficult at times, but as your child matures as an adult, they will remember your loving embrace to conquer this disease, making him a better and healthier survivor.

Many blessings and may God bless all involved in creating a loving survivor of PTSD.

 

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Has This Pandemic Caused Trauma?

It is more like how has this pandemic caused trauma? It has inflicted an illness, first of all, that has killed many people who the virus has touched. It removed people from their livelihood and many have become homeless. It is almost like that movie, “Outbreak.” To scare us even more, it was listed on Netflix and we watched it.  There, like here we saw people lose their loved ones. Just like today, and right now.

We could go on and on about how it has affected all of us. I wanted to focus on how it made us change. Emotionally, physically, and mentally.

I feel bad for those who are now homeless, living out in the open, under cold tents in this winter weather. Children who are cold, because mom and dad cannot handle the finances due to been laid off from work. Many things are mainly political, but these things are happening and been dealt with by those who do not realize or care how cold it is outside with only a thin blanket on them.

How about the $600.00 dollars stimuli check? Thank you for that, it did come in handy, I did not feel it come into my account. Why, because it only paid for my butane tank for cooking and heating and it didn’t cover the whole bill, I needed more.

We were thankful of course, but other nations received more than we did, of own taxes, did anyone think of that? Do we have control of where our taxes go? No.

This trauma will stay with us for a lifetime. Those experiencing this at this moment will never forget the chaos, the protesting, and its causes into the businesses due to the riots and looting of the local town businesses.

No work, little money, dreading the limit, and the end of the “eviction temporary law.” Now that it has been extended to March 15th. What then? The problem still will exist?

The government has found two vaccines, that the FDA has approved Pfizer and Moderna, but as I understood it, is going to take two doses of it after six months because it only lasts 21 to 28 days each shot for protection, Maybe, they are not sure if it will keep you from getting the virus. But symptoms might now not be as serious.

But it will take until December 31st, to contain eighty percent of the people in the united states. If eighty percent of people are safe, then the government will think of placing the country back into the environment. That’s still some time away.

It will still take much more time for the economy to get back on its feet. Today, I am really surprised the Market games are doing well. They are surviving. Is that good? I assume so? Can this pandemic cause trauma? It could, let’s not let it. Let’s not be part of the negativity of it.

This pandemic will shape our psychology for many years to come and for right now has affected many of us, of all ages, gender, and walks of life throughout the globe. Can you believe this? The globe as a whole. We can go on and on, but let’s change this negative thought. In which way has it made some positive changes?

What can we add, toward a more positive aspect of this pandemic that we have been placed in? What can we say that is positive? let’s see.

  • Our attitude is better, we could say, just like our children miss their friends, so do we adults. But they are only a phone call away. we all miss our friends and appreciate them more. Let’s give them a call.
  • Some of us lucky ones are working from home now, we don’t need babysitters, (maybe) moms and dads can handle multiple tasks with each other’s help.
  • This pandemic has given families the opportunity to better dissector to better create family togetherness, healthier entertainment, and a more loving environment.
  • People have greater use of information and knowledge thru the internet.
  • We have learned to use video technology face to face communication.
  • We/I do not miss the hassle of the everyday traffic and rush to get to a meeting.
  • We have also increased our concern for our health, we take our vitamins with more consistency now.
  • Our family’s health concerns us as well.
  • People are more concerned about others losing their businesses. We are starting to care about others.
  • Our kids are using lab tops and learning more technology as well.
  • We sometimes talk to other adults thru videos for more ideas.
  • Join groups online.
  • Family nights, family movies. Date night, kids fix candle lite dinner for mom and dad. (If old enough) (how sweet!)

These are just some of the positive things I could come up with or hear about. I am sure you could have more. Because we are going to have more time for this pandemic, we will have to have more patience with ourselves, our children, and others whose lives we touch, through Video.

This too shall pass. Soon I pray.

Many blessings to you. Please stay positive and healthy. May God bless.

 

 

 

 

 

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Cycle of Trauma

The cycle of trauma? What are we talking about here? Do we keep recycling our traumas to our children? How are we supposedly doing this?  When we are stressing about something like our car broke down, now we have no transportation to get to and from work, and just the other day, my washing machine broke down too. Where is the money going to come from if I can’t get myself to work? If I am missing work, how am I supposed to get the car fixed? Where is the money going to come from? The cycle of problems too.

Well, if I am too upset, who is paying attention to the children? what are they experiencing with mom been all upset about the money for the car, upset because of the money for the washing machine, what are the children experiencing and what kind of an example is mom right now?

Mom is losing it and what are the children learning, that when they are adults, they will get stressed out about the financial part as well and get ill or get a better paying job. Mom is taking a drink to calm her nerves. Drugs or alcohol.

As adults, we get stressed, which interrupts our time and the needs of the children, if this stressful situation is ongoing, it interferes with the development of the children. The children as adults will reduce their ability to deal with stress. Which could mean, it can affect the development of their children (and the beat goes on and on).

Sometimes, we are just so busy with our own personal problems, we react in a manner where we are just self-involved with our problems, and unfortunately, our children are not always our first priority. Our stressors are because, honestly, they are causing us pain right now which makes us painfully aware of our lack of peace of mind.

Limited coping skills could be a genetic part inherited from our parents. Could that be the case with our children? Are we going to affect our grandchildren too? We are not responding to our stress appropriately. Psychotherapists are there to help us with handling our stress levels and teach our children to better cope with stressors of life.

  • Breathing should help and have the children join you in the breathing exercise. For example, take a deep breath, count to the count of 6 in your mind. Blow out, like your blowing out your birthday candles. Repeat as needed.
  • Children need to hear positive things from you.
  • Say, “Sometimes, when I am feeling sad, just thinking of you makes me feel better.”
  • Smile, this too shall pass.
  • Think of a happy song, or an upbeat song and sing it.

Let’s try to relax, with another breathing exercise to relieve tension. Sit in a comfortable chair, your feet on the floor and your hand laid loosely on your thighs, palms up.

  • Now close your eyes. Breath in.
  • Gently blow out all the air in your lungs.
  • Slowly inhale while counting to 6.
  • Allow your abdomen to expand while you breathe in
  • Breathe out,
  • Now breathe normally for a minute
  • Repeat until you feel your tension subside.

Every thought you think and every word you speak, is being responded to, and to the point of this power is in this moment. The thoughts you are thinking and the words you are saying at this moment are creating your future. Try keeping things on a positive note, if not for you, for your children and your children’s children, for they are our future.

Many blessings to you and the children.

 

 

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What is Bonding Abuse Trauma?

Trauma abuse bonding is a connection between someone who has been abusing an individual, like a predator, or child abuser? Sometimes, yet, not always. It is like when you are at a nightclub with someone you just met, dancing and having a good time, then he says, “do you want to go somewhere to eat? We’ll go in my car, I promise to bring you right back,” and you have just been kidnaped, or he has forced himself on you and taken you to his dwelling and forced you to stay.

He is sexually abusing you and he said he is not going to let you go until you say, “you love him.” He beats you; he rapes you and does what he wants with you. Then he washes you down gently, with clean warm soapy water, and says he hopes he “didn’t hurt you too much” then asks, “are you hungry?” and says, “I want you to stay with me and be my wife.”

When that person does as their told and is rewarded with kindness. The person kidnaped then, is just trying to survive the situation. He talks to her and they get acquainted. A bonding begins. He tells his story and how he was abandoned at the age of three and went knocking at neighbor’s houses for food. Now you start having feelings for him.

Stockholm syndrome is a specific kind of trauma bond, it refers to someone captive and developing positive feelings for their captors. Controlling the kidnaped by force and kindness.

If you think he’s just misunderstood, and may actually be a nice person who you think you could help, you are suffering from what they call, Stockholm syndrome.

Human form attachments is a means of survival. The feeling of attachment can be contributed to a trauma bond, as a pattern of abuse and “I hope I did not hurt you too badly.” Adults form attachments to others who provide comfort after abuse. This is an unhealthy attachment.

Things like this happen in many other countries regularly. This was one of the ways my mother met her first husband. My mom was 13 years old. My mom was walking home with another friend when suddenly a man on a horse picked her up like a rag doll and rode off with her.  Someone killed her husband when she was 15 years old. That’s a story she told all of her daughters. I have never forgotten that story. Scary…

Grateful behavior may also cause further bonding because he could have really hurt me, a captive person could become accustomed to the violent treatment and feels it is a small price to pay for a kindness. During this time of the abuse, a captive person could say, yes, I deserved the abuse.

  • “I made him angry”, “it’s my fault”
  • “He acts that way because he loves me so much.”
  • “He’s under a lot of pressure”
  • “I can’t leave him; he is the love of my life.
  • “But I love him.”
  • I mentioned earlier in my writings, that I had a client that believed,” If he does not hit me, it is because he does not love me.”
  • Beliefs there is no escape

Breaking the trauma bond will be very difficult and may take some time.  This person may still feel that love, and loyalty. Even if that person leaves the abuser they will be tempted to return because they believe that is real love, they have been so deeply conditioned. It will feel like an addiction or a need to be with that abuser. Again, it will feel like an addiction, a need, a desire, confused with love.

Safety planning:

This safety plan will have to be planned very carefully, once the captive person has had enough, and that time will come. All in good time. Especially, if there are children involved. It will have to be very carefully planned. You will need someone to help with the resources. Car, shelter, protection from the abuser. Call someone you trust. Only you know how the abuser will react if caught. Call the National Domestic violence hotline, open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. At 1800 799 7233. They will be able to help and answer all your questions. Or call 911. I will send the Divine white light for protection and courage to you. Many blessings and God Bless.

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Trauma and Personality Disorders

Of all the mental disorders, those with more than one diagnosis of personality disorder, those suffering from this mental disorder are harder to treat. It takes a special skill that is needed to try to makes changes that will help those suffering from a personality disorder. Sometimes, people suffering from personality disorders, cannot see the disease.

If people suffering from a personality disorder, get off their medication, the symptoms get worse, and they are mainly more disruptive on themselves than on others. People suffering from this mental health disease will let you know how they feel about you. You will start questioning yourself.

Sometimes, people suffering from a personality disorder, love you and sometimes they hate you, all in the same breath.

They have skills that they could use in a working setting or certain areas of life. One client could write many pages about her sessions with me while adding more written information that was helpful for me to understand where she was coming from. Her writing skills were amazing. This client stated she did not take writing lessons, this was just what she learned in high school.

Very interesting how the brain trained itself to manage its environment as children. The following are some self-imaging of how people suffering from personality disorders feel.

  • They have a hard time controlling their emotions
  • People with a personality disorder have a hard time with gray areas, it is either black or white.
  • People with this disorder, have an unstable sense of who they are.
  • Destructive behavior/self-injury.
  • Feeling of hating themselves.
  • Feelings of paranoia, “someone is talking negatively about me.”
  • Sometimes has intense anger and difficulty controlling emotional impulses.
  • Emotional anger, violence, or escalating into physical fights.
  • Bouts of Depression.
  • Suicidal behavior.

I had a client who at the start of a weekend would say “I want to kill myself,” That was like 10 until 5:00 pm on a Friday. Every Friday. We’d have to get the person on call to stay with him. The client was lonely and did not want to be by themselves for the weekend.

You just might have someone in the family who suffers from a personality disorder or someone who “used to be a friend.” They are very hard to maintain as a friend. Have you heard of the saying “with a friend like this, you don’t need enemies”?  Personality disorders people could be the reason. They act like a “goodie two shoes” and judge you, like you are in the wrong, or avoid you like you’re a plague.

Some of the personality disorder symptoms are unpredictable behavior. For example:

  • People with a personality disorder will be suspicious of almost everything, letters, a look.
  • People talking about them, they don’t like me.
  • Because of a glance.
  • Their self-image, their sense of self, will change rapidly.
  • Lack of focus and sometimes about of energy.
  • This disease may cause people with a personality disorder to self-medicate. Drugs and/or alcohol. (harder to treat).
  • People with a personality disorder may be into harming themselves or cutting themselves, sometimes just to get someone’s attention. As in “Fatal attraction” the movie.
  • Unable to sleep or sleep during the day and up at night.
  • People who suffer from personality disorders, suffer many painful physical ailments, sometimes brought on by themselves, like aches and pain, fatigue, and weight gain which could cause more serious physical illnesses.

Once you can understand them, maybe you will be able to tolerate her. There are more women with personality disorders. Even though men have personality disorders too, it mainly affects women.

If people who suffer from personality disorders get treatment, taking medication will help. Once they decide to take medication the disease will help immensely. You might not recognize them once the medication is balanced depending on what medication they are taking ad how long the regimen is. I would say about 3 months is normal. Medications have to go to the brain and that takes time.

Many blessings to all those involved in these circumstances.