PTSD no more

It's an unfortunate fact in the world today, that many horrific things happen that cause long term trauma and anxiety for people. Whether it is witnessing something horrible, a personal experience of rape, childhood trauma, an unexpected accident or death, a soldier's battlefield scars, or any of a number of upsetting things that leave their mark.

PTSD or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is defined as an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. Traumatic events that may trigger PTSD include violent personal assaults, natural or human-caused disasters, accidents, or military combat. People with PTSD have persistent frightening thoughts and memories of their ordeal and feel emotionally numb, especially with people they were once close to. They may experience sleep problems, feel detached or numb, or be easily startled. (From National Institute of Mental Health).

I recently worked with a professional who contacted me because she was suffering from PTSD. She had been diagnosed by mental health professionals and was resistant to taking medication and after trying other methods, including hypnosis, she asked me to try EFT with her. One of the symptoms she was suffering from was sleeplessness, which manifest itself in being difficult to go to sleep and experiencing restless sleep. She wanted to address this first. It was typical for her to have to stay up very late, as late as possible, so that she would be sleepy enough to go to sleep. We spent most of the hour tapping on the inability to sleep; both going to sleep and staying asleep. I instructed her to go to bed at a normal bedtime, see how long it took to go to sleep and whether she had a restful night. I also told her, that if she did not, to continue tapping on the problem. She did not follow instructions. 🙂

She did go to bed at a reasonable hour. It took her about a half hour to go to sleep. She woke up once during the night. She slept almost 8 hrs. This was a HUGE improvement. Where she did not follow instructions, was to keep tapping. She wanted to see how far that one session would take her. Within a few days, she was going to sleep quickly and sleeping through the night 7-8 hours. She had not been able to do this for almost 16 years.

The next session we worked on her irritability. She was having a very hard time relating to her children at the end of the day. It was too much activity, too much noise, too much to handle and she often ended up hiding in her office and her work. We worked on all of the feelings she was having about this and again, she noticed within days, that she was feeling more at ease, more relieved, and enjoying her time in the evenings with her children and spending only the time she needed to in her office.

The last session we did together went straight to the heart of the matter. As a young girl, of perhaps five or six, one of her caretakers had sexually abused her. 40 years later, this event(s) was at the heart of her PTSD. We went through every piece of the memory. We tip toed around it, so as not to create undue emotion. We took piece by piece and dismantled the power that it had over her. By the time 45 minutes had passed, she had released all of the negative emotions associated with the specific memory, and truly was released from the overwhelming symptoms that went along with it.

This was my second opportunity to help someone specifically with PTSD, and my third working with someone with a very traumatic event. I've also worked with my own grief and trauma surrounding my mother's suicide. It's an amazing thing to me. That you can walk through life, carrying such serious baggage. In my case, I went to therapy. I don't know how much I got out of that. To see myself and others in only an hour or two or three, be completely relieved from traumatic memories, dramatic emotions, consuming thoughts, and grief that seems as if it will swallow you, is nothing short of a miracle. It is this part of EFT that I find so gratifying. It has the power to take things that are completely overwhelming, and almost like magic, cause them to go poof in a cloud of smoke. If you have something from your past that is too big to face, but you know still has a hold on you, you owe it to yourself, to release it. You deserve to be free. EFT can give you that. And if you want, I can help. Tap with me.