Okay, So How Does PTSD / Anxiety Affect Us
Imagine that your mind is a working office. You are sat behind the desk dealing with the daily work load( Thought processes and information) that comes in and out. We have a big filing cabinet in the corner of the office to safely store away our memories and learned information once they have been used and dealt with. They are then safely locked away until such time we choose to use them. All good so far. On our desk, we have an in-tray and an out-tray. The intray is for thoughts that we need to deal with later because there maybe something more pressing to do or we don ' t have time or we don ' t feel ready to deal with them yet. Our out-tray is somewhere to put these thoughts once we have dealt with them ready to be put away in our filing cabinet. Normally, the daily running of the office is not too difficult and although sometimes we find that the in-tray can pile up a little, there is no problem in dealing with these things. everything is harmonious. Things can, and often do, happen to upset the daily running of our office. For me, it was a period of 22 years in the British Army. It was only when I looked at things in this way that I realised the amount of stuff that had piled up in the in-tray that hadn ' t been dealt with.( These are the memories we don ' t want to think of too much from active service or traumatic things that have happened by doing a hazardous job) Because the pile was now so high, I didn ' t know how to deal with it or where to start so i just left it there and tried to manage the normal running of the office. But every now and then the door to the office would open unexpectedly and a gust of wind would blow everything out of the in-tray. This ' door opening and gust of wind ' was actually a trigger to remind me of something in the tray. In my panic, I would scramble to try to pick everything up off the floor but as I saw all of the information that I hadn ' t processed lying around I automatically start to remember all of the bad stuff all at once and lose concentration on my normal daily operations. I ' ve just entered a flashback, reliving these traumatic memories but still not processing them. All I can do at this point is try to pick everything up and get them back in the in-tray. But because these events have traumatised us so much the office doesn ' t quite shut down when we go to sleep and we are constantly thinking of the things that we have been reminded of while we sleep.( nightmares). As you can see, it is now virtually impossible to run the office normally. So what can we do? The First Field Dressing will help to place a hand on the pile and steady it until professional help can help to put everything where it should be.
So What’ s Involved?
Although not essential it can be really useful to work through the programme with friend or someone who you can trust to help you go through the booklet.
We will firstly look at ways to „ ground ‟ ourselves initially when we are affected by our symptoms. These are simple exercises that can make us feel temporarily well so we can implement further actions to stabilise us. After which we will look at and recognise our symptoms and then build plans to help us in the future.
It is strongly advisable that when you begin any form of help or counselling, you inform the professionals of your plan. This will not only assist treatment but it may also aid in your recovery.