Put feelings into words
Break the silence
When something horrific occurs, people frequently want to forget about it and push it away, ignoring and combating all associated sensations. Silence about trauma promotes trauma isolation. When you can state out loud to another person what has happened to you, such as “I was raped,” “I was hit by my husband,” or “I was robbed,” this is a sign of healing. We make our suffering worse by being silent about it, whether it’s grief, terror, guilt, regret, or despair.
When you say this out loud, notice where in your body it makes you feel. When you activate your gut sensations and listen to your grief, things start to shift.
If you’ve been hurt, it’s important to recognise and name what happened. Words, whether written or spoken, allow you to organise and comprehend the complexity of the emotions and memories held within you.
Your awareness may be confined to: ‘I’m terrified’, without context and words. Nonetheless, you are inclined to avoid anyone or anything that reminds you even tangentially of your trauma in order to maintain control. You may also switch between being restricted and uptight, or reactive and explosive, without realising why.
You are essentially at war with yourself as long as you retain secrets and conceal facts. It takes a lot of energy to hide your true sentiments, and it saps your enthusiasm to pursue worthy goals, leaving you bored and shut down. Meanwhile, stress hormones continue to flood your body, causing headaches, muscular aches, and bowel or sexual function issues. Only when you’ve figured out what’s causing these reactions can you start using them as warning signs of problems that need to be addressed right away.
Statements like “I feel like an object, not a person” and “I feel like I’ll never be able to feel regular emotions again” are common PTSD symptoms. Putting your horror into context and sharing it with others can help you reclaim your sense of belonging to the human race.
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o'er wrought heart and bids it break
William Shakespeare
Writing to access your inner world of feelings
We’re meant to be calm in our day-to-day interactions as functioning members of society, and our emotions should be subordinated to the task at hand. When we speak with someone with whom we don’t feel fully at ease, our social editor goes into high alert mode and our guard is up. Writing is a unique experience. Things will come out that you had no idea were there if you urge your editor to leave you alone for a bit. You are free to enter a trance-like condition in which your pen appears to channel whatever comes up from within. You don’t have to be concerned about the reception you’ll get when you connect your self-observing and narrative regions of your brain. Below you will find different writing techniques you can use. Feel free to use them if you do not know where to start, but you are in no way limited to them, you can write any way you feel is right.
Writing prompts to use:
In the practice of free writing you can use any object. Simply write the first thing that comes to your mind as you look at the object in front of you and then keep going without stopping, rereading, or crossing out.
For example: A wooden spoon on the counter may trigger memories of cooking with your mother or being beaten as a child. The painting that is passed down generations might might make you reflect on the family gatherings that were a mix of love and conflict or loved ones you lost.
Soon an image will emerge, then a memory, and then a paragraph to record it. whatever shows up on paper will be a manifestation of associations that are uniquely yours.
One of the best ways to proccess a traumatic event is to write about it. Write about the facts of the experience that you remember, your feelings and emotions about it, and the impact you think this event had on your life.
Just write about what you are thinking or feeling on a regular basis. This enables you to look back, track your moods and identify triggering situations.
When you feel very intense emotions or when you are feeling overwhelmed. It can help you just take everything in your brain and every thought and just put it down on paper. Do no worry about making the writing look neat.
Make a diagram, chart or mind map exploring your problems and emotions. This should simplify what is going on inside.
Sometimes you have these things you want to say to certain people but you will never get the chance to say them. Writing a letter you will never send can be a way for you to personally get some closure. I helps express your needs, wants and wish without expecting any kind of change on their part. Write the letter say whatever you need then after you can burn it, save it or send it anyway. You can do whatever you want with it.
Make a chart with three columns:
- What is in your control
- What you can influence but can’t control
- What is out of your control
Write these things down in the corresponding column. This helps you find clarity and focus on the things you can control.
Write about how you would like things to be going, how you would like to be feeling and how you would like to be handling a situation. As what we focus on we get more of.
Self Discovery and Communication
Learning how your internal world works and how to deal with it is a crucial skill that everyone should acquire. It’s critical that you figure out who you are and feel comfortable enough to share what’s going on.
Talking to someone else about it can be quite beneficial. As previously stated, “finding words where words were absent before and, as a result, being able to share your deepest suffering and deepest feelings with another human being” is the essence of a therapeutic relationship.
Being traumatised is the polar opposite of being able to communicate fully. A competent therapist, a friend, or a pen and paper can all help here.
This information is based on the book “The Body Keeps the Score” by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, therefore please read it for more information.
The Story we Tell Ourselves and the True Story
According to studies in neuroscience, humans have two types of self-awareness: one that maintains track of the self across time and the other that registers the self in the present moment. The first, our autobiographical self, connects events and weaves them together into a coherent story. Language is at the heart of this system. Our stories evolve as we tell them, as our perspectives shift and new information is added. The other, moment-to-moment self awareness, is mostly focused on physical experiences, but if we feel safe and are not rushed, we can also find words to express our feelings. These two modes of knowing are housed in separate areas of the brain that are mostly disconnected to one another. Only the self-awareness system, which is situated on the medial prefrontal cortex, has the ability to transform the emotional brain.
One system creates a story for public consumption, and if we tell that story often enough, we are likely to start believing that it contains the whole truth. But the other system registers a different truth: how we experience the situation deep inside. It is this second system that needs to be accessed, befriended and reconciled.