Healing from Trauma and PTSD

There are life events that haunt you.

Trauma is an injury to the self.

It could have been a “Big T” trauma like a car accident, sexual assault, or long-term abusive relationship. It could have been a “little t” trauma, like parents who made small parenting mistakes with you and never apologized for, a job or school that wore down your personality and passion for life, or a bad argument with a long-time friend that ended in your once-ideal friendship.

With “Big T” trauma, those intrusive thoughts hit you hard. You do what you can to avoid provoking them by not going near the places that remind you of what happened or being around people that remind you of that situation.

Life can be an emotional roller coaster as you shoulder the weight of what happened. You often wonder, “Why me?” You can feel your body react any time you contemplate the incident. You don’t want to revisit anything about that time. But, you are a prisoner of a ghost that embodies everything that went wrong.

But with “little t” trauma, you don’t fit the criteria for PTSD. You aren’t avoiding any bad memories. In fact, you might not even remember some important parts of your childhood.

It’s baffling to hear other people can remember parts of every grade in school, and you don’t have a single memory from second grade to sixth grade. You really don’t. You suspect life was hard, and you know from family stories that it was a tumultuous time. You do struggle with anxiety or depression. Your mood affects your relationships, your work, and your free time.

You deserve to be free from your past.

What you went through was real, valid, and important, and I’m here to help you process what happened so that you can move on with your life.

Going to therapy gives you pause. It seems obvious intellectually, but it feels very scary and potentially overwhelming.

If you’ve worked with talk therapists in the past, they tried their best, but neither of you could convince your body to feel like everything was okay. All the talking in the world… (like all the perfumes in the world, from Shakespeare’s quote above)… can’t convince your mind and body that you will be okay.

I’m here to tell you there’s a reason for that. The reason is that “the body keeps the score.” Perhaps you’ve read Bessel van Der Kolk‘s book The Body Keeps the Score. He illustrates how trauma is registered in the body when it happens and continues to live there until it’s processed. You might have experienced migraines, IBS, autoimmune disorders, dysautonomia, panic attacks, vertigo, a heart arrhythmia. Those are just a few ways the body puts the brakes on to say something is wrong.

Somatic Breathwork can help you heal.

Somatic Breathwork, a very effective technique I use in therapy, is an amazing direct way into how the body stores trauma. It’s a mind-body technique that uses the body to access the mind. With Somatic Breathwork, specifically, I have you lie and breathe in a certain way until you feel sensations in your body that give us a clue about trauma or unresolved issue.

However, our first sessions are me asking questions to understand you and your struggles better. You can ask me about breathwork and anything else on your mind. Then, we do a series of breathwork sessions to release some of the old feelings that have been trapped. Your mind will only bring up what it’s willing to process and release. I don’t pick the topic or direct your mind other than to guide you down a path your mind/body opens on its own.

Joseph* was often worried and down.

He suspected that childhood trauma was behind it. He’d also been in a bad car accident months earlier and couldn’t get some of the images and sounds out of his mind.

In breathwork sessions, we learned how his father had talked down to him, how he had disappointed his extended family by not going to college, and how some bullies at school coerced him into hurting another kid. Joseph had forgotten those events.

We also looked into his car accident. We could see how much fear he had in the moments after the accident and the sadness he carried about his and his friend’s injuries. Joseph had been the driver, and the guilt was unbearable.

After you’ve done a few breathwork sessions, we will start alternating talk therapy sessions. We can work on the old, unresolved trauma in the past and anything currently happening in your life you’d like to work on. You’ll become more resilient to current life events over time. I am still guiding and providing perspective, but you see things in a way you never did before. That new way is without the burden of the trauma you endured.

Joseph needed to cry. And cry. He needed to be angry. I held that space and allowed Joseph to cry and be as angry as he needed. No judgment… no limits. I asked nothing of him. When he was ready, I guided him through to the other side.

That breathwork session was a turning point for him as the guilt, sadness, and anger about that car accident was purged and alleviated. He no longer experiences the intrusive images and sounds from that day. He had a brighter smile and a happier stance on life and looked forward to some new changes in his life.

Break through your trauma and PTSD…

Reach out to hear more from me directly about how amazing mind-body techniques are for trauma.

I am happy to answer any questions. You can call (805) 836-0975 or email therapy@drlesliewright.com to set up a free 20-minute consultation.