Building mental wellness on a foundation of strength
I saw the topic of trigger warnings circulating in the blogosphere recently, and I though I'd chime in with my own thoughts. In a very general sense, a trigger is one thing causing another to occur. What's particular to people with a trauma history is that what's being triggered is re-experiencing, such as having a… Continue reading Are Trigger Warnings Useful?
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk is perhaps one of the best-known books about trauma, and in particular early life trauma. It's been on my to-be-read list for quite a while, and I've finally managed to get around to it. This is a hefty book. The digital version that I was… Continue reading Book Review: The Body Keeps the Score
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week's term is flashbacks. Flashbacks involve the intense, vivid re-experiencing of memories as though they're occurring in the present tense. This most often happens with trauma-related memories. The flashbacks are usually involuntary and intrusive, and they don't result from a… Continue reading What Is… a Flashback?
Ghosts Within: Journeying Through PTSD is written by former war zone journalist Garry Leech. It covers his journey with post-traumatic stress disorder in response to the horrors his work exposed him to. The book describes some of the traumatic events the author experienced. This took a few forms: as descriptions of flashbacks, as part of… Continue reading Book Review: Ghosts Within
