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Trigger Alert (Graphic Content) Tanya Busch 1972 Dickens Elementary School

Posted by on Sep 25, 2011 in Art Therapy, Blog, Featured, Portfolio | 0 comments

Trigger Alert (Graphic Content) Tanya Busch 1972 Dickens Elementary School

There’s always been confusion in my head about the abduction and murder of Tanya Busch. Tanya’s name has stayed with me always, and occasionally related events sneak into my dreams and mesh with other trauma experienced. Over the years I’ve hunted online for information about the tragedy, with little success. I’ve asked family members and they have only brushed it aside like so many of the things that happened over those years of my childhood.

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Prazosin – Dealing with Night-Terrors

Posted by on Sep 20, 2011 in Art Therapy, Blog, Featured, Portfolio | 0 comments

Prazosin – Dealing with Night-Terrors

I can’t really imagine anything that would be scarier than sleeping beside a 200 pound, 6 foot two C-PTSD survivor while he’s having night terrors.

For the better part of a decade I’ve known better than to sleep side by each with my partner. I can have terrors in my sleep that have me flail from one side of the bed to the other. I can awake from a dream completely disoriented and confused, ready for horrific things to happen.

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PTSD and Perceptual Challenges

Posted by on Sep 20, 2011 in Art Therapy, Blog, Featured, Mindfulness, Portfolio | 1 comment

PTSD and Perceptual Challenges

One of the most difficult things to share with people who don’t have PTSD is just how terribly undermined my sense of confidence is regarding any state of being. For example, I can be walking down the street, and suddenly, without any reasonable explanation, I can be struck with panic or fear. This is more than just a flash back or trigger. Envision walking down the street looking through a camera lens, and that at any moment a lens can be put on to the camera without your volition. The sound of a car, a colour, a sound, a person walking by – it can be anything.

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What Does PTSD Feel Like?

Posted by on Sep 20, 2011 in Art Therapy, Blog, Featured, Mindfulness, Portfolio | 2 comments

What Does PTSD Feel Like?

About two times a week I’m asked about my PTSD, what happened, or what my symptoms feel like. It was once a bit troubling, because if I didn’t reply, I felt like the perception was that I wasn’t interested in sharing, or worse that I was being elusive and secretive about my life experience. What people didn’t often realize was that retelling my story or preparing myself to share some piece of it triggered me terribly. Other times I could completely detach from my emotional state and just puke some elements of my story out without any sense of emotional connection to the story at all. The worst, and most offensive queries were from unskilled medical and practitioners. When I was first seeking out treatment, I was repeatedly asked to share “what happened” and the details of the traumatic events. If I didn’t reply with the type of details they requested I felt like I wasn’t sharing the depths of the symptoms I experienced, if it did fully reply I could watch these folks crush under the weight of the horrors that I shared. I was lucky to find myself under the care of one phenomenal psychiatrist who truly understood what I was going through. She helped me get treatment and continues to support me in my after care.

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