How To Cope With A Traumatic Past
If you use PTSD therapy to work on just a few key shifts to the way you experience your trauma (in other words, how you think and react), it’ll automatically help your body relax in what’s called relaxation training.
When you do this and other work in “trauma-focused cognitive therapy” (which I offer)… then many studies show you’ll get “significantly greater improvement on symptom measures of PTSD, generalized anxiety, depression, and functional impairment.”*
If you do PTSD treatment, it’s scientific: You’ve got the best shot at going 5 years without another PTSD episode when that treatment uses cognitive therapy for PTSD (this is the topic of a great research study done in 2004**) Click here to learn more about how you can work on this with me.
How Do You Overcome Past Trauma?
I’ve seen many people struggle with the question of what to do with trauma. I think it’s natural for traumatized people to be so hurt by the aftermath that they can get distracted from reflecting on what to do with trauma on a deeper level…
Trauma makes memories… and those memories make struggles concerning what you believe about yourself, other people, and the world. Some people even struggle with what they believe about their own signs of PTSD. That alone is enough to cause its own challenges.
Luckily, I’ve seen that learning how to find a sense of safety while working on trauma memory in PTSD therapy can help, and it has a couple of major benefits, too:
1) When you practice how to shift your attention after a memory pops up, it makes you stop worrying as much about when the next memory is coming. Most anxiety in between PTSD episodes is rooted in the fear of when the symptoms will be back.
2) When it comes to tolerating the physical signs of PTSD, this skill makes things much easier. Many people with PTSD are stuck in routines that are bad for them. When you know how to tolerate the physical damage with more resilience, you won’t be as upset by the symptoms.
Basically, what I’m trying to say is that I think addressing this question called “How to overcome past trauma” is key to managing your PTSD symptoms. When you get the small confidence that comes from practicing in PTSD therapy, it makes you more resilient… period.
Does Past Trauma Ever Go Away?
Now let’s talk about what’s happening inside someone’s posttraumatic experience… And first, I’d like to mention what I believe is at the root of the problem:
1) Threat.
2) Thinking.
When you’ve experienced or witnessed a serious threat to safety, health, or well-being, you might find yourself wondering later if something else bad is going to happen. This often shows up as a combination of feelings, images, and physical symptoms that make you worry about coping right now , and at the same time worrying about not being able to cope long-term, or “permanently.”
These are feelings which should be handled with compassionate care because they can influence your thinking, and create illusions like you’re worse off than you are. We’re going into deeper waters here, but this points to what really causes things like trauma triggers to repeat.
Because, as if things aren’t hard enough feeling vulnerable and under threat, you might also start having intrusive memories of the trauma or other changes to the way you think, feel, and behave. This triggers negative thinking that can be incredibly challenging and is one of the biggest reasons why someone with trauma would benefit from working with a PTSD therapist. Therapy can’t wave a magic wand, but it can help you learn different ways to heal from past trauma and go forward into the future.
How To Cope With Traumatic Memories
What’s the best thing to do when a past trauma memory gets triggered in the moment? Well, let’s start from a little ahead of that! Before I give you my take, I want to recommend that you also read and consider my cognitive therapy style of working. This kind of work addresses your PTSD symptoms that come from past trauma, including memories, and it will help you develop a deep and important part of yourself.
Over a course of PTSD treatment with me, I’ll work to help you create or build upon strengths that are rooted in what you can start doing before it ever happens… and it’s a combination of a few parts that you can also try on your own:
1) Get to a deep realization that you can heal your thinking about your sense of threat.
2) Build your understanding about the nature of your trauma responses to the point you aren’t worried as much anymore about triggers going off in the future.
3) Mentally prepare how you plan to handle hard times in full detail and with your whole imagination—and mentally rehearse over and over until you feel less anxiety about one of these situations.
How To Deal With Your Past Trauma
And here are some ideas for what to do about dealing with it in the moment:
1) Expect it. If you’ve survived traumatic experience, you’re almost guaranteed to have some symptoms like flashbacks or anxiety. It’s normal and part of the human response to trauma.
2) Try to use it to be creative. Some people with trauma don’t try to express it creatively at all… and it’s kind of unfortunate because they don’t need to do it artistically.
3) If you suspect you may be dealing with signs of PTSD more often than you’d like, reflect, and consider working with a PTSD therapist because you may get guidance and support.
The point I’m making is that you can have an effect on that anxiety/threat/thinking issue, and eventually come to a place where you’re not distressed anymore. Take some power back for yourself by working with a PTSD therapist. If you’d like to work with me, please reach out and let’s get started on therapy for PTSD.
*Footnote 1: See Aaron Beck’s Cognitive Therapy of Anxiety Disorders, p. 550.
**Footnote 2: See Tarrier and Sommerfield’s Treatment of chronic PTSD by cognitive therapy and exposure: 5-year follow-up (2004).
Find out more about PTSD Treatment.
About The Author
John Younes,
JD, MA, LPCC, NCC is a trained counselor who owns a private practice in Denver, CO. In general, he specializes in depression treatment, anxiety treatment, and PTSD treatment using existential and cognitive therapy practices.
If you’re thinking about suicide and are in immediate danger, please call your local emergency number. For Denver, Colorado, call 1-844-493-8255 or text TALK to 38255. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.