As a ptsd sufferer, do you believe that meditation and mindfulness can actually help?

[The Albatross]

Yes, I agree as well. Experienced it personally... though it is not to a degree of peace I would like I became much less symptomatic.

 

[KP the nut]

I'm unsure if it is what you are referring to, but I do a guided visualisation exercise. It is one my T used to do with me. When I finished seeing him, he recorded the exercise onto a CD, which I now have on my iPod so I can carry it with me.

I could do without the cd, but his voice is one of the things which helps me. I also practise other techniques he taught me to ground.

 

[The Albatross]

Early on, before I even knew I had PTSD... I was introduced to Jon Kabat-Zinn. What I liked about the exercises I did was that they involved more than cerebral/mental information. Mindfulness excerises often can be a simple as closing your eyes, opening a box of rasins... and then "mindfully" savoring the experience of the rasin with multiple sense... touch, sound, taste, smell, and sight. I began to learn fairly quickly that I was short changing myself to a large degree by not slowing down to immerse and embrace mundane experiences on a sensory level. So many things can be much more enjoyable and zen... when you learn to slow down, open yourself, to receive the experience of them.

 

[therapybankrupt]

Yes! Lots of guided meditation of You Tube. Yes! DBT helps with mindfulness! Best wishes on your journey for recovery.

TB

 

[DharmaGirl]

I concur. It helps me be present and live in the world.

 

[Shellbell]

Mindfulness is very necessary for me at the moment as I have a lot of dissociation when anxious and stressed. My T has done a lot of work with me on this and I'm not great at it, but getting better. I think even without dissociation it is very helpful to be present and enjoy living in the now.

Guided visualization is also something my T is now doing with me and she gave me a CD with 4 on as 'homework' over the Christmas break.

They are not easy, but definitely worth doing.

 

[Abstract]

I am so much better with being mindful with emotions than general mindfulness. What I mean is that when I am dealing with emotional overwhelm observing and accepting and letting the feelings pass without fighting them is something I have made a lot of progress with. And actually being aware of them and labelling them too. What a help that has been.

What I am shocking at and find it very hard to want to do is staying present generally. Hate it and am bad at it.:( Yuck. I am much better than I was in many respects but find myself wishing I could go back to how it was.

 

[Tanishq]

I am walking and doing yoga for meditation. I have been able to go outside and fear less. It has been decreased a lot. It took months, but situation has improved definitely.

 

[Britt.f7]

I know a lot of people on here swear by it, not as a cure maybe, just as a way to help them. I've never felt comfortable with it so I do not do either of them. Frankly, I'm not sure why I'm not comfortable or feel anxious about either one of them.

 

[GreenFrog2]

Mindfulness sounds like something worth looking int for me. I find the thought of being able to watch intense emotions pass me by quite seductive as it is a fear of these that makes it very hard for me to process my trauma. Would be really "nice" to have a supportive aid to the processing, to help me manage and eventually regulate the intense emotions.

 

[safenow]

Interesting thread. They never had those types of things when I was first diagnosed and being treated for PTSD/Multiple personality Disorder (MPD) which they now call Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).

My last therapist told me I do the mindfulness thing all on my own. He said I've compiled so many good ways to pull myself together he really had nothing to add. (Yet he did when I needed some). And meditation freaks me out due to some brain washing techniques used on me growing up. But I do pray a lot, and listen to soft soothing music from time to time. I enjoy reading uplifting books mainly about people who have come through and how they did it.

safenow

 

[maddog]

Mindful awareness of emotions is something I'm working on right now too, with some modest, but real progress. Learning to just "be" with emotional pain is something that is currently excruciating, yet oddly liberating too, on the occasions when I can achieve it (so far usually only with my T's guidance and in a safe place and space).

I have never been remotely comfortable with any form of deliberate meditation and steer almost phobically away from such things - not really sure why or what it is that makes me so uncomfortable and defensive.

As someone who dissociates physically even more so than I do emotionally (totally numbing out all physical and sensory awareness when it involves pain or discomfort), I have a long long way to go - but many valuable miles to cover - in terms of learning to be mindfully aware of myself, my body and my world. I know intuitively that there is much in the way of self care, soothing and personal growth to be found down this road, but it's a long and winding one, and sometimes, in spite of the moments of liberating wonder, it hurts so damn much I can't bear it.

Maddog