Aw that is great tired of light! I am so excited to see where your journey will take you and if I can help in anyway. I know the struggle and the pain. Don't give up though. You got to fight this with every ounce of your soul and include us in this journey. We are your outlet, use it :).
What I did with the book was skip around to the things I wanted to work on with myself. I looked at the contents and saw what each chapter was about and picked the one that was easiest and then worked my way up. If that makes sense.
It took me awhile to get to the Forgiving yourself chapter. You might find that hard or you might not, but it is good.
Another book is Toxic shame by the a guy whose last name is Bradshaw. It makes you see where all your wrong core beliefs developed from. It gives you awareness. I jumped around in that book too and picked the ones that seemed interesting.
This is a journey about forgetting and forgiving. It is about falling down and getting back up, but being able to get up quicker the more you fall down. it's okay to fall down, let it, but get back up. Next time you fall down, fall down, but get up quicker than last time. It is a bunch of small steps that turn into a great blessing in disguise, if you choose. Happiness is not a destination, it is a journey. The more you practice it the better you become at being and staying happy.
Learn how to relax your body too. PTSD affects the body more than you know, if you force relaxation you help your body which in turn helps your mind, because they are finding out in the neurosciences that the heart actually sends more messages than the brain sends to the heart. So the heart is really at the core. Learning how to take care of that is important. The more relaxed you are the less likely your heart is to send those PTSD symptoms to the mind, causing all that yucky mental torture we put ourselves threw.
Just what I have learned from the various doctors, professors, blah blah. I studied psychology for two years.
Hmm what else. Google Erik Erikson. He is a father of psychology and his theory explains the whole childhood development stages. It makes you aware of what stage you are stuck on and facing your fears to move on to the next stage, eventually becoming a fully functioning adult. It explains anxiety and how it is caused, blah blah blah. Google theories of personality.
Take the Myer-briggs type indicator test, it is a personality test that has been been around for 40 years and used in the psychology field. It will make you get to know yourself better. You really have to get to know yourself a lot with this healing process.
If you are a shy person read, "Quiet-The power of introverts in a world that won't stop talking." It makes you accept yourself, which equals peace.
Develop as many coping strategies as possible, you will need every single one of them. The more you have the easier it will be. I particularly like breathing because you can do it in public without being notice. I do yoga every morning. I stick to a routine (I still have down days but they do not last for weeks, it is days, if that).
Google and research PTSD. Get to know PTSD.
