How to cope with PTSD

The best ways to cope with PTSD when you can or cannot get treatment

You’re searching for “coping with PTSD”. That means you are going through extraordinarily tough times. You’re, re-experiencing the horrors of one or more traumatic events or even a prolonged period of traumas, such as a war.

Right now, Syrie and Oekraine immediately come to mind. Still, there are traumatised people everywhere – from remote African villages to the great metropolis.

When you have PTSD, your brain/body goes into overdrive whenever it thinks you’re in danger, if only for a split second. Panic attacks, flashbacks, and nightmares keep haunting you.

I am so sorry that you’re finding yourself at the behest now of that otherwise beautiful brain/body that only wants to protect you.

If only you could escape from the horrors and find peace and happiness.

No wonder you’re desperate to find ways of coping with PTSD.

So, my aim is to help you on your way.

I am a (relationship) counsellor and psychotherapist with 24 years of experience, 11 of which I worked with emergency services personnel.

What causes PTSD?

Why does PTSD occur/happen?

PTSD is a complex condition involving several structures and circuits in the brain and body. You may find this study helpful if you’re interested in how your brain works and what happens with PTSD.

In simple terms, PTSD is the result of being exposed to:

• A threat – of any kind
• Horror – such as horrific injuries, the horror of witnessing a traumatic event, being exposed to a continuation of such events (war!), or even hearing about it happening to a loved one.
  It also includes repeatedly being exposed to the reports of such events. Think of emergency services and military personnel.
• Loss – of loved ones, limbs, health, property, sense of safety and security, etc.

Anyone can develop PTSD, though some people may be at higher risk(studies are still ongoing).

It’s that the event is so emotionally different from anything that we’ve experienced that we don’t have a file folder. The emotions were so intense that it prevented us from making one.

We have nothing in our toolbag.

Peter Tuerk in Return from Chaos. Treating PTSD, TEDxCharleston

In my article on PTSD symptoms, you can read more about what it’s like to suffer from PTSD.

Coping with PTSD

Looking for ways of coping with PTSD could imply you have no hope of ever recovering, you’re waiting for treatment, or you cannot get any treatment.

So, I will do my best here to help you help yourself cope with PTSD.

If you are in a position to access treatment, read on to learn about my most-favoured options.

4 kinds of treatment for PTSD

1. VKD – Visual Kinaesthetic Dissociation

VKD is also known as the Rewind Technique.

However, its proper name is Trauma-Focused Imaginal Exposure with Guided Relaxation.

VKD doesn’t require you to tell your counsellor any details about the trauma if you don’t want to. Click here for more information.

It’s the treatment I used most often before I (semi)retired, as it can treat multiple traumas simultaneously.

It mimics Prolonged Exposure Therapy but works in the space of an hour and is far less invasive and scary for the individual.

2. EMDR – Eye Movement and Desensitisation and Reprocessing

… is also a well-recognised and often effective treatment for PTSD. 

3. EFT – Emotional Freedom Technique

EFT involves tapping on acupuncture points in a specific sequence using specific phrases. Research has proven this type of treatment to be very effective (link).

EFT can be easily self-administered to help you deal with triggers, flashbacks and panic attacks. You will need a skilled practitioner, though, to treat PTSD itself.

4. Prolonged exposure therapy (PET)

Prolonged exposure therapy (PET)(opens in a new tab) is a treatment recommended by the American Psychiatric Association and is also very effective.

However, it takes much longer than VKD to be effective. It requires the client to experience to full range and intensity of emotions for 30 to 40 minutes until the intensity subsides. It, perhaps over several sessions.

The longer you have suffered from PTSD, the more it’s embedded in your brain circuitry. That means the deeper engrained your ways of coping with PTSD are.

So, trauma-focussed CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) can help. A CBT therapist teaches you new behavioural patterns. You’ll learn to handle and change trauma-related thoughts and feelings.

However, sadly, I know there are potentially multiple reasons which may prevent you from accessing treatment.

The good news is that there’s a ton you can do to help you cope with PTSD.

So, let’s get cracking with getting you on the road to recovery or at the very least lessening your symptoms and making life more joyful again.

How to cope with PTSD

5 effective self-help strategies to cope with PTSD

Here are the best ways to help you cope with PTSD:

1. Actively mind your overall well-being

There’s so much research done on diet and mental health. The evidence is overwhelming – what you swallow affects your gut. And, we now know there’s a direct link between our gut and brain.
Therefore, what you eat affects your brain and thus your thoughts, feelings, and behaviour! If this is new information for you, it might sound bizarre. But, do yourself a huge favour, eat a healthy and varied diet.

2. Always remain aware that what goes in comes out

What you watch, read and talk about also affects your thoughts, feelings and behaviour – hour by hour. So, take charge and reconsider what you’re filling your days with.

Reduce the time you’re watching the news. Get out and about if you feel able to. Volunteer at a local charity or online. Reduce the time you spend talking with like-minded about the traumas you’ve experienced. Get together to exercise instead.

If none of these befits your situation – brainstorm how you can fill your days with meaningful activities. Meaning and purpose are essential emotional needs – you were born with them!

3. Use The Panic Prevention Programme

It’s developed by my wonderful colleagues at Hypnosis Downloads. See my page Hypnosis FAQ and downloads to discover how a hypnosis audio download can help you.

Download the Stop Feeling Unsafe hypnosis audio and use it. It’s so readily available on your mobile.

4. Read my article on living with someone with PTSD

How to live with someone with PTSD is essential reading not only if you’re in a relationship or married, but also for other loved ones. You’ll discover how you can help each other cope with PTSD.

Take action, however challenging and trust your efforts will make a difference. Continue to do so, and will you feel better by the end of the day than when you’ve let life pass you by.

How to cope with PTSD by treating yourself

There are three versions of PTSD:

1. Uncomplicated (single-event trauma) PTSD
2. Complex (complicated) PTSD
3. Comorbid PTSD

Dealing with single-event PTSD

No longer coping with PTSD but potentially curing yourself

Why and how the self-treatment might work

If you’re suffering from PTSD, you’re constantly busying yourself trying to avoid the triggers that cause flashbacks, panic attacks and nightmares. They’re too overwhelming and frightening.

So, there’s no sharing of those life-changing, traumatic experience(s) like you might typically do to process an alarming or bizarre event.

However, in VKD, you would access those scary memories without becoming overwhelmed by them.

As the therapist, I would keep your level of arousal very low – you’d be in a hypnotic trance. In other words, you would feel relatively calm and relaxed at every stage and increasingly so as you get to access the memories multiple times.

As soon as I’d see you get distressed, I would wait and calm you down again. Crucially, you’ll be exposed to the event from before you knew it would happen till when felt safe again.

So, instead of avoiding, you get to re-experience and process the event with relative ease.

While relaxed, your brain grabs the chance to file the event as it does typically with an upsetting or even life-changing event.

Based on the principle of keeping someone calm to allow them to process the event, I have also had success by talking them through it without the aid of hypnosis.

I would talk my client through minute-by-minute, from before the event to when they were feeling safe again. If they jumped too far ahead or got distressed, I would stop, calm them again and take it even slower.

Now for what you might be able to do, based on and adapting the above steps…

The following self-help treatment aims to expose you to the traumatic events with their intense emotions you have endeavoured to avoid. This is to give your brain a chance to finally process them.

No longer coping but potentially curing single event PTSD?

You may be able to ditch the PTSD by yourself by writing down or drawing (stick figures are fine) what happened to you that day minute-by-minute.

When you get distressed, stop, calm yourself, breathe in to a count of 7 and aim to double your out-breath.

The trick is to continually return to a calm and relatively relaxed state.

You could space it out over days if necessary. Each time you return to it, reread what you wrote the first day while remaining calm.

How to prepare yourself

Dealing with single-event PTSD by yourself is going to take courage and determination!

Here’s how best to prepare yourself:

• Invest, if possible, in a hypnosis audio download. I recommend the Relieve Stress and Tension audio (read how it works on my page Hypnosis FAQ and downloads).
  Start listening to it a few times a day, maybe a week in advance, until you get it., though.
  It’s okay if you’d rather not or need to do without.
• When you’re ready to start, ask someone to be there for you when you’re done – if you can. But don’t let them disturb you.
• It may also be helpful to have a trusted person sit with you to observe you. They can see when you might benefit from stopping for a few moments and help you calm down. They’re to do nothing else!
• Get as comfortable as possible. Get a glass of water to relieve a dry mouth.
• Make sure you can’t be disturbed. Switch your phone off and leave it in another room. Or, if you’re using it, make sure all notifications are silent and vibrate is off.
• Maybe switch on some calming background music.
• Read and reread the instructions below until you know them off by heart!

You’re now ready to start dealing with the traumatic event:

1. Be sure you’re now feeling as calm and relaxed as possible.
2. Start describing what was happening and what you did as early and far enough away from that traumatic event as feels comfortable. You could begin by writing about the previous day or how you got up that morning.
3. Describe what you did, saw, felt and heard step-by-step.
4. Take however long you can handle it reasonably comfortable, stopping each time before you feel yourself getting too aroused with intense emotions. Exposure and experiencing the emotions are important, but only enough so your brain can still process it.
5. If you get a panic attack – you’ve gone too quickly. Go back a few steps a day later, rereading what you’ve done earlier first. It’s essential you maintain a low level of arousal always!
6. The closer in time and distance you get to the event, the shorter the steps, always letting your emotions calm down again before the next step.
7. Describe the traumatic event minute-by-minute, second-by-second. Chances are that you don’t remember certain bits. Please, don’t fret about getting it wrong. It’s okay to write or draw how you think it happened, looked or sounded. Your memories may or may not change.
8. Describe what you did after the event, again step-by-step, minute-by-minute, with as much detail as possible.
9. Then write or draw how you’re feeling relatively safe again.

See also: Writing can help us heal from trauma (opens in a new tab) on Harvard Business Review.

Coping with complex PTSD

You have complex PTSD, you’ll have suffered multiple traumas, such as repeated exposures to a war-type situation. Or, you may have experienced domestic violence or sexual abuse.

Recovering from complex PTSD takes longer and requires treatment, energy and determination.

Nevertheless, I’d like you to remain hopeful and set your mind that your life can also be better than it perhaps is today.

Take a look at all the self-help I have described above to help you cope and perhaps heal at least certain aspects of your life.

Coping with comorbid PTSD

Comorbid PTSD means you’re also suffering from other mental health. No surprise then that you’re feeling so terribly out of sorts.

I suspect you’re most likely to have already experienced that continued support and treatment are necessary for you to live your life to the fullest.

For comorbid PTSD, I can only recommend treatment.

However, there’s still much you can do yourself. I have written numerous articles on depression, anxiety, addictions and anger management, as well as a ton of relationship articles.

Choose one aspect of your life you want to work on and gear yourself up to tackle it!

You can also use EFT, as is mentioned in this interview.

How does PTSD affect relationships?

When you suffer from PTSD, you’re likely to be wholly wrapped up with what’s happening to you.

For you, life is about surviving every day. You’re destined to focus on avoiding any reminders of what happened, coping with sleeplessness, intrusive memories, lack of energy, depression, anxiety and mood swings.

You have changed since you were traumatised. Your motivation, moods, routines, sleep patterns, focus, and capacity to deal with everyday challenges are different from before the event(s).

In short, your feelings, thoughts and behaviours will have changed and, therefore, your relationship with the people around you. Most of all, your relationship with your partner or spouse will be affected.

Hop over to my article on how to help your spouse with PTSD to learn more.

Apps and resources to help you cope with PTSD

Here are 3 self-help apps:

• The US Department of Veteran Affairs app (opens in a new tab) to help you cope with PTSD.
• Respiroguide Pro app, which you can download from Google Plays or the App store
• Happify’s app (opens in a new tab)

I also recommend self-hypnosis for PTSD with the aid of a professionally developed hypnosis download.

You may benefit from:

• How to Stop Feeling Unsafe
• The Panic Prevention Programme

The audio downloads come with a money-back guarantee, so hop over to my page Hypnosis FAQ and downloads for further information.

Where to get help for PTSD

To discover how easy it is to access online therapy, see my page on mental health counselling.

For information on getting help with PTSD near you, see (links open in a new tab):

• USA – www.brainline.org
• UK – www.mind.org.uk
• Canada – www.ptsdassociation.com
• Australia – www.mentalhealthonline.org.au, if affected by a disaster: mindspot.org.au/disasters
• New Zealand – www.mentalhealth.org.nz

Will PTSD ever go away?

Your recovery from PTSD depends on several factors, such as:

• The likelihood of you being exposed again, or…
• … a continuation of exposure
• How long ago the traumatic event(s) happened
• What else is going on in your life now
• Any prior mental health problems
• The type of treatment you’re receiving
• The skill of and the trust you have in your therapist
• Your social support network
• How active you are in your recovery.

Regardless of all of that, that neural network in your brain, once established can be triggered again. So, it’s as well you learn how to look after yourself and yourself to cope with PTSD.

Finally

You’re unlikely to ever forget what happened, but those terrible memories need not forever haunt you. You can cope with PTSD and perhaps even heal.

What’s happened may have scarred you, but those scars are part of the colourful, handwoven tapestry of your life.

If you’re finding yourself this far in this article, I know you’re determined to make your life as joyful as possible under the circumstances. You’ve got this! I wish you peace and happiness.