Category: trauma
Posted on December 22, 2017
by MJ
Leave a Comment
I want to talk about negative core beliefs and dissonance–and perhaps a way to challenge them effectively. Bear with me as I get there. I have written a lot about my last two years in therapy with a neuroscientist. I didn’t know initially that… Continue Reading “Pushing Back against Malignant Core Beliefs”
Category: Complex PTSD, coping strategies, mental health, personal development, PTSD, Recovery, therapy, traits in victims, traumaTags: biologically based trauma, challenging core beliefs, cognitive dissonance, healing from PTSD, maladaptively processed memories, malignant core beliefs, target behaviors, therapy
Posted on December 20, 2017
by MJ
Leave a Comment
I want to talk about how finding out what motivates you can lead to personal liberation. To do that, I will take you back to my junior year of college. I was something of a fresh-faced know-it-all with something to prove. I didn’t really… Continue Reading “Maybe C is for Catalyst”
Category: encouragement, Healing, Moving Forward, personal development, traumaTags: compartmentalization, healing from trauma, healing process, integration, integrity, perfectionism, performance-based identity, personal development, Recovery
Posted on December 7, 2017
by MJ
6 Comments
Jack the New Therapist aka the FNG will be no longer. It has become a failed collaboration. That is what my reasonable self says. My snarky self is pointing at this: Jack has one of the worst Resting Bored Faces I’ve come across. There are… Continue Reading “A Timely Ending”
Category: divorce, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, encouragement, Healing, human trafficking, mental health, personal development, PTSD, therapy, traumaTags: cognitive dissonance, domestic abuse, EMDR, healing from PTSD, healing from trauma, myth of arrival, Recovery, Resting Bored Face, therapy, when a therapist isn't effective
Posted on November 25, 2017
by MJ
2 Comments
For my non-American readers, Thursday was Thanksgiving here in the States. It is a big deal. It marks the beginning of The Holidays–a season of high stress, joy, high consumerism on display, dread, meaningful religious observations, turmoil, GERD, Mariah Carey on loop, and so… Continue Reading “Easing into The Season”
Category: anxiety, Complex PTSD, domestic violence, encouragement, Healing, mental health, panic attacks, personal development, traumaTags: anxiety disorders, coping with anxiety, domestic abuse, enjoying holiday season, healing after divorce, panic attacks, PNS, SNS, stress during holidays, Thanksgiving
Posted on November 23, 2017
by MJ
6 Comments
I saw Jack, my still-feeling-new therapist, on Tuesday, and we had an almost adversarial session. It didn’t feel therapeutic to me. I felt as if I were there to challenge his ideas and assumptions of what survivors of trauma look like. He consistently says,… Continue Reading “Making Changes on Purpose”
Category: anxiety, encouragement, Healing, mental health, Moving Forward, personal development, therapy, traumaTags: epigenetics and trauma, healing process, imagining change, narrative brain, Recovery, therapy, trauma recovery
Posted on November 15, 2017
by MJ
4 Comments
I had an interesting therapy experience yesterday. Jack is a very different therapist from my previous therapist. The gap is growing wider forming a gulf that is coming to represent their differences, and I’m missing my former therapist more and more. Alas, change is… Continue Reading “That Which Does Make You Stronger”
Category: encouragement, Healing, love, mental health, Moving Forward, Recovery, sex, sexless marriage, Sexual Abuse, therapy, traumaTags: life after divorce, relationships after divorce, sex after divorce, sexless marriage, sexual recovery after trauma, sexuality, therapy, trauma, Trust after Trauma
Posted on November 11, 2017
by MJ
7 Comments
I have recently been reading a lot of material on the endocrine system and neurology. Why? Anatomy and Physiology II. Brain, brain, brain, brain. What I’ve learned, aside from more than I ever expected to know about hormones, is that distress of all kinds… Continue Reading “The Neuroscience behind Feeling Stuck”
Category: Complex PTSD, coping strategies, Healing, mental health, Moving Forward, personal development, Recovery, traits in victims, traumaTags: catastrophizing, habenula, healing, healing from PTSD, learned helplessness, neuroscience, outlier events, Storytelling Brain, Time Perspective Therapy, trauma, What if
Posted on October 19, 2017
by MJ
Leave a Comment
I’ll be honest. I miss my old Therapist. Jack the FNG (“friendly” New Guy) is so different. He’s a much younger PhD. He feels like a grad student. Yeah. That young. He’s growing a beard now. He’s really tall. Fit. And very subdued. In… Continue Reading “The FNG Asks about Sex”
Category: Healing, personal development, sex, therapy, traumaTags: a new therapist, identity work and trauma, sexual healing after sexual abuse, sexuality, therapeutic process, therapy, trauma recovery
Posted on October 4, 2017
by MJ
11 Comments
Two weeks ago, I said goodbye to my therapist of two and half years. I didn’t know he was leaving until three weeks before his final week. He just dropped it on me during session: “So, I will be leaving. I will no longer… Continue Reading “Therapy in Pictures”
Posted on September 3, 2017
by MJ
2 Comments
I don’t know about you, but I don’t like people knowing about my deeper, darker trauma history. I don’t like people knowing that I ultimately ended my marriage because of domestic violence. It goes without saying that I don’t like people knowing that I… Continue Reading “Claude and Me”
Category: Complex PTSD, Healing, human trafficking, mental health, Moving Forward, PTSD, self-advocacy, traits in victims, traumaTags: common experience, fear of alligators, healing process, human trafficking and PTSD, PTSD, Recovery, self-advocacy, torture and human trafficking