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Post Traumatic Stress (PTS) Is Not A Disorder, It's How A Healthy Mind Protects Itself from FurtherTrauma.
Similarly, a healthy mind has ways to protect itself. An intimidated mind may succumb to trauma.
According to a dictionary of psychology the mind has four ways.
1) A heightened alertness to possible trauma.
2) An emotional distancing from trauma.
3) A physical distancing from trauma.
4) An acting out of some kind, such as a nightmare or a more strenuous act.
Catholicism's insistence that I have children was responsible for some of my PTS. Awakening from a nightmare in my teens made me aware of the trauma that having to provide for children (as my dad was doing) would cause me. The terror I felt gave me the energy I needed to resolve to have no children.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by tom sarbeck -
I met and married a woman whose natural parents had died when she was a child and her experience in an orphanage gave her the resolve to have no children.
My decision to have no children was the best thing I did for myself.
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Permalink Reply by Grinning Cat -
I know someone who decided early on that with all the terrible things in the world, nobody should be born into it without their consent, and since that sort of advance consent is impossible, he decided to bring no children into the world.
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Permalink Reply by Thomas Murray -
...GC,
Isn't this admitting a belief in Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee;...:" ?
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Permalink Reply by Michael Penn -
Tom, I would say that your title for this piece sums it all up nicely, and that your thinking skills are working very well for you at your age. I can agree and identify 100%. I might also add that at age 71 (and according to the dictionary of psychology) I personally use 1 through 3 openly on a daily basis to help me cope. This leads to number 4 sometimes coming up in my dream state. I am totally aware of these actions within my psyche. It all comes from my past and where I have been along with thoughts of where I do not want to return. I also view it as a form of Future Shock.
This makes me very much of a loaner wanting to survive. I'm like an animal not wanting to be trapped. It also makes it very hard to fool me or scam me. In my job as a delivery specialist I am an extrovert. Once home and behind my closed door I am an introvert. I have many acquaintances but I am most likely to know them on Monday morning. My weekends are my own and I have no desire to entertain you.
In my current situation with a stepfather in a nursing home with a broken hip and dementia, some think I'm a cold SOB. He will soon live on property shared by my oldest daughter and her mother. What people do not see is that I am in control of this and I have his best interests in mind. The next step is to obtain durable power of attorney so others do not steal him blind and that all is for his betterment.
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Permalink Reply by Grinning Cat
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Continuing the immune system analogy, sometimes a body's immune system turns on itself. Autoimmune diseases range from mild annoyances to devastating to life-threatening.
Many people suffer from PTS that's disproportionate to their new circumstances (say, returning from combat to civilian life) and significantly interfering with their quality of life.
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Permalink Reply by kathy: ky
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GC, there are many variables in PTS. Some traumatic events will cause harm for a lifetime. Most people find ways to cope. If not suicide is often the outcome.
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Permalink Reply by Thomas Murray
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Andrea Yates, who drowned her 5 children, possibly suffered PTS from her "Fire and Brimstone" church teachings.
According to Wiki,
"She told her jail psychiatrist: "It was the seventh deadly sin. My children weren't righteous. They stumbled because I was evil. The way I was raising them, they could never be saved. They were doomed to perish in the fires of hell."
Isn't this evidence that religion causes PTS?
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Permalink Reply by kathy: ky
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I'm a firm believer that religion is harmful. As far as Yates goes religion probably played a part but that woman is crazy.
I should have said has mental problems. My bad.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Penn
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Yates had severe postpartum stress syndrome plus the fact that she was psychotic. In other words she was nuts. Follow her case and you see that religion played a big part in her actions as well.
My good. :)
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Permalink Reply by Thomas Murray
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...I was doing some research on religion and PTS and many articles appeared to support using religion/spiritual psychology to recover from PTSD. Until I stumbled on an article about Dr. Marlene Winell and her work. I didn't know about her until now and I am sure some of you have heard of her. For some who haven't heard of her and other who would like to hear her again here are the YouTube links to the Texas Freethought Convention, Oct. 8, 2010 Dr. Winell giving a presentation on Religious Trauma Syndrome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id70RLR4GeE
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