Stigmatizing, Shaming, Blaming, Hexing, Pathologizing: We are All experiencing PTSD.
In this blog I wish to focus again on the stigmatizing or hexing qualities of PTSD; for these are often so subtle that we miss experiencing the trauma.
I am so excited to be living in this time, in this day and age and in this country, state and local.
No matter how hard the "Powers that Be" attempt they will not be able to close the lid on the awarenesses of PTSD and how they negatively effect our beings. Who knows, maybe even they will "get a clue."
Be that as it may, one gift of wars has been to confront us with "Battle Fatigue," "Shell Shock" and now what we call "PTSD". All one and the same. From that newer distinction widely ascribed to after The Vietnam War (the Vietnamese refer to it as "The American War") it was our Civil Rights movements and Women's Liberation Movements that opened up the awareness that PTSD is very wide-spread and not just an adjunct of wars.
From these openings we now, therapists particularly, are more widely noting that most if not all psychological and even physiological disorders have to do with one form of trauma or another.
To bring imagery into this discussion please imagine what it feels like to be "boxed" into something. Is not stigmatizing, hexing or shaming or blaming a kind of being boxed in?
Let's look at the words of Bob Dylan
I ain't lookin' to compete with you
Beat or cheat or mistreat you
Simplify you, classify you
Deny, defy or crucify you
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
No, and I ain't lookin' to fight with you
Frighten you or tighten you
Drag you down or drain you down
Chain you down or bring you down
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
I ain't lookin' to block you up
Shock or knock or lock you up
Analyze you, categorize you
Finalize you or advertise you
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
I don't want to straight-face you
Race or chase you, track or trace you
Or disgrace you or displace you
Or define you or confine you
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
I don't want to meet your kin
Make you spin or do you in
Or select you or dissect you
Or inspect you or reject you
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
I don't want to fake you out
Take or shake or forsake you out
I ain't lookin' for you to feel like me
See like me or be like me
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
In this blog I wish to focus again on the stigmatizing or hexing qualities of PTSD; for these are often so subtle that we miss experiencing the trauma.
I am so excited to be living in this time, in this day and age and in this country, state and local.
No matter how hard the "Powers that Be" attempt they will not be able to close the lid on the awarenesses of PTSD and how they negatively effect our beings. Who knows, maybe even they will "get a clue."
Be that as it may, one gift of wars has been to confront us with "Battle Fatigue," "Shell Shock" and now what we call "PTSD". All one and the same. From that newer distinction widely ascribed to after The Vietnam War (the Vietnamese refer to it as "The American War") it was our Civil Rights movements and Women's Liberation Movements that opened up the awareness that PTSD is very wide-spread and not just an adjunct of wars.
From these openings we now, therapists particularly, are more widely noting that most if not all psychological and even physiological disorders have to do with one form of trauma or another.
To bring imagery into this discussion please imagine what it feels like to be "boxed" into something. Is not stigmatizing, hexing or shaming or blaming a kind of being boxed in?
Let's look at the words of Bob Dylan
I ain't lookin' to compete with you
Beat or cheat or mistreat you
Simplify you, classify you
Deny, defy or crucify you
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
No, and I ain't lookin' to fight with you
Frighten you or tighten you
Drag you down or drain you down
Chain you down or bring you down
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
I ain't lookin' to block you up
Shock or knock or lock you up
Analyze you, categorize you
Finalize you or advertise you
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
I don't want to straight-face you
Race or chase you, track or trace you
Or disgrace you or displace you
Or define you or confine you
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
I don't want to meet your kin
Make you spin or do you in
Or select you or dissect you
Or inspect you or reject you
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
I don't want to fake you out
Take or shake or forsake you out
I ain't lookin' for you to feel like me
See like me or be like me
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
A product of his and our age Dylan well stated how we can work, play and live with each other without toxically traumatizing one another.
Well enough said: how do we deal with being shamed, blamed, boxed, shaken, forsaken, etc.? We do what this whale has done! Check out this link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/14/humpback-whale-video_n_898859.html?ref=fb&src=sp. The scientists who released the whale thought it was giving them a dance of appreciation. There might have been some of that involved but from neuro-science we now would understand it more to be a "dance of liberation."
Expression, expressiveness, dancing, shaking, visualizing, animating . . . getting the locked energy out of our bodies is how we heal PTSD. Perhaps that means more demonstrations, dance-ins, grieving rituals, etc.
What do you think?
I think: "All I really want to do is
baby, be friends with you."
I think: "All I really want to do is
baby, be friends with you."
