PTSD and Constructive Living
Installing constructive memories
Traumatic, upsetting memories will reoccur. The point of this article is the importance of installing other, constructive memories alongside the negative
ones to lessen the negative effect.
While feeling upset, anxious, worried, it is important to do as many constructive activities as possible so that when memories reoccur, they are
accompanied by both the anxiety and the recollection that positive actions also occurred. When one remembers what one was capable of doing and
what was received in spite of trauma, the trauma's power to cause new anxiety is reduced.
Let me give an example. Recently I suffered from a sinus-related sleep disorder that caused me to feel anxious and unable to sleep. I have memories of
trips to doctors' offices and an Emergency Unit, a hurried flight back to the USA, worries and anxiety about sleep, long hours awake at night, impaired
judgment, and so forth. Fortunately, I also have memories of the kindness of strangers to reschedule my flight from Japan, carefully taking prescribed
medications until a satisfactory one was found, going to bed at appropriate times without naps, eating regularly hungry or not, thanking those who
helped me, limiting my complaints and troubling of others, obtaining various lab tests, seeking information about the disorder and medications on the
Internet, mowing the lawn, long hikes in the nearby mountains, writing an interpretation of this trauma from a Constructive Living perspective, and so
forth. In other words, I was not helpless; I was not paralyzed by the illness. There is no doubt I will be troubled by memories of these sleep-related
events, but the unpleasant memories will be accompanied by more constructive, positive memories, as well.
Enigmas
David K. Reynolds, Ph.D.
We bomb people because we believe that they kill people.
We argue against capital punishment for murderers, yet we kill masses of murderers in other countries.
Terrorists CLAIM responsibility for bombs as though winning a prize. Why not use the phrase “terrorists ADMIT responsibility…” ?
We watch actors kill actor-people we don’t know on television every day, yet we are upset by killings of people we don’t know in U.S. schools, and we are not so upset by killings of people we don’t know in other countries.
We make electronic objects smaller and smaller so that they encompass larger and larger areas of our lives.
We hide from thoughts about our own deaths by watching actors pretend to die in movies and television programs.
We argue about government spying on our email while sending drones to spy on people in other countries.
We grow fat snacking while watching starving children on television.
We watch athletes perform while we are seated on sofas and in stadiums.
We know that tobacco and empty calories are unhealthy, yet we still produce and advertise and sell them.
In this land of the free we have the largest prison population in the world.
Installing constructive memories
Traumatic, upsetting memories will reoccur. The point of this article is the importance of installing other, constructive memories alongside the negative
ones to lessen the negative effect.
While feeling upset, anxious, worried, it is important to do as many constructive activities as possible so that when memories reoccur, they are
accompanied by both the anxiety and the recollection that positive actions also occurred. When one remembers what one was capable of doing and
what was received in spite of trauma, the trauma's power to cause new anxiety is reduced.
Let me give an example. Recently I suffered from a sinus-related sleep disorder that caused me to feel anxious and unable to sleep. I have memories of
trips to doctors' offices and an Emergency Unit, a hurried flight back to the USA, worries and anxiety about sleep, long hours awake at night, impaired
judgment, and so forth. Fortunately, I also have memories of the kindness of strangers to reschedule my flight from Japan, carefully taking prescribed
medications until a satisfactory one was found, going to bed at appropriate times without naps, eating regularly hungry or not, thanking those who
helped me, limiting my complaints and troubling of others, obtaining various lab tests, seeking information about the disorder and medications on the
Internet, mowing the lawn, long hikes in the nearby mountains, writing an interpretation of this trauma from a Constructive Living perspective, and so
forth. In other words, I was not helpless; I was not paralyzed by the illness. There is no doubt I will be troubled by memories of these sleep-related
events, but the unpleasant memories will be accompanied by more constructive, positive memories, as well.
Enigmas
David K. Reynolds, Ph.D.
We bomb people because we believe that they kill people.
We argue against capital punishment for murderers, yet we kill masses of murderers in other countries.
Terrorists CLAIM responsibility for bombs as though winning a prize. Why not use the phrase “terrorists ADMIT responsibility…” ?
We watch actors kill actor-people we don’t know on television every day, yet we are upset by killings of people we don’t know in U.S. schools, and we are not so upset by killings of people we don’t know in other countries.
We make electronic objects smaller and smaller so that they encompass larger and larger areas of our lives.
We hide from thoughts about our own deaths by watching actors pretend to die in movies and television programs.
We argue about government spying on our email while sending drones to spy on people in other countries.
We grow fat snacking while watching starving children on television.
We watch athletes perform while we are seated on sofas and in stadiums.
We know that tobacco and empty calories are unhealthy, yet we still produce and advertise and sell them.
In this land of the free we have the largest prison population in the world.