post traumatic stress disorder

How to Stop the Latent Abuse

You’ve been in an abusive relationship or a victim of abuse, and you’ve stopped the abuse. How do you stop the latent abuse? You found a way out, you were rescued, or you rescued yourself. Then you discover it didn’t stop the abuse. The abuse continues, it lingers. It digs at the deepest parts of you.

You’re like, “I’ve done all the work, I’m safe and free. Yet, it’s like I am still in the midst of it. Will I ever be free?”

This traumatic connection to your abuser allows the abuse to continue over time through an uncontrollable series of secondary emotional responses which are nearly, if not as, severe as when you actually were submitted to the abuse.

This latent abuse persists over time and can be more damaging than the abuse which triggers it because you may have only suffered the abuse once, but the latent abuse tarries and further abuses you over and over again.

This fits the definition of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). When you suffer abuse at the hands of another, you are connected to that person. While you may be able to save yourself from the abuse by separating yourself from the abusive environment or situation, you are continually traumatized or re-abused by the thought of the abuse, or when triggered by anything remotely associated with the abuse.

If you are unable to cut the cord of this emotional connection to your abuser, he or she will have continued control over you for the rest of your life, causing you to suffer even more, even though he or she is not even there.

Most abusers do not take satisfaction over this continued abuse because they don’t even think about it, but if you’ve suffered at the hands of a psychopath, the continued abuse you suffer over time is their badge of honor. Psychopaths pride themselves in being able to continually hurt someone over a period of time, for life, even more so.

If you are the victim of latent abuse, the best advice to follow is to seek out a coach or counselor with some experience in helping others overcome the continued suffering of latent abuse or PTSD. This is serious business and there are hundreds of ways to deal with the lingering effect of latent trauma, some methods are more effective than others.

They key is to enable you to cut the cords which connect your abuser to you once and for all. When you suffer abuse at the hands of another, you are emotionally connected to the monster within your abuser. To truly be free, you must not only separate yourself from your abuse, but you must cut the emotional cord which connects you to the monster.

You can experience relief from latent trauma by using my Emotional Release Method (ERM). You don’t have to seek out professional help, and you can enjoy freedom from the emotional connection to your abuser. You will be able to recall the events from the past that traumatized you, without having to feel all the emotional pain associated with those memories.

Whatever method you use to cut the cord of emotional abuse, you will know you are truly free when you can recall the events without feeling the pain associated with the abuse. Then, and only then, will you be free to heal the emotional wounds and grow unencumbered by your abuser.

If you are like others who have suffered abuse in the past, you may ask yourself, “Why would I be subjected to such abuse?”

“Why?” is a disempowering question. Why stops all forward momentum for growth and can even put you in reverse (See: WHY = STOP + Reverse). Though, you might consider this:

No one is more qualified than you to reach out and help someone else from suffering this kind of abuse. In a sense, you’re being subject to this abuse has equipped you to help others who have suffered similar trauma.

This is a part of your journey.

Imagine turning all this latent trauma into a powerful weapon for good. Your experience can empower you to be a force for good, empowering others to change their lives, heal, grow, enjoy a better life, and make the world a better place.

Overwhelmed When Memories Come Rushing Back

Life is overwhelming and who of us does not have serious PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) from negative experiences we’ve suffered throughout life? And you are overwhelmed when memories come rucking back potentially crippling your otherwise normal day to day life.

You’re doing the best you can, going about your business of just getting by and trying to responsible and “normal,” when all of a sudden you are triggered and, BAM! Your world is suddenly rocked, and you find yourself emotionally disempowered as you’re transported through space and time to the moment when the crisis or trauma occurred.

PTSD is a spectrum which includes everything from watching your best friend get blown to pieces in Afghanistan to being punished for something you didn’t do as an innocent two-year-old and potentially anything in between.

You do your best to push those events out of your mind, bury them down somewhere in the dark recesses of your soul, and no matter how diligent you are, you can be instantly triggered without warning, and there you are again. You may have all the emotional overwhelm, either accompanied by an outburst or not, and not even be cognizant of the original source of the trauma.

You may even wonder if your sanity, or ability to cope, is at risk of being lost forever.
Not to worry, you’re not losing your mind or going crazy. Unfortunately, you’re starting to realize that you’re not that much unlike the rest of us. We’re all doing the best to get through life the best we can without making too much of a scene, and periodically, we all stumble and fall, for none of us is perfect, no matter how hard we try to project the image of perfection to those who are watching us.

Those people that you think have it all together? Believe me, they, too, are just doing the best they can. It’s just that some of us are better at it than others. And the ones who appear to be better at it, have ways to deal with being utterly overwhelmed when memories come rucking back in their life.

If you knew a little more about them, you might find out that these people who seem to have it so together are practicing methods of self-care which enable them to deal with these issues a little better when they come up, such as seeing a coach, counselor, or consultant who specializes in disseminating the skills to deal with such past trauma.

It takes a certain skill set to deal with traumatizing events from the past including effectively processing grief from the death of a loved one, the loss of a deep romantic love, a friend, companion, pet, or even a job that was an important part of your life.

These negative life events leave wounds and scars which can haunt you throughout life, if not dealt with in a positive manner.

There is no doubt that certain things happen in life that causes you to be triggered as the flood of emotions suck you into a whirlpool of helplessness and despair. So be attentive. Become the detective charged with identifying all your triggers, so that next time, you can be better prepared and have a diffusing action plan in place for the next time you’re in a situation when you start to see events line up which could potentially move you into such a state (of being triggered).

These coping skills can help you take control of your life in a safe, sane, positive, and productive manner.

Triggers instantly transport you back in time throwing you into a state of fight or flight in an order to preserve and sustain your life, even though your life may not really be at risk in the present moment. You may tend to isolate yourself from others, retreat and stop communicating, strike out in irrational rage, or turn and run. As you may have noticed, nothing good comes from running away from anything that does not impose a violent threat to your very existence either.

Therapy, getting your frustrations up and out, discovering the root causes of your angst, and dealing with them, is the best way we know of to put you back in the driver’s seat of your life, besides an instantaneous healing miracle (which has been known to happen). By eliminating all those pent up fears, frustrations, and anger which has accumulated, creating emotional wounds and scars, there is hope of a bright future for you, filled with peace, fulfillment, happiness, and joy.

Many alternative healing modalities exist and are available to you, if you only look for them, and are open to the other possibilities beyond the limited resources which available to you via traditional psychology or psychotherapy. Feel free to examine what ancient or non-traditional therapeutic models may be available and continue to use those which resonate and are effective for you and your circumstance.

If you are not spiritually-inclined, don’t be afraid to seek out more spiritually-sensitive treatment models when you feel like you are becoming overwhelmed when memories come rucking back. You might be surprised at how many spiritual methods require no religious preference or belief at all. While religion may profess a set of prerequisites to comply with prior to treatment, God does not.

Forgiveness is the Key

You are the result of a lifetime of abuse and victimization from the sound of your first cry for life until today, you have survived and endured judgment, false accusations, injustice, betrayal, abuse, and trauma. It’s a wonder you’ve made it this far at all.

You are a bundle of emotional wounds and garbage you’ve collected over the course of your life, which explains a lot about who you are and how you respond to the world around you. After all, nobody knows better than you, that you’re the only person you can count on to look after you. This is your primary objective.

You surround yourself with emotional tripwires and landmines to protect yourself and you try to keep all those emotional wounds hidden and suppressed, which is the highest level of self-abuse. All that unresolved trauma compromises your immune system, promotes premature aging, makes you more prone to sickness and disease. If that weren’t enough, is also keeping you separated from all the best things in life.

The fortress you’ve built to protect yourself is nearly impenetrable. You might applaud yourself for doing such a good job of protecting yourself. From inside your fortress you feel safe but if you could see from a higher perspective, you could see you have sentenced yourself to a life in prison of your own making.

Forgiveness is the Key

Forgiveness is the key to unlock every level of containment you’ve subjected yourself to.

There’s no denying the multitude of transgressions you’ve endured. The wounds run so very deep. Your pain, fear, and the repressed anger from the grudges you maintain are weapons of those who hurt you in the first place. They continue to hurt and abuse you every moment that you harbor unforgiveness.

The first thought which you might consider would be to ask the question, “Why would I forgive someone for doing that to me?” and you might rather see them punished for what they did, but contemplating retribution is another way the victimizer continues to have power over his or her victim.

Not only are you a victim of your abuser but you subject yourself to continued self-abuse by second-guessing yourself, and feeling guilty, wondering how you could have let someone do that to you? Setting up emotional blockades and numbing your own emotions so that you can’t be hurt like that again.

Playing the part of the victim does offer you emotional support from others who might feel sorry for you, which helps to ease the pain, but it also cements your position in being continually victimized by your abuser.

Forgiveness Can Set You Free

Forgiveness starts with you. You must forgive yourself first. You are not responsible for any of the emotional pain you’ve endured. You never deserved to be disrespected, mistreated, or abused. You were innocent. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or maybe you suffered the abuse because you were strong enough to take it, like a shock absorber, sparing someone else who could not have survived the abuse.

You cannot control what other people do. You are only in control of your own life and forgiving yourself, absolving yourself from any sense of wrongdoing or deservedness is implicit.

Forgive Them

You are not required to face or confront your aggressor(s), all you need to do is to realize that these people were only doing the best they could with what they had at the time. Just as you were only doing the best you could with what you had at that time.

You might even offer up a little empathy, that had you lived that person’s life, you might have committed the same atrocities.

Forgive them. Forgiving them is not about them at all, it’s more about you forgiving them so that you can go on with your life without them continually exerting additional abuse to you over time.

Your forgiveness is complete, when you can look back at the episode without pain, guilt, or anger, and can truly hope that he or she finds his or her own way to claim a better life for themselves in love, without having to strike out at others anymore.

You can learn the lessons from your past without having to carry around all that emotional baggage. No need to seclude yourself deep within your fortress.

You can be free, and forgiveness is the key.

Trauma-Inspired Programming

How Does Past Trauma Affect Your Life Today?

Not unlike an Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm, throughout our whole life, we collect data and develop programs that run in the background in an effort to understand and allow us to perform better as we encounter new situations and circumstances.

We run thousands of tiered If-Then-Else programs in the background, our subconscious, in an effort to have better experiences as we go forth into an unknown future. This is how we learn. This is how we grow, and this is how we limit our potential and quality of life.

At the moment in time that a program was initiated, it may have been appropriate and fit for the situation at hand, but now in the present day, the old program is still running, and it may not be serving you in the now. In fact, it may be hindering your potential for living a better life.

Let’s say you had a parent that would leave you unexpectedly alone when all you really wanted was a little love and attention. At first, you would desire of cry for attention to no avail. You never received the love and attention you sought. After a while you wrote a program to help you to deal with the situation, so you could go on with life.

IF your parent left,

THEN you would change your expectation, assuming they would not return at all.

“Fine,” you might think, “I will just find comfort in my time alone with myself. I don’t need anyone.”

ELSE the parent returns, you have already asserted confidence in your own independence, you might reject their presence, encouraging them to leave,

“Why don’t you just go enjoy yourself elsewhere? I don’t really need you here.”

You reason its better to reject than be rejected, plus the pain is far less severe by lowering your expectations, creating boundaries, and enforcing them. All at the young, tenderest of ages.

Even at such an early age, when you may not have been able to form the words, you were a survivor. You developed a program that made you stronger, more independent.

If you never recognize it, delete, or reprogram it, that program continues to run in the background to protect you and keep you safe, even if it no longer serves your best interests. Left to run on its own, it will affect all areas of your life, from career to social interactions, and the quest for love.

That’s just one program among thousands, or more likely millions, of programs accumulating in your subconscious machine code.

Hopefully, by now, your starting to realize that you are the Master Programmer (MP). By taking the time to go back and check your old programming codes, you can delete old programs which no longer serve you, and/or replace them with newer, more useful programs which will empower you to live your best life.

SOURCE CODE SEARCH

Search for the programs by reviewing the traumas of your life, year by year.

Make a T-Chart for every year of your life. Title it by your year of age and the calendar year.

On the left side of the page, list any traumatic event you can think of.

On the right side of the page, across from each traumatic event, detail how the trauma affected your life. This will help to identify the program which needs to either be deleted or replaced.

This process is never complete because as you start to look for trauma and either delete or reprogram the subroutines, more data becomes accessible.