Page 409 - Total War on PTSD

adequate stress chemicals. Their “Fight or Flight” systems are activated by subconscious triggers, affecting them at an unconscious level. Some patients have actually undergone hormone testing as part of their treatment plans and have noticed a return to more normal functioning of their adrenal systems.
Eyeglasses can be designed to alter some of these pathways through a direct route between the retina and the hypothalamus. This chapter is intended as an introduction to neuro-optometric rehabilitation as one method of dealing with unresolved PTSD. For a more scientific viewpoint, please see the section at the end.
A patient with PTSD usually has a constricted visual world where the external peripheral eyesight becomes hyper-sensitized or tuned out and the internal thought processes often diminish. The overall experience is usually a more limited spatial environment. This spatial shrinkage is the opposite of normal human development, which includes larger and larger awareness of surroundings from birth to maturity. Eventually, an awareness is developed that we are simply residents of planet Earth and that Earth is just a tiny object in a seemingly infinite galaxy. This global awareness primarily occurs at the subconscious level. We do not constantly and consciously consider our existence as specks in the Universe. As part of normal awareness, we each develop our own “mental desktop” in space and time. The bigger the “desktop,” the easier it becomes to move around in our environment. If we are feeling awake and energetic, for example, leaving home and driving to a restaurant can prove to be an easy, pleasurable task. If we have worked all day and arrive home exhausted, our “mental desktop” constricts. The thought of having to get back into the car and drive to another location to eat might be undesirable, even detestable.
For PTSD patients, the environment often remains chronically constricted. Sometimes it can be almost impossible to adapt to changes out of our control. Moving from one location to another can be almost too much to consider. Even doing things such as
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