Page 429 - Total War on PTSD

regime will be helpful. Likely a dysregulated lifestyle has taken hold, possibly sleeping too much (a sign of depression), high anxiety that defeats proper meals or routines. Instituting stable structures are critical: exercise, walks in nature, yoga or stretching, light classes like qigong or Tai Chi promote calming and arouse the parasympathetic side of the ANS.
Historic hardships can often manifest in current unhealthy behaviors. Therapy will create insights and understanding into those behaviors rather than the Veteran enduring unhealthy behaviors repeated over and over. As the reality ego is strengthened and one’s functional aptitude has increased, life can become more adaptive, and activation can be established in a variety of spheres. A secure stage is set in the middle phase of treatment for an unfolding of a deeper level of feeling and subjective experience. The Veteran is able to feel more and may have more access to experiences, as defenses have been dismantled; and is more able to recognize character style when it reasserts itself.
More anxiety, panic attacks, or depression may emerge from a Veteran’s mental and emotional recesses that are harbingers of the emergence of historic feelings and traumatic material. With Veterans, historic family heirlooms can also interact with current PTSD and all have to be included and worked. There may also be debilitating depression that does not relate to the present. As the Veteran’s life is functionally sound, these symptoms represent historic shards that are surfacing from the recesses of the psyche as the defenses and acting out have been curtailed. Defensive behaviors were — and even can continue to function in — the service of blocking off anxiety, deeper experiences of pain, and traumatic remembering.
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