Loving Someone with PTSD


Book Description

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can present with a number of symptoms, including anxiety, depression, flashbacks, and trouble sleeping. If your partner has PTSD, you may want to help, but find yourself at a loss. The simple truth is that PTSD can be extremely debilitating—not just for the person who has experienced trauma first-hand, but for their partners as well. And while there are many books written for those suffering from PTSD, there are few written for the people who love them. In Loving Someone with PTSD, renowned trauma expert and author of I Can’t Get Over It!, Aphrodite Matsakis, presents concrete skills and strategies for the partners of those with PTSD. With this informative and practical book, you will increase your understanding of the signs and symptoms of PTSD, improve your communication skills with your loved one, set realistic expectations, and work to create a healthy environment for the both of you. In addition, you will learn to manage your own grief, helplessness, and fear regarding your partner’s condition. PTSD is a manageable disability. While it isn’t your responsibility to rescue your partner or act as his or her therapist, this book will help you be supportive and implement strategies for lessening the negative impact of PTSD—not just for your partner, but for your relationship, and, importantly, for yourself.




The Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Relationship


Book Description

War, physical and sexual abuse, and natural disasters. All crises have one thing in common: Victims often suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and their loved ones suffer right along with them. In this book, couples will learn how to have a healthy relationship, in spite of a stressful and debilitating disorder. They'll learn how to: —Deal with emotions regarding their partner's PTSD —Talk about the traumatic event(s) —Communicate about the effects of PTSD to their children —Handle sexual relations when a PTSD partner has suffered a traumatic sexual event —Help their partner cope with everyday life issues When someone has gone through a traumatic event in his or her life, he or she needs a partner more than ever. This is the complete guide to keeping the relationship strong and helping both partners recover in happy, healthy ways.




When Someone You Love Suffers from Posttraumatic Stress


Book Description

For trauma survivors struggling with intense memories and emotions, it often feels like life won't ever be "normal" again. Effective treatments are out there, but the needs of family members are often overlooked. Will the person you love ever get better? What can you do to promote healing? Where can you turn when you just can't cope? From experienced trauma specialists Drs. Claudia Zayfert and Jason C. DeViva, this compassionate guide is packed with information, support, vivid stories, and specific advice. Learn to navigate the rough spots day by day and help your loved one find a brighter tomorrow. Mental health professionals, see also the related treatment manual, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for PTSD. Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) Self-Help Book of Merit




Healing Together


Book Description

When one or both partners in a relationship experience a major traumatic event, the strain can really put the relationship in jeopardy; Healing Together offers couples simple techniques for communicating, regaining trust, and supporting one another through the process of trauma recovery.




Trust After Trauma


Book Description

Examines the feelings of loneliness and mistrust suffered by trauma survivors, explores how these feelings affect personal relationships, and suggests ways of negotiating and coping with the trauma for improved relationships.




Shock Waves


Book Description

In the United States, about 60 percent of men and 50 percent of women experience, witness, or are affected by a traumatic event in their lifetimes. Many of them (8 percent of men and 20 percent of women) may develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)--a life-altering anxiety disorder. Once connected mainly with veterans of war, PTSD is now being diagnosed in many situations that cause extreme trauma such as rape, physical attacks or abuse, accidents, terrorist incidents, or natural disasters. The millions of family members of those who have PTSD also suffer, not knowing how to help their loved one recover from the pain. Shock Waves is a practical, user-friendly guide for those who love someone suffering from this often debilitating anxiety disorder, whether that person is a survivor of war or of another harrowing situation or event. Through her own experience, extensive research, advice from mental health professionals, and interviews with those working through PTSD and their families, Cynthia Orange shows readers how to identify what PTSD symptoms look like in real life, respond to substance abuse and other co-occurring disorders, manage their reactions to a loved one's violence and rage, find effective professional help, and prevent their children from experiencing secondary trauma. Each section of Shock Waves includes questions and exercises to help readers incorporate the book's lessons into their daily lives and interactions with their traumatized loved ones.




Irritable Hearts


Book Description

"In 2010, human rights reporter Mac McClelland left Haiti after covering the devastation of the earthquake. Back home, she finds herself imagining vivid scenes of violence and can't sleep or stop crying. It becomes clear that she is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, triggered by her trip and seemingly exacerbated by her experiences in the other charged places she'd reported from. The bewilderment about this sudden loss of self-control is magnified by her feelings for Nico, a French soldier she met in Haiti, who despite their brief connection seems to have found a place in her confused heart. With ... fearlessness, McClelland sets out to repair her broken psyche"--




Love Our Vets


Book Description

Chances are that if your loved one has seen war, he or she has Post-traumatic Stress Disorder at some level, and you who love your veteran will also be deeply and profoundly affected. Finally, the cries and needs of the loved ones have been addressed in this comprehensive, practical book, now newly updated in its 2nd Edition! Love Our Vets answers more than 60 heartfelt questions, providing down-to-earth wisdom and much-needed tips for taking care of yourself. Sharing as a counselor and from her personal experience of living with a 100% disabled veteran with PTSD, Welby O'Brien gives hope, encouragement, and practical help for families and loved ones who are caught in the wake of the trauma. This book addresses a broad spectrum of issues and concerns and offers realistic wisdom from a wide variety of individuals who share from real hearts and lives. Now newly revised and updated with additional material, the 2nd Edition of Love Our Vets continues to be enthusiastically welcomed by VA and other counselors. This is not just another book about PTSD; rather, it is a tremendous resource for families and loved ones who struggle heroically along with their vets to face the day-to-day challenges.




Dating After Trauma


Book Description

Dating After Trauma teaches readers how to date again after being raped or experiencing an abusive relationship. Dating after rape, date rape, or an abusive relationship presents unique challenges as most survivors experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which alters their perception of the world and makes it more difficult to develop relationships, build trust and experience intimacy. It takes tremendous courage to date after suffering an abusive relationship or sexual trauma. It can be even more difficult to be open to love from a good person without experiencing fear. However, once you know what to look for in terms of roadblocks, the path to love becomes much easier. In "Dating after Trauma" Emily Avagliano discusses the common obstacles abuse victims have when trying to find love. Her story is based on her own personal struggle to overcome past trauma and find her soulmate. Through this insight, she provides a methodology for dating that builds trust and intimacy in a safe and healthy way. She can help you let go of your fear and date in a manner that love becomes possible. For rape victims, if you have experienced date rape or sexual abuse, and want to reclaim your sexuality, find your soul mate, or just start feeling again, this book guides you through that process of healing. If someone you love has been raped, you see them suffering, and don't know how to help them move on from the past, this book will help. If you are a mother, father, friend, boyfriend or dating partner, this book explains what rape victims feel and why it is so hard for them to trust and love someone new. This book also tackles the pain of abusive relationships. If you have experienced the roller coaster of an abusive partner where some days he is the best person in the world and other days you can't understand his anger, this book will help you heal. If you have altered your behavior to try to control your partner's anger, jealousy, or even violent physical outburst, this book is for you. If your partner used name calling, controlling behavior, restricted your clothing choices, verbally intimidated you, or made you feel less than, read this book. If you are a parent, partner, or want to help someone in an abusive relationship but don't know how, this book provides insight into ending the cycle of dating abusive partners. Thank you for your feedback. I greatly appreciate a book review on amazon below.




What My Bones Know


Book Description

A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life “Achingly exquisite . . . providing real hope for those who long to heal.”—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, NPR, Mashable, She Reads, Publishers Weekly By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD—a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years. Both of Foo’s parents abandoned her when she was a teenager, after years of physical and verbal abuse and neglect. She thought she’d moved on, but her new diagnosis illuminated the way her past continued to threaten her health, relationships, and career. She found limited resources to help her, so Foo set out to heal herself, and to map her experiences onto the scarce literature about C-PTSD. In this deeply personal and thoroughly researched account, Foo interviews scientists and psychologists and tries a variety of innovative therapies. She returns to her hometown of San Jose, California, to investigate the effects of immigrant trauma on the community, and she uncovers family secrets in the country of her birth, Malaysia, to learn how trauma can be inherited through generations. Ultimately, she discovers that you don’t move on from trauma—but you can learn to move with it. Powerful, enlightening, and hopeful, What My Bones Know is a brave narrative that reckons with the hold of the past over the present, the mind over the body—and examines one woman’s ability to reclaim agency from her trauma.