Take two poems and call me in the morning

As a psychologist I don't get to write prescriptions, but if I could, I would most often write them for poems. The language of healing is the language of emotions. And the language of emotions is a hard one for most people to learn. As someone who teaches emotional intelligence in the corporate world, I can tell you that being able to sense your emotion, name it, and then be able to talk about it —and manage it—is a skill that everyone is working on. And when you have lived through long term trauma, this skill is even harder. 

But once you can identify the feeling and want to talk about it, words can fail. I have found that the words often just feel too small for the feeling you are having—or somehow the words don’t connect to the feeling—it feels hollow. But one place that feelings learn to connect to words, and images and stories is poems. Poetry is the intersection of all things emotional. Poems allow your brain to begin to hold the images, feelings, and words in one place, at the same time, without the pressure of a full narrative. 

Poetry?! I hear you saying…I know poems may not seem macho enough for some of you, but that’s because you haven’t met the right poets. You need to meet David Whyte. He’s a poet who, if you saw him, you could say: Man, that guy could kick my ass. Actually, he doesn't need to lay a hand on you-- the blows come anyway. His words help lost parts of yourself find each other. His words can give you the capacity to capture your courage to heal again. In this blog I will often bring in poems and pieces of poems—they are the often the best first start to the language of healing and the practice of living. Poems are invitations to the journey that so many have dared to make—the journey of loss and the journey of reconnecting with life. When you read a poem you join an immense group of fellow pilgrims. You are not alone in your work, in your healing. So in order to heal you can start with this poem—an invitation to start, to find your voice and your courage. David Whyte’s poem Start Close In ~ Here's the first stanza, and the poem read by the author below.

Start close in,

don’t take the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step

you don’t want to take.

David's books are available here: Most are available on kindle as well. 

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2014

All trauma is not the same

We talk about and treat trauma as one thing. As if it were like other diseases that we believe to have one origin or one set of symptoms. But psychological trauma is not one thing. When a traumatic event happens once, as in a car accident or a gunshot wound, the normal system of psychological defenses is temporarily overwhelmed. Like water breaking through a levee during a great flood, your body is flooded with adrenaline in such large amounts that the system actually builds new receptors to take in that extra adrenaline.⁠1

When the adrenaline levels recede, the extra receptors create an ultra-sensitive environment where the smallest amount of adrenaline is immediately picked up by the brain and nervous system—producing what is known as the ‘startle response.’ In short term trauma, the system is overwhelmed, and the effect is an over-sensitized system. It is as if the body becomes allergic to anything that might remind itself of the trauma—any loud noise, any fast motion. The psychological and physical after effects of a one time trauma, if they persist for at least a month, are diagnostically called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

PTSD is defined by a set of symptoms: startle response, flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, difficulty eating, difficulty sleeping, difficulty concentrating, or persistent avoidance of anything that reminds the person of the traumatic event.⁠2 PTSD sometimes describes the aftereffects of short term trauma, but something it never seems to capture is the full picture of long term trauma. A soldier in Edward Tick’s War and the Soul states, “PTSD is a “name drained of both poetry and blame.” The soldier he quotes prefers soldier’s heart because it is a ‘disorder of warriors, not men and women who were weak and cowardly but….who followed orders and who at a young age put their feelings aside and performed unimaginable tasks…PTSD is a disorder of a good warrior.⁠3 A strong reaction to trauma is the normal response, and frequency and duration of trauma is the single greatest predictor of PTSD symptoms. 

A single terrifying event can be traumatic. How then can we understand the experience of multiple terrifying events? A car accident that lasts only 45 seconds can trigger all the symptoms of PTSD and require significant psychological treatment. So, what happens when trauma gets repeated relentlessly? What happens when it is not one frightening event, but a frightening event every night for years? When there is a one-time trauma, the system gets caught ‘off guard’ and overwhelmed. But imagine how exhausting it would be to get ‘caught off-guard’ and overwhelmed every night for most of a childhood, or ten years of war? For better or worse, the human body and brain are designed for efficiency and survival. And survival means finding the most efficient and protective way to cope.

    Understanding healing from trauma means respecting and honoring the ways we learned to cope—the ways we learned to protect ourselves. These were crucial and brilliant strategies that got us through the worst and gave us the chance to be in the position we are now—in a position to heal from it. Take some time today to reflect on the protections that you used to survive. Reflect on them and thank them for their loyal service to you.

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2014

1 Amy Banks, Stone Center Writing.

2 DSM

3 Eward Tick War and the Soul. p. 100. 

War and the Soul: Healing Our Nation's Veterans from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

By Edward Tick

Buy on Amazon

"Man, that’s amazing work—you are badass!"© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2014

When you hear friends and family talk about having to go to physical therapy after an injury or a surgery—they talk about it in groans and laughs. They talk about how tough their particular physical therapist is —how hard they made them work, how sore they are—in a way that sounds macho, or badass. 

This is not the conversation that people typically have about psychological therapy. There is some mistaken notion, especially the worse someone feels, that after a session of psychological therapy you will not be sore, but instead will ‘feel better.’ As if you were sitting down to talk with an old kindly grandmother or a hallmark card—and not someone trained to help you heal and stretch and grow. 

Psychological therapy is exactly like physical therapy —except it is done though words instead of those colored rubber bands. Old tight habitual muscles are forced to stretch and find new ways of moving. Psychological bones that were broken and healed over are re-broken and reset and then slowly put into use for you to use again. All of this work makes you sore. All of this work requires stretching.

This is where the platitudes from other people become especially annoying because they ask you, “Are you feeling better?” and you want to shout “No!— I am sore, I feel raw, I’am anxious, I’m trying new things!” The problem is that just like physical therapy, terms like  ‘feeling good” and “feeling bad” don’t really tell you anything: you will always feel more sore on your way to feeling functional. We judge physical health by flexibility, strength and range of motion. Shouldn’t we assess psychological health the same way? It’s my dream that someday we view psychological strengthening just as ‘badass’ as we view physical training. So help me make this happen. When you hear of someone working hard on their issues say, “Man, that’s amazing work—you are badass!” Watch them smile. Change the conversation about healing.

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2014