Some Recovery Tips

Tips On Overcoming A Traumatic Past:

© Michael Davitt.

Michael Davitt is an author and artist focusing primarily on mental health issues. Michael has published five books to-date, under his pseudonym, Luke Pemberton.
 

An important first step is to find a suitable, qualified counsellor providing a type of talking therapy (if you are not already seeing one). This step is a simple one, but it requires courage, and is vital. For more information, click here.

Having the courage to reflect on past traumatic events can bring up lots of feelings from the past. One way to help process these is to write them down, in whatever way or form you wish. Recording your feelings can be as simple as jotting down whatever is in your head in the most rudimentary manner (just scribbling down key words on a piece of paper or typing it into the notes app on your phone can suffice). The idea is to get whatever is racing around your head out of your head and onto paper. This can provide some mental relief and allows you to see your thoughts in a more objective manner. You can also use these notes as discussion topics with your counsellor.

Dealing successfully with traumatic memories requires a certain amount of energy and introspection, in conjunction with a qualified counsellor. The more you examine your anxieties, fears, insecurities and doubts in a constructive and honest manner the better your chances are for recovery. What is more important than anything is the courage to ask yourself some difficult questions and to look for their answers or explanations with the appropriate guidance.

Talking, recording what’s going through your mind and asking yourself sometimes painful questions about your experiences are very important steps in overcoming traumatic events in your past. To solidify your progress, you can try and express what you are going through creatively. The simplest way to do this is to try and think of metaphors or analogies which encapsulate what you are feeling, picture these in your mind and then draw them in the simplest way possible. This could involve very simple stick figures, some speech bubbles, and subsequently perhaps some very basic objects to represent the metaphor or analogy you have constructed.

Please click here for the full version of this article, which includes examples of simple drawings.