If you suspect someone you know is struggling with symptoms of PTSD, check out the assessment just posted at PTSDTraumaHopeHealing. This test can help save lives.

 

 

Sanctuary. Peace. Rest. And purpose greater than my understanding.

No matter where we’ve grown up, those same longings call out to all of us. From Oprah Winfrey Whitney Houston to Mother Theresa to the homeless orphan, we all desire the same things: peace, love, security, a sense of belonging. The longings of the heart are universal. And they point to the fact that we were created for and find our fulfillment in relationships. And temporal relationships that come to an end leave us longing for more.

Ask five hundred people from various cultures and walks of life what they long for, and you’ll get strikingly similar answers: love, peace, to find a sense of fulfillment and purpose.

And although my time at the ocean may soothe my spirit, it won’t meet the deepest needs of my soul. Those things can only be found in a relationship, and the earth never will be able to fulfill a personal role to fill the gaping holes in my life.

How grateful I am for a loving God who sent His Son to do that. And who crafted a world that shouts His name and calls me to Him.

Ten years ago, I dreamed about publishing a book some day.

Today I’ve published eight books, ghosted others, appear in numerous compilations, and have been a writer on several popular Bibles. I also mentor writers and speak at conferences across the country.

So how did I get here from there?

My answer is really fairly simple. I applied common sense and elbow grease.

• I set goals: the types of publications I wanted to publish with, the number of articles per year, the type of speaking I wanted to do and where I wanted to be in five years.
• I educated myselfabout the writing profession. I hung out at writer’s conferences, subscribed to writer’s magazines, and looked for anyone who knew more than I did about writing and publishing so I could pick their brain.
• I practiced. I published anywhere I could pick up a byline. I set a goal to get my name in five publications, then ten, then twenty, and to move from regional to national publications.
• I listened. I considered editorial feedback to be pure gold–someone was taking the time to tell me how to improve my writing, and I valued their insights.
• I gave back. The minute I learned something, I looked for a way to pass on the knowledge to other aspiring writers. As part of that process, I ended up helping co-found two amazing writer’s conferences.
• I took risks.  I wrote in genres unfamiliar to me. I was willing to work with a wide range of people–from Pulitzer Prize finalists to first-time authors. I pushed myself to reach a bit further for each new project and to dig beyond what I thought I could do.
• I keep gratitude at the top of my list.  I’ve never gotten over the fact that I can call myself an author. I’m extremely grateful that I can do something I love, that influences the lives of others, and that has eternal value. I’m grateful that God continually challenges me by giving me things to say and people who need messages of hope.

I’m more excited today than I was when my first book came in the mail. Today I’m even more aware of the possibilities that lie ahead, and I’m ready to learn, ready to risk, and ready to share whatever God’s put in my hands to pass along.

This past week my friend and colleague Wanda and I spoke to therapists and administrators at one of Michigan’s top residential treatment centers for children about our experience with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Our story is unique. A desperate woman from the West Coast who’d unknowingly suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder all her life and had been through every imaginable treatment took an unexpected call from a woman from the Midwest who immediately recognized her symptoms as PTSD. The desperate woman is my now-best friend Wanda. The woman who surprised her on the phone that day is me. In one God-appointed call, Wanda and I bonded for life. Weeks later, I was on a plane to the West Coast to meet her. Within months, she and I were at a trauma treatment center that gave her back her life in just ten days.

I knew about this treatment center–Intensive Trauma Therapy (ITT) in Morgantown, West Virginia–because a friend of mine (Jolene Philo, author of A Different Dream for My Child) had taken her son there. He, too, had tried treatment after treatment over the course of his life with no results and was living on the fragile edge of despair. After five days of out-patient treatment, he’d left, free from many of the symptoms of PTSD and able to cope with life for the first time in years. Just a year later, he’d landed his dream job, married, and was delivering lectures in his field of work.

Wanda’s ten-day out-patient treatment at ITT accomplished more than the combined days, weeks, and months she’d spent in a numerous residential and out-patient programs across the nation, as well as years of counseling. A lifetime of symptoms melted away, and she left equipped to deal with the challenges and realities of life.

On day three at ITT, life-long nightmares and rages disappeared. Behaviors, fears, and battles that had been part of her life for as long as she could remember fell away each successive day. And in the time since she’s left ITT, Wanda’s continued to make enormous strides in physical and mental health, as well as in her career and personal life.

One year out from her ten-day treatment at ITT, Wanda’s speaking to counselors and therapists about her experience and delivering hope to PTSD sufferers across the nation. I accompany her as we talk about her journey from despair to hope and healing.  And while her recovery came through a specific treatment model–the Instinctual Trauma Response Model developed by Dr. Louis Tinnen, the founder of ITT–Wanda attributes her ultimate healing to God.

Those suffering from PTSD call us, write us, and seek us out almost every day. The millions who suffer with PTSD in this nation deal with ravaging symptoms and often suffer in silence. Faith communities often see a division between “secular and sacred” and are reluctant to point PTSD sufferers and those who deal with mental illnesses to effective therapies.

But Wanda and I can’t stop talking. We’re overwhelmingly grateful to God for pointing us to the right treatment at the right time to accomplish healing. We can’t point people to ITT fast enough. We know a growing number whose stories were like Wanda’s: people who were living on the ragged edge of despair, were misdiagnosed and sought every available treatment without success.

Most came to ITT as a last resort to suicide. Days later, they left healed and with their hope renewed.

Opportunities continue to open up for Wanda and me to speak to therapists, individuals, churches, educators, and health professionals about hope for healing from post-traumatic stress disorder. We’ll talk about our story and our hope as often as we can. The statistics are simply too staggering, and the realities too stark:

• 70% of adults have experienced at least one traumatic event in their life–over 223 million people. Over 20% of them will go on to develop PTSD.
• An estimated 8% of the general population have PTSD right now. That figure jumps to 24% in the inner city.
• An estimated 1 out of 10 women develop PTSD, compared to 1 out of 20 men.
• 60-80% of those who experience severe trauma will develop PTSD.
• 15-43% of girls and 14-43% of boys will experience a traumatic event
• 3-15% girls and 1-6% of boys will develop PTSD

If you know a faith community, community organization, mental health organization, hospital, educational institution, or group that would like to hear our story of hope, feel free to contact us.

We can’t shut up.

Yesterday my good friend and publicist Wanda and I drove from western Michigan to Chicago, where I did two radio interviews for the Moody radio network–one for Midday Connection with Anita Lustrea, and one with Chris Fabry Live. The interviews were a delight, and it was a privilege to be on both shows with Anita and Chris in the same day. One interview in particular focused on the power of our talk.

After fighting big-city traffic, we landed back in Grand Rapids exhausted and famished. We stopped at a favorite restaurant to pick up dinner before heading home. As I walked into the restaurant to pick our meal, I noticed a lovely middle-aged woman standing hear the door, chatting with a gentleman who appeared to be her spouse or her date. She was striking–beautiful skin, a gorgeous smile, lovely almond eyes. I glanced at her twice before I turned around.

“You’re really lovely, you know,” I stated. “Just beautiful. Have a wonderful evening.” Then I slipped into the restaurant, picked up our food, and slipped back out.

I don’t know know how long it had been since this woman had heard a compliment. Perhaps she heard them every day. I only knew that it took me two seconds to say something that blessed her, and it cost me nothing. In fact, it felt good.

When I returned to my car a few minutes later, my friend told me that the lady had turned to the gentleman with her with a look of amazement and a smile.

Every day we hold the power to change the world with a look, a tone, a word.

Look for someone today. Then change their world with a few simple words.

Expert traumatologist Margaret Vasquez recently shared a simple yet effective strategy for dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder at our trauma blog at PTSDTraumaHopeHealing.com. I’ve seen this strategy work, and it’s helpful for medical trauma, childhood trauma, and almost any kind of crisis where the brain has been overwhelmed and the trauma survivor gotten “stuck” in the past.

So take a gander at the blog. We’re placing many helpful resources there as we begin to build a community of support and encouragement for those who’ve experienced trauma, as well as their loved ones and family.

Heading to Chicago tomorrow to be a guest on Midday Connection with Anita Lustrea and Chris Fabry Live. I’m excited and very grateful for these opportunities to talk about two of my favorite subjects: the Dignity project for caregivers, produced by Music for the Soul and good friend Steve Siler, and my book The Silent Seduction of Self-Talk. 

The call started out as a networking conversation. My business partner/best friend and I were chatting with a colleague about ways to help his fledgling media venture.

But within minutes, the conversation turned to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This young man’s father-in-law had recently returned from a war-torn nation where his life and the lives of those he loved had been threatened and ravaged. He was having flashbacks, was unable to sleep or focus on daily tasks, was experiencing symptoms that mimicked heart attacks, and was showing other signs of PTSD.

But, unfortunately, he was reluctant to seek trauma treatment. His beliefs as a Christian made him skeptical about “secular” psychology.

I understand his hesitation. I was brought up in a home where I was taught to regard the Bible as the final authority on all things. And I still believe the Bible to be the final word on all matters in life.

But I also believe that all healing and all truth are from God. I don’t believe in “Christian and secular” aspirin, “Christian and secular” surgeries, “Christian and secular” music, or “Christian and secular” anything. All truth belongs to God. All healing comes from God. And if I’m looking for a surgeon, I’m going to look for the best one I can find. If I’m going to look for a therapist or counselor, I’m going to look for the best one I can find. That will mean the individual I choose works within the parameters of my Christian worldview. But that goal can be accomplished with either a Christian therapist or someone who does not share my faith. No matter who I choose, I must always be discriminating.

When it comes to the brain, Christians often are reluctant to admit that the physical, chemical process that apply to our liver, kidneys, spleens, and hearts don’t stop at our necks. Those processes play a major role in trauma, mental illness, and the critical practices of psychology and psychiatry.

After completing dozens of treatment efforts in some of the best Christian and “secular” counseling, residential, out-patient, and inpatient programs in the nation, a dear friend of mine finally found successful treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder at Intensive Trauma Therapy in West Virginia. The treatment changed her life in profound ways and gave her the healing she’d prayed for for decades. Other people I know have found tremendous help, as well, from therapy based on the Instinctual Trauma Response Model.

Trauma therapy confronts lies with truth. It tears down walls of deception that bind victims to the past. And it does so by utilizing God-given biological and chemical processes. Thank God for new breakthroughs in trauma therapy that can bring healing to those who often suffer for decades treating symptoms, rather than root causes.

My prayer is that Christians begin to recognize the growing epidemic of trauma victims in their families, churches, workplaces, and communities and embrace the healing that’s offered through trauma treatment: healing that comes–like all healing–from the hand of God.

Ten years or so ago, God gave me a wake-up call. The process involved a lot of things I didn’t like very much: illness, pain, confrontation from loved ones. In the middle of the mess, I figured out one thing.

I needed to change. I wanted to change. And God had put the tools in my hand to change.

Over the course of the next months, I began to do something simple: I started to study the way I thought and to journal about my thinking patterns. I learned to become “three Shellys.” I learned to observe my thoughts, then ask myself questions about the motives and goals behind them.

For instance, one day I walked into our master bathroom and immediately got ticked off.  Shelly #1 wanted to criticize her husband Dan about the way he was painting the bathroom ceiling (Who brush-strokes a ceiling anyway? Duh.). But I’d figured out that I could observe myself and ask questions about my behavior. So Shelly #2 paid attention. And, sure enough, she felt a pang of guilt for her attitude. She wanted to fling a sarcastic comment at her really sweet husband who was using his Saturday to paint a ceiling in a bathroom the size of a walnut. (And why? Because his wife was concerned that their weekend houseguest who would be staying in the master bedroom might look up while he was brushing his teeth and see a dingy ceiling…) But the minute Shelly #2 felt the twinge, Shelly #3 shifted into gear with a series of questions: Why are you so angry? What’s behind what you’re feeling right now?

I followed this process for a series of months, and I journaled about it. And over time, I learned a lot about my real motives. I learned a lot about secrets, ugliness, and hurts inside of me.

And, by the grace and power of God, I changed in powerful ways.  I didn’t realize at the time that I was practicing a form of external dialogue taught in trauma therapy.

Dr. Suzanne Phillips, author of Healing Together for Couples: A Couple’s Guide to Coping with Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress, tells us that “our inner dialogue is actually the fabric of the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. Sometimes the inner message is very conscious; sometimes it is so automatic that we hardly know we are thinking it; and sometimes it is without conscious thought.”

Dr. Phillips suggests ways that people can change their internal dialogue and move forward toward healing and hope. In the Christian faith community, we recognize this age-old principle as confronting lies with truth.

Dr. Phillips suggests the following principles for transforming negative self-talk to positive self-talk:

Replace negative messages from the past with positive message from your present adult self – That was then. They should see me now. That was a very small world. I own my life and my goals. I know how to parent myself. I want this for myself.  I have people in my life now who believe in me.

Connect positive messages with your present goals. – They always said I loved competition. I usually figured out a way. My parents never gave up on me. My Dad knew I was smart. I’m like my Mother – I don’t give up.

Re-frame negative messages from the past and use them positively. -  If I could get though cancer, I can do anything. I am not a victim – I’m a survivor. If I could cook for four kids all those years, I can cook for myself on this diet. I want to be strong enough to travel alone or with a group.

If you tell yourself you’re your own worst enemy or have a “lack of willpower” to achieve your goals, you may be stuck in an old survival patterns of thinking.

Learn to drop negative messages by coming to understand why you think you need to hang on to them.

To read Dr. Phillips’ article, go to http://bit.ly/w6NXKV.

This week several friends and I launched a new blog on the topic of trauma at http://ptsdtraumahopehealing.com/. Over the past two years, I’ve become increasingly interested in the topic of trauma, and I’ve been privileged to get to know some of the best trauma therapists in the world and see the results of their work in the lives of my closest friends.

And every day as I watch the news. read Facebook posts, talk to growing numbers of hurting friends and relatives, and listen to the sounds of emergency vehicles racing past my window, my sense of urgency grows.

An epidemic of untreated trauma has gripped our nation. We busy ourselves treating its symptoms–addictions, eating disorders, self-abusive behaviors, compulsions, etc. and entertain ourselves watching people on television struggle through the symptoms in endless cycles: Hoarders, Intervention, Biggest Loser, Celebrity Rehab, and numerous other shows.

But we seldom treat the root cause: trauma.

I invite you to join me and my friends (the Trauma Queens) and share your trauma story. Many of us have found hope and healing through effective treatments.

Some of us have walked through lifetimes of frustration seeking help for the wrong thing first in treatment centers and counseling that address peripheral issues. And many of us have been shamed for not “getting over” our trauma sooner and seeking treatment.

We’ve developed relationships with some of the nation’s top trauma experts. We’re making connections with organizations involved in human trafficking. Next week my associate and I will be speaking at a nationally-recognized agency that is launching an initiative for children who have been trafficked.

We invite you to become part of the community of hope on Facebook as well at PTSD Trauma Hope and Healing (https://www.facebook.com/PtsdTraumaHopeAndHealing).

If you know someone who’s experienced a crisis where their life was threatened or someone they loved was threatened and they struggle with symptoms of PTSD, please tell them there IS hope.

If you know someone whose baby underwent invasive medical procedures as an infant before 1986 and now struggles with symptoms of PTSD, please tell them about our blog. The medical community did not believe that babies experienced pain before the mid- to late 1980s and often did surgery on infants without painkillers or anesthesia. Many of those children today suffer with symptoms of PTSD and are unaware of its relationships to their childhood trauma and, more importantly, that effective treatment is available.

Few things are as exciting as seeing someone without hope find it again. Those who struggle in cycles of addiction, self-abuse, depression, suicidal thoughts, and other behaviors often live without hope.

The truth can set you free.