Love Letters from the Edge Free on Kindle Today!

 

Love Letters from the Edge: Meditations for Those Struggling from Brokenness, Trauma, and the Pain of Life is FREE on Kindle today.

Realities Regarding PTSD and Trauma

• One in four women will experience sexual abuse in her lifetime.
• One in four women will experience domestic violence.
• An estimated 70% of adults have experienced a traumatic event at least once in their lifetime, and 20% will go on to develop post-traumatic stress disorder.
• An estimated 1 out of 10 women will develop PTSD in her lifetime. 13% of police and 15% of firefighters develop PTSD.
• 25% of women who suffer breast cancer and those who suffer heart attacks will experience PTSD.
• More than 33% of youth who witness community violence will develop PTSD.

Simply stated, trauma is any event that overwhelms the brain’s ability to cope, is perceived as a threat to one’s safety, and causes physical, emotional, or psychological distress or harm. PTSD is triggered by a terrifying event. The event becomes “stuck” in the right side of the brain when the left side shuts down in response to the trauma. The traumatic event can’t be completely processed and replays, leaving the person in the fight-flight-freeze mode, which produces trauma-related symptoms.

PTSD in the Pews

Someone you know is suffering from trauma. In an average rural or suburban church of 200, nearly twenty members (approximately 8%) will be suffering from PTSD, many in silence. Most won’t know that their symptoms are related to trauma or that treating symptoms isn’t the same as treating trauma.

It that church is an urban church of 2,000, the statistics for the occurrence of PTSD are the same for soldiers returning from Afghanistan–more than 30%. That means that over 600 people in the congregation are suffering from PTSD. What is equally significant is that studies now tell us that the effects of PTSD become passed down to our children.

No matter what many roles you may wear–mother, father, pastor, community leader, business owner, medical worker, educator, friend, mentor–you need to know about PTSD. Why? Because people you know are suffering. Many don’t understand why. And many don’t understand that hope and healing are available.

Who do you know who needs a love letter from God?

Love Letters from the Edge is recommended by The Gathering for Mental Health in the Church at Saddleback.

For more information, download our FREE ebook The Truth about Trauma at PTSDPerspectives.org. 

 

 

 

Someone You Know Has PTSD–and Might Not Know It

“I just finished treatment for complex PTSD. Nobody understands trauma, so I rarely talk about it.”

The woman sitting next to me on our flight from Denver to Seattle was an accountant. Confident. Self-assured. Professional. And a recovering addict who’d struggled for years with symptoms PTSD stemming from early childhood medical procedures.

It had taken her years to recognize that childhood medical procedures were at the root of the long list of symptoms that had taken her life hostage.

 

Sadly, most people don’t understand the cause-and-effect between trauma and the symptoms of PTSD and seek treatment for the underlying cause.

The reality is that life is a series of traumas that the brain processes as either “Big T” or “little t” events, depending on a number of factors. Any event that is so threatening that it (1) overwhelms our brain, (2) triggers a reactive chemical wash that shuts down one side of the brain and causes us to “freeze” initiates the Instinctual Trauma Response (Big T trauma with potential resulting symptoms).

In the past few years, my colleague Wanda and I have met dozens of men and women suffering from PTSD who never realized before meeting us that trauma was the source of their various symptoms: hoarding, self-abuse, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, hearing voices (one of the easiest symptoms to treat), eating disorders, depression, suicidal fixation, and other symptoms.

Many people who have PTSD don’t know that their symptoms aren’t the problem; trauma is the problem, and trauma can be successfully treated.

This week our book Love Letters from the Edge: Meditations for Those Struggling with Brokenness, Trauma, and the Pain of Life was released in bookstores and online. This book addresses the desperation and despair felt by those who suffer from PTSD. It gives a voice to those who often feel unfixable, hopeless, and isolated.

But more importantly, it offers hope. As women who have experienced PTSD, Wanda and I understand the desperation and the struggles. This is why it was critically important for us to write a book that honestly expressed the feelings of those dealing with PTSD, but also offered compassion, hope, and truth. This book also offers practical resources for family members and friends, as well as support communities, such as churches.

Someone you know has PTSD and may not even know it.

Learn what it feels like to walk in their shoes. Learn what you can do to help. And if you’re struggling, take the first step toward healing by telling a trusted friend or medical or mental health professional.

Crisis Hotlines

 

Love Letters from the Edge: Hope for the Hopeless

Four years ago, forty-eight year-old Wanda Sanchez was clinging to a life without hope. Every day was a struggle to stay alive. She’d planned her suicide and had every intent to carry out her plan.

For decades she’d struggled with nightmares, flashbacks, addiction, self-abuse, compulsions, and other behaviors she simply couldn’t control.

Rehab was a failure.

Eating disorder clinics were a failure.

Counseling and therapy produced little change.

Year after year, her symptoms grew worse, and her prayers to be healed seemed to go unanswered.

Like most people, Wanda spent years treating symptoms, rather than treating her actual trauma.

The results? Imagine taking pain killers for your brain tumor. The pain might subside–for a time. But the tumor itself only continues to grow and the symptoms worsen. Wanda’s root problem–her trauma–was childhood abuse. repeated and horrific childhood abuse. But she didn’t know about trauma and PTSD. So she tried to relieve the symptoms–addictions, self-abuse, obsessive-compulsive disorders, nightmares, and flashbacks.

Like most people who experience trauma, Wanda struggled with guilt, abandonment, rage, despair, and other self-sabotaging emotions.

She felt ruined, unlovable, and was sure she was the only truly unfixable person in the world.

Until she went for ten days of out-patient trauma treatment that treated the root cause of her symptoms and changed her life forever.

Since leaving Intensive Trauma Therapy in 2011, Wanda and I (Shelly Beach) have dedicated ourselves to sharing our stories of hope and healing from post-traumatic stress disorder. We have both found life-altering healing from trauma symptoms that radically changed our lives. Wanda’s improvement was so profound that in the months following her treatment, therapists and organizations began to ask her to share her story. Our passion grew for helping people gain a practical understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder and pointing them to resources for hope and healing.

Love Letters from the Edge: Meditations for Those Struggling with Brokenness, Trauma, and the Pain of Life is our first book together. It is an inspirational book of meditations for people longing to find hope and resources and who will benefit from a foundational understanding of PTSD.

Love Letters from the Edge will encourage those who’ve experienced suffering and who long to sense God’s presence and comfort.

Love Letters from the Edge has been endorsed by counselors and therapists, the directors of mental health centers and mission organizations (Wedgwood Christian Service, Dégagé Ministries, Music for the Soul, Hearts at Home, as well as media personalities and celebrities like Nancy Stafford and Kathie Lee Gifford.

Love Letters from the Edge may not be written for you. But it will touch the heart of someone you know who has experienced deep suffering in life and offer them hope, as well as practical tools for healing.

Who do you know who’s standing on the edge? Who do you know that needs to know they’re not alone?

A Simple and Effective PTSD Strategy

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.