Looking for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Insights & Treatments in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane? If you suffer drug addiction it’s usually because of trauma in the first place …
Trauma is a hell of a condition.
You can become frozen with the same reticulating thoughts going through your brain over and over and over again.
This meme of a Russell Brand quote about trauma sums up some aspects of the condition, and how it can lead to other diseases such as drug addiction.
Trauma is the Gateway Drug.
Cannabis isn’t a gateway drug.
Alcohol isn’t a gateway drug.
Nicotine isn’t a gateway drug.
Caffeine isn’t a gateway drug.
Trauma is the gateway.
Childhood abuse is the gateway.
Molestation is the gateway.
Neglect is the gateway.
Drug abuse, violent behavior, hypersexuality, and self-harm are often symptoms (not the cause) of much bigger issues.
And it almost always stems from a childhood filled with trauma, absent parents, and an abusive family.
But most people are too busy laughing at the homeless and drug addicts to realize your own children could be in their shoes in 15 years.
Communicate.
Empathise.
Rehabilitate.
— attributed to Russell Brand
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Trauma can be created from either ongoing situations (often family situations in childhood) or sudden events (accident, fire, war). PTSD can be serious or mild, and all-encompassing (engulfing our whole experience and life) or more isolated (triggered only in very specific situations). And trauma is something we all have. It’s part of the human experience.
When unhealed post traumatic stress disorder is triggered, we may respond to the pain in it in a range of ways. We do something try to avoid the pain – or just the unpleasant feelings and thoughts – inherent in the post traumatic stress disorder.
Trying to avoid the pain of post traumatic stress disorder often becomes a habit. And that’s how compulsions and addictions are created. These compulsions and addictions can be what we conventionally view as serious or mild. And they come in the form of “inner” compulsions (reactivity, anger, depression, etc.) or “outer” compulsions (food, internet, sex, drugs, alcohol, etc.).
These dynamics are variously called trauma, emotional wounds and issues, hangups, beliefs (The Work, inquiry), and identifications (spirituality). They are all created by the mind to keep us safe. They all come from the inherent care and love in how our minds function. They all made sense when they were created. And we can find healing for them.
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