Post Traumatic Stress

When you experience a negative emotion being triggered in a “safe” situation – it may well be Post (after) Traumatic (overwhelming) Stress.

A psychological trauma is the result of an overwhelming situation where your “fight and flight” response is activated, and you cannot cope with or integrate this emotionally afterwards. It is as if you say “No!” to what happened “This should not happen to me!”.

It can be one very defined situation like violence, war, sexual abuse, a natural catastrophe or an accident, or it can be a prolonged period of stressful events including divorce, mental abuse or some other kind of repeating stressful events. Every trauma is personal and unique. Symptoms of trauma can remain and/or appear over 15 years or more after an incident.

Symptoms of Traumatic Stress

Traumatic stress symptoms include feelings of fear, lack of hope, depression, nightmares, anxiety, aggression, problems to focus or learn new things, panic attacks, nervous system signals like sudden sweating or “jumpiness”… the list goes on and the levels are usually measured by how you perceive it on a scale from 1-10 – where 1 is “peace of mind” and 10 is “full blown panic”. This is called a “SUD” scale (Subjective Units of Distress).

“I felt as if I was back in the traumatic event, the ground fell from under my feet….”
“I woke up almost every night, in cold sweat with my heart beating so hard. The nightmares didn´t give me peace to sleep calmly…”
“Walking into a room full of people made my heart beat as if I was back in war again…”

First Aid for these symptoms

There are some techniques to diminish the symptoms of trauma. We find one of the currently most efficient to be the Trauma Tapping Technique – TTT. We have taught and applied it to thousands of victims of genocide, abuse, war and personal traumas as well as psychosocial professionals – mainly in Africa but also in Europe – since 2006.

The memory of the traumatic event does not disappear, but the technique can diminish or even stop their impact on your feelings and nervous system. This will allow you to take charge of your life and healing process.

TTT is a first aid technique. A door opener to make way for conventional treatments if needed. It is a simple, efficient, free and proven technique.

You can learn and/or apply it in less than half an hour. You can use it for yourself and others. One session can be enough to create small or lifelong changes. For your own sake and for your family and community- do try it!