PTSD, known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is not
isolated to the armed service men and women. It affects other people as well.
Survivors of childhood abuse - physical, sexual, mental and emotional abuse -
suffer heinous crimes that leave them with PTSD also.
Some people experience trauma repeatedly during this time
of abuse. These chronic assaults affect our sense of security, emotional and
mental development, and personality.
This disturbs the way we relate to other people, events
in our life, and our ability to focus and to pay attention for long intervals.
We also have trouble with organization, and rational thought processes.
We rarely, if ever, feel confident, expectant or hopeful.
We survive each day by using a great deal of self-effort. We fear that if we
speak out or share what happened to us, it will happen again or people will not
believe us.
During the abuse, some of our brain cells died; and now we
often act irrationally and we suffer from anxiety as a way of life. We develop
coping mechanisms in our attempt to control life, so that we may have a respite
from exploitation.
Some of us will even develop multiple personalities in
order to cope with our past abuse and to survive in our current world. We live
with debilitating fears and insecurities. We withdraw within our self and do
our best not to attract attention to our self.
Others cope by dissociating from the trauma, and we bury
the memory deep in our subconscious mind. Parts of our true self splinter off
and stay in the past with these memories; yet they haunt us for the rest of our
life, until we persevere in prayer and allow God to heal us. (http://www.transformationprayer.org)
God provides us with a stabilizing effect in our life,
building our identity in Him rather than in our self or anyone else. He helps
us to reclaim that part of our personality from which we disassociated, and we
feel more connected to Him and to our life, as He fills us with His peace.
Prayer:
Father God,
knowing You provides us with the ability to reject Satan's lies and to walk in
Your Truth. Our anxiety over our current trials, as well as our shame over the
past, melt away as we live each moment in the center of Your will.
Remind us to
spend time reading Your Word, which gives us a complete understanding of who
You are and who we are in You (Galatians 2:20). Our daily devotional time
prevents us from forming false concepts of who You are, and who we are in You.
We want to grow closer to You each day of our life.
Thought for
the Day:
A person entombed
by abusive behavior learns to adapt to their fearful and insecure lifestyle and
to build walls between them and the untrustworthy people in their world; they
learn to attempt to control life to keep unwanted surprises from blindsiding
them.
