Keep Pain in the Past. Dr. Chris Cortman

Chapter Six

       Release: Release for Peace

       Chapter Seven

       Reframe: Reclaim Your Life

       Chapter Eight

       Moral injury: What If You Really Are Guilty?

       Chapter Nine

       Complex PTSD: When the Trauma Happened Again and Again

       Chapter Ten

       Jim Meets Fritz

       Chapter Eleven

       Finishing Your Unfinished Business

       Chapter Twelve

       Out of the Traumatic Past and Into a Better Future

       References

       Appendix One

       References: Appendix One

       Appendix Two

       References: Appendix Two

       Acknowledgments

       About the Authors

       Chapter One

       Treating Trauma; What If We Already Have the Answers We Need to Heal?

      •

      “Time passages. There’s something back here that you left behind. Oh, time passages. Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight.”

      —Al Stewart

      Is Anyone Living in the Now?

      “Are you at peace with everything that has ever happened to you?” I asked my waitress, wanting to satisfy my curiosity about how someone outside a clinical setting might respond. “Are you living completely in the present, looking forward?”

      “Wow, I thought when you said you had a couple of questions, you were going to ask if you could replace the fries with soup without paying extra,” said the server. “But to answer your questions, no, I’m not over my past, is anyone? And for what it’s worth, it’s an extra dollar to replace the fries with today’s soup of the day, chicken noodle.”

      Now ask yourself the same question (about your life, not the soup). Have you put the painful events and traumas of your life into a healthy place? Are you free of regret, resentment, and painful, intrusive memories? If you answered yes, you can stop reading right now. You don’t need this book, since you’re living a fully realized, highly successful life in the here and now.

      Most people, though, aren’t in this enviable position. Your life is compromised in some way by a trauma from your past. You may not be conscious of it, but that trauma weighs on your like an anchor, dragging down your career, your relationships, and your life. That’s the bad news. The good news is that regardless of what you have experienced, you can take your pain in the past, process and digest it, find meaning in your suffering, and champion the trauma, once and for all.

      A case in point is Jim, one of my clients. Jim is an extreme case—I hope that whatever bad things have happened in your life are nowhere near as bad as what happened to Jim. He was suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and I must warn you that his story is disturbing.

      Your particular pain in the past may not be as extreme, but all emotional trauma has similar symptoms. Using Jim’s story, I will highlight the common trauma symptoms and how they can ravage a life if not treated properly. Also, I aim to provide you with hope: if Jim can be treated effectively, anyone can be.

      After telling Jim’s story, I’ll provide some questions that will help you think about your own therapeutic experiences related to what Jim experienced. Then, I’ll examine six different perspectives (five scientific and one religious) that have contributed to my understanding of how to treat trauma successfully. Finally, I’ll compare what I believe to be unhelpful treatments with my approach.

      An Evolving Tragedy

      One day, just before Christmas some forty five years ago, Jim was enjoying a brisk Connecticut afternoon on the river near his house with his two sons, eight-year-old Jim Jr. and five-year-old Kevin. The boys were elated to pile out of Jim’s old Country Squire and eager to go skating.

      The river was solid, and the new skates—Christmas presents opened early, without mom’s knowledge—fit perfectly. Kevin told his dad and his brother that this was bound to be the “best day ever!”

      And so, it was, until his boys reached the midway point of the river. Jim heard the cracking of the ice while he was setting up a hockey net on the near side. Before he could react, he saw the terror on their faces just before they were swallowed up by the icy waters. Jim speed skated to the opening and dove head first into the hole into which his children had plummeted. He couldn’t find them because the currents had taken the children hundreds of yards downstream. Ultimately, no one found them until three days later.

      As you can imagine, Jim and his wife, Ruth, were devastated but committed to surviving their horror. Though Jim felt horrible—he had committed the unforgivable sin of allowing his children to perish—he knew that for Ruth’s sake, he had to try to get past this tragedy. They went to Hawaii in an attempt to “escape” what had happened.

      That was a well-intentioned mistake. Tragedies are not confined to the zip code in which they occur. Images of the drowned children haunted them, even in the paradise of Hawaii. It was the last time Jim and Ruth attempted a vacation. They needed to devise a better, more realistic solution to their grief. They decided to have another child. Michael was sweet, intelligent, and extremely affectionate, but he couldn’t fulfill the expectations imposed upon his tiny shoulders. He was unable to eliminate the memory of his brothers.

      Michael’s birth made Jim even more conscious of his dead sons. He adored Michael but couldn’t bear to let him get close emotionally. “Christ, what if God took him, too?” was his thought. So he distanced himself from his baby boy by preoccupying himself with work. Ironically, this made Jim feel more disgusted with himself and reinforced his “worst father” internal image. Ruth observed this silently. She knew Jim was sinking but didn’t know how to help him.

      At Ruth’s insistence, Jim sought psychiatric help, but the antidepressants did little to make Jim care about life again. Soon, he stopped taking them. He didn’t blame