7 Tools for Living Well With PTSD

Hey, how you doing? I get lots of emails and messages on social media asking for questions about how do you thrive on a day-to-day basis and how do you continually deal with PTSD. And I talk about a lot of them in the book Deal With It: Living Well with PTSD. One of the questions was, why do I call it Living Well with— Deal With It: Living Well with PTSD? Because there's a difference with living with post-traumatic stress and living well with post-traumatic stress. I don't believe it's a death sentence. I think in a lot of ways it's a life sentence. You are the person you are because of the things that you've been through, and those things need to be embraced. And there's a range of medical evidence and neurological evidence— and again, I talk about this in Deal With It— that proves that in fact post-traumatic growth is far more an adequate and reflective term than post-traumatic stress. One of the things that I get asked about is, how do I, how do I reset my life when faced with the everyday minutiae that is sometimes post-traumatic stress? So here's the first thought. The whole word minutiae is not a common word. It's Not a word you and I would normally use in our vocabulary, but someone told me that I shouldn't use the word crap. I shouldn't say something like dealing with your everyday crap because I am alienating myself from my audience, and by using a word like minutiae, it's going to give more people entry into the conversation. Well, here's my point with that is I really don't care. If someone— and I mean that sincerely, and here's why. Is because if someone can't talk honestly, genuinely, and from the heart with having to judge and assess every single thing they say, then they're not going to communicate openly. Brings me to my next point is you'll often read a meme or hear a post and someone will say, well, I'm all out of give a fucks. It's a great concept and thought. The challenge I have with that Is I am so driven to give a fuck. I care about the impact of my illness. I care about the impact of my nightmares. I care about the impact of my emotional outbursts. I care about the impact that has on the people that I love and care for. And so do you. See, the fact is you care a lot. You care very much. That's why you spend the time watching these videos. That's why you spend the time reading Deal With It. That's why you spend the time writing to me and asking questions. The fact is you're very— if you weren't compassionate and caring, then you'd be a narcissist, and that's just not who you are, or you wouldn't be sitting here really genuinely giving a fuck. The third thing, and it ties in with the whole, you know, give a fuck concept, is that you're either for something or against something. You're either against giving a fuck what other people think and other people feel and other people want, Or you're for what you need, what you feel, what is important to you. Now, I'm not trying to be semantical, and again, I spent a lot of time in Deal with It on this, but the outcome is very, very different. One is positive, so you can build on a positive. You can't build on a negative. Good things come from positive, bad things come from negative. You can't get good fruit off a bad tree. So whenever I'm repositioning things, I'm not talking to myself or others about a loss of something or the fact that I can't do it. I'm talking about how I choose to do a different thing, go forward in a positive direction, engage in a new set of behaviors, develop a new set of skills. The 4th thing I've worked very hard at in terms of being able to reset myself is keeping a schedule flexible. Now, you know, if I have a bad night, bad dreams, it's really difficult to just get up and go. For example, the last 3 days I've had very little sleep, probably a total of 4 or 5 hours. And I— my schedule is I get up at 4, I read for a couple of hours, then I hit the gym at 6. I've got a trainer, a mate I work out with, and we work out hard. Now, if I have a series of days like I have, I drop him a text when I know he's gonna be up at around the same time and say, mate, I can't do it today. Let's put it on tomorrow, or I can't do it now. Can we move to this afternoon? Now, the reason I do that is because the whole concept of nut it up, you know, you can make it, man, push through, has torn 2 biceps, dislocated a hip, and dislocated my neck several times. So I have to be flexible in my schedule to cater to what my needs are. Now, on this point of catering to what my needs are, that sounds very selfish and again narcissistic. That's not my intent. If I don't have an adequate amount of sleep, if I'm not eating the right food, if I'm not exercising and getting my endorphins up appropriately, then everybody else around me is going to suffer. Why? Because I won't be able to cope. I won't be able to control the 0 to 100s. I won't be able to control the paranoia so well. I won't be able to keep a lid On the fight and flight stuff. So it's really important for me to try and be as centered as I can. Now I don't get it right most days, but I do try every day. And I think that's back to the concept of being for forward motion as opposed to against a set of behaviors which can be detrimental. Even in your work schedule, I think you have to try and develop flexibility. Try and get yourself a job where You're in control of your schedule, your agenda as much as you can. I have the privilege of working from home, and to be honest, it's the only way I've been able to recover as fast as I know I have been able to recover. Now, part of that conversation that you have with people you train with, you work out with, and you work with is you've got to have a level of vulnerability to have a conversation with them. You having the courage to go and talk to them about Some of the challenges you face because of what you've experienced—that's your responsibility. How they respond to that, whether or not they respect you or condemn you for it or judge you for it, is their responsibility. Now that is where the I'm all out of give a fucks come into play on a positive side. I'm going to put this out to you. Your response is your responsibility. If you don't like it, if you can't cope with it. Then that's not on me. Here are some everyday things that I do with trying to reset my mood, trying to overcome the nightmares or something that I find myself elevated. I assess my diet. Have I seen an increase in sugar? Have I been drinking, you know, more than one or two drinks, you know, every day or so? What sort of music am I listening to? What sort of movies am I watching? What sort of conversations am I engaged with? People am I around? I know that sounds extreme, and I document this in Deal with It, that each one of those things is absolutely key. And you might just have to change the music, change the things, put a white t-shirt on, not a black t-shirt, get off the alcohol and the sugar for a 7-day period, and just watch what happens to you. Just See how that affects your ability to be able to engage with the world around you, and I think you'll find that it is a massive difference.