Best Tweets for Trauma Survivors is a weekly Friday feature. My selections are entirely subjective, and I know it will never be possible to include every great resource tweeted. But I can try! I’ve personally read all tweeted links, and believe them to be of great value.

Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for content found on any other website. Stay safe, and don’t follow links if you believe you might be triggered by them. Also, I will not be re-checking links from older Best Tweets posts, and if the site’s archived URL is different from the one I’ve provided here, you may need to do a search on their site.

NEW and REALLY COOL: You can now “like” and “share” this post everywhere with the touch of a button or two at the end of the linked tweets! Feel free to do any or all of that! (And thanks.)

Photo Credit

@lizstrauss “Imagine if we could restore words
back to their original meaning. Words like
peace, joy, wonder, good will, wishes…”

Six Standalone Tweets to Ponder

@DrMelanieG “How do you give in a way that enriches rather than depletes you?”

@larryczerwonka “Sometimes when we are generous in small, barely detectable ways it can change someone else’s life forever.” ~ Margaret Cho

@DalaiLama “Once you encourage the thought of compassion in your mind, once it becomes active, then your attitude towards others changes automatically.”

@rcinstitute “ThoughtfulThursday: the most important holiday reminder is to stay present with your true needs and feelings.”

@visityourself “Fully living requires embracing the not-beautiful, the not-spiritual, the confusion, and the aversion to it all.”

@DepressionForum “In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.” ~ Aaron Rose

Linked Tweets

Depression Resources Over the Holidays
and Throughout the Year

@NAMIMass Know the lifeline 1-800-273-8255 or @800273TALK 24/7 when you or someone you know needs help
[SEO: Between now and New Year’s Day, many people you may know are lonely, hurting, and may reach out for help. Be the person who knows how to help them.]

@NAMIMass Depression At The Holidays
[SEO: “Depression can even affect someone who’s never experienced it before. Why does this happen and what can you do about it?”]

@SarahEOlson2009 Top Ten Depression Blogs 2010 | World of Psychology
[SEO: These are all excellent blogs! Highly recommended. You are not alone!]

The Rest of the Best

@psychcentral Authenticity and Body Image
[SEO: Article focuses on cultural norms that undermine women’s confidence in their own bodies as they grow up and compare themselves to stereotypical “thin people” and images in magazines, etc., and how that blocks one from true authenticity in life. In a similar way but for very different reasons, many survivors of child abuse grow up with confusion, distortions, and hating their bodies. In my life, I’ve felt either “separate from” my body, or betrayed by it — and neither of these lend to personal authenticity.]

@MentalHelpNet Wired for Empathy and Connection
[SEO: Why we are wired for empathy and connection. “In the past social isolation in a community meant certain death and social rejection was the path to a ‘broken heart.’ Well, Naomi Eisenberger and Matthew Lieberman at UCLA did a study published in 2003 that found that the same areas of the brain light up when experiencing social rejection as when experiencing physical pain.” The included 10 minute video, “The Empathic Civilisation”, is a gem, and a keeper. Via one long continuous whiteboard, the narrator draws much the history of empathy since the dawn of man — how it changed history, and why it is relevant today.]

@NAMIMass Therapists Use ‘Canine Assistants’ to Comfort, Cheer Patients; Duke Senses an Anxiety Disorder
[SEO: Fascinating read. A therapist’s dog lies on the floor next to a patient with anxiety disorders, or sits on the couch next to one with depression — and in some cases the dog knows which applies before the therapist does. “How can dogs be that sensitive to human emotions? Experts speculate that people give off tell-tale scents under certain physical or psychological conditions that only dogs can detect. That acute sense of smell also enables specially trained service dogs to recognize when seizures, diabetic comas or heart attacks are imminent in humans.”]

@psychcentral Meeting Again for the First Time: a true story about a patient with anterograde amnesia
[SEO: “Samantha remembers everything from before about 15 years ago. She remembers going to college, having friends and ambitions, and falling in love. But her description of the accident is distant and clinical; a factual recitation of what she has been told happened. In a casual conversation you might not realize that you were talking to someone who would, only hours later, have no recollection of ever meeting you.” This woman greets her therapist each week as though they are meeting for the first time — because for her, it is. I’ve struggled my entire life with memory issues, and having grasp of something just beyond reach has often felt hopeless. But I had context, and short term memory. I honestly don’t think I could have endured what this woman faces every hour of every day.]

@SarahEOlson2009 Reading from the Book of 2010: Your Life Lessons
[SEO: “For sometimes in looking back and taking stock, you can more clearly see the paths you’ve travelled – and get a sense of who you’re becoming as you do.” A thought-provoking series of questions (and questions within those questions) about “what have been your hard times this year, and how did you get through them?”; “who inspired you this year?”; “when did you feel strongest this year?”; and “what’s it like to remember and consolidate these learnings from your own life?”.]