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.)
@CarePathways “Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity;
it must be produced and discharged and used up
in order to exist at all.”
Six Standalone Tweets to Ponder
@MetaVisions “Without mysteries, life would be very dull indeed. What would be left to strive for if everything were known.” ~ Charles le Lint
@soulseedz “If we can stay awake when our lives are changing, secrets will be revealed to us.” ~ Elizabeth Lesser
@zebraspolkadots “Yesterday’s burden is still heavy today when we haven’t yet learned how to put it down.”
@karenkmmonroy “RE: refresh, refine, regladden, rehearten, reinspire, rejuvenate, renew, restore, respark, revitalize, RE-something today.”
@Annalilie “The ability to think is a wondrous miracle, but the ability to not think is even better.”
@Tamavista “Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.” ~ Buddha
Linked Tweets
@grace2244 TSA Guidelines and Re-traumatization (via my.counseling.org)
[SEO: Do not trivialize this issue if you are an abuse survivor. “A person who has experienced a trauma in the past, if exposed to a triggering situation, can be traumatized again. Exposing everything under your clothes, or being groped by a person in a position of power over you sounds very much like sexual abuse. I understand the logic behind it as far as our national security, but were a person an abuse survivor, it would be difficult for them to get past that emotionally.”
NOTE: I emphatically disagree with the logic by which national security somehow trumps our Fourth Amendment rights. Ben Franklin said: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Think carefully about that. We are not criminals; we have a right to not be treated like one. If anyone outside of the airport does these things to you, it’s a felony. Your local police cannot grope you unless you are under arrest. But the TSA can because you bought a plane ticket? There are other ways to secure our airports; for starters, take notes from how the Israeli government secures El Al and its airports. I will not be subjected to this treatment, and I certainly will not pay to allow it to happen.]
Dealing with the Holidays
@SarahEOlson2009 Alone for Thanksgiving, Alone for Christmas
[SEO: “Remember, you can be alone for the holidays and not have to feel lonely.” Some alternatives, such as organizing a pot luck meal with others who will be alone, or volunteering at a food bank. Article offers links to several other posts for more ideas.]
@psychcentral If you’re going to be alone this holiday season, don’t despair. Here are 10 things you can do.
[SEO: A list of not just “things to do instead of” but some ways to retrain your thinking about holidays, such as: “De-mythologize and adjust expectations. … there are so many categories of expectations about the season being just right that it brings up all sorts of issues relating to family, stress and anxiety, eating disorders, sobriety, self-esteem, competency — the list goes on. There’s this idea that it’s supposed to be perfect, and if it’s not, the person asks, ‘What’s wrong with me?'”]
@DrMelanieG Strategies for Managing Anxiety at the Holidays
[SEO: “We may feel pulled in different directions or unable to get everything done that is expected of us. We may not have planned in advance, leading to last minute panic about getting everything ready in time. People who are alone or away from extended family during the holidays may feel lonely and anxious about arrangements for the holiday.”]
Gratitude Bestows Meaning
@LisaKiftTherapy Happy Thanksgiving: An Attitude of Gratitude
[SEO: “The reality is that it takes practice to adopt an ‘attitude of gratitude,’ especially for those who, for whatever reason, see life through a lens that tends towards the negative. Even for those who have a more positive outlook, it can be really easy to let a position of gratitude slip away. I’d like to share some real quotes by real people about how they’ve shifted to gratitude. They are touching and poignant.”]
@ZombiePelican Why gratitude isn’t for wimps
[SEO: ““Far from being a warm, fuzzy sentiment, gratitude is morally and intellectually demanding,” he says. “It requires contemplation, reflection, and discipline. It can be hard and painful work.” Article includes a list of “evidence-based prescriptions for becoming more grateful”. An excellent post!]
Aspects of PTSD
@IntMedNews Physical burden of PTSD largely unrecognized
[SEO: “‘With few exceptions, it is pretty consistent across the board’ that there is a clear association of physical health, functioning, and disability according to the presence or absence of current or lifetime PTSD.”]
@MichelePTSD 6 Tips for Managing Your Stress Hormones
[SEO: “This is a reprint from Fred Krazeise’s blog, Empowered and Fit. In this article he breaks down a piece in Prevention Magazine that details how cortisol affects us, and how we can affect it back! Oh, the power we hold….”]
@dontcallmesybil Why PTSD Symptoms Flare Up in Unlikely Places (via Dissociative Living)
[SEO: “Post-traumatic stress, I now know, doesn’t discriminate between conditions that have been historically traumatic and conditions that merely have the potential to be traumatic, however remote that potential might be.”]
@MentalHealthUSA Anger: 8 Ways to Manage It
[SEO: A thorough, basic article about what is anger; what are the dangers of suppressed anger; and how you can manage it.]
The Rest of the Best
@PsychologyNews Change is an Emotional Business: Making major changes can be a time when we experience intense emotion
[SEO: “Without listening to our feelings we are likely to feel that any advice doesn’t meet us where we are. This will be whether the advice comes from ourselves (remembering other solutions we have tried, or seeking out advice from books perhaps) or from others.”]
@SarahEOlson2009 Dancing with Ducks (via Therapy Unplugged)
[SEO: “Resilience is not innate or instinctive with some people, especially highly sensitive ones. Toughening up is something I have developed over the many years of crying, sulking, brooding, arguing, screaming, planning, plotting, rationalizing, intellectualizing and with much therapy, Buddhism, studying, self-reflection, mindfulness, gardening, walking, photography, writing and getting down and dirty with nature.”]
@psychcentral Expectation, Acceptance and the Art of Letting Go (via Therapist Within)
[SEO: The author explores the meaning of this saying: “Do something good and throw it into the ocean.” … “To just do the thing for its own sake. To release any expectations or hopes for the way it might be received by others. To just let go of whatever happens next…”]
@ssanquist 9 Ways Humor Heals (via Beyond Blue)
[SEO: “… I’m finding that the longer I practice laughing at life–and especially its frustrations–the better I become at it, and the more situations and conversations and complications I can place into that category named ‘silly.'”]
When I feel paralyzed by anxiety (which is where most of my procrastination is born), I’ve trained myself to go for the useless things first, because they allow basic movement where there wasn’t any before. If that works, I then focus on — and struggle with — how to prioritize the movement in “useful” ways that don’t lead back to paralysis. The strategies in this post offer some new ideas.]
