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.

ANNOUNCEMENT: I’ve just started up a new Twibe for PTSD! If these issues fascinate you, as they do me, please feel free to join the PTSD Twibe! I’ve blogged about how Twibes works, and will supplement that post in the very near future. The more people who join, the richer the conversation!

NEW and REALLY COOL: You can now “like” this post, and “share” it 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.)

Standalone Tweets

@JeanieMarshall “Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.” ~ Albert Einstein

@CarePathways “Do you sometimes think of your daily existence in this world as a form of imprisonment, or is it more like being at a really amazing party?”

@thedeeperwell “Burnout blip: The subtlest shift in perception can alter all your reality. It is not the goal to get it “right”. Remember you’re in process.”

@rcinstitute “WisdomWednesday: wisdom is not being distracted by the bells and whistles.”

@karenkmmonroy “A Peaceful mind is a mind with spaciousness that you don’t seek to fill — with anything.”

@Debbie_Ford “Compassion gifts us with patience, spaciousness, acceptance, tolerance, and love.”

@TeraThomas “Every Choice has a Consequence… ”

@susystweets “With better awareness comes better choices.”

@Maura_Aura “Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance.” ~ B. Barton

@GaryLoper “There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.” ~ Willa Cather

@TWLOHA “At the center of your being, you have the answer; you know who you are and what you want.” ~ Lao Tzu

@zebraspolkadots “Insight most often arrives when our minds are open and searching for new solutions, rather than stuck on old ones that didn’t work.”

@Zen_Moments “When I’m anxious it’s because I’m living in the future. When I’m depressed it’s because I’m living in the past.”

@LaughingBaba “Meditation, relaxation, pure natural foods, avoiding too much emphasis on any area of life — these are the hallmarks of balance.”

@abandontheherd “All thoughts are either from the past or the future. If you are fully present, there is no thought, only experience.”

@rcinstitute “SoulfulSunday: resolve to ‘be’ more and ‘do’ less.”

@VoiceinRecovery “Never give up finding your authentic self, authentic voice, and finding your own path. Never be afraid to share your voice. It matters.”

@Maura_Aura “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something.” ~ Edward Everett Hale

Linked Tweets

@2morrowknight 6 Things You Should Never Reveal on Facebook [or Twitter!]
[SEO: Sometimes being online seems like home away from home, but there is always the potential for putting yourself at risk by the things you divulge — to friends, or in soliloquy.]

@800273TALK How to deal with mental illness in the family
[SEO: “Though advances in diagnosis and treatment have done much in recent years to dispel the stigma attached to mental illness, it can often be difficult for a loved one to come to grips with the reasons behind the illness and the feelings of guilt and confusion that often ensue.” Excellent tips for family members to help them understand what mental illness is and isn’t, and how to cope with their feelings about it. (The comments themselves ironically display the issues here in microcosm: some people diss “psychiatry” as a fraud, others decry family members whose mental illness is a constant battle. Some family members are confused about what to do, while some truly seem to “get it”.)]

@goodthingZ 33 Ways to Show You Care (love this!)
[SEO: “Caring for somebody is the ultimate form of freedom. Whenever you genuinely care for somebody else, you’re setting yourself free. Free from judging, free to accept the other one exactly for who she/he is, free to express your love without a reason.” A great list, most of these are ongoing lifetime achievements. Never too late to start!]

@OperationPTSD Writing Heals (via HealMyPTSD.com)
[SEO: An excellent article about the ways in which writing can heal long ago wounds. It all rings very true to me, as I know I would not be here if I had not begun writing at a very early age.]

@NewMindMirror Self-hatred: What can you do to change it? (via @PsychToday)
[SEO: “… If we want to like ourselves we have to earn our own respect. Luckily, doing this doesn’t require that we become people of extraordinary physical attractiveness or accomplishment. It only requires we become people of extraordinary character—something anyone can do.”]

@DanLHays The “Inner Child” edition of the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse now available!
[SEO: This month’s topic is “the inner child”, resulting in a bumper crop of blog posts on various aspects. The carnival also more generally offers entries regarding Healing and Therapy, Advocacy and Awareness, Art Therapy, and Poetry.]

@psychcentral Mindful Living Blog: Identity Recovery (via @magicplum)
[SEO: “Recognize that as long as you define what you are by what you are not, you are exchanging your uniqueness and oneness for similarity.”]

@rcinstitute Why we need good boundaries, and how to create them
[SEO: “Being compassionate toward yourself around your not-so-good boundaries will go a long way in helping you to heal them, and this will allow you to feel safer and more empowered in your adult life.” This is a retweet post first offered here back in May, still valuable and timeless.]

@dragonheartsong Hope Is A Gift From The Spirit (YouTube)
[SEO: A lovely video of beautiful images, calming music, and text which describes the mythic origins of hope, why it is necessary, and why it must be shared. If you aren’t in a place of hope, watch this and contemplate what this video offers, even as a model to work on getting there.]

@Loree630 PTSD And The Brain’s Reward Response: Can We Never Be Happy?
[This is a fascinating essay, scholarly and technical in places but boiled down to its essence for the reader: Does PTSD change the way the brain handles reward response, so we don’t feel happiness the way we once did? (Or, by my own extension, if a traumatic childhood short-circuited our experience of happiness, can the brain’s reward response be changed to make us authentically feel it?) From the comments: “It explains a lot: why, after all the hard work I’ve done, I’m still not really what one would call happy, why I have a few good days occasionally, but my brain then slides back into the gray, why it’s so difficult to pull myself back out of the gray, why “nothing means anything” a lot of the time, despite having given my all to recovery tools/programs/methods.”]

@goodthingZ 16 Ways to Get Emotionally or Mentally Unstuck
[SEO: I tend to get good and stuck when anxious. Many of the ideas offered here are just “out there” enough to give them a shot next time I can’t seem to break out of my anxiety. By “out there” I mean: “time travel” (!) or “go to 10,000 feet” (in your mind!). It’s a provocative list!]