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Resource: Self-help Strategies for PTSD

Creator: @Izzy274

This resource shares some helpful steps for self-help methods for managing PTSD.

Learning about PTSD

  • PTSD can have a lot of terrifying symptoms, such as nightmares, flashbacks and dissociation. 
  • It may cause people to feel as if they are going crazy.
  • People with PTSD have anxiety due to a traumatic event that has happened. 

Calming Anxiety with Breathing

  • here is a tutorial for calming down your breathing to help to manage anxiety caused by PTSD.

Calming Anxiety through Muscle Relaxation

  • here is a tutorial for progressively relaxing your muscles in order to release tension and rigidness caused by the anxiety of PTSD.

Grounding Techniques

  • These can be helpful when you find yourself losing touch with reality. 
  • Grounding enables you to focus on the present and distract your attention to something else:
  • Touch objects around you and describe them in detail, and how they feel.
  • Run water over your hands and describe how it feels
  • Name as many of a thing as you can.. e.g animals, cities, famous singers
  • Say the alphabet backwards

Getting back into your Life

  • Sometimes, understandably, PTSD can cause people to withdraw from those around them.
  • Getting back into a normal routine can help people living with PTSD to begin to take steps to manage their anxiety and feel more connected with those around them.
  • These can be done in small steps, that are achievable to you :)

Facing your Fears

  • It is natural for some people living with PTSD to want to avoid the situation that caused their trauma. 
  • Gradually facing your fears can enable you to feel less anxious around those situations.
  • here is a resource on doing this!

Knowing when to reach out for support

  • Although it is common for people with PTSD to feel very guilty about
    what happened to them or the way that they acted during the trauma,
    these thoughts and feelings are false. 
  • No one can predict the future, so you could not have predicted the trauma occurring. 
  • It is easy to think about what you should have done, after it has already
    happened: knowing what you could have done (if you had predicted
    the trauma before it happened) does not mean that you are wrong or to
    blame for what you did do.
  • A therapist can help you to talk through these thoughts and feelings,
    which is an important step toward coping with your PTSD.

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