Contents

• Who are you?
• What is your struggle?
• How did you feel at your worst moment
• When did you turn it around?
• What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?
• Who did you share your struggle with?
• Your best piece of advice?
• Books and resources
• Learn more

Hello! Who are you?

My name is Tatyana Frost and I live in Manchester New Hampshire. I work in social work and have worked as a clinical mental health case manager, but recently accepted a new position as an inpatient mental health counselor.

It can be a challenge to work in mental health while struggling with your own, but it has provided me with copious amounts of perspective and knowledge which not only allows me to help others, but also myself.

I am currently engaged to my amazing partner and we are planning our wedding for October of next year. We have two kitty cats together, Kimchi and Frittata and they are my whole world!

Most days I would say I consider myself to be satisfied and pleased with my life, but I would say this is a fairly recent development. I have always struggled with what I call my “deep down sadness” which often interrupts my ability to feel secure and joyful in life.

By the way: Do you find it hard to be happy and in control of your life? It may not be your fault. To help you feel better, we’ve condensed the information of 100’s of articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet to help you be more in control.

Don’t Miss Out On Happiness

Find happiness with this 10-step mental health cheat sheet.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

What is your struggle and when did it start?

I began to struggle with my mental health when I was really young. I’ve kept diaries my whole life and the first record I have of wanting to kill myself was when I was about 9 years old.

I have a trauma history dating back to before I could speak when I was taken out of my home in Ulyanovsk, Russia due to neglect and suspected abuse.

I was adopted by my new family when I was about 3 years old and taken to the States. I struggled with being adopted a lot; I felt like I was an unwanted, unlovable, and undeserving child.

My adoptive family provided me with a great life but could be very emotionally, verbally, and at times physically abusive. I grew up chronically invalidated and gaslit, being told that my feelings were unimportant or wrong.

My mother made me feel as though nothing I did was ever enough to please her and pushed shame onto me when she was feeling insecure. I always felt as though I was responsible for my parent’s inability to manage their emotions and that I was the problem. 

As a teenager, my depression worsened but I struggled to speak up since mental health was a taboo topic of discussion in my family. Besides, at the time I thought that everyone was feeling the way I did inside.

That was when I began self-harming for the first time. I had heard about it and thought that since that’s what others did to feel better, it would make me feel better too. Self-harming became a regular coping skill I would utilize whenever my mom and I would fight, which was often.

My first episode of mania was when I was about 17. I had never been manic before, and my naturally hyperactive personality created an easy-to-wear mask for this symptom.

I began staying up for days, experiencing rapid speech, and most notably, delusions and paranoia. I would hide when I thought there were people watching me outside, and at one point believed I could fly.

The delusions got worse as the mania increased, but seemingly out of nowhere, the mania would turn into severe depression. I struggled to get out of bed and watched myself fail a test for the first time. These vicious cycles went on uninterrupted for months, causing daily struggles.

I tried to talk to my mom about what was going on, but she told me that I was just lonely and my iron was low. She refused to let me see a therapist and eventually, my school counselor had to step in for me to get any help. 

The summer before my senior year I checked myself into a psychiatric hospital for suicidal ideation with plan, means, and intent. After about a one-month stay I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder type 1 with psychotic features.

I was hospitalized two times again after that, the second time for symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and the third time for symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I was assaulted in February of 2023 by my self-defense instructor and it made my BPD and PTSD symptoms significantly worse than they had been in a very long time.

Almost daily I would have horrible nightmares, flashbacks, episodes of dissociation, and blind rage where I would self-harm and damage things in my home. It became very scary and overwhelming for my partner to see me going through something that neither he nor I knew how to control.

More than anything impacted my ability to work as a mental health professional. I had to reduce from full-time to part-time at work which caused even more internal shame. 

These days my Bipolar Disorder is mainly managed through medication which I take daily. I still experience minor episodes of mania and depression but not to the same extreme as without my medication.

My BPD and PTSD symptoms are still a daily struggle, but my weekly sessions with a trauma therapist doing Internal Family Systems (IFS), Eye Movement Rapid Desensitization (EMDR), and Polyvagal Theory help to keep some of my symptoms in check. I still struggle daily with emotional dysregulation and occasional dissociative symptoms. 

How did this struggle make you feel at your worst moments?

Before my diagnosis, these illnesses provided me with nothing but confusion and stigma. I knew something was wrong, but didn’t know what. It was draining to be fighting an illness with no support, and felt defeated for every day was a challenge that felt impossible to win.

I think I did try to hide it in the beginning because I was in denial myself, but eventually, I knew that hiding it was only hurting me. I was rejected by my family when I reached out for support, and that only caused more internal shame. I felt alone and depressed simply knowing that others were not seeing my struggle and not listening to my desperate cries for help.

When I was eventually diagnosed, I had to grieve the life I thought I would have. After each of my diagnoses, I felt as though my life would never be what I always imagined it to be. And in a lot of ways, it wasn’t.

In a lot of ways, it was better. My diagnosis gave my healthcare providers and myself direction for my treatment. In 2022 I was in a place of maintenance with my treatment. 

After being assaulted in February 2023 I felt like a completely different person. My symptoms of PTSD and BPD were completely unmanageable. I felt like a completely different person and had no idea how to go through life.

These struggles were very obvious to my fiancé, but neither of us knew what to do about it. These symptoms I could not hide no matter how badly I wanted to. When I wasn’t working I was self-medicating, and even at work there were many times where I broke down emotionally.

I felt a lot of pressure from myself to hide these symptoms, to pretend as if that event didn’t change me. Even now, I haven’t completely processed it and still feel as though I haven’t gotten myself back. 

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Was there a moment when you started to turn things around?

I think the first time that I noticed things turning around was probably when I went to college. For the first time, I was able to find myself away from the judgment and control of my parents.

I had taken control over aspects of my life that I had, up until that point, felt uncontrollable: my eating, my routine, and exercise, and my social circles. All of which positively impacted my mental health. I would say 70% of circumstances and 30% of actions resulted in the bettering of my mental health.

However, it wasn’t perfect, and I quickly learned that relapse is a part of recovery. During my second semester in college, I was hospitalized again and that stay was another turning point for me.

Each hospitalization taught me something new and reminded me that improving your mental health is a lifelong project. I had a few months period of stability before COVID hit and I had to move back into my parents’ house.

After moving back in with my parents, I learned that living in that toxic environment took a huge toll on my mental health and I decided to move out and into my aunt’s house. This was another time in my life where I had relapsed in my mental health symptoms and it took me months to get to a more stable place. 

After about a year of living with my aunt and desperately trying to salvage my relationship with my parents, I moved to New Hampshire with my then-boyfriend, now fiance’, in 2021.

I really struggled with that transition and my relationship with my parents since moving out was still extremely strained. I once again fell back into unhealthy habits and patterns – self-medicating, isolating, self-harming. It wasn’t until a year after moving to New Hampshire that I felt as though I found my footing.

A combination of medication, time, regular exercise, and intentional efforts in therapy brought me to a place of maintenance with my mental health struggles. My mental health has continued to have ups and downs since then, especially after my assault in February of this year.

It spent several months living in a reactive state after the assault and struggling to get back to a place of good physical and mental health. I am still recovering from that experience and I know that I will throughout the rest of my life have consistent periods of relapse and recovery – but to think that recovery is simple and happens all at once would be naive. 

What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?

Over the years there have been countless things I have learned from my mental health treatment. One of the biggest things that has continued to help me along my journey with mental health is education.

After being diagnosed with Bipolar, BPD, and PTSD the first thing I would always do is buy a book, watch a video, read an article, etc. Working in the field now and being an advocate online, this is the first thing I always recommend people do after any diagnosis.

It’s hard to help yourself or know what you need without understanding first what beat you’re dealing with. It can be helpful to look at the DSM 5 diagnostic criteria, however, I personally think it’s more helpful to read testimonials and find people online or in your own life with the same diagnosis.

Keep in mind that everyone’s experience with mental illness is different, even if you have the same diagnosis. When I was diagnosed with Bipolar 1, I loved Kay Redfield Jamison’s memoir An Unquiet Mind. That particular author has written a couple of books on the subject and as a psychologist herself shares her story very openly.

To this day, it is my favorite memoir of someone with Bipolar 1. I spent a lot of time watching educational documentaries and first-hand accounts of others with the same diagnosis. It helped me to feel less alone and also to educate myself.

After my BPD diagnosis, I really struggled to understand what BPD was and how it impacted me. The book, I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me provided me with the diagnostic criteria, case studies, and tips and tricks for managing my symptoms.

The value in doing this is not only so that you yourself know what you’re dealing with, but also so that you can help others in your life better understand. 

One of the best things I did for my Bipolar Disorder was to track my symptoms and episodes. I used the eMoods app for this. I started doing it after being given the suggestion myself and found that it was invaluably helpful.

Once I began tracking my symptoms in relation to sleep, irritability, mania, depression, whether I took my meds, and whether I had therapy, it helped me see my own cycles.

Not only did it give me an idea of when I would cycle into a depression or mania and how long it would last, but it also was helpful to share with my providers so that they knew what was coming and how they could help me.

I learned that my cycles usually last about a month or so and that not sleeping or taking my meds can be a huge trigger. In the app, I was also able to add notes. I would track my self-harming habits, whether I was menstruating, or if there were any additional psychological stressors going on at the time. 

I also found that having routines did wonders. A consistent sleep and exercise routine kept me on a positive track with my symptoms. Sleep has always been a huge trigger for me – without sleep, I am more likely to enter a manic episode.

Working a job kept me on a stable sleep routine and also gave me a daily routine to adhere to. Exercise has always been something I have struggled with but once I found a way to exercise that was good for me, it was amazing how it lifted my energy and self-confidence.

I have always found that yoga was a great practice for me as it has a mind and body effect to it. Outlets for your daily stressors that can also better your physical health can be an important part of mental wellness.

However, for those who don’t like exercising, having any outlet is helpful. I also like to unleash my creativity through music, art, journaling, and theater. 

Have you shared any of this with people around you in real life?

In the beginning, I held a lot of inner shame and stigma about my diagnosis. I had a hard time talking to those who I knew were not understanding, such as family members.

However, I have always cared about being the change you want to see in the world. After my first hospitalization at 17, I returned to high school late that summer due to being in treatment. It was a tradition at my school to share a presentation about how your summer went and what you did.

I spent most of my summer in a mental hospital recovering from severe depression and mania. I felt very conflicted about sharing this, and for a while, I tried to decide if I would instead create an elaborate lie for my presentation. No one in my school knew, and I wasn’t sure I wanted them to.

After an internal battle for a few weeks, I made the decision to share my hospital experience in the presentation. I realized that the shame and stigma I felt were residue of the stigma that society told me I should be feeling, and I wanted to do better. I focused my entire presentation on my hospital stay, and while I didn’t go into too many details, I was proud of myself for not adding to the shame. 

It was hard in the beginning, and I had experiences where I thought I was safe to share and ended up realizing I wasn’t. There was a girl I met at a pre-college event that I told about my diagnosis and I ended up regretting her response which was shrouded in miseducation.

She told me that she, too, had mood swings and maybe she was Bipolar. It made me feel as though she wasn’t taking it seriously and invalidated the very real symptoms I was experiencing.

Mood swings are a normal part of life that everyone has. Bipolar Disorder is more than mood swings. While I have always cared about advocacy, I also recognized that I am not responsible for educating everyone in the world; I am not the sole spokesperson for the illness, and I wasn’t open with everyone even when I wished I could be.

Later in life I started casually dating a guy who I planned to tell about my diagnosis, but ended up changing my mind when he shared previous negative experiences with someone in his life who also had Bipolar.

I wonder now if it would have been okay, but at the time I was worried that his negative point of view on the illness would have a ripple effect on me. I never told him and didn’t end up seeing him anymore after that. 

As someone who works full-time, it was always a challenge to decide whether I should or shouldn’t share my disorders with my employers and colleagues at work.

So far, I have. The biggest reason is that I have had numerous times in my life where I have had to take time off of work and school in order to focus on my mental health. I am also fortunate to work in the mental health system and have had very understanding and non-judgmental coworkers.

I am always the most worried about sharing my BPD diagnosis since, out of them all, that one tends to have the harshest stigma. At this point, I have not had a boss or coworker who has been unkind about my struggles, and my current boss has been very receptive to my limitations at work.

In these ways, I am very lucky, as I know this is not everyone’s experience. Whether I do or don’t decide to share my disorder with my workplace, I always check the box during hiring that inquires about disabilities, as mental health disorders such as Bipolar and BPD are considered such.  

If you could give a single piece of advice to someone else that struggles, what would that be?

Something that I wish I had known earlier in my mental health journey is that my mental illness does not need to define me. Looking back, I see now that while I was processing and educating myself on my Bipolar diagnosis, I overidentified with the label.

I let it become too much of me and who I thought I was. While this is controversial in the mental health world and everyone has their own preferences, I stopped using the phrase “I am Bipolar/BPD” and instead I say, “I have…” I did this when I noticed how overidentifying with my diagnosis was hindering rather than helping me.

No one would say you are PTSD or you are Cancer. It helped me remember that my mental illnesses are a part of me, not who I am. I am so much more than what label I have been given. 

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, YouTube channels, or other resources for you?

• An Unquiet Mind – Kay Redfield Jamison: Helped me to understand my disorder, see that I am not alone, and showed me that having a mental illness makes me even better equipped to be a mental health professional. 
• I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality – Jerold J. Kreisman, Hal Straus: Provided me with an education and understanding of what BPD is, how it develops, and how I can cope with it. This is also a book I would recommend to anyone who has a loved one with this disorder. After I read it, I asked my fiance to do so as well. 
• The Body Keeps the Score – Bessel Van Der Kolk: While this book should have been updated since its release, it is still a cult classic in understanding PTSD and BPD. It is very written in a very digestible format and I always recommend it to my clients with PTSD. It helped me to understand how PTSD impacts me and treatments that can help, such as EMDR. 

Where can we go to learn more about you?

You can learn more about me on Instagram @havingbipolar. There you will find access to the podcasts I have spoken on and my own self-help book I wrote about a year ago designed for those with Bipolar Disorder. 

By the way: If you want to start feeling better and more productive, I’ve condensed the information of 100’s of our articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet here.

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Thrive under stress and crush your goals with these 10 unique tips for your mental health.

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Continue reading our inspiring case studies and learn how to overcome mental health struggles in a positive way!

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Hugo Huijer Author

Founder of Tracking Happiness, with over 100 interviews and a focus on practical advice, our content extends beyond happiness tracking. Hailing from the Netherlands, I’m a skateboarding enthusiast, marathon runner, and a dedicated data junkie, tracking my happiness for over a decade.

The post Finding My Way Through Bipolar, BPD, and PTSD With Therapy and Medication appeared first on Tracking Happiness.

Contents

• Who are you?
• What is your struggle?
• How did you feel at your worst moment
• When did you turn it around?
• What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?
• Who did you share your struggle with?
• Your best piece of advice?
• Books and resources
• Learn more

Hello! Who are you?

Hi there! My name is Cami and I live in Flagstaff, Arizona, with my adventurous husband and sometimes even more adventurous kids. We have 6 of them, 3 boys and 3 girls, ages 21, 18, 17, 15, and 12-year-old twins.

They are a wild and crazy bunch keeping me busy with all their sporting events, outdoor activities, and friend hangouts. Most weekends are filled with our kids’ activities but when we have a “free” weekend you will find some, or all, of us in a canyon, rappelling off cliffs or rafting on a river, (sometimes both in one trip). Often with a friend or two in tow who may or may not be aware of what they have signed up for. 

I am a much happier person if I can spend a little bit of time each day in nature. I love an early morning run by myself, something with my family, or connecting with friends for any and all trail adventures.

Our ladies’ group loves to chat. We also like to mountain bike, hike, ski, and snowshoe, but most importantly, we talk. You’ll hear us before you see us. 

I am a life coach and started my trauma-informed embodiment coaching shortly after suppressed and repressed trauma came up in my body. At the start of my healing, I couldn’t find a coach who offered the body-based healing I was seeking to release my trauma, so I decided to become what I needed.

Since then I have found a number of healers, realizing that I just didn’t know where to look. These coaches, therapists, and healers have helped me and I am now fortunate to join with them in offering embodied trauma healing.

As for happiness, I always considered myself happy. However, now that I see happiness as an embodied experience, where I can feel a range of amazing and hard emotions, I see the happy person from my past differently.

I see she was doing the best she could, but in reality, she was in trauma most of her life, and that manifested with fawning behaviors of people pleasing, pretending, hiding from her true self, and darn good at being the happy person she was supposed to be.

Today, I know how to feel happy while being in my body, and that is so different than just acting happy. 

By the way: Do you find it hard to be happy and in control of your life? It may not be your fault. To help you feel better, we’ve condensed the information of 100’s of articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet to help you be more in control.

Don’t Miss Out On Happiness

Find happiness with this 10-step mental health cheat sheet.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

What is your struggle and when did it start?

I thought my struggle started in 2019, but my trauma would tell me a different story. In 2019 I was a 42-year-old woman, taking a course on reclaiming my desire when I was blindsided by memories of a sexual assault from 26 years earlier that refused to be repressed any longer.

Like a beach ball being held underwater ready at any moment to explode to the surface, they chose that moment to burst out of hiding and come forth with a vengeance into my memory and body.

Repression is a coping technique for the freeze response. It’s a way to dissociate from the pain and overwhelm of a traumatic event so there is zero memory of the event or anything connected with it. I now view repression and dissociation as a very kind response because knowledge of my assault rocked my world at 42.

I can’t imagine what my 16-year-old self would have done if the full weight of what I was experiencing came crashing down on me. I had zero resources and no one to believe me if I shared my truth. Few from my past believed me when I shared at 42.

Once the door of repression was opened, I couldn’t stop the floodgate of memories and body responses that came pouring out of me. In fact, many of these traumatic moments were memories of times over the course of those 26 years, when a smell, phrase, place, or mention of my perpetrator’s name would cause a reaction that was out of my control.

Those moments were surprising, startling, and confusing (because, I didn’t remember the assault, I felt my body was acting crazy). Then as victims often do, I would gaslight myself by saying what I was remembering wasn’t real or could never have happened to me.

Then I would promptly shove that memory or body response back down inside me, back to wherever it came from. This reaction is called suppression, meaning something coming up is too overwhelming and so a victim’s survival nervous system will tuck it away and store it for their body to try to offer again at a later date.

Suppression and repression are coping tools common in those with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and when traumas are no longer suppressed or repressed, the past trauma is brought into the present as if it’s happening in the current moment.

In 2019 my past trauma became a constant part of my everyday life and I was diagnosed at my first therapy session that year. 

Over the next couple of years, as more and more trauma surfaced, I found that I also had cPTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder) another name for developmental trauma.

Unlike PTSD which usually comes from a big T trauma, an event most people agree would be traumatic, cPTSD comes from many small events. The C stands for how complex and interwoven the events can be but to me, it stood for Craziness.

I felt crazy trying to make sense of it all. I knew what I was remembering really happened and yet I doubted and questioned my trauma and my experiences far more in this space due to how subtle it was.

I had 42 years filled with some good times but I wanted to minimize the larger amounts of betrayal from family, church, and friends. Plus there was more sexual abuse that filled up those complex memories. I had normalized the unhealthy in order to survive. 

Now, after 4 years of processing trauma, it continues to be mind-blowing that I had no memory of any of it until 2019. And that same mind-blown response that early in my journey led me into loathing and judgment of my younger self, now leads me into compassion, able to see those younger versions and why I needed my survival nervous system to be online keeping me safe and somewhat functioning.

I no longer have the scary trauma overtake me. When things come up, layer by layer as trauma does, I am no longer afraid. I trust my body and we heal together. We are no longer at war.

How did this struggle make you feel at your worst moments?

The worst moments came between 2020-2022. I had contempt and hatred for my body’s choice to freeze as its survival coping. I felt weak and was disgusted that my survival kept my trauma at bay, yet bubbling in my unconscious mind and body for 26 years.

I hated the patterns of behavior I could see stem from a frozen me in my current life and I felt hopeless to change them. I felt controlled by my trauma and even though I wanted to do things differently, I couldn’t. Instead, I would freeze and dissociate.

And then when I realized I also had cPTSD, that meant I had been struggling with developmental trauma for 42 years. I had lost myself, never even knowing there was a self to find because I always went into fawning behaviors that managed everyone else at my expense and again, I couldn’t stop doing it. I was a victim and a martyr to my trauma responses and all the people around me. 

When all the flashbacks, memories, and sensations came out of their suppressed and repressed places in my body for both my assault and my complex little t traumas, I was physically exhausted and overwhelmed.

It seemed as if every cell of my body was releasing a memory, a sensation and thought pattern connected with it that felt true and terrifyingly unsettling all at the same time.

I found myself reliving moments of my past over and over again multiple times a day, through memories or body visceral responses that would cause so much terror, disgust, and physical pain, that I thought it would overtake me.

I thought I had to suffer alone and pretended I was fine. I was definitely not happy but thanks to my fawn response, I had always been good at pretending. But my husband was not fooled and neither were my kids.

They knew something was up and looking back, I can see how distracted I was. I had a hard time being present with my kids, husband, and friends because I was so busy trying not to let the memory that was currently playing on repeat have my full attention. I felt I was always divided between 2 worlds.

One I wanted to be fully present in but unable to because of all that was going on inside and one I was trying to avoid but never could. I felt crazy. And I started acting crazy in my attempts to pretend I was fine. I wanted so desperately to be fine.

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Was there a moment when you started to turn things around?

There are 2 moments that got me out of the crazy feeling pretend loop I was repeating day after day. One came in 2019 when I was still in denial of how much my PTSD was affecting my life. The other came when I realized that trauma is not mental and so it needs a body-based healing approach.

In 2019, the memories were coming but I was still trying to hold them at bay. I didn’t want what happened to be true and I was resisting, trying so hard to hold back the floodgates. My body would shake without me being aware. I remember my daughter asking me why my hand was shaking. As I looked down at my hand, I saw nothing but a hand at rest.

It felt disconnected from me but I couldn’t see what my daughter could. She put my hand in between her 2 small hands and said, “Mom, they are shaking so much.” I couldn’t feel or see my own hands shake until they were in between hers.

I was terrified that not only could she see something I couldn’t but I couldn’t see or feel myself shaking without her help. My body felt out of control and I wondered what else I was doing that I wasn’t aware of? It was time to get help. 

This was 30% of my change for the better. It was the push I needed to let others support me in my healing from trauma. I saw a therapist, did EMDR, and became a frequent attendee at any trauma summit I could find.

Life coaching, mindset, trauma education, and mindfulness really helped me start to get out of my trauma narratives and have hope that I could heal neuro pathways.

The next 60% came when I realized that trauma is not mental. Even though I had new narratives, I was still constantly triggered and pulled back into trauma responses.

My body, especially my survival system, did not believe the new reframes and new pathways I was creating. The shift came when I took my first body-based trauma release class during COVID. It was somatic experiencing (SE) from Peter Levine.

During that class, I learned tools to let trauma energy cycle through and leave my body. For the first time, I had space to believe my mindset reframes, I didn’t just think them.

Through this class, I no longer hated the experience of my body and I finally believed my body was my own. This shift into embodied healing started me on a path to learn more and is what has made all the difference in releasing my body’s stored trauma.

The last 10% comes each day that I let those traumas show me what I’m still holding that is now ready to be set free. 

What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?

I’d like to offer that healing is not linear. Some people start with body-based trauma releases and then move to the mindset work. Some do a little bit of both at the same time. Others need mindset, compassion, and mindfulness before they can get into their body.

Trauma is stored in the body and needs to be released from the body and that releasing doesn’t come from hating the body but rather from a turning towards the body.

Which is so hard to do when trauma is in control. And yet, getting into my body helped me to come home to the safety it always wanted to offer me but couldn’t due to the trauma it was holding.

I will share my path and invite you to see what speaks to you and then invite you to follow that and find the next thing that speaks to you.

Life coaching resonated and I was able to give myself options through mindset work and letting wisdom come from within my own mind.

One of my trauma narratives was that I was not very smart and I couldn’t think for myself but needed to instead look to outside sources to tell me what to do. Life coaching taught me how to think for myself.

Next, EMDR gave me the ability to not only learn more about the trauma narratives I was living my life from, but it also gave me a framework for getting into my body in a way to recognize and quantify on a scale of 0-10 how much I believed or didn’t believe something or how triggering something was.

Then after moving my eyes back and forth (bilateral stimulation), my body could regulate and decrease the triggers while also believing more healthy narratives. And bonus, I came up with the narratives from within me and learned my body knows how to heal me.

This is what then led me to look for more ways to let my body speak so I could understand how to release more traumas that kept resurfacing. At first, the body-based techniques seemed too woo-woo for me to explore and yet I was also drawn to them. Thankfully I could hold the conflict and let myself learn anyway.

Somatic work helped me reclaim my body and I finally believed my body was my own instead of an object for others.

Chakras, energy, and subtle body work taught me how to energetically process and move trauma through my body and let it go in a compassionate way, offering understanding for my experience. 

Polyvagal work helped me learn more about the internal landscape within my body and how the vagus nerve can help regulate my internal world, especially when I was in a trauma state. I learned how to move in and out of different trauma states safely.

When my body was a safe place and I could trust myself to listen because of all the body work I had done. Then I went into inner child work. This can be ego, shadow, or parts work.

But the one that spoke to me was inner child and I was able to learn how to let my little Cami have a voice. She never had that. I learned that I often went on autopilot doing what she wanted me to do based on narratives she’d picked up over her years of conditioning.

I noticed that her guidance often came from fear and I was reactive, unconscious, and unloving in that fear. I learned to listen to little Cami but not believe everything she said was true.

My inner child therapist helped me tap into my inner wisdom, and I learned to let her speak and offer my inner child guidance that was teaching her love as a way of goodness instead of reward. I am teaching little Cami how to act from that place instead of trauma conditioning.

This has been my journey. I invite you to find healing from trauma through body-based modalities that offer safety and teach you how to complete energy cycles. Alongside trauma education, mindset, and mindfulness, in whatever order your body, mind, and heart seek.

Have you shared any of this with people around you in real life?

We heal together what we cannot do alone. I had a hard time getting support at first. Another strong trauma survival narrative for me was that I had to do everything alone.

I couldn’t trust others because I couldn’t trust myself, so it was actually super helpful to invite others into my trauma and bask in their trust in me to teach me what I didn’t yet believe or see in myself.

My husband and my friends are the first ones I shared those first terrifying memories with. They held me, supported me, and gave me space to express through words (often rants), many tears, and a variety of emotions. All of me was seen and welcomed.

My husband, friends, coaches, and therapists became the resources my 16-year-old and younger self didn’t have. Their support was huge in me being ready to heal. 

In trauma healing, we need to surround ourselves with people who can see us, especially when we are first healing. I find it can be the most loving thing, and what can offer the most goodness, is to give ourselves a choice in who we share our journey with.

It is okay to not share or no longer see family, friends, and acquaintances who pull for us to go back into trauma coping because they are most comfortable when we act in old trauma patterns.

We build up the capacity to be able to hold on to our sense of self around those who most harmed us. It takes practice and it’s ok to choose not to practice and take a rest from the crazy.

Sometimes we need to step away to see clearly. I have family members I no longer speak to and others I have created boundaries around how I interact. It comes with a vast array of feelings to do this and it’s been a journey to let myself feel the grief and loss of these connections. 

If you could give a single piece of advice to someone else that struggles, what would that be?

You are not alone. And you have a choice. Others have been where you are and they are no longer there. The triggers can disappear. You don’t need to stay stuck. You can heal. 

And, you matter, your healing matters, you are worth it, even if you don’t feel like any of that is true. I know I couldn’t believe I mattered when I first started this journey. The only part of that statement that would have seemed true was “even if you don’t”. 

But to know healing and believing I mattered was possible; to meet someone who could really see me; to know it was possible to find safety in my body, even if it terrified me; to be offered that I could have a choice and I’m not left by myself to figure this out would have been so empowering to know earlier.

In trauma choice is taken away, so knowing that I can create my own possibilities and that I have choice around what I create, that would have given me power I didn’t know I had and offered me hope and freedom I didn’t know I could even want.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, YouTube channels, or other resources for you?

• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel A. van der Kolk helped me understand on a basic level, how trauma was really stored in my body. It resonated on so many levels and I felt seen.
• Getting Past Your Past by Francine Shapiro opened my mind and body up to the expansive feeling of what little bits of regulation within my nervous system could feel like. 
• Better Than Happy Podcast by Jody Moore has been my go-to life coach since even before my trauma surfaced. She gave me the tools to have a choice within my mind and gave me my first taste of what an “And this could also be true” could look like.
• The Place We Find Ourselves Podcast by Adam Young filled me with more context for why my body was responding the way it was in trauma. He helped my brain understand my body on a whole new level.
• Tara Brach’s podcast always gives me a space to get into my body and reconnect with me.
• Become Your Own Medicine YouTube channel by Irene Lyon gave me the nervous system education I needed along with many techniques and tools to apply embodiment to releasing trauma.
• Share Your Stuff, I’ll Go First by Laura Tremaine was a beautiful, fun read into ways I could share my truth and share my voice.

Where can we go to learn more about you?

As a trauma-informed embodiment coach, I guide women on their trauma-healing journeys. With a compassionate and holistic approach, I empower clients to reconnect with their bodies, release themselves from trauma’s grip, and cultivate resilience.

Drawing upon my own experiences, I offer 1:1 sessions, workshops, and practices that promote self-awareness, healing, and transformation. You can sign up for free weekly tips via my newsletter page.

You can learn more about me via my website, Instagram, Facebook LinkedIn, and on my podcast.

By the way: If you want to start feeling better and more productive, I’ve condensed the information of 100’s of our articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet here.

This Cheat Sheet Will Help You Be Happier and More Productive

Thrive under stress and crush your goals with these 10 unique tips for your mental health.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

Want more interviews?

Continue reading our inspiring case studies and learn how to overcome mental health struggles in a positive way!

Want to help others with your story? We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Hugo Huijer Author

Founder of Tracking Happiness, with over 100 interviews and a focus on practical advice, our content extends beyond happiness tracking. Hailing from the Netherlands, I’m a skateboarding enthusiast, marathon runner, and a dedicated data junkie, tracking my happiness for over a decade.

The post How Somatic Healing Helped Me Navigate CPTSD to Find True Happiness appeared first on Tracking Happiness.

Contents

• Who are you?
• What is your struggle?
• How did you feel at your worst moment
• When did you turn it around?
• What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?
• Who did you share your struggle with?
• Your best piece of advice?
• Books and resources
• Anything else I should have asked?

Hello! Who are you?

I live in London right now to study neuroscience. I am from another country in Asia and studied physics for a few years there but my mental illness guided me to this career change and I am grateful for that.

I have been estranged from my mother for years, but now I have recovered from the past relationship before the disease. I am single now and became more open to the potential of a relationship recently.

By the way: Do you find it hard to be happy and in control of your life? It may not be your fault. To help you feel better, we’ve condensed the information of 100’s of articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet to help you be more in control.

Don’t Miss Out On Happiness

Find happiness with this 10-step mental health cheat sheet.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

What is your struggle and when did it start?

I innately have Autism Spectrum Disorder and had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to sexual assault when I was a freshman at University. After the first traumatic episode, I tried to forget it at all because it was too confusing about why the offender did so and what I should do. I succeeded and could forget it for a year. 

However, a similar episode happened again after a year and PTSD started off. (Yeah, I heard delayed PTSD can be more severe than a normal one.) I was a very docile person who has never resented before PTSD, but it just changed me entirely.

I started to hate all people in the world because I felt betrayed due to no help from passer-bys in the trauma. I got angry whenever I talked with a man and could not control the anger with auditory hallucinations ordering me to fight them. 

I abruptly bursted into anger and insulted my male friends. When they asked me out, my face was distorted with contempt and out of my control. (It is a sort of dissociation, I heard from a psychologist later.) They were embarrassed, but I was embarrassed more. I started to avoid men and the place where I can face many strangers not to get into my uncontrollable anger burst. 

Even when my mother touched my shoulder, I felt it was dirty and got angry for her getting me to remind the trauma. I suffered nightmares about getting raped every night and felt somatized heartache and headache. I also thought the reason why SA happened to me was because I look like a pushover. I started to imitate others to break my SA even if I felt empty indeed. 

However, I did not know it was PTSD at that time. Because I was a Christian without any psychiatric knowledge, I thought I was being punished by God due to a lack of faith like King Saul in the bible because it was the only similar psychotic symptom that I read in the bible. 

Also, I became angry about why God did not protect me. To get forgiveness and healing from God, I attended church more passionately, but the symptoms did not get better, and I got more angry with God. I remember I kept pursuing that strategy for two years after the start of PTSD. 

The Christian friends had no psychiatric knowledge at all because in my country, it was not common to get psychiatric treatment and they thought psychiatric treatment is satanic, so they did not give helpful advice, only scolding me about my bad speech and behavior, suggesting me to forgive the offender as said in bible, which was impossible for me at that time. I noticed an increase in anger whenever I went to church, so I stopped religious activity, then.

When I met a non-christian friend, I heard that she is taking psychiatric medicine due to depression and it improved. It was the first time I got to know about mental illness and I went to a psychiatrist. 

However, the psychiatrist was a man, so I did not talk about SA as I learned that talking about my trauma to a man gets me unpleasant responses through a few trials with my male friends and professors. I got diagnosed with depression and then bipolar disorder. Anyway, the medicine decreased my suicidal ideation, so it was better to live with. I think I kept taking the medicine for two years.

After two years, there was a feminist trend with the #MeToo movement in my country. From the movement, I could hear stories of other survivors of sexual assault PTSD. After searching about it, I got to know it was the PTSD symptoms that I was suffering from since the sexual assault.

However, treatment for PTSD was not that common at that time in my country, so I did not get special therapy for PTSD. I just read and heard their stories over and over, and I started reading a book about PTSD (I will specify this in the book section).

After graduating from university, I wanted to leave the city where I suffered a lot. I thought it would end if I leave this place which is full of triggers. Thus, I went to another city. It was refreshing and I became free of triggers and symptoms for a while.

However, with the appearance of a trigger which was a male colleague’s simple comment, the same as the offender gave me in the trauma, “Shall we go out for some drink?”, it started again…I cried remembering what the offender did to me and how my friends and family did not take care of me in the hardship. I could not suppress tears even at work, so I wept in the toilet. 

Whenever I met men, I could not help but be jealous of them for their superior safety over women. I needed to meet other people who can understand all these weird things. (I will continue this in the turning point section.)

How did this struggle make you feel at your worst moments?

Before PTSD, I was a bookworm and loved to be alone. Especially I loved every novel. After getting PTSD, I realized that every book include romantic scenes, and I felt somatic pain in my body when I read a conversation between lovers. I could not read any novel anymore.

Even if it does not have the scene, I did not know if it would include it so I could not try it. I had spent my days only reading books before PTSD, so after losing the hobby, I did not know what to do anymore. Also, I became scared of being alone because I had no confidence to handle situations of SA if it occurs again.

Even when I was in my room, I thought some man might penetrate my room, so I became very nervous when I was alone. To avoid being alone, I started to make as many friends as possible. But I could not truly like them. It was weird but I could not trust the people I met after PTSD, but I had no other options, so I met them, suppressing horror and hatred toward them, and before any explosion of emotions, I would block their contact. 

I lost all of my friends I made before PTSD due to a dispute over my talk about it, the average period to keep a friend was about a year. They did not understand my PTSD, and I felt betrayed thinking about poverbs ‘A friend in need is a friend indeed’. I thought there was no friend indeed among my friends. My personality, hobby, and lifestyle changed, so I felt I did not know who I am anymore. Even my friends and teachers meeting me after PTSD told me that I changed a lot and they liked me before PTSD. I hated hearing that. I myself liked the past either, but there was no option to go back because I was too horrified to keep myself.

I don’t know why but I was always thinking about killing others after PTSD when I was doing nothing. Sometimes, I imagined putting up a fire or a battlefield and shooting others to protect me. Also, I imagined killing the offender recklessly, which cannot come true as I cannot find out the offender due to the removal of his information after the incident. It made me feel triumpant, so I thought it was good for me. Looking back on it now, I think it only strengthened my ‘fight or flight response’, which is core mechanism of PTSD, but worsened my anxiety.

Actually, I talked about the trauma to everyone I met at first. I was always thinking that as an ASD person, I could not care about others being uncomfortable with talking about it. However, there were no friends and family to understand my situation and feelings. As an ASD person, I was gullible when SA happened, so they could not understand why I fell for the offender’s evident lie.

Also, they could not understand why I was holding on to the memory continuously. I felt as if they liked me when I was happy but they abandoned me as I became a burden. I thought it was just the same with the offender who used me for his own merit. It made me despise all of them. 

I thought this intense hatred of ‘people who were intimate before trauma’ was because my trauma is related to a lying person, but I found it is a general symptom of any PTSD. I think it is more related to the defense mechanism of the body. I could not feel any sympathy or trust in people. 

Before PTSD, my mother was the person the closest to me, but when I said about SA experience and PTSD, she did not consoled me. She just wanted me to let it pass and focus on my study. I felt betrayed by her and after getting to know PTSD, I thought if she emotionally supported me, my symptom would not be this serious and long. I thought the PTSD was partly due to her. I started to fight over it. Whenever I could not put up with the anger, I called and sweared her over and over. After the anger goes away in few hours, I regreted and said sorry but when it is triggered, I could not stop doing it again. After a few years of PTSD this quarrel, I broke the relationship with her. I broke up with all my friends due to feeling betrayed. All of these broke my heart. I thought that if it did not happen, I could have lived not knowing they were traitors. I tried many talk therapy, but I could not trust the therapist either and just wanted to end the session.

Also, some of them could not understand my situation at all. Looking back on it, I think after talking about the trauma, the person I talked about it with also became a trigger of PTSD, and it made me uncomfortable to be with them too.

Share your story: Help thousands of people around the world by sharing your own story. We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Was there a moment when you started to turn things around?

Right after knowing that my illness is PTSD, I started to read a book about PTSD as my past hobby was reading a book. I read many books about PTSD, and some of their anecdotes triggered my trauma, but they let me know I am not alone to suffer these symptoms.

Also, I tried applying the exercises in the workbook, such as setting boundaries for my body and pain exposure. I tried to see romance and erotic movies to get over somatization when seeing skinship. As the book said, I started with a very mild one and go into a full erotic one.

Although it made me keep sober seeing that kind of movie or novel, I still avoid romantic videos and novels if I can. It is unpleasant even after overcoming it. Also, it gave me confidence that I can overcome my hardship by my effort, which I have never experienced even before PTSD.

I tried participating in group counseling with other survivors of sexual assault which I could not try easily because I could not trust strangers easily after the trauma and thought it would break my heart again because even friends and family gave second attack about the trauma. But I felt it was almost mysterious.

I felt as if I am hearing my story from others’ mouths. No friend or family understood my symptoms before then, so it was a very touching moment. I feel like I was a normal human, not a psycho or monster, for the first time after PTSD. It gave me a sense of reality back. Seeing people who are overcoming similar experiences, I could get the confidence to overcome it.

Nevertheless, due to Covid, I could not have a steady meeting with them, I kept contact with them through mobile chatting. I got information that there is a special therapy for PTSD from one of the survivors, so I went to the counselor she recommended me.

I started Pain Exposure therapy and Dialectical Behavior Therapy with a specialist in PTSD. At first, I was so scared to start talk therapy because I had the memory of failed therapy with a non-specialist in PTSD, but the survivor said it improved her a lot, so I started this. First, PE therapy treated the trauma intensively. Before PE, I thought the trauma became my everything and I cannot help but burst into tears when I say about the episode.

After PE, the trauma became normal memory and I can remember it without getting upset. I think DBT was not that effective for me. I had difficulty getting group counseling with strangers and could not focus on meditation due to intrusive thoughts. After all, the therapy for PTSD redirected me to focus on my goal, not my past and trauma. I could start anew thanks to the therapy.

After getting therapy, I could dream of life after PTSD, but I could not trust anyone yet and had chronic anxiety. I gave up any relationship with others because nobody would entirely understand my PTSD, which was the critical reason of the most of my present traits and decided to live only for my accomplishment without trust toward others to protect me from any harm.

By chance, I found a church that is more accepting of mental illness. I got to know that God was protecting me to let me escape from the offender. It gave me a peaceful mind for the first time after SA. 

Later, I read that spiritual recovery, which means going back to a worldview that I felt safe with before PTSD, is crucial in perfect recovery from PTSD. I could forgive my family and friends who did not console me in my struggle, and I could forgive the offender in the end.

It seems impossible but to protect others from his SA, he should become a better person, so I could pray for him. My fear and hatred toward others disappeared now. I feel I became the person I was before PTSD or better than before.  

What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?

I think there is a sequence of steps to get recovery from PTSD, as many PTSD books explain. We should accept, soothe the trauma, and get back into life, which cannot be done before doing the previous step.

1. Meeting others in your shoes

In my case, it helped me recover a sense of reality hearing my struggle from others’ voices. Also, seeing others overcoming it stopped me from thinking that it is unsurmountable trouble. In addition, other survivors gave me useful tips and information like good counselors for PTSD.

2. Giving up going back to the state before PTSD

PTSD patients get changed to survive panic and trauma in every aspect of their identity. Missing my past self made me more frustrated and suicidal. Happiness does not have one way. Knowing that I could be happy in other forms and personalities either gave me more relief.

3. Starting therapy for PTSD with a counselor specialized in PTSD

If you don’t have money, try exercises in workbooks for PTSD, but I think meeting a counselor specialized in PTSD therapy is crucial for the success of therapy. I could dream of my life after PTSD because it made my trauma normal memory. It is not my core memory or my everything anymore. I could dream of my life after PTSD again.

4. If you had a religion and took it apart after PTSD, restart religious work

I think it made me feel safe as I felt before PTSD. Chronic anxiety and response to triggers disappeared after this. I also could stop hatred toward others which was strategy to protect myself. I avoided Christians due to the scar they gave to me, but going back to church was essential for my full recovery.

Have you shared any of this with people around you in real life?

I talked about my SA and PTSD to everyone whenever I could when I was struggling badly. However, sharing it with men gave me bad memory that they cannot understand why it is a bad thing at all, so I did not share it with men. I don’t think it gave me useful tips or a heart-warming console when I shared it with people who do not have PTSD or knowledge of PTSD. 

After recovery, I try to avoid mentioning it unless someone is struggling with the same experience because I now know it only makes them embarrassed and uncomfortable. Especially, in the workplace, I don’t want them to evaluate me for my mental illness and be too ashamed to reveal my weakness.

If you could give a single piece of advice to someone else that struggles, what would that be?

The fact that the offender deemed you as a toy does not mean you are a toy. When your symptoms are very bad, you are likely to misunderstand others’ intention and be unable to control your emotions, so I think it is good to take a rest from social interaction for a while. 

Don’t indulge in fake victory in your imagination. You didn’t need to win the offender at the incident, but you just need to escape from it. If you succeeded in taking your life from the incident, you did well. Don’t hate yourself for the trauma.

The path to happiness is not a single one. There are many ways to be happy so the impossibility to turn back time before trauma does not mean you can never be happy. You can be happy again. You can trust others again. Don’t lose your hope to survive. Someday, you will be thankful for your past self who did not give up your life.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, YouTube channels, or other resources for you?

• The Body Remembers by Babett Rothchild: It gives an explanation of PTSD from a biological viewpoint. I could understand my body’s response to triggers. Also, I could practice pain exposure exercises from the book, and it helped me overcome my phobia of men.
• Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman: It describes what is PTSD descriptively and gives how recovery can be done gradually. It was a very accurate book, looking back on my ten years of PTSD recovery.

Is there anything else you think we should have asked you?

It’s good to know what I have learned from my mental illnesses.

I think I learned many things from struggling with mental illness. I could be matured with this in a way I could not expect before PTSD. Before PTSD, I dreamed to be a hikikomori just reading books in my room without any social interaction. I was uncomfortable being with others even though I did not hate them (closer to scared to talk with them). Right after the start of PTSD, fear about SA made me courageous in all other things. 

I could talk and make a friend with others without hesitation. Also, I could have experienced overcoming my limitation in my effort to recover from PTSD. It gave me confidence that I can do something beyond my current ability.

In addition, by sharing our struggle with other SA PTSD survivors, I felt a bond and gratitude for others I have never felt before because I haven’t been understood PTSD at all for 7 years, feeling like a monster. I want to help other survivors. I am now dreaming to help other mentally-ill patients and SA PTSD survivors with neuroscience research. Now I don’t want to go back to the time before PTSD.

By the way: If you want to start feeling better and more productive, I’ve condensed the information of 100’s of our articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet here.

This Cheat Sheet Will Help You Be Happier and More Productive

Thrive under stress and crush your goals with these 10 unique tips for your mental health.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

Want more interviews?

Continue reading our inspiring case studies and learn how to overcome mental health struggles in a positive way!

Want to help others with your story? We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Hugo Huijer Author

Founder of Tracking Happiness, with over 100 interviews and a focus on practical advice, our content extends beyond happiness tracking. Hailing from the Netherlands, I’m a skateboarding enthusiast, marathon runner, and a dedicated data junkie, tracking my happiness for over a decade.

The post My 10-Year Journey of Overcoming PTSD and Hatred After Sexual Assault appeared first on Tracking Happiness.

Contents

• Who are you?
• What is your struggle?
• How did you feel at your worst moment
• When did you turn it around?
• What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?
• Who did you share your struggle with?
• Your best piece of advice?
• Books and resources
• Learn more

Hello! Who are you?

My name is Ron Blake. I’m quite a bit more than the trauma I experienced. 

I was born in Gary, Indiana, and raised with four siblings in suburban Chicago. I’ve run five marathons and graduated with an MPA from Indiana University. And during that one pretty cool summer I spent in Beverly Hills, I worked for the actress Sandra Bullock. I’m married and now residing and working in Phoenix, AZ as an artist and writer. 

Independence and creativity are the foundation I use for my happiness. Despite the mental and physical pain I still experience from all the bad stuff I went through.

By the way: Do you find it hard to be happy and in control of your life? It may not be your fault. To help you feel better, we’ve condensed the information of 100’s of articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet to help you be more in control.

Don’t Miss Out On Happiness

Find happiness with this 10-step mental health cheat sheet.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

What is your struggle and when did it start?

I was diagnosed with PTSD following a brutal rape days before Christmas in 2011. Three men entered my home one night while I was sick and asleep. I was held down, raped, and beaten. They nearly killed me.

I struggled badly with my mental health for so long. As well as requiring surgery, many years of extensive physical therapy, and lots of PTSD counseling.

My situation was exacerbated by something else. I was diagnosed with dissociative amnesia. It caused me to be unable to remember most; if not all of the rape, for about two years after the trauma.

If you’ve ever watched the riveting Jason Bourne series of action-thriller movies, then you likely already have a good idea of what this condition is. 

The Jason Bourne character played by actor Matt Damon spends most of the time trying to uncover just who he is and what happened to him in the past. To understand what impacted him so badly in his present life. 

It is a condition that occurs as a result of experiencing severe trauma. It occurs in only about 1% of the population. Thus, it is not often understood. 

That is my story. I had to remember over time just exactly what happened on that fateful night. Being awakened to the rape. The beatings. The harrowing 911 call I made as the rape was still occurring. Nearly being pushed off that 7th-floor balcony as I waited for help to arrive.

It will never completely leave me. PTSD is one of those chronic illnesses. You find ways to successfully manage it for the rest of your life. 

How did this struggle make you feel at your worst moments?

One of the three men involved in this brutal crime against me had been my partner for almost a decade. It was an incident of domestic violence too. I shared more details of what happened in this interview.

Explaining the additional challenges I faced knowing someone I had loved for so many years could have betrayed me. Being involved in something so heinous like this.

Shortly after the trauma, I started to isolate myself from the world. Experiencing anger with just about everything and everyone. Those closest to me sensed something was wrong. I knew something was wrong. But I was not able to identify what it was. Nor could anyone else. I continued to spiral out of control.

Share your story: Help thousands of people around the world by sharing your own story. We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Was there a moment when you started to turn things around?

An unexpected moment of laughter from a late-night comedy show stopped me from suicide at 10:44 pm on November 2, 2015. That spark of hope began my now eight-year 64,000-mile cross-country journey to become a guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?

It just sort of happened. What helped me was to go out on what’s called the Hero’s Journey.

This is a literary theme that was made popular by the author Joseph Campbell many years ago. It involves having a disruption in your everyday life. Answering that call to action. Going out on an adventure to face your fears. Overcoming challenges along the way. Then coming back home transformed and triumphant.

This Hero’s Journey theme has been used in many classic movies such as Star Wars, The Lion King, and Harry Potter.

My disruption was that moment of laughter I had on that dark night. It was my call to action. To head out on a journey to reach that symbolic goal involving The Late Show in New York City.

Every day on my now eight-year odyssey, I have courageously spoken out as a blue-collar male rape survivor. Breaking down stigmas. No longer isolating from the world. Learning to process the trauma by talking about it. Being vulnerable with strangers. Them being vulnerable back with me.

Overcoming relentless challenges with the PTSD, surgery, and extensive physical injuries I suffered from the rape. Not giving up. Staying determined. Even though I’ve been repeatedly hunted down and threatened by those bad guys on my international journey. 

Meeting 32,259 strangers one by one on my travels who contributed colorfully written support on 496 giant foam boards for my 22,000 hours of effort to try and reach the symbolic goal of becoming a guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Along the way, creating this massive display of artwork being featured in dozens of exhibitions, publications, and TV/radio news segments. Being signed to a contract as an author. Throwing out the 1^st pitch in front of 43,000 fans to represent the moxie of trauma survivors. 

Testifying before a Senate Judiciary Committee to pass a new law. Giving a TEDx talk and presentations at 28 colleges. Being the featured subject in an Emmy-nominated documentary about my innovative recovery journey. 

And coming back home transformed. To now share my triumphant story to inspire others struggling with challenges to head out on their very own Hero’s Journey.

Have you shared any of this with people around you in real life?

Before beginning my adventure, I made a post on Facebook. For the very first time, I let all my family and friends know that I was raped.

I took a big chance doing that. I was born in Gary, Indiana, and was raised in the tough-as-steel neighborhoods along Chicago’s southeast side. I was not sure how my blue-collar pals would react to me sharing this. 

Would they see this as a sign of weakness? Talking about being raped…as a male. And opening up about my mental health struggles. 

I got an answer. My buddies and family responded with hundreds of supportive Facebook responses. They did not always use politically correct wording and did not talk to me like Dr. Phil. That did not matter. They were all there for me when I needed it. That’s what mattered. 

If you could give a single piece of advice to someone else that struggles, what would that be?

My piece of advice to give is this. And it comes in two parts as I will explain.

I have met those tens of thousands of strangers across all parts of the U.S. and Mexico during the past eight years. They have written the most incredible supportive stories on my 496 giant foam boards. Stories written in 94 languages with 27 Sharpie marker colors.

This massive collective story of laugh therapy will come with me to The Late Show when I do finally get invited. To help inspire millions of viewers who are struggling with mental health know two important things.

First: No one walks alone through the bad stuff we go through in life. The giant foam boards with those 32,259 vibrant stories demonstrate the abundant amazing support and love that’s out there for each one of us.

Second: Laughter is all around us. Even in our darkest moments.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, YouTube channels, or other resources for you?

The best resource for me has come in 32,259 swashbuckling chapters. It is the book of love. Created from all those beautiful people I’ve met along my 64,000-mile adventure. 

Each person along the way that has shared their story of support back with me on my giant boards has influenced me. Keeping me motivated. Keeping me going toward that symbolic goal at 53rd and Broadway in NYC. And keeping me away from suicide. How cool is that!

Where can we go to learn more about you?

You can read more about me here, or on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube.

Or just Google Ron Blake Phoenix. A lot will come up about my eight-year Hero’s Journey. 

By the way: If you want to start feeling better and more productive, I’ve condensed the information of 100’s of our articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet here.

This Cheat Sheet Will Help You Be Happier and More Productive

Thrive under stress and crush your goals with these 10 unique tips for your mental health.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

Want more interviews?

Continue reading our inspiring case studies and learn how to overcome mental health struggles in a positive way!

Want to help others with your story? We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Hugo Huijer Author

Founder of Tracking Happiness, with over 100 interviews and a focus on practical advice, our content extends beyond happiness tracking. Hailing from the Netherlands, I’m a skateboarding enthusiast, marathon runner, and a dedicated data junkie, tracking my happiness for over a decade.

The post From Surviving Rape and PTSD to Becoming A Story Of Inspiration And Determination appeared first on Tracking Happiness.