What I discovered in my citywide hunt for a therapist equipped to heal PTSD.

After I survived an abusive marriage, an abduction and the loss of my pregnancy (yes, pretty intense stuff) I knew I couldn’t heal my Complex — PTSD alone.

The problem is, little did I know that 99% of therapists aren’t adequately trained to help trauma survivors heal our hyperactive nervous systems from the triggers, startling nightmares, flashbacks, trauma related migraines and panic attacks that come up in our bodies. Unfortunately, I only learned this about a year later when I hit rock bottom.

Other survivors reached out to me recently reporting similar experiences like, “My therapist recommended I search for a more specialized trauma therapist, but there are only two in my city adequately trained to help me with my PTSD symptoms”. Or, “After practicing the techniques you’ve created, I’m finally able to feel my feet again…they usually feel numb because I suffer from dissociation”. Evidently, trauma runs deeper in the body tissues than words can reach. Most therapists are trained to use words, not movements that tap into the body tissues.

In the meantime, I found Mary, a highly educated and successful therapist. I truly and deeply appreciated my sessions with Mary, she had a heavenly calming presence and she helped me build trust in humanity again! Like me, Mary was a free spirit and had a small, colourful tattoo of a bird on her forearm that made me sigh a breathe of relief just looking at it, because it reminded me of her soothing, kind energy.

Mary didn’t know how to help me stop the strange twitching that kept coming up in my back. No amount of talking about the flashbacks that led to this twitching made it stop.

Mary couldn’t help me dispel the panic anxiety that I lived with almost constantly throughout my days, no matter how much we talked it through.

Every time I did my cardio, my heart rate increased and then my body would go into panic attack mode because I had unwittingly activated my nervous system through exercise.

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