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The SANE Blog

What is work-related PTSD and how can I treat it?

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Work-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be very challenging to deal with, but there are ways to manage it more effectively.  

PTSD can develop in response to witnessing or experiencing very shocking, extreme or sudden events. This can include events that happen at work, such as severe accidents and injuries, sexual harassment or assault, bullying, emotional or physical abuse or discrimination.  

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'Nothing was ever your fault': living with PTSD and complex PTSD

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Sophie and Jess, two SANE Peer Ambassadors, chat about living with PTSD and complex PTSD. They want everyone to know a meaningful life is possible, and they have hope and love for anyone going through post-traumatic symptoms. 

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The effects of bushfires on those living with complex mental health issues

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The constant smoke haze and news reports serve as a reminder of the bushfires that still burn across Australia. Exposure to details and graphic images relating to the fires can be extremely distressing and can have a negative affect on our mental health.

The effects of such devastating events can be even more profound for vulnerable people within our communities, such as those living with complex mental health issues. People living with a mental health issue may find their symptoms return or become more intense during this time. For example, someone living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) might find that graphic images trigger flashbacks to their own trauma.

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The mental health impacts of Australia's bushfire crisis

Firefighters

For people with a history of trauma, the world can feel like an unsafe place. As bushfires burn across Australia, these feelings can intensify.

The mental health impacts of traumatic events like the bushfire crisis can be huge, and long lasting. For people on the front lines, fighting fires or fleeing their homes, the danger is real and visceral. But for those further removed geographically from the fires, breathing smokey air and reading harrowing media reports can also be extremely distressing and triggering.

Everyone in Australia needs mental health support during this difficult time, and we've already seen many heartwarming examples of people looking out for each other, in the spirit of mateship.

But we must also remember that the impacts of this crisis will ripple out far beyond this moment. We need robust mental health support to be available not just during an emergency, but also well into the future.

For people with a history of trauma or post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), this is particularly important. These people can be incredibly resilient in times of crisis, and often step in to help others in need. But after the worst is over, the delayed impact on them can be significant.

SANE is committed to supporting people navigate the lasting impacts of the bushfire crisis and other traumatic events. 

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"I'm one of the lucky ones" - how I got mental health support as a trans person

Finn

Guest blog by Peer Ambassador, Finn.

Being transgender, I am always hesitant to discuss my mental illness with others.

There’s this idea that being trans is a mental illness, and that any mental health issues we encounter would be resolved if we could “cure” our transness. In reality, many of us experience mental health concerns before we have even realised we are trans. A lot of these concerns are exacerbated if we are unwilling to accept we are trans.

I was raised in a family of 6, in semi-rural Queensland. My exposure to LGBT+ people was limited to mockery and the hatred of “delusional transgenders”.

My coming out to family was delayed because small actions, small statements here and there made me feel unsafe, to be honest. There were jokes about conversion therapy because I’m bisexual, comments of “what is THAT?” while pointing to a visibly trans person, the insistence that my boyfriend couldn’t possibly be a boy, because he looked too ‘feminine’ (he was 16, and unable to start hormones). These are only a few examples.

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Guest blog: Sometimes it's hard to speak

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Artist Joanne Morgan gives us an incredible insight into her life, and how it informs her art. You can view Jo's work (along with a range of other talented artists) at The Dax Centre until June 7th.

 

My name is Jo and I am an artist with a lived experience of cPTSD, schizoaffective, agoraphobia and autism.

There have been several times in my life when due to trauma I have shut down my level of communication and ranged from being dissociative and non verbal to selectively mute and only verbal enough to ensure my safety. It has been during those times of silence that my art has become my salvation.

My quiet solitude has been my vehicle to the discovery of another language. And it has given me time and space and a stillness that has allowed me to sit, sometimes painfully, sometimes peacefully with my thoughts and feelings. It has given me a language that did not live in my head. It lives in my whole. During times of silence it has rumbled inside of me and tossed and turned until it moved through my hands onto a page or a canvas or a sculpture or an installation into a story without words but filled with meaning. It is my safe language that secretly begins its transition from my mind to my hands and into the world with the freedom to develop uninhibited, unrestricted, unmonitored and not threatened in fear of what it might reveal.

In that quiet private space where an image has the freedom to grow unscrutinised and in the safety of my silent language it thrives and matures before my eyes into my truth that wakes me from my deep disconnection into an awareness that sits solidly within me and anchors me to my present and I feel it through the finger tips that conveyed it, through my body that supported those hands and the mind that, free from the constraints of illness allows me to speak my truth. 

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What is post-traumatic growth?

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In your search for happiness and peace of mind, would you value closer relationships with friends and family, more appreciation for life and a greater sense of your own strength?

You would, right?

But what if you were told the price for this growth, this peace of mind, is a traumatic event? Something so shocking and painful you will be profoundly changed.

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What is complex PTSD?

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When people think of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), soldiers with traumatic experiences of war and people who have lived through disasters often come to mind.

However, trauma can arise from a variety of situations, such as neglect, abuse, domestic violence or abandonment by the primary caregiver.

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Coping with flashbacks

A foggy night

Remembering the past is important. It defines who we are. But sometimes the process of storing an experience as a memory can go awry.

These memory disturbances can present later in life where the event is relived in the form of a flashback.

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Tips for coping with the effects of trauma

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Trauma can be caused by a range of events, from war, terrorism, natural disasters, transport accidents, criminal and domestic violence and childhood abuse and neglect. Being exposed to these events can have lasting physiological and psychological effects.

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