Do you suddenly behave in ways that others who know you well say ‘is out of character’ for you?

Do you sometimes react in a situation with an intensity that is way beyond what the occasion calls for?

Do those you love feel like they are walking on eggshells around you?

Do you find yourself feeling stressed, panicky and anxious with no understanding of why?

Do you make plans with enthusiasm, only to cancel them as you get closer to the event?

Do your efforts to care for others lead to their irritation and accusations of you being controlling?

Do you spend much of your time focusing on others and feel anxious about spending time for yourself?

Do you find yourself avoiding certain people, situations or places and this is starting to restrict your life?

Do you struggle to remember big chunks of your childhood?

I Provide – a supportive space for you to explore how the past is influencing your present and guiding you through healing processes.

To enable you to:

• recognise when you are experiencing an intrusion from your past
• learn ways to reduce the intensity and duration of this intrusion, so that you can return to your everyday life as soon as possible 
• reprocess these memories, reducing the risk of repeatedly experiencing an intrusion from your past 
• discover how your past may have created barriers to change and helping you remove them in order to gain choice

The first time someone suggested to me I might be suffering from trauma, which had likely happened in my childhood, I looked at them strangely and wondered why they could be suggesting such a thing. To me trauma was associated with big events like war, car accidents etc. and nothing like that had happened to me. At that time, I would oscillate between believing I was capable of most things if I just worked hard enough, whilst having no awareness of my unpredictable behaviour, unstable emotions and what were lovingly named ‘eccentricities’, to believing that I was broken, defective and unloveable, not knowing in those moments I was lost in shame.

I had no clue my constant desire for change, jobs, friends, homes was me trying to outrun my fear, grief and shame. I had no clue that my constant attempts to keep busy, striving for bigger, better and more, was actually my attempt to keep away from hearing my inner critic, which was cruel and unrelenting. I had no clue my outer critic was spoiling my chances of real intimacy. I had no clue my perfectionism, control enthusiasm and constant planning was all part of CPTSD. It has been a long journey to create my kinder mind and one that I believe could have been much quicker and less painful if I’d found the education and support I needed much earlier.

Whilst I prefer to not work from a place of labels or diagnoses, there are sometimes where this can be supportive. Here are my understandings of the following diagnoses.

PTSD is a diagnostic term used to describe a set of symptoms relating to a past event that is intruding into your present life. When one of these stressful memories is activated, your body, without conscious thought, reenacts the same behaviour that helped you survive in that moment, which was life saving then, but often very confusing for you and others in your life today. 

In the medical diagnostic world, the D stands for Disorder, but to me it would be more accurate to say Disoriented, as that was how it felt for me. Peter Levine, who has studied and worked with trauma for 50+ years, would also add an R, to help people understand the reenactment element of the experience. An easier summary would be that your past is intruding into your present. 

My version would be PTSDR, Post Traumatic Stress Disorientation and Reenactment. 

PTSD is often related to one event or one period of time. There are a number of ways this can be reprocessed, allowing this to become a memory you recall instead of reenact.

CPTSD is a relatively new term. The C stands for Complex, which describes an individual’s additional symptoms and experiences. Complex can also describe the experience of feeling two or more things at what seems to be the same time, what can be known as both/and, which can increase stress. 

For example, 

• feeling both angry and sad, 
• feeling motivated and ready for change and also terrified of change. 

Complex can also describe the recovery process, meaning there is not a simple ‘do this’ and all your symptoms magically resolve and disappear, believe me, I wish this were true for my own journey and for the people I work with and support, however there are still many ways to support recovery and reduce suffering.

Most of the books I’ve read said Complex Trauma recovery is like climbing a mountain, but to me, Trauma recovery is like renovating a building to become a home. Some buildings may only need slight modernisation and others may need a lot of restructuring, most need something in between. This is because the narratives we create to try to understand these stressful events affect our beliefs and behaviours. Our beliefs are like the foundations and structure of the building and our behaviour is what we ‘do’ in and out of the building. If the building foundations are unstable, the building will not be secure. If the roof is not intact and whole, this leaves the possibility of weather damage to the interior. Too often the focus and energy goes to decorating and furnishing, the part people see and yet this could all be undone or damaged by unstable foundations or a damaged roof.

I can’t believe how quickly and painlessly Julie helped me. After losing so many military colleagues and then a best fried to suicide, as a single parent to a son with ASD, I knew I needed to get help. For nearly 5 years, I tried several different counselling services and never really noticed any change, sleep disturbance was a big issue. Julie’s ability to share her understanding of PTSD and the human response to trauma was so supportive in that first session. Julie sent me a recording which I used that night and I was able to get some sleep for the first time in a long time and as I continued to make the changes Julie suggested, I kept on sleeping better, which was the positive upward spiral Julie said it would be. This allowed enough capacity in me to do the trauma reprocessing work and the changes in me have even improved my son’s ASD, now I get calls from the school about how well he is doing, rather than calls to come and collect him! I realised my worry had become his worry!

I can’t thank Julie enough for helping me understand what was happening in my early childhood. Julie helped me understand how my parent’s trauma was influencing my childhood and the way I thought about myself and the behaviours I needed to adopt to be safe. For the longest time I have believed there was something wrong with me and it has robbed me of so many opportunities of joy with my family and also affected my career choices. A recent event on a family holiday meant my daughter encouraged me to seek help. I considered my GP, but knew I would just be offered medication and put on a very long waiting list. I chose to seek private support and I knew from that first session I had made the right decision, Julie gave me hope and understanding. In each session the picture became clearer and clearer and I realised there was never anything wrong with me!