Addressing PTSD in the Body: When it's not just your brain that's a bag of cats

Presented at ToorCamp 2018, June 23, 2018, 4 p.m. (20 minutes).

Recently diagnosed with complex PTSD, I've been approaching my brain and body like I would an engineering problem. I'll walk through my symptoms, the core feeling of feeling unsafe that I found, and the body-based therapies that have worked, with plenty of citations into recent trauma research.

My major research and hacking problem in the last twelve months has been my own brain and body. When the brain is reminded of a traumatic event that hasn't been processed properly, it downregulates the parts that handle speech, memory, visual imagination, and emotional self control, which makes it difficult to work, hack, maintain social relationships, and engage with the sources of trauma directly in talk therapy. I approached my recovery as an exercise in troubleshooting and I found most of the real root causes of the bugs were in my body, not my mind.


Presenters:

  • Jenner Hanni
    Jenner is a writer and hardware hacker who lives in rural northeastern Oregon.

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