Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - Spirituality

[MajestyJo]

PTSD 12-Step Recovery

Spirituality

Many trauma survivors have a problem with spirituality. In fact,
you have one or more of the following issues with spiritual beliefs
and a Higher Power concept.
Where was God?
What do I believe in now?
How do I reconcile a belief in God with what has happened?
How do I face the reality of my fragile life?
How can I trust God again now that I know bad things can
happen to me?
I cannot forgive my perpetrator
I am lacking in my faith. Why???
How can I believe in a Higher Power when there is evil and
cruelty in the world?
How does God view suffering in the world?
What is the meaning of what happened?
I don’t feel safe anywhere.
My life no longer feels predictable
I am angry with God, is He angry with me?
I feel like God abandoned me.
I feel betrayed by God.
What is my relationship to God now?
I feel ashamed; God wouldn’t want me anymore.
I feel dirty; so, I cannot get close to God.
I feel distanced from the community now that this happened.
No one will ever understand.
Am I at fault?
I feel so powerlessness.
What do I believe in now?
How do I make sense out of what happened?
I no longer understand the meaning of life.
Where is there value in my suffering?
My perpetrator was never punished, what now?
I don’t feel like I belong anywhere anymore. Goodness doesn’t protect anyone.
How can I believe in a loving, all-powerful God after what
happened?
How do I resolve my feelings of guilt with a faith in a
Higher Power?
I still feel God abandoned me.
It is difficult to think of God as a loving Father after what my
own father did to me.

These are very deep questions. You have a right to this difficult struggle with ideas related to faith and belief in God. Your struggle doesn’t prevent you from working a 12-step program
of recovery. In fact, being in this struggle is one aspect of
working a 12-step program of recovery on your PTSD.

All that is required to work this aspect of a 12-step program is a willingness to face these issues. You do not have to believe in God to start working a program of recovery. What is needed is an open mind and a resolve to work through the spiritual damage done to every trauma survivor. Spiritual recovery from trauma comes when you make your peace with a belief in a higher power even though this awful trauma happened to you.

www.mental-health-today.com/ptsd/12step.htm

No matter what the label is, the 12 Steps are applicable.

[MajestyJo]

Although I have had several 'labels' put on me over the years, I think the one that scared me the post was "post traumatic stress disorder" although a professional doctor didn't do the diagnoses, my life qualified me for it.

As a sponsee said to me many years ago, "I refuse to let the labels they put on me limit me to what I can do and who I can become."

So many times in recovery, I have felt the hand of God and I found a peace from the top of my head to the tip of my toes. It certainly wasn't the God of my religious upbringing. It wasn't some inanimate object. I wasn't human although at the beginning, it was my home group and the program that was my Higher Power.

My belief has evolved over the years and as I have said many times, "God is as He/She/It reveals themselves to me today.

For most of my life, God didn't leave me, I made the decision to leave Him. Most of that reasoning came from the old tapes and the teachings of the church. A sponsee was going to Mass and said, "I'll say a prayer for you." My response was, "You don't need to bother, I have a direct line."

I don't know what God looks like. I just try to develop a relationship with Him. I figure if I know what He looks like I may stop looking for Him. If I know who God is, I will be dead and facing Him. I do believe the spirit lives on.

I came to realize that it wasn't what God did, it was about being a victim of other people's choices and choices I made. Things happen and I take them personally when they have absolutely nothing to do with me. So much of my life growing up was painful as a result of false pride, a responsibility that wasn't mine to take on, and a belief that if anything went wrong, it was all my fault.

Have been angry with God and I found out that it was okay! I have bargained with God and I have a strong belief that He is shaking His head and going Tsk! Tsk! Don't tell me we have to go through this again. Didn't she learn her lesson the last time.

When I came into recovery, I thought I knew who God was. In fact I was sure, because I had been brought up in a religious home and I remembered all those old tapes and found out that God was an old tape. When I had a year in recovery, I didn't know who God was. I stopped looking for Him outside of myself, looked withing and remembered to take Him with me on my journey.