E.115 Healing from the Unseen Wounds: A Conversation on Stress and Trauma

Ever felt the grip of overwhelming stress after a traumatic event? On today's episode, your host Steve Bisson walks you through his own personal journey of healing from a distressing flight experience, offering a raw and authentic view into his emotional world post-incident. Tune in as Steve discusses his six-month progress, shedding light on his coping mechanisms, therapy techniques, and the importance of timely intervention to prevent a drift into post-traumatic stress disorder.

On the second leg of our conversation, we navigate the complex waters of acute stress and post-traumatic stress disorders, dissecting their unique characteristics, impacts, and durations. With a mix of personal stories and professional insights, Steve helps unravel these mental health conditions, making this episode a must-listen if you've ever been curious about the differences and similarities. Additionally, we touch upon his family's journey post-incident, offering a broader perspective on the impact of trauma on one's immediate social circle. Embark on this enlightening journey with us as we explore how professional help can significantly alter the course of recovery after traumatic events.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hi and welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy. The goal of this podcast is to demystify therapy, what can happen in therapy and the wide array of conversations you can have in and about therapy Through personal experiences. Guests will talk about therapy, their experiences with it and how psychology and therapy are present in many places in their lives, with lots of authenticity and a touch of humor. Here is your answer. Here's your host, steve Bisson.

Speaker 2: 0:34

Muchos gracias, merci beaucoup. Thank you so much. That's the new intro. You tell me what you think. Episode 115 of Finding your Way Through Therapy. If you haven't listened to Episode 114 yet, please do so. Brian Harkins and Jay Ball were great guests. We talked about different things, from a conference to first responders, last responders, medical staff, and I will commit this podcast to continue talking about that and yes, it's not just PTSD or stuff like that. There's a lot more to talk about there. But Episode 115 will be kind of a follow up on my episode on 91.5, which was on my flight. That happened in March of 2023, the 96, the episode 96, where I followed up with how I was feeling and then how I was the best of with Episode 107.

Speaker 2: 1:27

This is to let you know how I'm doing overall in regards to the flight. I'll be honest with you. I'm doing great. We're about six months removed, almost to the day. I'm thinking like two days off here when I'm recording this. I know you're going to hear it about a month and a half later, but ultimately I can't tell you that I have any kind of like flashbacks, nightmares or anything like that. Definitely you can hear it in my voice. I'm not trembling, there's no nervousness. And this is not written down. I wish I could videotape this, but there's so much going on here, so, but I can tell you that I'm doing okay, obviously. I haven't been back on a flight since then. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. By the time, you know, the end of the year comes around. Not anything about fear, just no place to go really. So that'll be the real test, I guess.

Speaker 2: 2:13

But I wanted to bring that up because I would tell you that this was trauma, but truly it wasn't. And why is it not trauma? Because actually it would be acute stress disorder. And acute stress disorder is the mental condition that arises when, in a month of experience experiencing a traumatic event. Its details include severe anxiety, detachment and other distressing symptoms. I'm not going to review the flight again. This is something you can go check out on episode 91.5.

Speaker 2: 2:43

And obviously, following my therapist's prompts to not talk about it again, when you think about acute stress disorder, I went to therapy, I addressed it here on this podcast, I talked to friends about it. I really processed a whole lot in my mind too. I wrote it down. I've meditated actually about it too, but it really helped to go through all those processes in order to let it become just an acute stress disorder and not post-traumatic stress disorder.

Speaker 2: 3:10

At the end of the day, people would say, well, what's the difference? Really, right, but acute stress disorder is a lot more short term. So acute stress disorder is, within the first month there's intrusive thoughts to dissociative symptoms, negative mood, which I can really guarantee. I had those, as well as arousal symptoms and all of those like, if you told me we're going to take a flight in April, I would have 2023, I probably would have said hell to the no. But you know, to give you a quick update, I think if you heard the other episodes, my youngest daughter's already been on a plane. She was fine. My oldest doesn't seem to have any issues. My girlfriend seems to be okay with it too. And at the end of the day this is where I want to bring an important subject but how acute stress disorder is good to treat immediately. They didn't have the same responses as me, my daughters and my girlfriend, so they didn't need the same treatment. I did, but I went for treatment and I went to see my therapist. I saw him more frequently, I talked about it and, at the end of the day that led it remain acute stress disorder.

Speaker 2: 4:09

What's the difference with post-traumatic stress disorder? Well, I'm glad you ask. Acute stress disorder is very short term, so it's in the first 28 days to six months, and if it's over six months it becomes a post-traumatic stress disorder. And this is the same characteristics flashbacks, nightmares, avoidance, intrusive thoughts, negative mood, I mean all that stuff is the same, except it's more long-term, obviously. So one of the things that I want to talk about is how treatment saves you from going into the post-traumatic stress disorder.

Speaker 2: 4:41

One of the things I've also noticed in my practice is I have people who unfortunately go through other traumas. They don't just come in with trauma. Sometimes while they're in treatment they have other stuff happen. I can't prevent those. I'm good when I'm not that good, but when they process it, almost immediately it becomes less intrusive, less involved in their life, and I think that that's something to keep in mind in regards to when you go through a traumatic event. Originally I talked about the previous episode about first responders.

Speaker 2: 5:10

If you notice that you're having a hard time, do it right away. Go to see a therapist, go talk to someone, go address it, because if you don't, it just becomes most and I'm not saying for everyone, this is a generalization, I'm making blah, blah, blah, but ultimately it's learning to be able to address it immediately rather than say, no, I'm going to tough it out. I don't consider myself a tough guy by any stretch, consider myself pretty normal, but I know that going into treatment while I was already in treatment I still see my therapist, obviously, but just having that treatment right away, him kind of like challenging my thoughts, my process, everything else really helped me get through it and really I can't wait to get on the flight just to kind of like see how it goes. But I don't have any trepidations, I don't have any nervousness, probably going to get some anxiety I'm a human being after all but ultimately I don't think it bothers me as much.

Speaker 2: 6:05

So I think that realizing that treatment right away is much more beneficial than waiting is something that I really wanted to share with my audience. I don't know if I'm going to talk about this again, not because I want to avoid it, but I feel like even this episode I'm kind of stretching it out here. But if you want to hear more, maybe you let me know, and if you don't want to hear more, you know you can talk to me, email me, send me smoke signals or whatever, but ultimately wanting to work on other stuff in my episodes coming up, which reminds me that this is almost a conclusion of season nine, so already episode 116 is going to be the most downloaded episode. I don't know what it is why, because I'm recording this in advance, as I told you, but I do hope that you enjoyed this episode and I hope to see you for episode 116.

Speaker 1: 6:56

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