What Helps Meredith, 38, With C-PTSD

With our ongoing “What Helps Me” series, The Mighty is leaning into what sets us apart from other health sites: We aim to provide real health advice from real people who live it.

• What is PTSD?

In this spirit, we asked our community for the best insights and tips they’ve developed for managing their conditions. As always, they responded with their unique health stories and we are happy to pass along their well-tested resources to you.

Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Today, we meet Mighty member Meredith. She is 38 years old and lives with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD).

Meredith, what helps you?

THE MIGHTY: What helps you most when your condition affects your physical health?

MEREDITH: I have C-PTSD, and I am currently becoming certified in psychotherapeutic yoga. I learn natural ways to cope through therapy, meditation, mindfulness, and up-regulating and down-regulating my nervous system through different yoga poses. This is truly a spiritual healing journey, and if I do the work through the good days and the bad days, with patience, healing begins to happen.

What helps you most when your condition affects your mental health?

As I’m learning my triggers, mastering my breath technique through pranayama — the breath limb of yoga — helps bring my nervous system down, reducing the way I react to real or perceived threats when I am triggered.

How do you cope when your normal self-care isn’t working?

I’m learning to listen to my body. I also have rheumatoid arthritis, and when my body needs rest, I stay mindful to determine if the difference in my mood is a flare-up or a depressive episode. Practicing compassion for myself is required, but it is so foreign because I hadn’t done this until the age of 38.

Thank you to Meredith for her contributions to our community. Did you find this helpful? Add your gratitude in the comments.