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Weird. I had a similar experience: I was suddenly caught very close to a shootout in which someone was killed, and the PTSD (not necessarily strictly PTSD because I don't know the diagnostic criteria, but definitely a lot of anxiety that came out later) was a big deal, and meditation has also helped me.

I often use Insight Timer on my phone, and I like Christiane Wolf's meditations.

Can you go into some detail about how you meditate to reduce anxiety?

Not who you asked, but Healthy Gamer GG has a lot of short meditations that only take a few minutes. There's a course on his site but a lot of the same information is scattered throughout his YouTube.

https://youtu.be/86sYinrLuPA

Headspace helped me tremendously.

There's a great book by Culadasa: The mind illuminated. It covers a lot of what ancient meditators thought about the practice, but the essentials can be found in the first chapter.

Second this. He is a professor for neuroscience and meditation teacher for decades. Breaks it down into 10 steps, in plain english. A must, if you are into meditation, IMHO.

He was, unfortunately.

Goes to show the importance of Right View with these practices as well. They don't suddenly make you a great person on their own, etc.

I meant - his body dissolved and he got reborn or not (Idk whether he was an Arahant)

Ah - I forgot he had passed. I meant the sexual misconduct issues.

That sounds like he molested someone, which he did not. He had a secret relationship with a prostitute, who he treated well, helped her with rent, even got her a flat IIRC. He was unfaithful to his wife, if you believe in monogamy. Many species of birds believed to be monogamous are not on close inspection. Both human sexes want to have sex with other people, besides their primary partner more often than we think. To suppress these desires leads to resentment and other problems i think.

Would you mind elaborating on the meditation method(s) you’re utilizing to minimize the effects you described?

How long do you mediate for and do you fall asleep doing it?

How do you recommend finding a good CBT provider?

If you're in the US start from your insurance provider. Most insurance has directories of in network people. Psychology Today also has a very good index of therapists. If you're uninsured need based discounts are common.

Most therapists give some kind of statement about their approach, past experience and list their areas of focus. Find one who matches what you want and schedule a first appointment. During this session explain your difficulties and see if you like their communication style. A good therapist will also tell you if they think it's not a fit. Not everyone clicks with everyone so don't be afraid to back out and don't read too much into it if they do the same.

I was held up at gunpoint and I refused to give up my item. I never got PTSD from it because I stood my ground.

I was hit in the head, in a fight and because he lied to the police and said I attacked fiest I felt helpless and that gave me mental anguish.

For me when these problems are unresolved or i felt helpless in the situation it caused me to replay the situation and upset myself more until I stopped it.

> I never got PTSD from it because I stood my ground.

I'm glad that you didn't get PTSD, but that's not how that works. PTSD isn't "anxiousness because I didn't stand my ground", it's mental baggage which occurs after traumatic experiences. That can happen even if you stand your ground.

Just wanted to mention this because it almost seems malicious to build the narrative of "if you defend yourself you also avoid PTSD".

> That can happen even if you stand your ground.

But I told the IEDs, "You shall not p<explosion!>" ...

Haha :')

I give OP the benefit of the doubt that they only apply their logic to defendable, human vs. human interactions, but even then - You can get PTSD no matter what you do.

Successfully preventing someone from taking your wallet can cause PTSD, surviving an IED blast without injuries can cause it, etc.

You can get PTSD "just" from witnessing a stranger being robbed.

And of course getting PTSD doesn't mean that someone is weak-minded or whatever.

If you talk to IEDs you have mental issues.

I'm speaking about my experiences. Notice how you quoted me saying how it worked for me. Why are you are dismissing it or telling me what it is?

Why is my experience sharing malicious?

No. What I am complaining about is the use of "because" in your statement:

> I never got PTSD from it because I stood my ground.

You did not get PTSD. That's great! Glad for you. But you can't know for sure why you didn't get it. That's the reason I think that it almost seems malicious to say that you didn't get it, because you stood your ground. Which makes it seem like you would've got PTSD, if you didn't stand your ground. So especially when replying to someone who has PTSD, it makes it seem like they should've just "stood their ground", because you know, according to you, that is the reason you didn't get it. But you or I or we can't know why you didn't get it. Or why exactly they got it.

Now, if that wasn't your intention at all - Then I'm sorry. But as you can see by the reactions to our comments, I wasn't the only one who misunderstood you. Maybe that's a hint :)

They were shot through and someone else was shot to death. You can't stand your ground or fight that his situation. He was lucky and may have had survivors guilt.

I get that you're trying to be helpful but I only shared my experiences and it doesn't at all apply to his situation. But the stiflingly soft language that you use to dismantle my experience such as "But you can't know for sure why you didn't get it." is passive agressive and I'm telling you to stop insulting my intelligence.

Why don't you post that to the person I replied to when they said mediation worked for them or tell them you don't know if they actually have PTSD?

> I'm telling you to stop insulting my intelligence

Okay. Then I'll stop. Have a good day!

PP phrases it badly, but there is an aspect of scientific truth in there.

Your chances of getting PTSD from a traumatic experience is less if you feel as if you are in control.

I cannot find the paper I read at the time, I feel I'm missing the right phrase, but here's a more recent one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6161595/

---

I have had three memorable traumatic events in a fairly long life, each about ten years apart.

I was in an explosion where my girlfriend and I were the closest people to survive; I was in a physically abusive relationship; and I was in an abusive work situation.

I had no effects from the explosion. It took me over a year to recover from the abusive relationship and separately, from the abusive job.

A counselor explained to me the reason was that after the explosion, I was in control and immediately made the right decisions to survive basically unscratched, so I experienced no trauma. In the other two cases, I was trapped and felt powerless.

Thank you for sharing your own similar experience and understanding me.

It's difficult for me to explain abuse without being stifled, but I have a feeling while everyone online talks about telling you to stop victim blaming, the abused one is victim blaming themselves anyway. It's why it's so traumatic, I replayed the situation to make sense of it, and it hurt every time, until I got out of that mental rut.

It's funny, when bad things happen I dismiss other problems I had because I had a worst one before so it helped with stresses.

Don't know why this is downvoted. It is an observation I and many others share. The mental anguish comes more from feeling helpless than from the actual danger. This is not to say (and the parent post doesn't say it either) that you can or should take action in all situations. Only that perceived agency or the lack of can have a greater effect on your mental health than the objective circumstances.

It probably comes from this statement:

>I never got PTSD from it because I stood my ground.

PTSD comes from trauma, and trauma is subjective. This statement above, intended or not, comes across as dismissive.

> This statement above, intended or not, comes across as dismissive

My thought as well. It gives me slight "victim-blaming" vibes, "If you would've defended yourself you wouldn't be traumatized now."

If it would be that easy to prevent trauma, it wouldn't be such an issue. Trauma is not a decision, the only influence you have is how well you're able to handle it after it occurs, and even then it can be overwhelming for some and they need external help or even medication.

Now I'm not saying that OP is a bad person for thinking what they think, but they shouldn't generalize mental health issues just because they experienced them in a certain way.

Same can be applied to depression, burnout, suicidal thoughts etc. If you're able to handle these things without issues, perfect! Good for you. Just don't apply this to every other depressed/burned out/suicidal person.

I didn't generalize. You did. You projected every "I" and "me" into "everybody" and "everyone" and I find your behavior mentally stifling and uninformed.

You haven't been in my situation, you haven't gotten past it, and yet you pretend to be the expert on my experiences. You're trying to be helpful... by dismissing everything I wrote with sweet words and redefining everything. Why don't you share your experience instead of whatever you're doing?

EDIT: Right, I see your reasoning in another comment. So, if I understand correctly, you believe that due to having agency in that situation it lowered stress and fear levels below whatever your threshold for (severe) trauma is? That's sounds plausible with my understanding (but I'm also a layman on the subject).

Wordsmithing is hard lol.

---

I think it show great... something, but nobody is sure what. Maybe it's emotional resilience, or something neurological in how your brain processes fear and memories. Maybe it's a combination of those—and other—things (since they can be related).

I'm saying this because I think saying "because I stood my ground" is a dangerous message to spread around, though.

It also does a lot of people a bit of disservice because many who have PTSD didn't get it through inaction. Firefighters get it, soldier get it, doctors get it, etc.

Also, least time I read, current understanding—even if not great—doesn't support your claim that actions during the stressful/traumatic moments are relevant (at least not to the degree you make it seem). There's some small evidence that feelings of helplessness has an influence, but it's inconclusive since helplessness just manifests extra stress (but not the majority of it, and it's not universally present).

And finally a disclaimer for the above: I have zero qualifications on these subjects. I've always been curious of it because of my traumatic past having lived with CPTSD most of my life (not PTSD; they're different, but they have some "mechanical" similarities). So, I've read a few books on CPTSD and PTSD and healing from them, but they weren't academic literature.

I'm glad you came out okay from that situation, though.

PTSD is an all encompassing phrase that includes childhood sexual trauma, being beaten, disturbing visual experiences, survivors guilt and violent explosions. It is like calling it a human experience. The phrase is without reservation a piece of shit.

You shouldn't treat these things the same, yet they're grouped the same and often treated the same. You say firefighters and soldiers get it, have you spoken to them about agency or why they are troubled? I knew a marine and his sleeplessness was partially due to cradling his friend who was hit with an IUD and feeling helpless to save him and only watching him die.

I'd avoid academic literature on this since they group every bad traumatic situation and listen to why people have their issues or how they fixed them. This is deeply personal, and I'm not telling anyone any advice from my experience, it is just an story.

I've spoken about it generally with my therapists, and don't know many people with PTSD, but know some with CPTSD from a support group.

One person I know who had a "lesser form" of PTSD is a nurse. He worked in Zagreb in the wake of last year's earthquakes in Croatia (the hospitals were an absolute mess due to really unfortunate timing and everything happening at once: earthquakes, harsh winter and no/little heating and electricity, prime-time COVID). I say lesser, because his symptoms (nightmares, hearing sounds that aren't there, disassociating) receded on their own after a while. Maybe it wasn't lesser, but maybe his mind is just more resilient (for an unknown factor).

Yeah, I agree with with you that every PTSD is different (even within the same "subtypes" it's not very consistent).

I believe they're grouped together because of how they (or at least as far as experts know, which is also limited) has some common mechanisms in the brain. And I guess it helps to create a jargon for technical discussions too, even if not perfect.

But yeah I think the topic is too nuanced for layman like us to delve deeper into, since it's... A rabbit hole and a maze with lots of dead ends lol