Heal PTSD with a glass of water? You betcha!
Our health takes a rapid-pitch decline after the scam.
A tonic for recovery comes in a humble glass of water.
Heal PTSD with a glass of water…? One glass may not change our world, but drinking that first glass then another and another marked a turning point for me from adrenaline overwhelm and trauma-survival-habits to healing.
In the aftermath and the initial shock in post-trauma eating wasn’t on my radar, and drinking meant coffee or wine.
For each of us as we scurry and panic and fly running errands to untangle the messes left behind by these creatures, the last thing we think about is preparing nutritious meals for ourselves. – As if we could choke them down.
What is winning for you?
PTSD and Shock Slide Eating Right Off the To-Do List
Here’s how it went for me: first I stopped eating almost entirely. I drank coffee. And oh, I drank wine. As a non-drinker by nature, this was very much medicinal and be useful in PTSD.
Each day’s food consisted of coffee – then far later in the day something like five tablespoons of really high fat, all carb food, like macaroni and cheese from the hot bar at Whole Foods. Brie and Cambazola and a baguette might make it to my lips when my body shouted, feed me, loudly enough over the roar of the panic and terror.
I’m a pretty much non-junk or processed foods eater, but I caved. This meant more than once the best I could do was shove Crunchy Cheetos in my face and microwave frozen burritos at some off moment in the late evening.
PTSD Hits Hard: It isn’t Permanent
PTSD is a whole-body experience; physical, mental, emotional, physiological, biological. PTSD is very, very real. PTSD is also very, very much not the new us. We can heal PTSD. We can restore our lives.
In the aftermath, in the slamming full force of the trauma, we lose weight without trying. It’s sudden and seemingly overnight.
I was really happy with the reduction in my body-size truth be told. Here I was, thinking it was super-nifty to be at my 16-year-old body weight and feel willowy frail. You can imagine I was pleased as punch that I’d look so freakin’ good in court – not to show the monster that I was gorgeous, but to show that I wasn’t torn apart by his destruction.
Skinny Minnie and No Need For Sleep
When my pants started falling off I thought of wearing a belt but I didn’t own one. My packed agenda of police visits, USCIS immigration report compiling, attorney appointments, working, sleeping a whole four hours a night; all the fear, terror & PTSD in escaping a sociopath didn’t leave room for a trip to the department store or Marshall’s for new clothes. Neither did my wallet.
I thought I looked really good and truly got lots of compliments. – That was great and on the other hand made me think: what the heck was I before the trauma, chopped liver…?! On top of that, later seeing pictures of myself from this skinny, non-eating, non-sleeping time I didn’t look like the amazing gorgeous skinny girl I thought I did.
In truth, I looked like a freaked-out-person who was in high stress and didn’t eat or sleep which is exactly what I was. How this look brought so many compliments is another topic related to the concepts, ideation, and expectations of women in our world. – That’s for another day.
Our Life’s Focus Shifts to Saving It
At this point doing yoga and all-else exercise-ie had gone by the wayside. I wasn’t moving in any way other than panicked race-walking while hauling all my important documents down the gray ribbon of sidewalk-to-car.
I had my little newly leased Fiat 500 parked blocks away so he couldn’t do anything to it – and well, another car newly leased at part of the madness was sitting in the garage space waiting to be repossessed by the dealer.
So, daily I hauled my laptop and changes of clothes and make-up to and from my sparky little Fiat. While he was still in my home after telling him to leave for a nightmare span of ten days this is what I did. And I did this for months after though he wasn’t there.
This all-encompassing terror started during those surreal sickening ten days he still lived with me after his monster identity was discovered. After he let me see exactly what he was – and certainly still is.
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In PTSD We’re Nuts and Crazed: Food Water and Health Are Not on The List
I carried anything of significance like social security card, passport, credit card statements, and financial information, birth certificate in case he somehow broke in after moving out. – Though I “knew” he wouldn’t. This, my friends, is normal PTSD. It’s really okay. We can heal PTSD.
This is PTSD after a sociopath: each time I went outside to go anywhere, my heart pounded, my mind raced and I imagined I’d not find my lovely black Fiat. My mind would think, maybe he stole it every single time until I spotted it at the curb. Then my thoughts would be that I’d get closer only to find that he’d slit the tires, or smashed the windows.
PTSD is Lots of Scary Feelings and Emotions All the Time
Fear rattled and nested in my gut each time I scuffed and scuttled down the street. Weighed down I wobbled lugging the essentials of my life strapped to me and sagging from an overstuffed backpack. Each hip and shoulder smacked with every step by the stretched-to-the-limit plastic carry bags holding more of my life. And always: I’d wonder if he was watching me and witnessing my fear. This is PTSD.
In that tiny span of hugely-long ten dark days, he enjoyed showing me his true face; his black and empty-of-anything-human, bottomless eyes. Yes, windows to his soul; portals to hell and ruin.
We do fall… this is the fallout of the predators taking and making use of us and our lives. Our crumbling and falling apart is a sign to them of their personal achievement in gaining the things they wanted. Our loosing-it ignites pride in themselves. – I’m sure I wasn’t the only person he’d seen scuttle in panic away from him. However, in no way was he going to win.
Heal PTSD: Healing is Deliberate and Purposeful
Long after he left I hauled my things even though the locks were changed. There were two times for certain I did see him around the corner from my (our former) place. Please know, this feeling like they might be lurking around is normal.
It’s PTSD generated, and then when or if we do see them we know it. There’s a different sensation between thinking we have, thinking we’ve seen them, thinking we might, and then truly seeing them lurking about.
Be sure no matter what to respect your feelings and balance them with your new-found version of common sense. Don’t let anyone tell you that you just need to, get over it.
Keep in mind when you hear this, that now our understanding of the world includes monsters – there’s does not. Personally, I was taking no chances and please don’t take any yourself. Trust your gut. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt without any embarrassment.
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Life Balances as Our Nervous System Realigns
As I imagine you will, eventually I ate more often. Still very high-fat food. I kept drinking wine. Coffee. Still eating processed frozen food. There was no cooking happening anymore – or yet.
Any food on hand that had been his favorite or reminded me of him went in the trash. I threw out all the red palm oil, garri, all the cabbage, frozen jute leaves, peanuts and fufu for his Benin peanut stew. I couldn’t stand the thought of Chobani pineapple yogurt, avocados, oatmeal or anything that had become our food.
So I microwaved frozen battered fish, pizza, mac-n-cheese, fettuccine. I bought donuts and almond and chocolate croissants from a bakery on my corner. Not a fruit or vegetable crossed my lips. No water eased my tension-clamped muscles.
Over the next six months, my body brought the weight back. I still couldn’t exercise. My body went into another mode: I only moved if I had to. Now I could barely lift an arm or a leg. My body needed to restore itself in long hours of deep sleep and in more food.
Nature Does Its Thing
Without a scale to measure, I’d guess I gained about twenty-five pounds on top of my original weight before the scam. Plagued also by raging candida, I was exhausted – this is normal in trauma. I did need sleep. Sleeping a lot is part of recovery.
Hibernating and eating I became two and a half sizes bigger and hated it. My sister-in-law from Europe came to visit and said: you’re not fat… for an American. Good gravy. Time to get back into yoga – which I love. Time to get walking, hiking, riding my bike, eating better and getting healthy – but first by healing in a glass of water.
Heal PTSD in a Glass of Water: Fruits, Veggies, and Roots
To begin the shift from overwhelm and survival mode to healing, I took a tip from my Italian sister-in-law and the habits of those gorgeous Italian women: I started with adding water to my day. Lots and lots of water.
Healing in a Glass of Water: Herbs and Berries
Water-turned-elixir combos that heal PTSD:
Add your favorite combo of tidbits to fresh or sparkling water. I kept pitchers in the fridge and made sure to have plenty of lemons always on hand.
- Add fresh lemon, ginger slivers, turmeric, and cayenne pepper and honey if you like
- Crushed strawberries, fresh lemon juice, and ginger
- Fresh lime juice and lemon juice with apple slices
- Smashed blueberries and fresh lemon juice and ginger
- Pieces of tangerine and fresh lemon juice
- Cucumber slices and fresh mint – or no mint as you prefer with fresh lemon juice
- Sparkling water with cranberry juice
- Fresh squeezed grapefruit juice and sparkling water
- Water, and more water; sparkling or still, just so it’s water within all it’s healing properties
Drinking-Water Brought Other Changes
One thing at a time:
Beginning with adding water to my life, the next things to restore me mentally, physically and physiologically followed naturally.
- I drank water the first thing when I woke up… three glasses along with my coffee
- Took out my juicer and made juice with apple, lemon, greens, and ginger
- Went to a yoga class – twice
- Almost talked my self out of going to yoga – twice
- Drank water before during and after
- Went on two walks and had water before and after
- Played music I love and had forgotten about and danced around my living room
- Drank daily water and fresh lemon as a remedy to kill off the rampaging candida
If you’re wanting to start Juicing, here’s the best juicer out there.
Water is Medicinal and Healing
Many of us might be wanting a drink for breakfast in this most unusual time. Okay, so once in a while, or more often than usual might just happen right now. And then know, water itself is medicinal. Water becomes a tonic by adding fruit, spices, herbs, and even some vegetables.
This elixir of life helps our body in all kinds of miraculous ways: weight loss, cleansing, stress relief, digestion, hydration, warding off infection, viruses, arthritis, cancer, and a host of other human ailments and imbalances.
Drinking water alleviates depression. Gorgeous water lubricates the cells and muscles reducing the effects of stress. A simple glass of water can start blood pressure lowering. Water set me onto healing PTSD… Here’s what one woman did drinking hot lemon water with raw honey. She drank it every morning for one year.
With the stress we’re under a simple change like this might be all we can handle, and yet achieve deep results. We deserve and are worthy of all good things.
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Time to Thrive!
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