Re: Nutritional Treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Your experiences and healing journey are commendable yet it is your personal journey and not all journeys are the same.  Nutrition alone will not heal PTSD.  I do agree with your assessment of medications.  Before the introduction of SSRI meds I was given a 10 pill prescription for 5 grain (a low dose) Valium and discovered that it made the world go away much better than martinis - without the hangover.  After taking the first one in the morning and ruining my whole day I used them recreationally in the evening and once they were gone I swore I'd never again take a mood altering drug, and I haven't.  The Valium was long before my PTSD showed its face.

Shortly after my PTSD erupted full force by re-experiencing my childhood abuse along with the ability to only sleep in 20 and 30 minute stretches due to horrible nightmares, I took a three day seminar at Esalen with Edith Eger who is an Auschwitz survivor.  

On her arrival at Auschwitz, Edith's father was separated from her and sent to another camp and she never saw him again.  Her mother was taken directly to the ovens and she knew that same day that her mother was going up in the smoke that was emanating from them.  Edith spent a year in that concentration camp where she was permanently crippled by a German soldier who hit her in the back with the butt of his rifle.  She obviously did not have an easy time.

After the war Edith married another Holocaust survivor and immigrated to the United States where she raised a family.  At age 40 she began college for the first time in her life at the University of Texas where she received a PhD in psychology and she had been practicing her profession for thirty years by the time she taught the seminar.

The seminar had only 5 or 6 attendees so there was a great deal of time to ask questions and to get to know Edith.  Her own healing journey was one of self assessment and didn't involve drugs or nutrition.  She took responsibility for everything that happened to her in her life, including her Auschwitz experience.  By that I me she recognized that she had personally created everything that had happened to her and then through her inward journey learned why she had created that experience.  Although I didn't know her beliefs before the seminar, it was something that I also believed (still do) for myself so I greatly appreciated her view of healing and growth.  Edith was about 16 at the time of her incarceration and had trained as a ballet dancer for several years.  When Dr. Mengele (infamously known as the doctor of death) learned of her dancing ability he asked her to perform for him, and here is a quote from Edith recalling her experience while dancing:

"Edie said as she continued to dance, "Dr. Mengele discussed with the guards who should die next. I prayed. Not for myself, but for Dr. Mengele, so he would not have to kill me. It was then that I began to pity the Nazis; they were more imprisoned than I. Somehow I would survive, but they would always have to live with what they had done."

Edith told how she had had to forgive Hitler, the guard who crippled her, and all of the Germans in the concentration camp as a part of her healing journey.

I believe very much the same way that Edith does, that we create our own reality and that we have to take responsibility for everything that has happened in our lives and forgive everyone else while at the same time forgiving ourselves for our creations.  That is my core belief and I use meditation to do just that and meditation and nothing else cured my PTSD.  By the way, I was on the front lines in combat in Korea and I'm an air disaster survivor in which another person was killed.  Yes, I've had to deal with those experiences as well using my meditation.  I'd like to also add that my PTSD erupted in full bloom within a week of  the love of my life leaving me.  I discovered that life experiences can do that.  Today there are no triggers of any kind that can rekindle either my PTSD or military experiences.

I'd like to point out one last thing.  My PTSD was from childhood experiences - within my family.  During childhood one has to rationalize the world about them, and that's what I and many others do with pain.  It is that rationalization and denial that creates the setting for PTSD, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and many other ills - and it has nothing to do with nutrition.  One of Edith's many little sayings was "If you repress you will depress" and I found that to be true.  You have to experience all of your emotions from anger and hate to joy and enthusiasm in order to experience life pain free.  That doesn't mean trouble free, it just means pain free.

You can learn about Edith Eger and her experiences here: http://www.heroicjourney.com/pages/about/edieeger.htm