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This is not an examination that focuses facts, but a
tool to organize your memories.
•
Remember it is key not to just remember what you
did, but the feelings and thoughts you had back
then.
•
It is normal to feel bad, but that must not stop
you from feeling, you need to make those feelings
bearable to you.
•
Although at first, you will probably be scared by the
intensity of the emotions that you feel, as you read,
hear or talk about what happened, you will see how
your emotions become more tolerable. Therefore,
it is important to do this exercise as many times as
necessary. You will see how it becomes less diffi-
cult to think or talk about it.
•
There are several ways you can carry out this exer-
cise. All of them are valid. Choose the one that
makes you feel less uncomfortable: write the story
as if it were a diary; record it all at once or gradua-
lly and then listen to it, or tell it to a person close
to you.
Confronting feared situations
Patiently and slowly you will need to address the si-
tuations that make you feel anxious or cause dis-
comfort to regain some normalcy. In time, you will
be able to travel by train again, and enjoy reading
on your way to work. You will also be able to talk
about what happened with others. However, this
takes time and effort, and you may have to endure
a certain degree of discomfort until you get used to
it. Try to confront these difficult situations gradually,
beginning with those that will generate less stress
and getting used to them first. You can do this with
the support of others, using breathing patterns, and
everything we've seen about maintaining a positive
self-dialog. But do not fool yourself, you will quite
likely have to go through a high level of discomfort
that will only decrease by hanging in there, resisting
and assimilating it, until our body relearns that one
can be in these situations without assessing them as
threatening, and stops feeling bad about them.
This is not about running away from these situa-
tions, drinking alcohol or using drugs to be able to
endure the pain. This is about the fact that everyone
is entitled to recovering the possibility of boarding a
train, going out at night relaxed, going to a concert,
walking through a town, traveling with a backpack,
or separating from your family without thinking that
they will die. Some people need psychological help
for coping with such situations successfully.
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