PTSD and guilt

[Dale Moss]

The other day Kim Kardashian was robbed in Paris by men posing as police officers. In yesterday’s news reports, she was terrified by the experience; in today’s she’s starting to wonder what role she may have played in her own burglary – in other words, she’s blaming herself. Yesterday, I saw a patient who’d recently been abducted by a knife-wielding neighbor and terrorized in her own car until she was able to flee into the arms of the police (almost literally). Sitting in my office, she began to raise the issue of her own culpability, as if she had any choice other than to obey the man with the weapon! Thirdly, I’m currently reading James Hannaham’s powerful novel Delicious Foods, which deals with a woman whose life tailspins out of control after the death of her husband. Does she blame the racist thugs who murdered him? No, she blames herself for having a migraine that sent her husband out into the night in search of Tylenol. As if the murder of a Negro man trying to organize the black vote years ago wasn’t predestined in the state of Louisiana.

As a homeopath, I know how to deal with the PTSD these horrific experiences engender. What I don’t understand, at least not at this point, is how to deal with the guilt that accompanies the PTSD. This tendency to self-blame is seen all the time in victims of domestic abuse, and it’s one of the most powerful factors preventing these victims from seeking redress. As I talked with my patient, I could see its influence creeping into her struggle over whether or not to press charges against her kidnapper. A family member he’d badly beaten had already dropped charges or refused to press them, so the man was out on the streets – and as much a threat as ever to those in his vicinity.

“If you feel guilty now,” I told my patient, “think of how bad you’ll feel if he hurts someone else while he’s at large.”

To me it’s a no-brainer: my patient needs to press charges – for her own safety and that of others in the community, but also as a means of reclaiming the power and sense of control she lost when she became a victim.

The question I'm raising here is how best to support my patient if the guilt component persists. No rubrics seem quite on point for this particular issue.
Peace,

Dale

[Tanya Marquette]

have you looked at Guilty, Reproaches oneself?
there are many remedies listed

and there is Anxiety of conscience
or Delusions wrong-done

one of my thoughts about the woman's case described in Hannaham's book is how out of control one feels with such a traumatic and dramatic experience. what self-blame does is provide something that a person can hang their hat on. So I would also look at Out of Control remedies and Fear of the Unknown, or something similar.

t

[Dale Moss]

I've looked at those rubrics, and on reflection Reproaches oneself seems most apposite. Interestingly, Aconite is there in Grade 3. That's the remedy my patient needed. Perhaps the tendency to self-blame is an inherent part of the traumatic experience.
Another remedy with the same grade is Ignatia, which makes a lot of sense in the case of the woman in the novel. Shock, then paralysis is characteristic of the Loganiaceae; also characteristic of how many people react during an experience of trauma.
Peace,
Dale

[Tanya Marquette]

I thought about Aconite myself. There is something about witnessing death or having it visited upon you suddenly that is the Aconite state. Remember after 9-11, Aconite was one of the main remedies needed and you had the specter of death close by as well as self-recriminations for surviving that ordeal.

I have someone in my life who has a major issue with seeing death, even in insects. She is just short of hysterical at the idea of eating meat due to the killing/slaughter of animals.

I don't know if it is part of the trauma experience, but am thinking really hard about the idea of losing control and self-blame is something close enough that you can work on it. Traumatic experiences, by definition, are things out of your control in a very severe way. And the fear of death is clearly part of this type of trauma.
t