The Alchemy of Hope: Healing Post Traumatic Stress and Catastrophic Grief

by Peg Elliott Mayo

Overview

Shades of Sorrow, Visions of Fulfillment

When you’ve drunk the bitter cupful,
you will find a rare jewel at the bottom.
B. A. Elliott

Sorrow is no stranger to anyone’s life. Sorrow is usually associated with loss, grief and uninvited change. It may be tied to a loss of status or role as when a marriage ends or the last child leaves home. Some suffer at the loss of place: a desert lover transplanted to a Northeastern city. Who has not felt emotional pain at the fading of a friendship? We anguish over lost illusions and unrealized hopes.
Catastrophic Grief (CG) is a natural, predictable response to uncontrollable disruption, as when a loved one dies or a frightening illness is diagnosed. The term Catastrophic Grief is coined here to describe the alienating, bewildering, disorienting, anguished response to great loss and great fear. Depression and even despair frequently result, sometimes with lifelong effect.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) manifests in persistently disruptive perceptions and behaviors. It is endemic in modern culture. It results from intrusive events overwhelming the mind-emotion-physical-spirit (MEPS) resources.
Mind's capacity for reason and learning is how we distinguish ourselves from other life forms. Body is where we live, how we recognize ourselves. Emotion is the product of Mind and Body's interaction. Spirit is unprovable and undeniable: it is our essence. Basic to this book's message of hope for the rebirth of pleasure are reconciliation and balance between our elements, our MEBS.
This book is a User’s Manual, written for in-the-trenches therapists as well others wounded by hurtful events. Wounded has special importance. This suffering is not an “infection" nor “genetic.” Something shocking caused harm. Repeated “something’s” deepened the damage. The death of a child and a shattered leg are wounds. So is participating in a wrenching event, being overpowered by malignant forces or being double-bound by competing powers. To be double bound is to be damned if you do and damned if you don’t. A pacifist is faced with great physical threat: does she fight or yield? Does deciding wound her? There’s high probability it will.
The wounded not only suffer from the trauma, but from the loss of the capacity to experience pleasure. Creativity is a victim as are relationships. Identity is altered and energy is depleted. These fundamentally related wounds introduce us to the dark night of the soul. This book is about awakening to the rest of life.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940044764491
Publisher:	Peg Elliott Mayo
Publication date:	08/02/2012
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	294 KB

About the Author

Born March 31st,1929, Easter Sunday on the cusp of April Fools Day in the year the stock market died. So much for karma!
Don, is the tall Shy Guy, spouse, creative force & phenomenal companion.
Three living middle-aged offspring who are neither children nor “mine,” KT, Stan and Peter. When your “baby” is eligible for AARP you search for new descriptors.
Three outstanding grand “children.” Jane and Anna Rose, college students, and Aaron a graphic designer, metal artist, gardener, creative force, all around good sport and friend.
Home is a modest place on the banks of Coast Range Oregon river, 28 miles from “town.” I’m part of a mixed neo/retro hippie, artistic & staggeringly diverse forest community.
Identity at various times: daughter, wife, widow, mother, grieving parent, Aries, failed factory worker, potter, basket maker, sewin’ fool, adequate organically-committed cook/food preserver, clinical social worker specializing in PTSD, loss, relationships & creative expression, hospice volunteer, tree hugging ecoappreciator, party girl, recluse, foolish risktaker, writer, computer graphics-photography neophyte, established writer & storyteller.