<ul><li>People respond to traumatic events in different ways. Often there are no visible signs, but people may have serious emotional reactions.</li><li>Shock and denial are often used to protect yourself from the emotional impact of the event. You may feel numb or detached. You may not feel the event’s full intensity right away.</li><li>Moving past the initial shock usually takes 4–6 weeks from the event. This is seen as the difference between an acute stress reaction (within 4 weeks from the event) or a post-traumatic reaction (usually after 4–6 weeks).</li></ul>

How do people respond to traumatic events?

<ul><li>Once you have moved past the initial shock, responses to a traumatic event may vary.</li></ul>

Moving From Shock To Responding To The Traumatic Event 

<ul><li>Repeated memories of the event or flashbacks</li><li>nightmares</li><li>intense fear that the traumatic event will recur, particularly around anniversaries of the event (or when going back to the scene of the original event)</li><li>withdrawal and isolation from day-to-day activities</li><li>continued avoidance of reminders of the event</li><li>shifts in mood or changes in thought patterns</li><li>denial</li><li>depression that can commonly occur along with traumatic stress</li><li> </li></ul>

Common Responses 1

<ul><li>difficulty concentrating</li><li>altered sleeping or insomnia</li><li>physical symptoms of stress, such as headaches and nausea</li><li>worsening of an existing medical condition</li><li>irritability</li><li>sudden, dramatic mood shifts</li><li>anxiety and nervousness</li><li>anger</li></ul>

Common Responses 

As a counselling social worker, I find that reading more on the things I work with on a daily basis enhances my knowledge base.

Traumatic events can cause physical, emotional, or psychological, harm. Learn how to cope and when you should talk with a professional.

Understand yourself and those around you.

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Psychology

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Health

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Parenting

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Mental Health

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Science & Nature

Traumatic Events

Trauma can be held in the body, leading to physical symptoms years later — such as headaches, jumpiness, chronic pain, and dissociation.

Does Our 

Trauma is not physically held in the muscles or bones — instead, the need to protect oneself from perceived threats is stored in the memory and emotional centers of the brain, such as the hippocampus and amygdala. This activates the body whenever a situation reminds the person of the traumatic event(s).

<ul><li>Feeling easily overwhelmed</li><li>feeling “on edge”</li><li>muscle tension</li><li>chest tightness</li><li>trouble sleeping</li><li>nightmares</li><li>memory issues</li><li>brain fog or trouble focusing</li><li>anxiety and avoidance</li><li>depression</li><li>dissociation</li></ul>

How Trauma May Show Up In The Body

<ul><li>When we have not fully processed an overwhelming experience, our amygdala — the part of our brain that activates the fight, flight, or freeze response — may become overactive.</li><li>This can increase the level of stress hormones in your body, like cortisol, leading to an underlying feeling of being “on edge” much of the time.</li><li>In the case of traumatic stress, when our amygdala is activated, we have limited access to our frontal lobe — the part of our brain that is involved in executive functioning,”</li></ul>

Trauma And The Brain 

<ul><li>Trauma triggers will vary depending on each person.</li><li>Anything reminiscent of your trauma can activate a survival response. </li><li>Even if you don’t remember specific details, your body sure does. The experience gets locked into your body with the associated sights, sounds, and smells.</li></ul>Trauma triggers can include:<ul><li>smells</li><li>sounds</li><li>places or objects</li><li>people or certain characteristics of people</li><li>situations</li><li>emotional states</li></ul>

Trauma Triggers, What Are They?

Trauma has an interesting way of keeping the past “in the now.” Even if you are not consciously thinking about a traumatic event, our brain has evolved in such a way that, when we are exposed to a trigger, our body will instinctually jump into survival mode

Trauma And The Past 

As a counselling social worker, I find myself doing a lot of trauma debriefing so I decided to do some general reading before sleeping tonight. 

Trauma can be stored in the body, leading to physical symptoms years later. We look at how this happens and ways to heal. 

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Mindfulness

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Meditation

How Does Your Body Remember Trauma? Plus 5 Ways to Heal

Personal development is a lifelong process that involves expanding one’s knowledge and improving personal skills. It allows people to assess their skills and qualities, consider their aims in life and set new goals.

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What To Expect 

<ul><li>Basic of Safeguarding Children</li><li>Advanced Parenting Skills</li><li>Safeguarding vulnerable adult</li></ul>The list is endless...

Some Of The Courses 

Free online courses to get you from point A to point B

Discover free online personal development courses and improve your skills in time management and motivation. Enrol now and begin the path to self-improvement.

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Strategy

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Learning & Education

Free Online Personal Development Courses | Alison

Referring a friend is pretty cool as you’ll be earning a plus for life if your friend is actually engaged with games on the Earn App. Concretely, anytime your friend is playing a “Trending Game” (and in a few weeks even any kind of game), you will always receive a % off those points. This does NOT get deducted from your friend, it’s simply something we’re giving you on top of their earnings as a thank you.

Make Money Online by Listening to Music and Many more 

Mode Earn App enables people to earn additional passive income via their daily habits. Earn by listening to music, playing games, sharing your opinion, trying out new products, and more!

Make Money On Earn App

Another for of unconventional therapy? Have you heard of this before and do you think it works? Well this author believes in the power of tarotheraphy

Tarotherap

Traditionally, you go to a tarot reader with a question, they pull the cards and they tell you your fortune. I don’t do that.

Traditional Tarot reading 

The cards themselves, depending on which deck you use, have all of these symbols and archetypes in them. These are things that show up in Disney movies, folk tales, fairy tales — there’s this deep resonance for people.

Tarot Cards Explained 

A lot of what shows up in the cards that just brings something up for you. You might not know what the card means but it’s almost like the Rorschach ink blot test. What are you seeing here? What’s this bringing up for you?

Decoding Tarot reading 

<ul><li>You can use tarot cards to help people understand by showing them images and helping them explore the ways those things are happening in their own lives.</li></ul> That can help people understand themselves in a new way, which is therapeutic, and understand how they make the decisions that they make and why they’re behaving the way they are. What is driven by avoidance or anxiety?

Use Of Tarot Cards 

Tarot cards are pieces of paper with images on them to some people. To others, they have deeply spiritual meanings. And to some, they’re pieces of paper with images on them that you can use to better understand yourself.

Views On Tarot Cards 

What are tarot card meanings? Jessica Dore is a social worker who uses tarot cards to talk about mental health.

religionandspirituality

Religion & Spirituality

Tarot therapy? Why some believe the cards can help mental health

There are different types of drugs in South Africa . These drugs have different effect on users. For instance, while other drugs give the users energy, others make them less energic. They are classified as Uppers, Downers and Hallucinogens

Types Of Drugs : South Africa

<ul><li>Uppers are designed to make you feel great. They make you feel alive, dynamic, and energized.</li><li>Depending on your personal response to the drug, you could, however, also feel anxious, nervous and paranoid. You could even die.</li><li>Uppers put a terrible strain on the heart. Long-term use destroys your nerves, takes away your appetite and causes sleeplessness.</li><li>You will end up taking a downer as your body suffers withdrawal symptoms when the drug wears off.</li><li>You will feel depressed and, sometimes, suicidal. and causes sleeplessness.</li></ul>

UPPERS (Cocaine, Ecstasy, Speed, Crack-Cocaine, Tik) 

<ul><li>Downers make you feel relaxed or laid back.</li><li>Unfortunately, you cannot control just how relaxed you will be.</li><li>Long-term use of downers causes lethargy and makes it harder for you to do the things you need to do as a functional member of society.</li><li>Schoolchildren and students who use these drugs find it hard to study or complete assignments, and relationships inevitably suffer.</li><li>Too much of a powerful downer like heroin, causes the systems of the body to shut down, eventually leading to death.</li></ul>

DOWNERS (Dagga, Heroin, Mandrax)

<ul><li>These drugs cause powerful hallucinations or dreams in which your reality is changed.</li><li>You cannot predict whether the dream will be enjoyable or be a hideous nightmare.</li><li>A bad dream can haunt you for the rest of your life, with flashbacks occurring at any time.</li></ul>

HALLUCINOGENS (LSD, mescaline)

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DIFFERENT DRUGS CAUSE DIFFERENT FEELINGS AND PHYSICAL RESPONSES<ul><li>Drugs such as dagga, heroin, Ecstasy, Mandrax, tik and cocaine are illegal.</li><li>You could experience a very pleasant response to one drug, yet another drug could have a very frightening reaction B it could even kill you.</li><li>The illicit drug industry is profit-driven. Therefore, drug dealers use a variety of substances to cut drugs.Some of these substances may be more harmful than the drug itself.</li></ul>

Drugs facts1: South Africa

<ul><li>The drug you are offered tomorrow may look the same as the drug you were offered yesterday, but you can never be certain of what it contains.</li><li>The only way to be sure that you do not ingest it is to avoid taking drugs in the first place!</li><li>Drugs can be swallowed (pills), smoked, inhaled or injected.</li></ul>You can never anticipate the effect that drugs will have on you.

Drugs facts1... Continued 

It is a mistake to think that experience increases your tolerance levels or that nothing will happen to you if you take a drug that you have used before.<ul><li>It is a well-known fact that seasoned drug addicts often die of an overdose.</li><li>Drug addiction seduces you into wanting more and different and stronger drugs, against your will and the natural tolerance of your body.</li></ul>

No matter how good you may feel when using drugs, your body suffers. Drugs are dangerous.f you take drugs, you are at great risk of becoming addicted.

Conclusion

Drug Awareness is an early intervention... The more awareness you have the better the changes of you making an informed decision. 

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Personal Development

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Habits

Drug Awareness | Be Alert | SAPS (South African Police Service)

<ul><li>Lack interest in things you used to love</li><li>Change your friends a lot</li><li>Stop taking care of yourself</li><li>Spend more time alone than you used to</li><li>Eat more or less than normal</li><li>Sleep at odd hours</li><li>Have problems at work or with family</li><li>Switch quickly from feeling good and bad</li><li>Crave or strongly desire to use the substance</li></ul>

Signs of a Substance Abuse Problem

It’s not just about illegal drugs. Using pain meds, alcohol, and other legal substances the wrong way can also harm your health.   

Substance Abuse: Know the Signs

Substance abuse isn't something you should take lightly. It occurs when you use alcohol, prescription medicine, and other legal and illegal substances too much or in the wrong way.

Substance Abuse

Substance abuse differs from addiction. Many people with substance abuse problems are able to quit or can change their unhealthy behavior. Addiction, on the other hand, is a disease. It means you can’t stop using even when your condition causes you harm.

Substance Abuse Vs Addiction

<ol><li>Alcohol</li><li>Prescription and Over-The-Counter (OTC) Medicine</li><li>Heroin</li><li>Cocaine</li><li>Marijuana</li><li>Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products</li></ol>

Commonly Abuse Drugs

Substance Abuse is one of the common social issues that require a great level of awareness as many young people find themselves using substances to repress themselves. 

food

Food

<a href="https://reedsy.com/editing/copy-editing" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Copy editing </a>and <a href="https://reedsy.com/editing/proofreading" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">proofreading </a>are two distinctly different jobs with the same goal: making a piece of writing as readable and error-free as possible. The difference between the two jobs is pretty simple: a copy editor will improve and correct what the author writes, while the proofreader makes sure the copy editor didn’t miss anything. In other words, one always comes after the other.&nbsp;

The Difference between copy editing and proofreading.

Copy editing ensures that a piece of writing is ‘correct.’ Most people will understand this to mean fixing spelling mistakes and correcting grammar issues, but this will usually go a lot further in professional publishing.

What is copy editing?

In traditional publishing, the proofreading stage comes directly before the book goes to print. After the copy has been edited, a <a href="https://reedsy.com/design/book-layout-design">designer </a>or <a href="https://blog.reedsy.com/what-is-typesetting/">typesetter </a>will create a file to send to the printers. Before they commit to printing 20,000 hard copies, they will create what’s called a ‘galley proof’— a test version of the book. A final digital version will also be evaluated for <a href="https://blog.reedsy.com/guide/ebook/how-to-publish-an-ebook/">ebooks about to be published </a>.

What is proofreading?

The proofreader will then meticulously comb through the proof to see if the copy editor has missed anything or if the designer has accidentally introduced a mistake into the final file. In addition to typos, these mistakes may include:<ul><li>Incorrect numbering of pages;</li><li>Inaccurate index;</li><li>Misaligned text;</li><li>Additional (or missing) spaces between words;</li><li>Incorrect paragraphing.</li></ul>A proofreader’s list of responsibilities is often broader than what we’ve laid out above. For example, with non-fiction or journalistic writing, they might also fact-check the manuscript.

What does aproofreader do?

As a copy editor will be focusing on the individual sentences and paragraphs of your manuscript, you’ll first want to make sure you’re satisfied with your book’s structure. If there’s a chance you’ll cut out chapters, add new ones in, or tinker with certain passages — don’t get a copy editor yet! You’ll either have to get another copy edit later or pay a professional to edit something that won’t make it into the final book.

Copy edit  after  your structure is finalized

Professional proofreaders are there to catch the author and copy editor’s mistakes. Some copyeditors also offer proofreading services, but it’s often best to get a fresh pair of eyes for that task. If a copyeditor misses a mistake the first time around (no editor is 100% infallible), there’s every chance they’ll miss it during the proofread. If you can, hire a separate copy editor and proofreader.

Get a separate proofreader after the copy edit

Two types of editors, both alike in dignity. Find out the differences between a copy editor and a proofreader.

Traumatic Events

How Does Your Body Remember Trauma? Plus 5 Ways to Heal

Free Online Personal Development Courses | Alison

Make Money On Earn App

Tarot therapy? Why some believe the cards can help mental health

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Drug Awareness | Be Alert | SAPS (South African Police Service)

Substance Abuse: Know the Signs

Substance Abuse: Know the Signs

Copy Editing vs Proofreading: What’s the Difference and Which Do You Need?

Tshegofatso Oshyn