How I healed myself from CPTSD; however, I could have been suffering from CPTSD and PTSD. Written on December 14, 2024, after Shabbat ended,

This is dedicated to HaShem and everyone who wants to be healed from whatever ails them!

The central theme of The Way of the Warrior is a balance between Mind, Body, and Spirit.

This is dedicated to HaShem and everyone who wants to be healed from whatever ails them!

I began with two simple philosophies: the first I learned in 1991, The Way of the Warrior, and Total Quality Management (TQM), which I learned between 1993 and 1995. I combined these two simple philosophies into one integrated, simple philosophy, which I posted on my blog: A simple philosophy without limits: The Way of the (Anything you want to become). https://yosefmichael.com/2024/06/23/the-way-of-the-anything-you-want-to-become-a-simple-philosophy-without-limits/.

The central theme of TQM is that you continue to improve yourself (or your product if you are into manufacturing).

I will address these simple philosophies and how they relate to healing oneself, which is the focus of this post.

How I became dysfunctional, mentally and emotionally, which led to me being disabled for the last sixteen years and recieving SSDI:

From The Way of the Warrior, we want to achieve balance, and from Total Quality Management, we want to first work on our significant deficits because that is the quickest way to improve and achieve balance. I.e., in my case, I had been more spiritual, more thoughtful, and last in poor physical because of my three surgeries: vein striping on both my legs and fixing my hiatal hernia, my stomach breached my diaphragm because I overworked my abs with weights in the gym and from long-distance running fatigue from not resting enough between long-distance runs. I became unbalanced, which eventually caused me to become disabled.

It should be noted that before, I caused myself to have a hernia because I overworked my body in long-distance running, albeit from running too much without rest between long runs and using the ab machines at my former gym; my mental and emotional health had been elevated from my physical fitness before the injury. However, I began digressing after I injured myself and submitted to having the surgeries on both legs, which were about nine months apart.

After those two surgeries, the vein stripping on both legs caused significant circulation problems. As I look back, I wish I would never have consented to those two unnecessary surgeries because they made the situation worse. I did not know that I had a hiatal hernia until I began having severe gastrointestinal issues. My Primary Care Physician (PCP) sent me to an Ear, nose, and throat doctor (ENT), and he said there were acid burns in the back of my throat. The ENT referred me to the gastroenterologist, who informed me that I was in the top seven worst cases and that the only treatment for me was surgery. This surgery was the most beneficial, and Baruch HaShem was successful; however, since I had not run in more than three years and since the injury was from long-distance running without enough resting in between, I made the worst decision of my life. I decided not to run because I didn’t want to hurt myself again.

I should have decided not to overrun and overwork my abs as I had before. I should have hired a trainer to learn how not to run and increase my ab strength so as not to injure myself again, but I didn’t! Considering the TQM, my biggest problem was that I didn’t consult an expert on how to run without getting hurt instead of not running! I love running, and running was where I practiced mindfulness, although I had not yet heard about what mindfulness was back then.

Now I know that mindfulness is when a person focuses on the simple, not the complex. When I ran, I only focused on my breathing and heart rate. While running, I wasn’t thinking about my problems or even if I forgot to pay a bill or credit card. I focused on breathing because if I was breathing too hard, it meant my heart rate was too high, or if my breathing was too easy, it meant I wasn’t working hard enough, which meant I wasn’t benefiting from the run as much as I could.

After about four years of not running (exercising), I began having significant mental issues. I was hospitalized for depression and diagnosed with Bipolar 1, and I have been hospitalized about eight or nine times. However, I became disabled from the first hospitalization at that time. However, I was hospitalized when I was eighteen and when I was 21, but I overcame those and returned to functionality after a few months of treatment. As I now remember, I got better by stopping the medications they gave me. However, during this last first hospitalization, I became disabled because I continued the medications until about four and five years ago; against the will of my psychiatrist, I stopped all the prescription medications, which caused me to become disabled for the last sixteen years.

Ask yourself how long you have been on medications but still are not cured. Most of the medicines I took had severe, horrible side effects, which made me feel worse than before I started taking the medication. My doctors had insisted that once they found the correct doses for me, I would get better and return to work, but in my case, that never happened. So, I made the decision that to get well, I must stop the medication at all costs. See my blog at: https://yosefmichael.com/2024/12/14/the-cure-was-worse-than-the-disease-written-september-21-2023/. It wasn’t easy, but now I am off those horrible medications and their side effects! However, I had to eventually accept Trazodone, which works as a sleeping pill, because my former sleep aid was drinking alcohol until I passed out. Alcohol negatively affects your sleeping, and that has a terrible effect on a person’s body, which Trazodone doesn’t.

At the time I began writing about that experience, it was a few minutes after I remembered that although my father had caused many situations in my life that caused me mental and emotional anguish, there were some times when he was sober that he had taught me many things that turned me into the courageous man that I am today.

Sure, my life would have been significantly better had he not had alcoholism, but there were some good times that I had forgotten, and I forgave him. Mind you, forgiving someone has more effects on the person forgiving than on the one you forgive. The most important thing is that forgiving someone doesn’t mean you have to let them back into your life! That person may still be unworthy to be around. Forgiving means letting what they did to you go and stop being their victim! Forgiving means you will let HaShem deal with them while you forget what they did to you and move on to better things. Baruch HaShem, we all can heal if we set our mind to healing and do everything necessary; we can and will heal ourselves!

When I remembered those good times, I thought I was cured until recently. It was a breakthrough, but I still had blocked out many memories that I still didn’t remember until this recent healing. Now I can remember everything at will. The best part of that is that, for many years, I was down on myself. I was taking responsibility for his iniquities and condemning myself rather than his actions! He wasn’t an evil person, utterly rotten to the core; he just never overcame his issues and took it out on our family.

I forgave him as a result of my discovering that he was a messed-up individual worse than me, who never learned to cope or rise above his problems, which is a pity because I know he was brilliant and brave. Still, he refused help from psychiatrists and psychologists who could give good advice, but if you could, stay away from their medications except for sleeping pills.

This is how I cured myself using the combined simple philosophies:

I considered Total Quality Management (TQM), which of my rope’s three “cords” (Mind, body, and Soul/Spirit) was the weakest. At that time, I was most muscular with my mind, numb to my emotions, and the worst, I was in the poorest physical health in all my life until a month before I cured myself. For the record in this post, the mind stands for the things you learn, think about, your mental health, etc. The body stands for your physical health, including the foods you eat or drink for good energy, resting from a good night’s sleep, your physical health from exercising, etc. A sluggish body affects your mood and thinking. Soul/Spirit stands for your emotional health and mood, which includes things like your relationship with HaShem, your spouse, and your children, your relationship with your parents or siblings, your relationship with your friends if you have any, and your coworkers and neighbors, etc.

Since my most significant known deficit to me was my physical health, I began taking yoga after one month of stretching at home. I learned many great things about yoga and discovered that all of them are true! However, in my prior physical condition, my body wasn’t ready for yoga, so I began stretching and doing pushups and pull-ups to be strong enough for yoga. Now, I plan three yoga classes per week, except for the last week, because I spent most of my time remembering my past since I now can.

As I examined my memories, I discovered that, despite the many traumatic experiences I had undergone, I had never compromised my values as opposed to what I was worried I may have broken my values. Sure, I did things I am not proud of, but I did those things because the situations caused me to do them to survive! My survival is proof that I never compromised any value with evil intent.

It is crucial to understand that in times of distress, survival is the victory, but there comes a time when we are old enough to get out of our survival mode and start living our lives the way we are meant to live. That means we have to heal from our past experiences, stop focusing on the past troubles and focus on the present, heal ourselves, and plan for the future. We live for now and prepare for the future because now is all we have. The future has not manifested itself yet, so we are unbound to a destiny of misery but to a destiny of what could be.

I have many more things to say about how I healed myself, but it’s getting late, and I want to post this now so people can benefit. I am working on creating a 90-day program for healing from any mental or emotional disease. However, as I have told people, people must evaluate themselves first, work on the worst of their Mind, Body, and Soul/Spirit, and choose the best recovery program for themselves. I am merely planning to offer possibilities for growth, but you have to decide which ones will work the best for you based on your preferences. For example, if you despise running, running is not a good fit for you; perhaps you prefer soccer, baseball/softball, or weightlifting. The point is you have to choose some physical activity that you enjoy so you will be motivated to do it! Same with the mind and body, if you prefer something you enjoy learning or where you want to meet friends, that will work better for you than if you merely mimic what I love.

Baruch Hashem, may you heal and rediscover that you can be your best self and be joyful with life rather than miserable! Be well!

Yosef Michael