Do you know if you have PTSD?
Most people do not know they have PTSD or Complex PTSD (CPTSD). The statistics are that 60%, maybe more, will suffer from PTSD sometime during their lifetime. I treat people who have all sorts of amazingly uncomfortable symptoms that are part of complex PTSD but may not fit under the DSM-V description. As a result, they have trouble describing their symptoms and feelings to health practitioners and fail to get help - despite every effort.
Every part of my practice was designed around my clients' experiences, down to the timing of the sessions, the session tools, and all the techniques used. This website was designed around what my clients have said they experienced, so you can decide if this describes something you might be experiencing or something someone close to you is experiencing and get help.
During the COVID-19 epidemic, people are particularly susceptible to the development of Acute Trauma Response and PTSD, and other anxiety-related disorders (when you are stressed as a result of lack of control, you may find you need some extra help. Please feel free to reach out by emailing, calling, or texting.
Want to book a free 20-minute phone consultation? Click here to contact me.
What is PTSD?
PTSD stands for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD is the group of symptoms that result from an individual experiencing at least 1 trauma. The trauma can be a single occurrence or an ongoing trauma over a period of time, and the person may not be aware of the trauma as in the case of Complex PTSD. You can suffer PTSD from hearing about someone else's trauma.
% experience trauma
Most people aren't even aware that they have PTSD and chalk it up to some anxiety and a little bit of depression or anger. They are unaware that their symptoms are not part of healthy psychological human functioning.
Many think PTSD is only suffered by first responders and military personnel. Anyone can have PTSD, and 60% of people worldwide are estimated to develop it sometime in their lifetime.
More troubling is that the people who should be diagnosing PTSD are missing many sufferers due to the inadequacy of the diagnostic tool (the DSM-V), which does not provide an adequate description with which to match a sufferer's description of issues.
This site was designed to teach you about PTSD so you can identify if you might be
% get PTSD
suffering from PTSD... because no one, no one should suffer, especially if you don't have to.
A person could be at risk for having PTSD and not realize it, which makes it very important to understand the conditions and symptoms of trauma.
For example, a person could have a trauma before the age of 12 and develop PTSD and not realize it.
Childhood trauma could result from the child’s own experience of trauma or witnessing the traumatic experience of a caregiver, or trauma could have taken place in utero. Because the original traumatic experience could happen before the first 2 years of life, they could have little or no narrative and only a feeling or tactile component of the trauma.
% experience anxiety
Significant childhood trauma that occurs before the age 3 in just about everyone could prime many of us to have PTSD. Most of the time, these traumatic experiences are forgotten consciously but still affect our lives tremendously.
Adults continually freezing, submitting, or being "people-pleasers" in both stressful and their regular way of being may signal that there has been a significant childhood trauma.
These adults will not defend themselves by leaving the situation (flight) or being assertive and defending themselves (fight). Many times, they are labeled as doormats, taken advantage of, or seem to attract trouble to themselves. They also will not ask for help and do not understand how others accomplish tasks.
% experience family violence
A submission response can be seen as allowing others to go first, asking what everyone else thinks before acting and then acting according to another's beliefs (even when that person is not an authority), giving up opposition or deferring to someone else’s opinion rather than their own conscious belief.
A childhood trauma before the age of 3 years doesn’t have to be experienced or witnessed physical, sexual, or verbal abuse. It can be as simple as being adopted, a mother having stress while pregnant, the mother having postpartum depression or stress after the birth, birth trauma, having too much or too little stimulation, being breastfed by someone other than a parent, or being left to "cry it out."
Because our brains continue developing until we are about 26 years old, it is easy for us to have childhood trauma which stops a crucial part of our brain's development.
Clients with relief
Childhood trauma alone leads to connection and belonging issues with all people in every area of life and causes relationship breakdown, anxiety, and depression. As a result of this trauma, certain areas of the brain may lag in development resulting in learning difficulties and an inability to focus on learning tasks. It also puts people at risk for developing PTSD if they are exposed to subsequent trauma after the initial childhood trauma (like, for instance, bullying) and can cause depression and anxiety their entire life through.
PTSD Symptoms
- I have unexplained panic attacks
- no one knows what this is
- I'm constantly submitting to others
- I have bad dreams
- I have anxiety all the time
- I don't fit in
- my body feels heavy
- I keep having flashbacks
- I feel down
- I'm always under a black cloud
- I never argue for my point of view
- I feel lost
- I feel disconnected
- I feel overwhelmed
- Stuff just doesn't make sense
- Something is just not right
- I don't know how I got here
- I've been struggling for years
- I feel like I'm not living up to my potential
- I've tried everything
- I can't get these thoughts out of my head
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therapists and clinic
Tracy Joy
I started out as a business consultant that worked for corporations to make people happy at work.
In starting my practice as a clinical counsellor (previously, I was only a Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Practitioner) several years ago, I found that the people attracted to this work seemed to have indescribable experiences. They had roller coaster-like symptoms which oscillated from severe overload to severe lack of stimulation that included aspects of anxiety, anger, and depression. They suffered from rape, and sexual, mental, physical, and/or verbal abuse. Some had been involved in the military or as first responders. While others were ordinary people living ordinary lives, just suffering from severe and debilitating stress responses. It made them act brazen when they needed to be cautious. It would make them have nightmares, flashbacks, phantom tactile experiences, or auditory hallucinations.
About 4 years after starting to work with these individuals, I was confident that they were mostly experiencing something now called Complex PTSD. And what most people don't know is that these techniques are what enabled me to adjust my practice to them and also to heal my own Complex PTSD.
I was urged by several of my clients to specialize in PTSD, and the PTSD Clinic was born. It has been my pleasure to serve my clients for the past 12+ years, and it has been an immensely healing process to work with them to find out what works for them.
Tuna Joy
Tuna's story starts with being left in a park in Burlington, Washington. Tuna spent a considerable amount of time in the Skagit Valley Humane Society. When we adopted him, he spent most of his time being held over my shoulder like a baby. Since then, we discovered he identifies more as a cat than a dog. Our dog washes his face like a cat, climbs, purrs, meows, grooms himself, scratches and marks carpet with his face, and learns very quickly. Tuna's job is to distract clients from intense emotions and to provide comfort as the session progresses. When he warms up to a client, he will be found on the client's lap, demanding they pet him. Just the act of a client doing something contrary - like stimulating opiate release in their brain by petting an animal while experiencing and discussing the pain - will change how their brain will experience their pain in the future.
therapists
My educational background includes Bachelors degrees in Biology and Psychology, and a Masters Degree in business (MBA) in executive management specializing in Leadership. I have a Master Practitioner certificate in NLP from NLP Marin, Marin County, California, a Registered Profesional Counselling (RPC) designation, and a Master Professional Clinical Counsellor (MPCC) designation from the Canadian Association of Professional Counselling; I am a registered member of the Canadian College of the Clinical Psychotherapists and Counsellors (CCPCP-R). I have completed the equivalent education of a Master's degree in Counselling and am currently a Psychological Graduate Student (Obtaining a Doctorate in Psychology) at California Southern University.
about the PTSD Clinic
The PTSD Clinic is a boutique psychotherapy clinic owned and operated by me, Tracy Joy, RPC, MPCC, CCPCP-R. I work mainly with people at risk for PTSD and who suffer from PTSD, any form of anxiety, and/or depressive emotional crisis. Designed around client needs, unconventional sessions of 203 hours and 8-16 hours in length, both online and face-to-face, are offered to provide immediate, drug-free, and lasting results. My main goal is to have my clients enjoy and thrive in their lives. The main promise made to my clients is: I will be there for you to support you through any of the hard stuff. My clients tend to experience relief from their symptoms within a week to 10 days of the initial session. Feel free to contact me (Tracy) for more information.
contact info
or through email:fee schedule and insurance
If you have extended medical insurance coverage, please check that your insurance provider covers "clinical counselling." If you need a pre-approval form for your insurance company, please contact me directly with your full legal name.
If you’re not sure this is for you or can make it through such long session lengths, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I offer free, 20-minute consultations so that you can talk with me and see how I can be of help.
If you have extended medical insurance coverage in Canada, please check that your insurance provider covers "clinical counselling." I am not permitted to have a conversation with your insurance carrier for you due to privacy concerns. If you need a pre-approval form for your insurance company, please contact me directly with your full legal name.
In the United States of America, psychotherapy can be paid for through your HSA (Health Savings Account). If you have a plan that will reimburse for an out-of-network provider, your plan will most likely cover my service, but you may need pre-approval. If you need a pre-approval form for your insurance company, please contact me directly with your full legal name.
