Prompts for Journaling

[Kizzie]

Sometimes it can be hard to get going on journaling so I've included some prompts I came across online that may be useful to help you get writing.  The idea is to take one or two at a time.

1. My greatest fear as a child was...

2. My childhood home felt...

3. When I was sad, my mother would...

4. When my mother was angry, she would...

5. My father made me feel...

6. The thing I wish my family understood is...

7. The first time I remember feeling shame was when...

8. The person I needed to love me the most was...

9. I felt unloved by...

10. I felt love by...

11. I hated it when...

12. I am still angry about...

13. It's not my fault that...

14.  I need to forgive myself for ...

15.  I am triggered by ...

16. When I am triggered I feel...

17  I can better cope when I am triggered by ...

18.  My greatest fear as a child was...

19. My greatest fear as a teenager was...

20. My greatest fear as a young adult was...

21. My greatest fear now is ...

22. I can show myself more kindness, understanding, and compassion by ...

23. The ways in which In what ways my trauma impacts my current behaviors and thought processes are ...

24.  The ways in which my trauma makes me weaker/stronger are ...

Link - https://allthatwonder.com/journal-prompts-for-childhood-trauma-recovery/

[Kizzie]

Other prompt sites:

30+ Journal Prompts For Trauma Healing: Write To Heal From Trauma - https://www.calmsage.com/journal-prompts-for-trauma-healing/

7 Writing Prompts for Processing Trauma - https://survivingchildhoodtrauma.com/2020/05/11/7-writing-prompts-for-processing-trauma/

17 Trauma Journal Prompts To Support Your Healing - https://ineffableliving.com/trauma-journal-prompts/

45 JOURNAL PROMPTS TO LEARN FROM PAST TRAUMA  - https://www.adventuringwithposeidon.com/blog/journal-prompts-learn-from-past-trauma

48 Journal Prompts to Address Childhood Trauma - https://www.adornedheart.com/journal-prompts-from-your-childhood-to-address-childhood-trauma/

There are lots more sites out there so Google away!

[Bach]

Kizzie, thank you for this thread.  I really want to try to do more journalling, and I will be referring to it. 

[Kizzie]

Excellent! They do really make you think or they did me at least.

[Blueberry]

They make me think in a slightly different way actually. I've wondered off and on for a while whether it's useful or sensible to write this. But here goes. Some of them seem to me to be suggesting I could (or should) just jump into some traumatic memories without doing all the preparation that in my country is deemed to be a really important part of healing. Stabilisation, stabilisation, stabilisation, have a peek at something, close it down, stabilisation, stabilisation, stabilisation, have a peek at something, work on it in T, stabilisation... ad nauseam.

For many of these prompts I would have either heard the Internal Scream or dissociated or if forced thru them e.g. by bad Ts, bad things would have happened or in fact did. Idk to what extent OSDD plays a role or an additional role.

In the trauma inpatient place I was in last year and even the one from a number of years back, we were discouraged to the point of it being a ban to tell each other what happened. Of course I have written some of my trauma history on here, but lets just say, writing (or any form of expression) doesn't necessarily heal and it seems it can lead to re-traumatising oneself if there isn't enough stability. At least that's some of the ideas and thoughts on healing from cptsd in Germany. That all seems to have been pretty true in my case. Again, Idk how much OSDD plays a role. I also don't know how much the fairly good availability of paid therapy plays a role! Yes, there is waiting time here and not enough trauma-informed Ts or no t-i Ts in more rural areas, but a lot more provided than obviously the case in many countries.

Journaling on topics like 3 Good Things a Day, Joy, I Achieved, Progress etc are probably mostly a different kettle of fish because they're not delving into the past but are instead practising resilience.

So maybe just a different perspective or something for people to consider if they find journaling difficult? Or find journaling difficult in some phases? I am in no way suggesting that anybody shouldn't journal since ime everybody's cptsd (symptoms, recovery, reactions ...) is a little different anyway. 

[Kizzie]

Maybe we could use some thoughts about what stabilization looks like BB (and possibly some prompts about how we can achieve stabilization)?

[Blueberry]

Stabilisation in no particular order:  resiliency  - discovering what you do already to be resilient, what can you add or further develop. That kind of journey/development is something you could also journal about.

safety irl - not being in contact with past or present abusers, having a physically and emotionally safe space

grounding - learning how to ground self and stay grounded. There are exercises you can do in the minute like pushing up against a wall to stop dissociating but also physical activity that you regularily do just to stay in your body. Some  mindfulness exercises help with grounding too

Some of what we tend to learn over here to stabilise is possibly covered in CBT which I gather is not very popular... - some of that could be imagination exercises, eg Inner Safe Place, Bank Vault, Helpers for Inner Children, but also things like getting all physical senses involved and practising that e.g. go for a walk in the park and concentrate on what you can hear or look to see if there's any purple or circular objects... Mindfulness.

creativity / artistic expression

Some of the prompts for journaling on those lists point in this kind of direction e.g.: What are things, people or places that make you feel safe? Or Do you have any self-care activities in place? or as I wrote above things like: 3 Good Things a Day, Joy, I Achieved, Progress

I hope this helps.

[Kizzie]

I get it BB and it's an excellent idea to have prompts that focus on this.  Do you want to maybe write some more prompts and we can include them as stabilization/safety prompts in a separate thread?  You can send them to me or start a thread and explain what is stabilization if you'd like. I'm good either way 

[DD]

I also have OSDD and I got to the third prompt before I had to emotionally run far far away. But still I am glad they are there. But I need to step lightly. And I really like the stabilising ones by Blueberry. Thank you for those

[Blueberry]

I get it BB and it's an excellent idea to have prompts that focus on this.  Do you want to maybe write some more prompts and we can include them as stabilization/safety prompts in a separate thread?  You can send them to me or start a thread and explain what is stabilization if you'd like. I'm good either way 

Almost 2 months later... I'm pretty sure this isn't going to get done before my next inpatient stay. 

[Blueberry]

I also have OSDD and I got to the third prompt before I had to emotionally run far far away. But still I am glad they are there. But I need to step lightly. And I really like the stabilising ones by Blueberry. Thank you for those

Thank you for validating

[Kizzie]

There's no rush BB, it's enough that you have delineated some categories for prompts for now.    If I have time I can work on this too.

[Blueberry]

Needless to say, I didn't get any further with these prompts.

However, on the subject of resiliency as part of stabilisation (https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=15081.msg129314#msg129314,) I've just read through all my own posts here: https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?board=51.0 as well as everybody's comments on my posts, and some posts from other mbrs. It did me a whole lot of good! Although it's not journaling per se, it's the focus on the positive of success in healing that has been really good for me rn. It isn't positive thoughts and all that kind of stuff that might be forced on us by non-trauma-informed people, it's really progress that I saw all the times I wrote (or that other mbrs saw when they wrote).

Everybody's different, everybody's healing paths are different, but I still sometimes think there might not be enough focus on the good we manage. MOO obviously. Huge MOO.

Maybe this is posted on the wrong thread. If so, feel free to move it somewhere more appropriate, Kizzie.

[Kizzie]

I think your post works here BB because it is about seeing yourself and what's helped/not helped over time. Recovery can be so slow that we don't realize how much further along we are so always good to have a living record of that to look at. 

[Tempest]

This page has been very helpful. Thank you all.