Is There Love After PTSD?: Hope, Connection and Freedom to Be Who You Are - Softcover

Woernicki, Aj; Shea, Aly; Lynch, Randy; Wayland, O.B.; Bressan, Laura; O'Hara, Jamie

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798990712317

Publisher: AjW: Love After, 2024

Synopsis

“Raw, honest, and deeply moving—this book hit me in ways I didn’t expect.” ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“Saved my marriage” ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

⭐ Economical B&W Edition ⭐

Is There Love After PTSD? is about telling

• Many of us have never been allowed to tell
• Many of us who told were disbelieved to the edge of madness
• Many of us who tried to tell were disbelieved to the relief of suicide

.. .a telling where We recognize Ourselves for who We are inside and out, and it’s OK.

Is There Love After PTSD? is about Doing
An artful weaving of memoir and love story, it's always asking “If there's Love how do I become part of it? How do I show it without words?

• In The Body Keeps the Score, van der Kolk writes about his patients’ experiences as told to him. In Is There Love After PTSD?, AJ lets you see the inside of Neurodivergence through the individual personal expressions of Growth, of what it’s like to start again with fragile Love.

• In What My Bones Know, Stephanie Foo exposes a hard truth: “you don’t move on from trauma – but you can learn to move with it.” Aj’s next step begins “you can’t think your way out of PTSD by denying its realities.” Then she shows different kinds of Love in action in the stories, songs, and poems that bejewel the text.

• In Supersurvivors, psychologists Feldman & Kravetz define grounded hope as “building one’s choices on a firm understanding of reality.” Always asking “Is there Love and how do we participate in it?” Aj introduces Tedeschi and Calhoun’s concept of Posttraumatic Growth to share the joy of realizing that life is different but can also be incredible.

Is There Love After PTSD? is for Everyone who ever wondered: What’s it like?

• PTSD is not a Forbidden World
• PTSD is not an Unfathomable Mystery
• Healing begins when we rewrite the Stories to expose our own realities
• Healing continues when those realities become "OK" in our own understanding

Trauma is described in the DSM as an “event that is generally outside the range of usual human experience.” In other words, the possibility of connecting one’s lived experience with others’ is close to zero. The power of Story takes us from our aloneness in a world that wants us to be “like we were before,” to a recreated – re-Storied - reality that is comfortable for each of us as individuals. When we write who we are, telling our own stories we become more real in our own individual worlds. PTSD is no longer a mystery; WE are no longer mysteries.

Where von der Kolk discusses his exploration of PTSD from the outside in The Body Keeps the Score, Aj shows you PTSD from the inside: What is it Like? Really Like? To have PTSD and survive and flourish.

Are you lovable? OF COURSE you are!
Aj began her world of PTSD at 18 months. Then, as one of the many children inspired by The Little Engine That Could, her philosophy emerged as one of examining life and devising solutions and adventures. So many trauma sufferers believe they are unlovable; this book demonstrates that that simply is not true.

Love for Is There Love After PTSD?
“… made me feel seen and understood…It’s like having a guide who gently walks beside you…” Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

AJ’s vulnerability and the voices she shares create something real and unforgettable. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“a soulful invitation to witness and embrace the complex, often beautiful process of becoming whole again. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

"a different perspective of how someone deals and heals...It's why the book was so interesting. Most people with PTSD have a hard time just talking about it. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

About this title

About the Author

Aj Woernicki is a lyricist, poet, songwriter and musician who is also someone who has lived with PTSD and ADHD from early childhood. She writes from a position of strength, sharing her observations of the interactions between herself and the non-Neurodivergent. Her story highlights many of the challenges people whose brains have changed due to trauma cope with on a daily basis.

Edition details

• Publisher: AjW: Love After
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798990712317
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Liano Liz
• Number of pages: 142