328- Book -PTSD therapy & victims of violence (Ochberg) (3)

Multiple Trigger warnings apply to this section of the book

Third blog post for this book corresponds to its second section, entitled The Victim of violent crime. 

In view of its content, I divided my reading and alternated with fiction (currently Sherlock Holmes boxed-set), to avoid triggers, about which I warn you, my readers. 

327- DFSP 8 - PostOp recovery

So, a few days ago, I had my DFSP (Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans) surgery, where my tumour was removed and sent to the lab as a third biopsy, to make sure all cells have been taken out and that there is no need for further operations.

The good news is that this should be the case, with 90% chance that everything was indeed removed. The 10 remaining % do call for caution and vigilance, for which I'll have regular dermatology appointments as well as at-home checkups of the skin and my other moles for any signs of changes that may point to another alarm.

326- DFSP 7 : The surgery

TW : I suggest you don't read this while eating, if you are sensitive like me.
Second TW : if you also suffer from emeto, there is a slight mention of it as I do suffer and it caused a bit of an issue. 

Today has been extra tough, but in varying degrees, much different than I'd anticipated.

Indeed, I managed to get up at 6AM as I had to prepare for my surgery, with a shower, using a special gel the dermatologist (and plastic surgeon, as I came to learn) had prescribed to prepare my skin. This was the second such shower, as the first was yesterday evening, and they both had the purpose of getting rid of as many risks as possible for infection, by being clean.

325- #morethanalabel

My friend Beth created this hashtag #morethanalabel asking us to use it, specifying talents, passions, skills, to express ways in which we are more than our mental illnesses, and thus more than a label, a diagnosis.

324- Psychotherapy 2018-01-22

I'm back from today's psychotherapy session, which was productive, though I didn't get to discuss everything that I wanted - as I lacked the time for it all.

323 - DFSP (6) : Surgery etc

6th chapter of the DFSP (Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans), a form of skin cancer, that was found after 2 biopsies of a "mole" that was for a while suspected as something not so dangerous, called Dermatofibroma, but which turned this rather aggressive form of cancer, that tends to come back at least 50% of the cases, so I must have surgery to reduce recurrence to 10%. 

I explained the diagnosis in post 307. 

322- Book -PTSD therapy & victims of violence (Ochberg) (2)

After the introductory portion of the book, I now pass to section I Ochbert et al.'s book about PTT and victims of violence. Is it titled Principles of post-traumatic therapy (chapters 2-5. P. 21-110). 

P. 21-23 is an introduction to this section : I assume it is written by the book editor, Mr Ochberg.  

321- Blasphemy, 13, 666 etc

image is a montage from public domaine images

This topic shall raise controversy, but the goal of this post is to demystify numbers feared in religions, and to move on into the topics of blasphemy VS religious dogma, and into atheist freedoms. 

The title and image may scare you. The content as well. I hope that you'll read it on, learn and ultimately, understand why I wrote, and then you can choose what to do with the new knowledge. 

My 616th overall post was a photoshoot of my wife in a cemetery, and just like numbers 13 & 616, this current one, 666 is very scary to religious people - well, to some. But, before I tell you why, let me explain the background to this post, which is my overall 666th (counting all my anglophone blogs). 

It is the result of one of my discussions with my wife, whereas the importance of pointing out the path of an atheist breaking away from religions dogma, which rely heavily on fear.

320- Daily Impacts- Phobias

I remind that you that this series is inspired by Jodie's "what it feels like" as seen on her blog.

Moving on in my daily impacts, for this 7th instalment, I now discuss phobias. First, if you want to read which ones I had or still have, read this.

The daily impacts of having phobias tend to be collected into one word, one action that is a common to all phobias, and I believe most sufferers do the same:

Avoidance. 

319- Blue Monday

Today's "blue monday", claimed, as you can read on wiki, to be the most depressing day of the year. You can also see that this is pseudoscience, despite a mathematical formula used to find this day - 15th of January as the most depression and the happiest in the second half of June.

318- Book -PTSD therapy & victims of violence (Ochberg) (1)

In 2016 and 2017, during extensive research about PTSD and CPTSD, I had found this 35 videos by Frank M. Ochberg on youtube. I'd watched several, and thought him rather well spoken and sensible on the topic. I Invite you, my readers, to check these videos if you wish to better understand trauma and post-traumatic stresses, and I now start a new book-reading blog post series for this aforementioned book about PTT and victims of violence, which I'll append with new entries upon each of its sections.

317- End of 2017's exposures

My cbt for social phobia ended at the end of November, but it doesn't mean the end to my exposures! 

In December, I applied everything that I'd learned in therapy, and continued to go the stores at any given moment I was ready, instead of organizing my entire days as I used to (when I still used to avoid rush hours). 

316- Goals for 2018

I hadn't planed to have new year's resolutions or goals for 2018, but it appears that I must do so, and just find a balance between hopes, and realistic goals towards which I can actually work.