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My Dark Nights of the Soul

By on May 4, 2017
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By Crystal Andrus Morissette

The manuscript of my newest book, On the Edge, had been written for well over a year, sitting on a shelf in my office, collecting dust. It was my life’s story but I was too fearful to publish it.

What will people think of me?

What will my mother do?

Will she destroy me?

Can she hurt me any worse than she already has?

Or will telling my story help others?

I know that writing it saved my life. Literally.

When I first shared it with the Professor of Coaching at the S.W.A.T Institute (Simply Woman Accredited Trainer), Izabela Viskapova, she had a very challenging time reading it, she told me.

Too raw. Too real. Too painful. She could barely get through it.

Would people really want to read this, she wondered?

I wasn’t sure, I told her. I just knew that I had to write it. In fact, I couldn’t not write it. But her reaction to the book scared me.

Was my life really ‘that’ bad?

Once Izabela realized I was serious about publishing my memoir, she got serious, too. Izabela is a brilliant researcher, who has a Master’s degree in both law and psychology.

“Crystal, do you realize you have what psychologists have recently diagnosed as ‘Complex PTSD’? You have experienced trauma like no one I’ve ever met.”

Dr. Judith Herman of Harvard University suggests that a new diagnosis, Complex PTSD, is needed to describe the symptoms of long-term trauma. Another name sometimes used to describe the cluster of symptoms referred to as Complex PTSD is Disorders of Extreme Stress Not Otherwise Specified (DESNOS).

Complex PTSD is characterized as “Many traumatic events (e.g., car accidents, natural disasters, etc.) of time-limited duration. However, in some cases, people experience chronic trauma that continues or repeats for months or years at a time. The current PTSD diagnosis often does not fully capture the severe psychological harm that occurs with prolonged, repeated trauma.”

Wow…for the first time in my life, I understood how and why my brain had been responding to stress in a particular way: to protect me. The trouble was my own ‘protective coping mechanisms’ had begun imploding on me.

I had this extraordinary life…. and yet, the Dark Nights of the Soul were taking over. I had moments of complete and utter sorrow that I could no longer shake off.

I had to write.

It was all I knew to do.

To continue reading click here: http://www.swatinstitute.com/my-dark-nights-of-the-soul/

Thank you for the love and support!

Warmly,
Crystal

XOX

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perfectCrystal Andrus Morissette is a best-selling author and the founder of this magazine, SimplyWoman.com, as well as The S.W.A.T. Institute (Simply Woman Accredited Trainer)–an Empowerment Coach Certification school, exclusively for women.

From life as a homeless teen to coaching A-List celebrities, from having abs of steel and the Miss Galaxy to weighing over 200 pounds after having babies, Emotional Age and Communication Expert Crystal Andrus Morissette is a worldwide leader in the field of self-discovery and personal transformation.

A media darling, she has been featured numerous times on Oprah.com, the New York Post, Fox TV, the Daily Mail, CBS Radio, CTV, CityTV, Global TV, Slice TV, the Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star. Crystal is the author of four best-selling books, including her latest release entitled, “The Emotional Edge: Discover Your Inner Age, Ignite Your Hidden Strengths and Reroute Misdirected Fear to Live Your Fullest.” She is also certified in nutrition and sports medicine.

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