PTSD & Trauma Counseling Rochester NY

Manage emotional memories and flashbacks of traumatic life events

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Understand PTSD and limit negative emotions

Traumatic events are devastating, overwhelming, and affect your entire daily life. You may feel depressed, hopeless, and like you have nowhere to turn. There are a lot of things going through your head that therapy can provide support to help you explore your thoughts and feelings in a safe place. Trauma and post-traumatic stress can linger for months or years if left untreated, complicating ordinary life with unexplainable difficulty. 

Connecting with others and getting therapy are often the best ways to help you overcome negative experiences. We help clients who are struggling after events like:

  • car accidents
  • sexual abuse and rape
  • violence in the home as an adult or child
  • crimes committed against you or ones you witnessed
  • war or combat
  • and more

What to expect from Trauma & PTSD Counseling

In our first meeting, I’ll talk with you about your traumatic experience, what happened, and why you feel that you have PTSD. I’ll talk about the symptoms of PTSD, how it’s interfering in your life, how long you’ve been going through this, and what are the symptoms you’re having. This conversation will identify if your symptoms are less severe and trauma-related or if you’re having a more severe PTSD diagnosis. Once there is an official diagnosis, I’ll continue to work with you through the events you experienced and help you manage your thoughts better. I may mention EMDR therapy and it’s benefits as a therapy for traumatic events, but an EMDR session would take place in subsequent sessions. The primary symptoms I look for are:

Flashbacks

  • Are you re-experiencing an event, having troubling memories and emotions that you can’t control?

Avoiding behaviors or people

  • If you were in a car crash, are you afraid to drive? Afraid to do anything?
  • Who are you avoiding? The people related to the trauma? Or avoiding all people, even the ones that are good for you that want to help?

Irritability, hyper arousal, or hypervigilance

  • Do people get on your nerves easily, more than normal?
  • Are you quickly annoyed at work, at home, by your wife or kids?
  • Are you having trouble sleeping?
  • Are you having trouble concentrating on simple daily tasks and can’t keep focused?
  • Do you have exaggerated startle responses to minor experiences?

Feeling numbness and substance abuse

  • Do you actively try to suppress your negative feelings to feel numb?
  • Do you use drugs, alcohol, food, TV, video games, or by some other means to distract you?

Nightmares

  • Are you having nightmares, re-experiencing the traumatic event while you are asleep?
  • Are you having other dreams where you feel like they are life or death situations, causing you to wake up in a cold sweat or racing heart?
  • Are you avoiding going to bed because you worry that you’re going to have nightmares?
  • Are these causing problems the following day at work?

Physical distress

  • Are you experiencing physical pain or symptoms like chest pain, stomach problems, headaches, and more?
  • Have you had an unexplainable panic attack that comes out of nowhere?
  • Are you experiencing unexplainable or somatic symptoms where your body is reacting to thoughts and memories that are internalized, but there are no physical symptoms of distress?

Behavioral changes

  • Have you engaged in more risky behavior that you normally would have avoided in the past?
  • Were you previously a social butterfly but now avoid all social activities?
  • Are your behaviors getting worse and more extreme over time? Or are you gradually reverting back to what was previously normal for you?
Schedule A Consultation

What to expect from Trauma & PTSD Counseling

In our first meeting, I’ll talk with you about your traumatic experience, what happened, and why you feel that you have PTSD. I’ll talk about the symptoms of PTSD, how it’s interfering in your life, how long you’ve been going through this, and what are the symptoms you’re having. This conversation will identify if your symptoms are less severe and trauma-related or if you’re having a more severe PTSD diagnosis. Once there is an official diagnosis, I’ll continue to work with you through the events you experienced and help you manage your thoughts better. I may mention EMDR therapy and it’s benefits as a therapy for traumatic events, but an EMDR session would take place in subsequent sessions. The primary symptoms I look for are:

Flashbacks

  • Are you re-experiencing an event, having troubling memories and emotions that you can’t control?

Avoiding behaviors or people

  • If you were in a car crash, are you afraid to drive? Afraid to do anything?
  • Who are you avoiding? The people related to the trauma? Or avoiding all people, even the ones that are good for you that want to help?

Irritability, hyper arousal, or hypervigilance

  • Do people get on your nerves easily, more than normal?
  • Are you quickly annoyed at work, at home, by your wife or kids?
  • Are you having trouble sleeping?
  • Are you having trouble concentrating on simple daily tasks and can’t keep focused?
  • Do you have exaggerated startle responses to minor experiences?
Schedule A Consultation

Feeling numbness and substance abuse

  • Do you actively try to suppress your negative feelings to feel numb?
  • Do you use drugs, alcohol, food, TV, video games, or by some other means to distract you?

Nightmares

  • Are you having nightmares, re-experiencing the traumatic event while you are asleep?
  • Are you having other dreams where you feel like they are life or death situations, causing you to wake up in a cold sweat or racing heart?
  • Are you avoiding going to bed because you worry that you’re going to have nightmares?
  • Are these causing problems the following day at work?

Physical distress

  • Are you experiencing physical pain or symptoms like chest pain, stomach problems, headaches, and more?
  • Have you had an unexplainable panic attack that comes out of nowhere?
  • Are you experiencing unexplainable or somatic symptoms where your body is reacting to thoughts and memories that are internalized, but there are no physical symptoms of distress?

Behavioral changes

  • Have you engaged in more risky behavior that you normally would have avoided in the past?
  • Were you previously a social butterfly but now avoid all social activities?
  • Are your behaviors getting worse and more extreme over time? Or are you gradually reverting back to what was previously normal for you?
Schedule A Consultation

Trauma & PTSD Counseling Services with Anita McLeod

As a licensed mental health professional with over 20 years of helping individuals overcome a wide variety of traumatic events including combat veterans, public service members, and domestic relationship issues, I have the experience to help you cope with difficult memories and regain control during overwhelming flashbacks.

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We Value Your Privacy

At McLeod Counseling, I hold the privacy of our patients in the highest regard. Not only does HIPPA compliance require it, but your trust, confidence, and well-being matter to me, and confidentiality promotes those characteristics. I respect you for being you, regardless of past experiences, and we want you to be the best person you can be. My office is a secure environment that is non-judgmental, facilitating an open space for you to share your experiences and emotions.

Rest assured, my commitment to upholding ethical guidelines and best practices ensures the utmost protection of your personal information. Recognizing the unique nature of your journey towards healing from PTSD, I consider it a privilege to be a part of your therapy experience.

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PTSD can Affect Your Overall Health

The vividness of PTSD flashbacks not only are mentally difficult but can cause physical symptoms and distress. Managing PTSD goes beyond coping as poor health can compound the difficulty and hardship of everyday tasks. I help clients manage the mental aspects of trauma but those that see the greatest results eat healthy, exercise, and take their medication regularly as prescribed by their doctor.

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How I help counseling clients

Traumatic events can cause life-long memories that can change your behaviors for the rest of your life. Maybe you fell into depression or coped by using alcohol, maybe you tried to surpress a bad memory from childhood, and so on. I can help you get “unstuck” from those memories, learn strategies to make you feel better and lead a more meaningful life. 

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What our trauma & PTSD counseling clients are saying

Marriage/Couples Counseling Testimonials

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Schedule An Appointment With McLeod Counseling, PLLC

For A Complimentary Phone Consultation

If you are a new client wanting to schedule a counseling session or or an assessment service, please call me at 585-967-9700 or fill out our form with your best phone number and email so I can get back to you within 2 business days. 

As a reminder, I am committed to your privacy. Do not include confidential or private information regarding your health or condition as this form is for general questions and appointments.

CALL (585) 967-9700

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Frequently Asked Questions

PTSD stands for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Any kind of traumatic or frightening event can lead to have PTSD, if severe enough. This can include events like accidents, physical assaults, sexual assault, abuse, traumatic health problems, death of a loved one, combat experience and war, and more.

Complex PTSD or CPTSD is a more severe form of PTSD where the trauma lasted over a longer period of time and symptoms can be different. Commonly, people with Complex PTSD have trouble maintaining relationships, emotional regulation, distrust towards most things, hopelessness and more among other symptoms.

Various brain regions like the hippocampus and amygdala can be altered, in addition to circuitry to other areas of the brain. These changes commonly affect functions like stress and fear but can have other effects as well.

PTSD can last 6 months or longer depending on the severity or if left untreated. If other conditions are present like depression or substance abuse, this can affect the timeline as well.

There are many strategies to help yourself manage flashbacks which can involve some or all of the following:

  1. Talk to yourself and remember that the event is over. That is in the past and you are no longer in danger. You are in a safe place.
  2. Make yourself experience the present by using your surroundings. 
  • Feel and recognize whatever you are sitting or laying on
  • Take a drink of water and acknowledge the taste
  • Look outside and watch the trees move in the wind
  • Light and smell a candle. 
  • Put on some calming music
  1. Establish some go-to “safe-zones” that make you feel secure and remind you of the present. These can be things like putting on your favorite sweatshirt or sitting in a favorite chair.
  2. Write down what happened prior to your flashback to help yourself identify triggers so you can try to avoid them from happening.

All of these should help you realize you are in the present, not in your flashback.

Trust and communication are the biggest things that typically suffer for those with PTSD. You may feel like your loved one doesn’t understand, you may not feel comfortable sharing the experience, and in turn may distance yourself from them. 

While difficult, being open and building trust are ways that can actually help you get over your PTSD.

A trauma bond is a connection that’s formed by two people in a cycle of trauma + positive reinforcement.

An example would be an abusive relationship where someone repeatedly abuses (mentally, physically or emotionally) but tells the other party they love them, manipulating them to stay together. Despite the love one may have had in the past, getting out of that relationship is often the best thing to do because of the abuse by the other party.