Curing Depression, Insomnia, and Addiction with Hypnosis

When I started our YouTube channel, I had a desire to help teach military veterans suffering from PTSD personal meditation techniques that could use to help them manage the worst symptoms of their disorder.

I called the channel "Combat Meditation Systems," and in our earliest videos, I was practicing more of a mix of guided meditations and self-hypnosis right before we went to bed.

These were mostly videos of Sammie in her PJ's and me in my night clothes practicing different meditation, hypnosis, and NLP techniques.

I took the videos to gauge Sammie's reactions to my practice of hypnotizing her.

When I used hypnosis to relieve her depression, I discovered through hypnotherapy talk sessions that many of the thought processes she was had were very similar to those of some old friends from the Army I had who served in the War in Afghanistan.

For my friends, during a deployment, they had a highly traumatic experience, then they went through a prolonged period of discomfort, fear, and boredom where they had a long time to ruminate on what had happened.  

By what I've been told (because I've never deployed) that is what most military deployments are like.

Regardless, being in that state, many of those soldiers formed a subconscious habit of associating routine things they heard or experienced during their deployment (such as loud popping sounds, causing them to think they were making contact with the enemy) with the highly traumatic event.  These in turn formed "triggers" that would later cause them to experience flashbacks when they returned home from their deployments.

Being in the context of a deployment, where they were individual soldiers as a part of a larger military operation, in theatre, with fresh training and all the logistics, equipment, and weaponry to fight a war, they were able to cope with that subconscious trigger by defaulting to their training, to their comrades, and to their equipment.

When they returned home, that subconscious habit would persist, but many of those soldiers would not receive the same training, be in direct contact with their comrades, or have any of the equipment they had during their deployment that enabled them to feel a sense of security whenever their trigger was activated.

This was what cause them to experience severe flashbacks when they returned home, but also what caused those flashbacks to be so debilitating.  With their training fading into long term memory, their comrades absent, and with no access to their equipment or weaponry, those war veterans then would be triggered into a state of extreme fear where they felt completely helpless.

My heart always broke for the guys I would see who came back from the war completely changed.

Many of them were my best friends from our time training together.  

Almost all of them I've lost in some way since.

At one point, Sammie's depression became so severe she started acting like many of my old army friends with PTSD.

We experienced an extremely traumatic event when Sammie was pregnant with our 3rd daughter.  We experienced a house fire where we were displaced from our home when she was 6 months pregnant.

It was so terrifying for her and our other 2 children.  

Our 3rd daughter would later go on to developing severe autism.

That was VERY hard for both of us.  

It was our love for each other and for our children that got us through.

For me, the experience felt very similar to my military basic training.  I was able to get through it, but began to develop severe insomnia, which lead me to constantly backslide into a 20 p*rn*******y addiction.

For Sammie, it was unlike anything she had ever experienced before.  The challenge devastated her mental health.

There was a point where I made a connection that she was acting like my old army buddies with PTSD and that I might lose her if I didn't find a way to help her.

I love her so much, I can never lose her (not only that, but she also is the key to training our autistic daughter to be high functioning).

So I studied hypnotherapy and began practicing on her.

It worked.

That is what the early videos on our channel are a record of.

That hypnosis is so powerful it can help a person to overcome depression, insomnia and addiction.

Not only did Sammie overcome her depression through a regular hypnosis practice, but I also overcame my 20 year p*rn*******y addiction.

I also discovered that was the key to curing my insomnia.

When I did my Basic Training in the Canadian Army Reserves, I read a great science fiction novel called "Starship Troopers" written by Robert Heinlein.

In the book, Earth has a planetary military force called the "Mobile Infantry" or (MI).

The MI make use of "Hypnotic Preparation For Combat" to train their soldiers to have maximum combat efficiency.

When I started our channel, I didn't realize I was attempting to create this practice from the book, Starship Troopers.

I called it "Combat Meditation Systems," but now I am calling it "Cyber Hypnosis."

I'll talk more about that in future posts, but in the meantime, here is the very first paragraph from "Starship Troopers" by Robert Heinlein.

I always get the shakes before a drop. I’ve had the injections, of course, and hypnotic preparation, and it stands to reason that I can’t really be afraid. The ship’s psychiatrist has checked my brain waves and asked me silly questions while I was asleep and he tells me that it isn’t fear, it isn’t anything important—it’s just like the trembling of an eager race horse in the starting gate.

I couldn’t say about that; I’ve never been a race horse. But the fact is: I’m scared silly, every time.

-Starship Trooper, Robert Heinlein