What Does Fully Healed Mean To You?

[Lost Pup]

What would it look like, for you, to be fully healed?

If you can imagine it, that is.

 

[Leah123]

Oh my gosh, I LOVE this question. I needed it- to be prompted to think about why I'm doing the hard work of therapy. Thank you. :)

When I am fully healed, intrusive thoughts of my abuse won't inhibit my life so much. I will feel more present and less angry with my daughter, whose actions unfortunately sometimes trigger me. I will have my Bachelor's degree. I dropped out of high school due to my trauma, and have gotten my GED and Associate's degree recently, working on the Bachelor's starts in 6 days! I will feel much more graceful in how I approach life's challenges, and have even more to offer others. I'll have the mental space to craft the books that I've only just begun writing.

I can't wait! What's better... I am ON that path! Hooray! Hope to hear from many others on this topic.

 

[Lost Pup]

I think for me it would be a sense of peace, many fewer crises, going from getting triggered by something to just noticing that I would've gotten triggered by it in the past, feeling at peace with the time I lost to healing, not getting thrown for more than a few days at a time, having stable relationships, and living my life with all the vim and vigor I could not for so long.

I'm mostly there on all this. But I still have lingering doubts I can ever be "fully healed." My therapist says otherwise so I think I do believe its possible.

 

[Bosco2153]

It would be me discovering the real me, who I was meant to be, not watching my back, not flinching, not feeling like a giant clod and an alien. It would mean feeling 'normal' out in the world.

 

[Leah123]

I still have lingering doubts I can ever be "fully healed."

Your comment reminds me of an essay I wrote to my therapist about a beautiful, strong, injured woman I knew in high school. She was there for me, when I was feeling I would die soon, a terrible time. She was one of a few women I have known who I describe as broken and whole. And what I mean by that, and what I sort of hope for people like us, who've been traumatized, is not that we can exactly undo the trauma, because I don't believe it's possible, but that we will be like oaks, like strong old trees, knots and all- not symmetrical, not unblemished, but powerful and rooted. For me, healing is owning our experience, being self-aware and giving of ourselves to others, both to receive and help. My high school ally, she'd lost her fiance to war, and she was never happy in the same way again, as far as I could perceive. She was wounded, but though scarred, she was definitely whole, powerful, owning some happiness, and wise. That's kind of what I aspire to be.

 

[Lost Pup]

Thank you for that vision, Leah. It's a good one.

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

It would be me discovering the real me, who I was meant to be,

This is it for me, too. And I think I'm in the process of re-discovering and re-becoming. It's a very confusing thing were I still have plenty of moments where I feel like "that woman with the PTSD" and then other days where I suddenly feel whole, I feel like I am really myself. Days where I feel really grown-up, instead of stuck in the past, and also days where I am beyond the grief. Days where I can "let go", most importantly. Release the grip on the past.

And what I mean by that, and what I sort of hope for people like us, who've been traumatized, is not that we can exactly undo the trauma, because I don't believe it's possible, but that we will be like oaks,

Agreeing with that. I don't believe I will ever be a 100% healed, but maybe the trauma is part of who I am supossed to become, who I am becoming. I would like to allow more love into my life and later on maybe be able to guide other people with the state of mind I've acquired. The allegory of the oak is really powerful here, I tend to see it in the imagery of a native american woman, a wise woman with wrinkles in her face and feathers in her hair to show for the knowledge she has collected in life.

 

[The Albatross]

Good question. I think I have yet to attempt to define that for myself. I did a web seminar where you authored a "healing intention" that is the closest thing I've done so far. The intention I wrote maybe a little more than a year ago now is:

"I am a strong and powerful woman who is healing physically and emotionally and is able more and more to grow and manifest my integrity, good character, energy and also my finances to become a viable, vibrant and blessedly secure woman of abundance, peace, love and joy."

Highly ambitious, but the key points have changed a bit. Now I think more in line with confident autonomy, a steadfast sense of self worth (rather than esteem), proactive problem or situation solving/decision making free from hiccups or the fight/freeze/faint/flight default response of my brain, a reasonable confident sense of safety, resilience, and relatively serene or peaceful spontaneity. (Doubtless there are more.)

I am starting to ask myself what it is that I need to endeavor to learn or skills I need to acquire to be able to shift, adjust, redirect myself as seamlessly cognitively as others appear to do. Maybe it has something to do with mental/emotional adaptability.

I need to think about this more I think.

 

[Lost Pup]

Albatross, what you wrote is really interesting to me as it so closely mirrors my own path. To me, it almost feels as though your first statement is really about proclaiming and establishing your own value. While the second is much more about working, in the world, and with others.

It makes me think about my own shift from feeling there was something really wrong with me that needed to be corrected; that doing so would make my life easier and not yet fully grasping the degree to which we are *all* confused and struggling.

I think that realization has made me shift more from trying to correct myself to, instead, really experimenting with how to live and how to work with others. I continue to find this extremely challenging, but at least there is a sense of being able to communicate authentically and genuinely connect.

It is so much messier and less contained than the former way of dealing....

Thanks all for these great replies. It is really helpful to read how others with, perhaps, similar experiences, are dealing with their own healing et al.

Love, LP

 

[The Albatross]

Lost Pup, I believe in the adult examination or re-examination of the things we tell ourselves. I have found it to be largely beneficial.

 

[Lost Pup]

Me too. I did not mean to suggest that replacing negative beliefs with positive affirmations was bad.

Quite the opposite.

I was trying to communicate that, at some point, for me, those healthier, more apt self-perceptions kind of "took." And, feeling less encumbered by the older beliefs, I am more able to direct myself outwards.

I thought maybe I sensed a similar sort of movement in your own reflection.

 

[The Albatross]

Yeah, they took. But for me it was with consistent effort. I had to work (with my ever favorite "P's", practice, patience, perseverance, and persistence ... and prayer for those so inclined, like me) to rewrite the habitual behavior and thinking style.