@Notsowild I feel for you and I hear you - safe cuber hugs if ok :hug:.
This is how I see it:
1)
FEELING you are 'untreatable'
does not mean you
ARE untreatable;
2) it is VERY common for any of us to go through periods of feeling '
it is impossible, I will never get better!' but that
does not make it a fact.
3) Yes, it is true 'there is no cure for PTSD' BUT -
there is no 'cure' for cancer either, YET many many many people have cancer AND fully recover. I used to think the analogy with diabetes and PTSD was a good one - that it is a lifelong condition, but if you take your inulin (therapy / meds / treatment) you can live with it, and be quite ok. I have since change my mind - I think the caner analogy is much more suited. And it explains my experience too - I had a period of 12 years without PTSD or any of the crippling aspects of it I am currently experiencing. I am not more 'special' than anyone else - if I can live free of it, any one of us can, which brings me to my next point;
4) It is a matter of finding the right person to work with for you - AND a lot of hard work (!!!!) on your part, in terms of up a relationship of TRUST with them. It's a two-part necessity. You do need to find someone with whom you might be able to trust, and then YOU need to work on trusting them. Not easy at all, I get it - I do - I too come from a 'long, complicated' background of abuse and been deemed 'complicated' to treat. In the end, it was a combination of those Drs actually having ego issues (of course it can't be their inadequacy or their lack of the right approach, it had to be ME, right? NOT :poop:).
Was part of it me, yes - but not in that I was a 'problem' and 'too hard to treat'. I know deep down, what I probably needed to do in order to work in therapy at a deeper level, and make it work, I was just too scared to, until I met the right T. Oh, and wait 20 years :rolleyes:. We are all different, and we all need different paths. For
me, CBT and DBT, mindfulness etc, was not the answer - it works for most people, but it did not help at all for me - I'm not even able to hear those words spoken out loud, without it triggering dissociation and flashbacks. For years, that left me feeling I was untreatable -
what worked for 'everyone else' or helped them, only seemed to leave me worse off. It's only recently I have been able to realize I have the answers within me - I was just too afraid (rad terrified) to acknowledge that what I needed to do, was face my worst fears.
I could identify the one thing I probably needed to work on, but never did - emotional intimacy. I had never ever even acknowledged, let alone worked through, the issues surrounding transference when I was seeing a T (seen several over many years, all helped in their own way). In the end, I didn't need to for a long time. I overcome the long-term series of crises and my PTSD evaporated and I was able to move on with my life. It wasn't until further trauma triggered my PTSD again, that I am now prepared to work on emotional intimacy. My T, I trust more than any other T I have ever worked with. That has made the difference in terms of enabling me to be WILLING to 'go there', but it's taken months and months.
That and a massive bottle of Brave. And that is the bit you can work on -
if you are able to identity what your worst fears are, then you will be able to do the work, however long it takes (hey, life isn't a race, its a journey, right?). Being able to list all your fears is the start. I couldn't even use the full words on paper only meant for my eyes, for a long time. Then the piece of paper lay in the middle of my hallways for 3 days before I was able to even touch it, let alone look at it (which I didn't lol). I told my T I have a List of Scary things I probably need to talk about but was TERRIFIED as to her response. We spent a few sessions talking about talking about it. Eventually I felt 'safe ENOUGH' to email her The List. We are working through it, and it is horribly hard and very painful, but it gives me so much HOPE at the same time. Trust is at the heart of my problems, as well as innate fear I will be manipulated into being as vulnerable as I can be, then coldly abandoned to pick up the aftermath (that happened to me a child, by my mother).
No one is a hopeless case - and that include you
@Notsowild. From aged 17 until I was in my mid-20s, I had a dream of working in obstetrics, 'helping babies be born'. I told all my Ts, Drs, counsellors, everyone. AT the time, I lived in a halfway house, with staff on hand 24/7. I had working with me - a psychiatrist, a psychotherapist, a psych nurse, a social worker, an OT, I went to outpatient group therapy, I was literally, a full-time psych patient. I self harmed (cut, burned myself, took many overdoses), binged, purges, overate, over exercised, binge drank and made suicide attempts,. I was always acting out in one form or another - at any time. I also got convicted for burglary and arson (I set fire to a building with 13 sleeping people in it, and went back to bed … thank god the smoke alarms and automatic water alarms went off, or I could be in prison for manslaughter / murder).
Doesn't exactly sound like someone you'd think capable of doing a Degree in health, let alone someone you'd want to let deliver your baby, right? Who in their right mind would let a 'nut' like that into the obstetrics profession?!! :p. Dr's nodded their heads on the outside, but no way in hell any of them thought it would be something I ever achieved. It was assumed I'd stay sick because my childhood was 'that bad' that I would 'forever' be affected and not able to live a normal life. I'd be luck if I was ever able to hold down a full time job packing shelves in a supermarket :rolleyes:.
But they were WRONG.
I got better. I graduated not once, but twice, was accepted to my profession, and that was with the Council knowing my entire history - mental health as well as my criminal convictions. I'd proven myself in the course of my studies, and they were willing to give me a chance. Aside from the past 3 and a bit years, when earthquakes triggered up PTSD again, I was living a 'normal' life, able to do things I was believed I would 'never' be able to do. If anyone had told me 15 years ago that one day, I'd be off the invalids benefit, earning literally 9 x more income wise than I used too, be in a position of huge responsibility (looking after pregnant mothers and their unborn babies), owning my own house, and functioning, I would have seriously considered THEM mental, deluded.. in need of .. some form of serious help that had yet to be invented lol!
@Notsowild I am not sharing this with you to 'gloat' or say 'look at me' - I shared this with you because I honestly TRULY believe, any one of us get where we want to in life, despite what we've been through - and it includes you, Hun. :hug:.
