Acceptance

[Sideways]

For those of you who have reached acceptance of your trauma - I'm after some input on what that was like...

Does it come as a gradual thing, where you look back and one day realise, "Hey, I've actually accepted my trauma for what it was already - who knew!?" Or was it more like a sudden Bam! moment were it kinda of all hit you at once one day? And how the hell does one cope with the Bam, or is it easy?

And leading up to that point, could you see in retrospect that maybe there'd been one last rush of resistance, or was it more like gradual steps mostly just moving forward, rather than one step forward then one express trainride backwards?

I'm trying to get through some really nasty self-harm 'cognitions' lately, and I've been telling myself that it's the last big hurrah of resistance as I get closer to the holy grail of acceptance. But I can't help thinking that maybe I'm just perpetually stuck with resistance. Maybe I'll never be able to just accept. Self-harm is my way of maintaining the status quo.

By 'acceptance', I guess I mean seeing your trauma and the truth of it realistically. Like, instead of "he was a great guy trying to help me and I was the monster", finally accepting that actually he was the monster, and it was just dumb luck that it happened to me, I was just a kid, and the impact has been life-destroying. Although it doesn't have to be a CSA situation.

I desperately want to rebuild my life. That's new - I always used to assume I'd eventually suicide. So I think things are shifting. I guess I'm just after people's experience of what the acceptance stage was like for them, to gauge if maybe I'm getting there...??

 

[Deleted member 541]

IDK @Ragdoll Circus I have had sooooo. many yrs to deal with all of this shit. I was so angry for so many yrs. did so much crappy stuff during that time.

I think for me, it was working, really working on my trauma, tearing it throughly apart and understanding all of the emotions that were tied up within it, before I finally started to feel better and to accept. It wasn't an easy process(as you so well know) and for me it's been a very long one.

I sincerely hope that you are close to coming to the acceptance and feeling better. Remember, even good things can cause stress, so maybe this is where the self harm is coming from right now.

 

[Rumors]

I am so in the same place @Ragdoll Circus. I am just now beginning to think that it wasn't all my fault! It's crazy how our minds can tell us that. My hang up is if that isn't true then what is? That has forced me to look at the people around me and figure out where the hell they were when I was four and being hurt by family. Ugh... Just wanted to tell you that I can commiserate!

 

[hodge]

My acceptance stage began when I was diagnosed. That was when I realized that all the crap that had happened to me, which I had always thought I had put behind me, led to this damn illness. I also had a lot of anger at that point. These various people did this stuff to me and I'm the one left to pick up the pieces. It's not fair. It hurt. It hurt like hell. It still hurts, though not as badly as that first day in therapy just about exactly 10 years ago.

But we can and must have a role in our healing. We're the only ones who can do that, with the help of a good professional. Choose life, @Ragdoll Circus! You're getting there. :hug:

 

[Hope69]

What a good question. I think I've had moments of accepting my illness. This is it, what I gave to deal with and it's not my fault that my body is like this.
As for specific traumas, lately I've started really feeling that those who I needed protection from were ill and unable to be anything else. Thus came after seeing my own dysfunction and pain.
Not through it yet though and so not "at peace" though I believe it's a process and I've moved in and out of " it's what it is" depending on how I'm doing.

 

[Gs172003]

For those of you who have reached acceptance of your trauma - I'm after some input on what that...

It hasn't happened for me yet but I'm getting closer. I think.

But the part about your post that struck me the most, and makes me want to cry and say yay is you wanting to rebuild your life. PLEASE DO!!!

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Does it come as a gradual thing, where you look back and one day realise, "Hey, I've actually accepted my trauma for what it was already - who knew!?" Or was it more like a sudden Bam! moment were it kinda of all hit you at once one day? And how the hell does one cope with the Bam, or is it easy?

Mine acceptance, or seeing it as abuse and as it actually was, is gradiual. Im not fully there and am right now pushing back at it since my mom died. Its like now i dont want to accept it was abuse now and im like "self, you're wrong, it was all ok". Its never been a "boom", has been the hardest thing for me to see it as abuse, it was VERY gradiual, and i kicked and screamed the entire way. And im only partial there.

And nothing about it is easy. Its been the hardest thing ive ever done.

It being justified, not abuse, them good and me bad, was a HUGE part of my life during that time and to turn that around its hard. It takes persistence of pushing against everything you know to be "true" and what you believe to be "right" and saying "no, this is true and right, not that. That was wrong and bad and abuse". And thats hard, to turn around what you believe as reality and accept a different reality.

So yes, its been super gradiual for me. Id say blame shifting was the point in time where this made a big turn for me. But it takes persistance and self compassion. A lot of self compassion and being gentle with yourself.

 

[Sideways]

It figures that this is going to be a slow and painful process, with lots of backwards and forwards. There's nothing easy about ptsd. Nothing.

I think what's frightening me at the moment is everything falls apart if I accept, everything gets worse. Not having to punish myself is just the tip of the iceberg. If I accept, that means every awful thing that I've let guys do to me over the years, every abusive relationship that I stufk with, every sexual assault that I just sucked up - it was all pointless. I didn't need to live like that.

And if I'm not the person that I was taught I am, if I'm not the monster, and I didn't deserve it, then I don't deserve all this pain now either. All of this suffering becomes completely pointless.

And what is my life without the suffering? If that's not what I was born for, and all these years have been wasted for no good reason, what happens then? How could a person possibly contain and cope with the kind of anger and grief that would bring up?

This life I have now is awful, but at least there's a reason it's awful. I am the reason it's awful. But if that's not true, and was never true...how do you cope with that?

 

[Rumors]

It figures that this is going to be a slow and painful process, with lots of backwards and forwa...

Exact same place for me! Sorry. I hope you can figure out how to manage that pain without it being too overwhelming. It sucks.

 

[hodge]

Bad sh*t happens to good people. It just does. My T thinks predators actually seek out good people to abuse because they are threatened by us. Now there's a back@ss kind of empowering thought! But it does help me, and I hope it helps you.

I am on this forum partly because I want to use my pain and what I've learned from it to help others when I feel able to. I think if there's a purpose for pain, that's it.

 

[Sideways]

@hodge - when other people suffer at the hands of humanity, it really bends me out of shape, because of the pointlessness, because I know that we don't need to do this to each other. I get overwhelmed by the tragedy of that.

Somehow, yeah, I guess I need to make that less tragic somehow. If I thought I could prevent this pain for just one person, just one, that would make it easier I think.

But that would take self esteem, not just acceptance. That would mean allowing myself to think I can make a positive difference, and I still struggle with treating myself neutrally.

My T says to act in spite of how you feel. That changing the behaviour has to happen before the beliefs will change. She makes it sound easy, but when you've spent 3 decades like this, it's hard to know how to begin.

 

[hodge]

I know, right? But there are a couple of sayings that help: "fake it till you make it" and "act as if." Both generally mean what your T is saying.

You CAN make a positive difference. Actually, I think you already have, numerous times on this forum. I don't read every thread, but I have read threads where you are compassionate and sharing of your own experiences and trying to help the poster. That's what we can do with this illness. Share our compassion borne out of serious pain and anything we've learned about healing to help others.