Advice For Trauma One Year Mark

[omni]

In about a week it will be the one year mark since the traumatic experience that made me develop PTSD.

I'm in therapy and in theory have support, but some of the therapists I work with have invalidated me and I don't trust them to be helpful rather than harmful during this time. My family is not supportive; they probably mean well but they are emotionally immature and often cross the boundaries I set.

I have a couple friends who are supportive and have offered to be there for me during this difficult time, but they are all trauma survivors as well. I do not want to rely on them when it will be a burden. There is only so much they can do.

I'm wondering if anyone has advice for how to survive this year mark - it is my first and while I have coping strategies in place and therapists informed, I am not confident that all of that won't fly out the window in the moment. I know that no matter how much I prepare for this there will be instances where I will be completely alone and overwhelmed with grief and shame and symptoms.

I'm already noticing an uptick in intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, and sudden bouts of crying. I understand it is going to be awful no matter what but if anyone has any tips I'd be really grateful. Thank you.

 

[ladee]

It sounds as tho you are as prepared as you can be. That was encout4going to read, the work and thought you have put into trying to make sure you have safety nets in place.
Try to come here often and share..we are another sorce of support..
Sorry you hav to experiance this at all. But we are here for you too.
Gentle hugs if you accept.

 

[omni]

It sounds as tho you are as prepared as you can be. That was encout4going to read, the work and thought y...

thank you very much; hugs received and reciprocated

 

[Hush92]

In about a week it will be the one year mark since the traumatic experience that made me develop PTSD.

I...

I've lived with ptsd for nearly 5 years now, which I'm sure isn't as long as many other people on here but this is what I have to say about the year mark. At a year the trauma is still going to be very fresh. Heck even at 3 years it felt like it had just happened yesterday. At a year in I was still deeply insecure about my trauma and loathed myself for being traumatized for what I experienced. I think it took me another year before I fully accepted that what I experienced was indeed traumatic and I should accept my feelings. You mentioned some therapists have invalidated you, try to get to that point where you can NOT be invalidated. You are the utmost authority on your emotions and experience, not even a psych professional can claim that over you.

Know that the biggest thing that helps is to gradually desensitize yourself to what happened to you. At 1 year you may still be very unstable, at 1 year I know I was constantly being set off by triggers and dealing with flashbacks. Try to use therapy or another safe environment to work on facing those triggers. It will be VERY difficult. You will have a lot of setbacks. You will feel as though you made 1 step forward and 10 steps back. But over time things will improve and you will become set back less and less every time until that magical day comes when things that used to trigger you now no longer disrupt your day or wellbeing at all, when you can talk about what happened to you without dissociating or breaking down. It takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of work, and it's not pleasant.

But I promise you things will improve if you do these things. If you don't work on desensitizing yourself then even 10 years from now you may feel as though the trauma happened just yesterday. Best of luck, I've struggled severely but can now happily say I'm more stable now than I've ever been and I'm sure you can achieve the same.