Are Some People Just Too Damaged To Heal?

[Deleted member 12723]

Hi, when I first started therapy I had so many illusions about healing and wholeness. I thought I would be in therapy for three months and be on my merry way. Well twenty years later and i am still working on my recovery. I have experienced healing in different areas of my life but I still struggle. I think I am damaged and will probably always struggle and will have to learn how to live with the struggles. I will experience more healing in different areas as I grow. This has been a very interesting topic and I enjoyed reading everyones responses. It takes the feeling of aloneness away.

I would have to say Deb's response was the most fitting. I agree with her. We are continually growing towards health and wholeness. I believe our healing comes in stages as we grow. We are at a disadvantage compared to a person with high self esteem. We will never get there I do not think. We have been to broken and robbed. Our lives are about our recovery and it is like mining for gold. The gold lies within us deep. No one took that away from us.

We are very strong to have survived so much. You are an amazing person. I wish you could see yourself through my eyes. You would be blown away. You are so honest and so sincere and real. That to me is the true healing. To become real. I am happy with that. I want the symptoms to go away and for me many have. But I have some stubborn ones that linger. But it does not stop me from being real. I agree with the term disabled. I feel disabled. I hope this helps out.

 

[Shellbell]

Thank you Gizmo :hug: Thank you for your kind words. I think I have experienced too many liars and master manipulators in my life, as many of us have and honesty is something I am and need in others. Sadly it's not something I find in many people. You are very honest and real too Gizmo and I love that about you :inlove:

Thank you for speaking so openly on this forum and in your reply here. It takes time, strength and wisdom to accept your situation and be okay with it and I am still struggling with that, but I am only 3 months into therapy, so I have plenty of time :)

 

[shell]

I think that everyone is capable of healing to some extent, that when we start to question our false beliefs we can start to heal, and quality of life improves.

It is all relative, small steps, make small improvements, and one day you can look back and acknowledge an improvement in the quality of life.

No-one is normal, everyone is different and unique, trying to be perfectly normal is unachievable because it doesn't exist. For me I think just trying to find myself, is the best that I can hope for, and then accepting whoever that is.

 

[Tanishq]

However, on a more positive note, spirits can be broken but they cannot be totally taken away. I hope we can help raise yours :)

Dear Saffy, you're very caring! :)

 

[Tanishq]

Hi Shellbell,

Thank you Jaret, yes - needing people is something new to me.

I understand this. We have given so many things in our life, that it has been so difficult to receive. I can see now your mummy guilt and its root. I am sorry, I don't know how to make sure I am understanding you.

Now I need people to help in my healing and that is scary. Which is stupid,

No! That's not stupid. It's brilliant. I can see you are trying to validate what is right, wrong, your strength and weakness. Do you set goals from this point? When you pick something and understand it, instantly mind starts building goals in your mind.

I was talking to CraftyCath, she told me something very nice. She asked me how many people I know who go to face their fears and are honest with themselves. I was speechless. PTSD may have made you look weaker, but you have been so strong and determined person. Loving and caring,too. :)

I have always hesitated to talk about such things. You have created so many threads, most of them I relate to you. I don't know but I can't find words to validate. So I see so many through your eyes, like gizmo said. I hesitated a lot because what if people see vulnerability and try to take advantage of it. I have been made fun of because of this. I stopped myself from knowing myself and things of my life.

I want to tell you one thing. I was never able to read longer things. I would take book, but would never be able to finish it as I start. SweetPea and sunbird read my whole diary! I never expected this. Since that day she told me she read my whole diary and gave me support. I feel changed. I have started reading things fully. I like to read and try to understand. Something has added now. patience or interest? I don't know.

I was like you self reliant and independent. Very confident to make friends, but those manipulations gave me unbearable challenges. It's something I never deserved to have. I feel like whole life I have gone unloved. Wandering for love.

Shellbell, you deserve support. You have my support. Please keep this mind, so if that negative thought comes in your mind, I want to see you beating it. :)

Big :hug:

One more thing I forgot to say. If we ever knew where our difficulty is going to be end and when our healing starts, I think we are at big loss. we won't have patience, determination and courage to go for something unseen. We won't be here either. Life would be miserable and boring.

I always wanted to build myself healthy and stay healthy physically. Gizmo, I was like you this and last year. When those healers told me they will send healing. I thought within a day, I would be joyful. but it was wrong. I am happy with myself, I am doing yoga. Have become outward physical person and now into yoga. What a moment! All years I always planned to do yoga in winter, never could do. Some obstacles diverted my mind and could never do. now it is winter outside and I am on yoga, park walk. Yay! Little achievement. :happy:

 

[Hashi]

Gizmo, I also thought it was only going to take a few months...

Shellbell, your first post here is pretty much what I was saying (well, sobbing and shouting) to my T this week. I've also experienced multiple traumas, from birth to the age of 20. I believe that healing's possible but often I think I can't do what it'll take. I think I'm too damaged, too broken and too hopeless.

I have a list of "healing principles" which are my beliefs about healing. To me, these aren't affirmations or hopes. They're truths. The first one is "Everything can be healed. There is nothing that can happen on this earth that can't be healed." A few days ago (in crisis) I felt so hopeless that when I looked at the list I couldn't believe I'd ever been so deluded that I thought it could apply to me.

I do believe it again now. I also realise, though - have always realised - that I don't know how far I can work on healing. It takes so much that maybe I'll get to a point that I decide is good enough even if I could go further. Or maybe I'll keep going. I like to think I will.

Something I wonder about in your post is where you say the more the learn about trauma and therapy, the more doubt you have. A lot of people, including researchers and therapists, don't believe trauma symptoms can be healed, only managed. If someone thinks that, I respect that that's their view. That doesn't mean I have to believe it myself. "Knowledge" varies depending on viewpoint, and it changes over time.

Before having to deal with this (I'd had denial and partial amnesia for years), I'd already learnt a lot about metaphysics and healing. That meant that when I had to start working on trauma, I gravitated to books and therapists who also believe that everyone can heal. Although therapists as far back as Carl Jung have believed in our ability to heal from trauma and become whole, for various reasons this isn't usually part of mainstream trauma research and information. If I read most things, or saw a therapist who believed that the realistic goal is coping/management, I think I'd struggle to believe in healing myself. It depends who you see and what you read.

The road is a very long and hard one, and you might choose to go only part of the way. I think any healing is good and worthwhile, and contributes something to those around us. I also believe complete healing is possible, whatever our experiences have been.

 

[Shellbell]

Thank you Shell, Jaret and Hashi for your replies. I'm a mess today after T last night, which was really hard. So had a bad night as well and I can't quite get my head around replying appropriately yet.

So once I'm more together, I will respond :hug:

 

[Tanishq]

We all will walk with turtle speed together :)

Shellbell :hug:

 

[Shellbell]

I have that image in my head now, us as turtles, walking along together, with some other people we care about too. It's a good image Jaret, thank you :hug:

 

[Pencil]

My opinion Shellbell? I think that as long as you are experiencing such discomfort, you ARE in the process of healing. In abnormal psychology, a standard inclusion in the definition of what constitutes a disorder is the discomfort it causes, e.g.: 'In the case of the use of the term psychological disorder, a client copes with adverse life events in such a way that it causes distress for the client and those people directly involved with them' (Austin, T. et al, Abnormal Psychology, 2012). This is a poor example of what I am trying to say, so let me rather try to explain:

Until three months ago I experienced only mild discomfort, as I had restricted my life and emotions to the extent that my life consisted of a series of duties - and I thought I was doing admirably. Then the closet door flew open and my skeletons tumbled out and I thought I was going to die. My mild discomfort turned into acute distress. The first thing I had to realise was that I was closer to healing while being distressed than I was when in mild discomfort.

Okay, I'm still not getting my point across, so let me try again. I had neighbours - a family consisting of a 60 yo daughter and two parents in their 80s. The daughter clearly had some serious problems but the family rattled on quite happily (I was fairly involved, as they insisted on involving me), without any awareness that the parents were actually abusive in never acknowledging there was something wrong with the daughter, and the daughter seemed utterly unaware of her 'oddness'. There was, in other words, no discomfort, and therefore no healing could ever begin to take place.

The level of discomfort/distress could thus be seen as a measure of where we are as opposed to where we want to be, and this gap is not merely a measure of distance, but a measure of desire. Try to see it as desire, and not distance, and perhaps you'll see your desire to be well as an indication of your capacity to be well. Which means you will, in time, get there.

Am I making sense?

 

[saffy]

I was talking to CraftyCath, she told me something very nice. She asked me how many people I know who go to face their fears and are honest with themselves. I was speechless. PTSD may have made you look weaker, but you have been so strong and determined person. Loving and caring,too.

For some reason this reminded me of a book of virtues and realised that the people who cause this abuse have little and do not practice important virtues for life. So who really is the messed up person, me or my abuser? I consider myself virtuous person and have a lot of good qualities. The one that I liked was this:

Introversion
The ability to enjoy one's own company is one of the greatest gifts life has to offer. Learning to turn my thoughts away from all my responsibilities at the day's end and take my mind into a state of peace and benevolence enable me to carry greater and greater loads without feeling burdened. When my inner landscape is full of beautiful thoughts, everything I do is a pleasure. Gently, I calm down chaotic situations and offer solace to troubled minds.

Here is a list of virtues for life and I can see many negative virtues in many people I do not like or have been a part of my abuse in the past. Virtues are the essense of our character.

[DLMURL]http://www.virtuesforlife.com/what-are-virtues/the-virtues-list/[/DLMURL]

There are an awful lot of good characters on here ;)

best wishes
Saffy :)

 

[Shellbell]

Thank you all for your replies and I have gained something from each and every one of them, as I'm sure other people have too.

I know this is something that people in particular who have endured ongoing, extended, severe, complex trauma from early childhood can struggle with.

It is a difficult subject and one I am really struggling with at the moment.

I think the overwhelming process of accepting the severity on my past, is still very raw and still an ongoing process for me at the moment. I look too far ahead to where I want to be and feeling that will be impossible, instead of focussing on each day and taking it a little bit at a time. I think there is still some element of denial and avoidance going on for me still, to protect myself.

I hope this thread has made people who struggle with this fear of being too damaged to heal, not feel so alone in this.