@Hope69 welcome to the forum :)
I had a good 8 year run where I would "like" to say my PTSD was in remission. Unfortunately that would not be accurate. Mostly because even though I was repeatedly diagnosed with PTSD starting in my early 20s I never bothered to educate myself about it until last year and I will be 58 in a few weeks. That's a long time to be in denial.
Even during those 8 years, which I have some amazing memories of feeling loved, happy and almost normal. I was a constant worrier. I felt as though I was fooling the world somehow and once they saw the real me the bottom would fall out.
The bottom fell out, on the job, in my personal relationships and then my husband died.
That experience, and I am still processing it, led me to learn about PTSD. I read, researched, joined this site, wrote and still write a lot. Embracing the fact I have PTSD and how it affects everything in my life was a real eye opener.
Learning to manage PTSD meant questioning my whole belief system. Since I was born into a PTSD run amuck family and was the youngest, if I had to guess by some of the flashbacks I experienced and other telling factors, I would say my traumas started easily before I was 6 months old, if not in the womb.
The last year has been pure hell. I still have a long way to go. But the day came when I had to get back up. I needed to support myself and find myself.
I am beginning to see glimmers of hope and just as quickly will try to dismiss them. That is PTSD. Negative thinking, isolation, self neglect and self abuse. I am learning when I belittle myself, apologize for taking up space and look for outward confirmation that I'm okay, I am being self abusive. I adopted the negativity I was born into as my own truth. Once realized, awareness of my negative thinking became/becomes more and more a concious choice. Learning self compassion and self love goes against everything I was taught and everything I believe about myself. Yet, if I don't I will not be able to manage my PTSD. It will manage me. I will be giving my power of now away to my past and that will not lead to a healthy, happy future.
I don't know if you have a good trauma therapist. I do not and traditional therapy does not help me. I am finding my own path. I would love to find a therapist I click with but to just go to therapy without lhaving clear expectations is a dead end. So in the meantime, I post here. I question my beliefs about myself, I question my negative thoughts. I don't challenge them or deny them, I simply question and decide if it is this moment/situation that is making me feel ... Fill in the blank, anger, shame, guilt, fear the list is endless, or is it beliefs I learned in my past and no longer apply to the present moment/situation. I question my spiritual beliefs, my beliefs of what it means to be a woman, my beliefs of who/ what my perceptions of relationships are with men and my expectations. Actually that goes for all my relationships, including the one with myself.
The work doesn't end. That's management, for me at least. I hope your find you path but remember even before you take that first step, you have to decide to get back up.
I look forward to seeing you on the boards!
Alice
