For those who recovered, how long did it take and are there 3 or 4 lessons you can share with us?

[LanaD]

Thanks for taking the time to write such a thoughtful and thorough reply. The idea of humility is quite interesting, and validating the reason, too. I'll ponder on these.

Thank you :)

I'm still recovering, but pretty much almost there. Have no symptoms, but that's not the end of recovery. There's a whole lot of consequences to trauma that are not on a diagnosis checklist. That's the hard part, but it's entirely possible to get better and heal that, with practice and time. I'm convinced my symptomatology is heavily linked to consequences I hadn't healed. Once certain things started coming together, making sense and then ceasing to exist in me, I got better.

But there are things, besides the quality of mindfulness others already mentioned.

I had to be humble towards trauma in order to grasp it. I mean, understand that we are this body and it pretty much works by itself, regardless of our expectations of it. We can get more in tune with it, sure. Meditation, yoga, general exercise help a lot, but there's a humility characteristic we gain towards mental health issues that we should cultivate. Understanding the monster it is for us, doesn't mean we can't work to make it less frightening and eventually overcome it. I think the ability to not be defeated by it, but working With it in order to get better. The most important piece of advice I got from a therapist was exactly that things exist for a reason, validating that reason and working with it makes the whole job a lot easier for us.

Another thing is making room for work. It's not just about going to therapy. Another important thing I learned is that however well intentioned, therapists do not live with our minds, and 50 minutes a week or even twice a week with a person (even if a professional mind-carer) does not make them responsible for our recovery, the slightest. The second most important piece of advice I got from a therapist was that the work I did, I did it all by myself. So as long as I didn't make room for work on things in solitude, I didn't get better.

Feeling emotions is equally important. It's important we realize we are in charge of that, there's no conspiracy inside of us to not allow us to feel. We just have to create awareness. I often see everywhere "I'm so numb and so angry about it" lol... if you're angry, hun, you're not numb. Accepting we have negative states of mind just like everyone in the world is an important step towards freeing ourselves from them. Doesn't mean they don't keep coming back, they will for sure. We just need to accept that.

Recently I've been coming to terms with the fact that (at least this is important for me) what happened right now is just a story I replay in my head. It happened, yes, but it's clearly over. What I do with that story is what matters, not the story itself.

Took me about 10 years to recover too, and only the final stages of it consisted mostly of steps forward. Before that, I kept walking backwards. Falling flat on my face also meant walking forward :roflmao:

 

[Skywatcher]

I’m approaching the end of my second year of therapy. Even though I have had ups and downs and definite progress, this last week is where I have truly felt like my therapy is taking a very important step in recovery. It’s the first time I confronted a part that I was always very afraid of and now realize she was protecting me from a very strong and painful emotion. My T mentioned that she is so thankful that a conversation has finally begun. I hate trying to predict how much longer until remission. I feel like my husband doesn’t understand that the cost of therapy is worth having me in a functioning, contributing capacity. Hard for him to see the “big picture” I suppose.

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

"Recovered" is a big word, but I would consider myself recovered.

In the sense that 75% of the PTSD is gone. I still have that diagnosis but at the moment I would classify myself as "anxiety disorder" more. That´s not to say it can´t come back.

Lessons I can share

1. Stop thinking that your personality equals trauma. Trauma is how your personality is affected, but it doesn´t mean that this personality is changed forever, it just means that this personality is hiding. It will come back. Nurture it.
   
   
2. Focus on discovering who you are. What are some qualities of you that are not affected by trauma, that you pretty much had before trauma, or (in the case of childhood abuse) you think you have regardless?
   
   
3. Think future, not past. Print that quote from the Lion King, the one where Rafiki whacks Simba in the head with a stick, and hang it above your bed. The past hurts, yes. But next time, you´ll be aware of it.. and you can steal Rafiki´s stick!
   
   
4. Related to the above: use positive visualization. Picture yourself running to the future. Hell, go running and picture yourself running into the future, with every step you take you are in the present, more and more, towards the future.
   
   
5. Related to the above: trauma is a spiral staircase. Every level seems exactly the same. Patterns repeat at every level. And yet every level you conquer, there will be small changes in how you handle it. You are moving up always. Be patient. Forgive yourself.
   
   
6. Have a literal change of perspective. Go have a life-changing experience. Have a flying lesson. Go skydiving. Literally adopt a new perspective so you can discover that there are parts of your brain that you aren´t using.
   
   
7. Embrace a sort of military perspective for yourself. Tell yourself, private X, you are brave AF and you are slaying it today. Embrace the suck. Do not start by creating defeat in your head. Start knowing that you could win.
   
   
8. Stop trying to push rocks up a mountain. It´s very heavy. Step aside and let the rocks roll down. Who cares if you can´t push them up? You can climb up that mountain without them. Again, visualization, focus on the future.
   
   
9. Humor and songs are helpful. Singing is helpful, because it forces you into a different tonality. Try to find songs that cheer you up, that give you strength. The song "the bare necessities" from Jungle Book is great for PTSD!
   
   
10. Do ya like to move it, move it, start doing yoga or small exercises to shake your body up and release the tension. Tension in your body reinforces patterns in your mind. Relaxation in the body promotes relaxation in the mind.

You will notice a theme here: there is much more to you than you are acknowledging. Perspective is very important. The perspective you adopt, is the one you live in.

 

[Jane2019]

Hi it has taken me about 4 years I currently do not have any symptoms and do not get triggered at present. My recovery has taken a lot longer as I had no access to treatment. And suffered mini traumas throughout my recovery. I had to self administer my own care. I needed to talk a lot about how I was feeling everyday to make sense of it. I kept to routines, reduced all stress and cut off from toxic people or those who were not supporting me or did not care enough to understand. I worked when I could, ate healthy, I walked and did yoga. It is very important to exercise when you can as trauma is stored in both the body and mind and one cannot exist without the other. I forced myself to go out and not to avoid things and places. It is a long journey and self care has to be your priority, you will fall down and get back up, by that I mean have relapses something will trigger you, and you realise your still not healed then you have to go back to the self care, cut back of commitments and keep going. I still suffer flashbacks but I just let them come and go they do not upset me. Mindfulness helped me, listening to music any kind of music, getting a pet really helped, being in nature, helping others when you can, and talk and talk about how you are feeling all the time, to stay checked in with yourself. I did abuse alcohol at times, but I was strong enough not to be dependant on it and it made me worse, it also complicates your condition and prolongs your recovery, Mostly now I look back at far I have come and how horiffic it was. I have cut out all those who were not there for me or did not care to understand.

 

[LanaD]

Thank you so much for your answer! I'm in my third year now and the case's going back to court so I've been sliding backwards. I'm trying to get back to nature more now, as it takes so much effort to do that where I live, and your story encourages me!

Sending you positive vibes :)

Hi it has taken me about 4 years I currently do not have any symptoms and do not get triggered at present. My recovery has taken a lot longer as I had no access to treatment. And suffered mini traumas throughout my recovery. I had to self administer my own care. [...]

 

[talon]

I'm wondering when this will end because I don't know how much longer I can take it. I can't think. It's like I've developed not only a mental disorder but mental retardation as well and it's just...well, you all probably know. I want to be myself again.

So I was reading a post from a decade ago about sour amazing founder's recovery (PTSD Timeline To Recovery) and started wondering about others' path to recovery.

Thank you for your replies and thank you, Anthony, for this site!

There is no timescale but it is up to each of us to remember we are not victims we are survivors we can continue to grow in strength in the knowledge the past can't hurt us unless we allow it

 

[Keming]

Your mention of 'mental retardation' scared me. And you've been working on this for two years? I'm wondering what the hell is going on because I can hardly talk to people anymore.

For a couple years my supporter had to lead me by the hand through grocery stores because I couldn't process anything spatial or verbal. I was fine at home. I was mostly fine in games. Total failure outside the house and with strange people. Stressed brains are only marginally capable. My brain is stressed.

It was pretty frightening at its worst - everything wrapped in white fog, me dazed and only shuffling along, while my supporter holds my hand and calmly directs me. It's not a reflection on me. I didn't do it to myself. It's an injury. We work with what we have.

Four years into meds and therapy, and my brain is coming back. I only suffer cognitive impairment two or three days a week. Dissociation (i spelled it write right this time!) is infrequent. Communication is getting better. Temper is getting worse, but my mind is a strange and wonderful thing, it won't be rebuilt in a day. Or a year.

Some things I've been learning:

1. "Embrace the suck." (gwaihir: outstanding.) Alt: we work with what we have (this is what I remind myself, every day)

2. Yoda lies. There is "try." Sometimes all we have is "try," followed by "again." What does that little green spacerat know anyway? He lives in a world where magic is real and telepathic domination counts as peaceful negotiation. Yoda is not a credible source. "TRY" IS REAL.

3. I have WORTH.

4. I deserve nice things BECAUSE I SAY SO.

5. Find a T you can work with. Successful therapist helped me learn to communicate with him and with myself. Communication is hard work for a stressed brain. Practice makes slightly easier practice.
5.1 Exposure Therapy. It works for me. Started stupidly small - brain makes it harder because it's trying to over-react to minimal environmental cues. After about 2 years I can last 25 minutes in a not-at-all crowded space without freezing or going panic-blind. Next week the goal is 30 minutes. Maybe I'll make it. Probably I'll flee after 25 and go to my room and freak out. But I'll try until I succeed. Maybe more importantly, I know I'm being active in recovery. I'm not just drifting from T session to Psych session and hoping it works out. This is my job now. I am not helpless. We work with what we have.

6. Losing ground sucks but if we did it once, we can do it again. And it'll hurt, it hurt last time and the time before that, and it'll hurt again, and I will beat it again until it sticks. Even if it never sticks. Because I hate this disorder and I will fight it out of principle.

7. If there's a psychiatrist involved, work with them as best we can. Clear communication on boundaries, fears, undesirable side effects. If we were 'well', we wouldn't need a psychiatrist.

Aside: Sometimes I imagine "Kindergarten Cop," the scene where the little girl is trying to stand up to the Governator by saying "I'm not a policeman I'm a princess." And then I imagine the same scene but with Lucy Lawless lifting Arnie off his feet by his nose. And Lawless growls, "I'm not a policeman. I'm a princess." And I scream myself hoarse because princesses kick ass.

I'm certain this was relevant.

 

[Starfish]

Totally relevant! I relate so much! and yes, I do what you do, keming, Thanks for a new perspective on the word "trying". And, I don't try too hard most of the time, only gently nudges to "give it a try". Pushing too hard only triggers me.