Here is my whole thoughts on this topic Madhather! :) I think language is so important and people think of words in different ways too.
It has started to seem to me that when people hear the word "cure" that they think of deleting trauma and everything attached to it. I am guessing that would include obvious symptoms such as intrusion and insomnia etc and self esteem, self hatred, anxiety, social difficulties, suicidal ideation, personality and attachment issues, dissociative disorders, identity and whole range of attached and other issues.
Some people experience trauma and end up with the latter issues and a possible sprinkling of the key PTSD symptoms without getting PTSD. They don't have PTSD and would probably get a diagnoses of anxiety disorder, personality disorder, social phobia, dissociative disorders, adjustment disorder etc. Often their memories of potentially traumatic experiences are not good but they are not traumatised by them.
When PTSD symptoms drop below a certain point and maybe reflect the above then we no longer have PTSD, clinically. We never ever delete what has happened to us as all experiences for all people have an impact on us and who we are. Sometimes good and sometimes bad and sometimes both at the same time. Do people get to a point where they no longer meet PTSD criteria? Yes, all the time. Not everyone but a lot of people do. Can people with the latter issues such as self esteem problems and dissociation heal them regardless of if they have PTSD or not? Yes they absolutely can and do all the time.
Trauma is when experiences get misfiled in the brain. They are in the wrong place and are a little like books filed in the wrong place in the library that keep falling off the shelf as a result. A lot of symptoms are the result of us having those experiences falling off the shelf randomly - our minds way of attempting to get them re filed. We have to find a way to process the trauma and file the experiences away in the correct place in words and narrative and not just in the animal brain. We also have to work hard on changing distorted cognitive beliefs that we have developed in reaction to the experiences.
The way I see it is that it is treatable and I believe in brain plasticity, retraining our brains - I believe in potential change. That goes for epigenetics too @
greenleaf . Epigenetics show a switching on or off of genes. It's environmental. In the same way something can be changed in one direction it can potentially changed in another. Often these changes are misunderstood. If broken down there is no panic attack gene for example in the way most people imagine but there would maybe be a gene that predisposes someone to have issues with serotonin. Many people will have similar tendencies gene wise and yet live perfectly fulfilled lives because they have good coping and other skills.
I see it as PTSD being treatable and wouldn't use the work curable but I hate the word "incurable" that I see bandied around a lot. I find it such an unhelpful word. I am sure it is responsible for many people not getting help, for many people to not try harder, for many people to even use as an excuse to feel OK about not doing what they need to do to get better. I respect that others may feel differently but that is how I see it. I am certainly not saying everyone who uses the word isn't doing the work at all and just mean that I see it perpetuating misunderstandings about PTSD. People not fully absorbing that it is known as a treatable condition.
I have started to suspect that one of the possible reasons people find it so important to have it as a central view (PTSD) is that thinking things can change triggers them to start judging the present and their present symptoms and to feel hopeless and despairing about where they are at present and bad and as if they have failed. Judgement of themselves and their situation.
I probably would too if it wasn't for radical acceptance. Radical acceptance is about accepting and finding peace in the reality of the present. It is a dialectical concept though and doesn't exclude change. We can accept and not judge the present and still work and believe in healing and change.
