Is Ptsd Curable?

[Abstract]

aren't you just becoming detached from the emotions, desensitized?

I think it is the opposite actually Madhather. I think it is trauma that means an experience is detached or dissociated. Once we have filed it in the correct part of the brain it becomes a normal memory. It is no longer filed as disconnected emotional and sensory information without narrative. We have to experience all the feelings and process the experiences cognitively to get there. https://www.myptsd.com/threads/what-does-processing-trauma-really-mean.27858/

 

[Abrasky]

Can you cure PTSD? No I don't think so. There is always some sort of processing going on. Can you heal from PTSD Yes I think so. My psychologist says that PTSD created a lot of 'mind chatter' in me which is sort of creating anxiety and led to me not being able to work or connect with people. I did get through enough of this mind chatter after 13 years of therapy that I could connect with people again and have been working in a part time/ casual job 20 hours a week now for 2 years. Part of this healing is because I could connect emotionally with bosses again. I started to be able to connect with people again when my son was born. For a brief moment I connected with him and forgot how to do it again for a while. I expecially connect emotionally with my boss as he has a gift of being very good at connecting with girls on an emotional level. Some people have that gift. I feel grateful his gift came in handy as it helped my PTSD. It is not the sort of gift one would expect to be helpful for PTSD, but if you can find someone who has the gift of a high emotional IQ at the time of recovery it can really speed up healing.

When I first got PTSD there was so much mind chatter, I was agoraphobic, could not leave my house, was on anti-deppressants. I could not get along volunteer bosses, I would feel agitated with them and would keep my head down at work in order not to connect with people. I would not lift my head until I got home, it was just SO bad I could not work in a real job for 13 years and only stuck to volunteer jobs 10 hours a week. So now I have a job and take care of a 4 year old boy, my son, I do a lot more work around the house, I am off antideppressants for 6 years, I think I am doing way better than the start of my journey.

I am processing at the moment again with a lot of 'mind chatter' but will push through it enough to get to work. It does not go away, but sometimes the hand of mind chatter goes away from my eyes long enough to see the joy around me.

 

[Tinyflame]

I think traumas can be processed and resolved, whereas the discernable potential response to stress annd stressors analagous to ptsd remains. In the future who knows what may exist to treat or address that. I think a multi-pronged approach can work the best when dealing with it now.

 

[Madhather]

@Abstract thank you for taking the time to address my concerns. I appreciate your prospective and knowledge. I find myself angry and defiant over the whole idea of PTSD. I have lived a large part of my life coping with symptoms and managing to function in the "real world" unnoticed by others. Now I am finding that my ability to control my symptoms is slipping, nightmares/terrors, emotional outburst, anger, all things in the past I could have just easily stuffed. I'm to old to start this now, I just want to finish my life without processing. I just want to be left alone by my past. (excuse my whine...I guess one of my younger parts needed to express):oops:

To everyone else I appreciate your opinions and understandings. The information you have shared here has not fallen on blind eyes are deaf hears. :hug:

 

[Abstract]

Boy, do I know that feeling Madhather. I am 47 and find myself unable to get myself into therapy at present let alone process the trauma. I still think I am making it up and that I was misdiagnosed most of the time. I keep trying to convince myself that it will just go away but it seems it isn't going to.

I very much relate to previously being able to push it down and function and no longer being able to do so.

Sometimes I think part of that is because I am healthier as I am less dissociated and more aware and other times I think it is because my means of supproession are just plain exhausted. I don't have it in me to avoid it any more and it seems to cost too much to do so.

So my whine can join yours!

 

[Hashi]

I am questioning even if you heal the trauma aren't you just becoming detached from the emotions, desensitized?

Emotional numbing and desensitisation are the opposite of processing. To me, processing is assimilation. If you eat a bad meal, you might have bad effects straight away and you might get toxic headaches and other symptoms within a few days. But you're not going to get food poisoning, tummy upset or headaches from a meal you had months ago which is long since digested (processed and assimilated). You might still remember eating that meal, though.

If you search the forum for threads with processing or resolving in the title, I think that will give you a view of people's thoughts on this, including mine.

if you heal the wound does it not leave a scar?

What do you mean by a scar?

Some time ago I had a bad injury to my hand and then it was treated incorrectly. As a result I was informed I'd lost the use of my right thumb and part of my right hand (I'm right-handed). Other opinions confirmed this, and it was resolutely classified as a done deal. No treatment, no cure, dead. (That was the actual word everyone used - dead.)

I refused to accept that and did various things and it healed. Now, I have a thumb that has an almost full range of motion - probably 95%. Does the 5% lost count as a scar? I couldn't care less about it. If you look at my thumb rather than glance at it, you can see that it's a bit squashed looking and actually has a dent in it. Scar? Again, I couldn't care less. If you X-rayed my thumb you'd see two thick areas in the bone where it had been broken and healed. Is it a scar, do I care? Who knows, and no. After healing I was told my thumb would always hurt when the weather was cold. Since I'd already been told I'd never move it again, and I was clearly moving it, I didn't give this piece of information more time than to laugh at it. Several years later and it has never hurt when it's cold.

Something that's a lasting effect is that I do need to keep exercising it to maintain use/flexibility. Say, twice a week I spend five minutes on this. Is that a "scar"? Maybe. Do I care that I need to do this and no-one else does? No, actually I quite like it because it reminds me to take more care of myself generally.

This is how I see PTSD too. Medical knowledge, in all its wisdom, says you will always be troubled by it. Medical knowledge is limited and it limits itself. It tells people there's no getting better, and ignores the people who do get better. My hand injury was such that medical knowledge says I lost the use of my hand. Have I regained the use of my hand? Yes. Has the medical knowledge changed? No. Someone in the same position now will be told what I was told - you've lost the use of it. I can't tell you how angry this makes me, because I know it isn't true. It's just that "medical knowledge" "knows" that it is true. So that's what people are told, and that's what they believe, and that influences them and it influences their therapists and it influences their treatment.... so, I don't put too much store in scientific evidence about PTSD. Because my dead hand is now working fine, thanks, but the medical knowledge says it isn't.

Isn't the trauma still just as real as it was before the healing or has the healing taken away it's power?

Yes, completely real. Part of processing might be allowing it to be real - in my case that's a very big thing because of the amount of amnesia, dissociation and denial I've experienced. When it's healed it's real and it isn't attacking us any more. It's in the past, where it happened.

 

[Hashi]

I just want to add that before joining this forum I'd never even heard of the idea that PTSD never completely goes away. In fact, everything I heard was about how we can heal from anything. I read this in the books I got (eg by trauma therapist Peter Levine) and I heard it from my psychotherapist (an experienced trauma specialist at a rape and sexual abuse support centre) and it was a given with the somatic therapist with extensive trauma experience who I saw for craniosacral therapy. I also knew it already, intuitively, from my own feelings.

The idea of PTSD having a life of its own was alien to me, and still is. That wounded and bleeding arm again. Apparently, sometimes the focus really is on the bleeding. Do people really not see any difference between cause and symptoms?

I do accept that there can be a ton of associated issues from the years of trauma and the years of trauma's effects. Self esteem problems, depression, anxiety and the rest. There certainly are for me. If it comes directly from trauma then it can be healed when trauma is processed. If it's a side effect then that can also be addressed, and I don't think it should be part of the "PTSD is for life" idea if it isn't PTSD. Valid, but not necessarily PTSD.

Not saying healing is easy - far from it. But I'm saying it's possible.

 

[Madhather]

So does trauma change the brain enough to make it more susceptible to other mental illnesses like OCD, depression, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder? Or does trauma, in some cases, trigger genes that already exist but are dormant bring these illnesses to the surface? Sorry, I am a curious sort and enjoy hearing other's opinions.

 

[Survivor2Thriver]

@Madhather Depends on the person and how they process their trauma. Personally I firmly believe PTS "NOT MY BURDEN TO BARE." Abusive ppl are the lag in evolution. Their minds are diseased. PTS is a healing process. A process to enlightenment. Or it can manifest into personality disorders. It's the difference between sink or swim.

~Shrug

 

[Deleted member 1860]

So does trauma change the brain enough to make it more susceptible to other mental illnesses...

Yes, I believe that trauma can cause other disorders, or perhaps bring them out. My parents met someone who was supporting a schizophrenic daughter. There was no history of this disorder in the family and she didn't experience symptoms until after a bad accident. This is just one example. Trauma can cause a lot of disorders. The distinction is that PTSD *must* be caused by trauma. Other disorders *may* be caused by trauma.

As for processing, well I'm on the other side now. My trauma doesn't have power over me anymore. It is in the past. I have *rational* (wise mind) type emotions toward my trauma. I was numb for 25 years, then stuck in "emotional mind" for the next 4 years. I am finally where I need to be.

 

[Abstract]

Think about it this way Madhather: When you have trauma you are overwhelmed constantly. Your body is living in high stress. People who have good parenting have been given the building blocks to be able to manage life healthily. These people don't turn to alcohol or other problematic coping. When they get PTSD their coping skills may be enough to manage without resorting to unhealthy means. Or if their their coping is overwhelmed they may turn to self medicating in some way. Like addictions, compulsions, eating disorders, self harm etc. The way to address this is to develop emotional tolerance skills and to up the amount of healthy coping skills we have. We can do that and beat these conditions.

If however there was no healthy coping to start or if trauma happened whilst we were developing as a human being then not only do we tend to have the above a lot (remember it is very unlikely that someone would have any healthy coping skills if they have bad parenting and trauma early) and will also have affects on their personality development in the way they manage and treat themselves and manage relationships with others.

That's when you get into personality disorders or CPTSD issues and attachment problems. Problems being able to manage relationships. Problems with assertiveness and self care. Distorted world and self views. Many, many, many things that are very deep and cause much trouble. Including being re traumatised.

Many of us will have to learn the absolute basics of self care, assertiveness, interpersonal connections, boundaries etc etc etc. We also usually introject all the hatred and anger and lack of love aimed at us and treat and feel about ourselves in the same way. We learn how to deal with these things and can transform our lives as a result.

Something like borderline personality is not genetic other than tending to have intense emotional states and a few other suspected things. The rest tends to be about there being a perfect storm which results in a inability to moderate emotions, impulsiveness and extreme painful interpersonal relationships. Learning how to do that is possible and people do do it. They have to learn what they never learned to start.

Genetically speaking trauma can be a trigger. Bad parenting can also be a trigger. The most linked to genetics is schizophrenia and possibly sociopathy. For the rest there can be some genes switched on but they create tendencies rather than the condition.

 

[Survivor2Thriver]

If however there was no healthy coping to start or if trauma happened whilst we were developing as a human being then not only do we tend to have the above a lot (remember it is very unlikely that someone would have any healthy coping skills if they have bad parenting and trauma early) and will also have affects on their personality development in the way they manage and treat themselves and manage relationships with others.

That's a broad generalization.

I disagree. I know many many many individuals who have gone through childhood trauma and came out on the other side. I'm one of them. We learn our skills from bad examples. No example can be the best example. It's a powerful motivator. It instills a greater sense of right and wrong. Why? We know we didn't deserve the abuse we were forced to endure.