Just One Thing - The Best Thing

[Nicolette]

Reading Ayesha's thread about being here for 2 years, I realised I've almost been here for 5 years now. :eek:

What I would like to ask all members, especially the longer terms ones, what is ONE THING that you would consider to be the best overall thing you have gained from the forum or benefited from? Not just here and now but think about your entire journey here and what helped you the most.

Please share.

 

[Nicolette]

The one thing I value the most from the forum is the friends I've made (and most never met) who have been there for me as I have tried for them.

 

[amethist]

Being here has given me so much more than I ever knew I would need.

Information, support, understanding of being a supporter of such a dreadful illness, and so many new friends across the world. Some I have met and hope to meet again, and some not yet met, but hopefully may do in the future.

Some being there just for me in the darkest of hours.

 

[Ted Moen]

Friends are nice :)

For me, life is pretty good but stuff in my current situation still triggers old stuff and I need to talk about PTSD stuff in a safe environment from time to time. I expect to always have that need. Stuffing that need when it bubbles up would only cause it to
Intensify and become more disruptive to my current situation. In 25 years or so of therapy I have worked through most of my specific issues, so the need is no longer related to expressing specifics. And the last 10 years of group I participated in was more about a need to help others than my personal issues, a phase of recovery that is both rewarding and productive. Now, I just have a need to chat about some aspect of PTSD when the feeling bubbles up and this is a very nice place to satisfy that need.

Ted

 

[KP the nut]

Golly, where to start.

At first it was the realisation that I wasn't crazy and that there were others who understood how I was feeling and just 'got it'.

Then the information and tools which others had found helpful and had shared.

The forum has helped me with my confidence, reading about others gave me the determination to keep going.

Oops, I've just reread the instructions, so the ONE thing has to be FRIENDS. I have made so many, some have come and gone and others are still here, supporting me, watching my back, kicking me up the rear when needed and giving hugs often. So to those I have already met and to others I still hope to meet - THANK YOU.

 

[Eleanor]

My one thing: responses from people who understand what I am going through at the dark moments - so I feel like I exist.

My second one thing ;) All the helpful information/strategies on how to manage around my H's PTSD and help him manage it.

 

[Froggie]

Friends that don't judge you because they understand what PTSD is all about.

The information, other member's posts - how they deal and grow through what their living, the lighter threads in the chit chat section - that does a lot of good.

 

[cherryblossom]

Just picking one thing is tough - because this forum offers so much.

I echo peoples opinions with regards to finding like-minded people, finding support and not feeling so alone etc. Finding lovely new friends is also a massive plus.

But for me the best and biggest thing has been learning more about PTSD, and finding a way to move forwards. I was completely stuck, and remained stuck for some time, even after joining the forum. But eventually the message got through to me - I had to talk to about my trauma, and open up, in order to overcome it.

Maybe that sounds simplistic, but I was so afraid to talk about my issues, to actually verbalise my trauma. I felt that talking about things would only make my situation worse. I thought it would only increase my symptoms, and for a while it did. It gets worse before it gets better - that is so true - but the point is, it does get better.

I don't know if I'd have ever got to this point without this forum, and more specifically, without Anthony pushing me, beyond my comfort zone, to deal with my trauma, instead of burying my head in the sand and hoping, by some miracle, it would all go away.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

The gracious and kind people I have met here, who have so helped, supported, and encouraged me. The help I got in getting over a driving phobia. I could'nt have done it without the people rooting me on.

The trauma diary, where the good realizations keep coming to me. The pieces are fitting together.

The education about ptsd that I am getting is helping me to be more assetive and proactive in my own healing process.

I am realizing so many things, i am learning so many things, really useful and helpful info.

I only wished I had had this forum when my kids were little, but I confort my self with the though, better late than never.

This is a great thread, thank you very much.

 

[Chondra]

Community. (Soothed an ache I did not know I had)

 

[Eleanor]

Changed my mind - the biggest and best thing is that taken all together it has enabled/educated/supported me in keeping my marriage together while my H gets his PTSD under control.

 

[goingonhope]

One thing that I would consider to be The Best overall thing from the forum which I've benefited from is to be permitted a voice in this lifetime, as well as given space to do so, without being attacked, beaten, unfairly threatened and alienated for its inconvenience and sometimes dark nature.

Being thorough and honest in respect to Ptsd and trauma is often dark in nature, though truthful, and thus I had long instructed myself to seldom if ever breathe a word of any of it outside of the home or within most any relationship.

An exception may have occurred here or there but very few to zero, as initially I'd been accustomed to saying absolutely nothing. And, then after many years of silence, I'd only personally own and/or selectively ever mention what I was responsible for and my likely exclusive-fault in all things. Then later I did address a trauma chunk, which I had dragged out of me and I spoke of during a therapy.

As for within family of origin and previously thereafter elsewhere, I was heavily taught to please others, keep my mouth shut and go to my grave with everyone's and my own baggage as if it were entirely mine.

Therefore, the absolute best'est thing for me about the forum is permissions to claim space, as well as, claim my voice and without doing so being perceived as harmful, an attack or threatening toward anyone. ...therefore not always unacceptable and forbidden and deserving of additional abuses of me.