"make The Choice To Move Past It"

[EveHarrington]

She was raped; it's highly safe to say that she has some sort of mental illness, including PTSD,...

I think this is a dangerous assumption to make.

Many people are traumatized. Most do not develop PTSD. Many are able to heal and move forward with little to no lasting effect.

Those of us who get a lifetime disorder? We're the lucky ones. ;)

 

[Rani G2]

This discussion about developing enough will Power or resellience (It is definitely important) is kind of a interesting thing.

People often make comments like “Well, one should/must get stronger and fight and move forward, not dwell in self pity“. When it comes to psychological disorders many people still really are uneducated. They might fear the existential Angst, that often comes to the surface with all our personal tragedies. No one likes to feel weak, to get oppressed. We do live in society (I guess it was always that way) where people are being told that the “stronger“ one survives. What is strength though? I used to think, some few years ago, that those who keep on functioning, that those who fulfill their obligations in life are the stronger ones. But if you look closer, most of them pay a high price in doing so. You cant experience traumatic events and just move over, it always makes its ways to our consciousness in many ways. You can take drugs, suppress and go on living, but i guess that cant be a quality of living. One day your organism will rebell. Always.It has nothing to do with weakness, phlegmatic, becoming a victim by choice. We all have our reasons.

Shankara

 

[Deleted member 34424]

I think this is a dangerous assumption to make.

Many people are traumatized. Most do not develo...

She has said many times that she suffers from her rape and is still working on it. Does she have to say "yup, I have PTSD, panic attacks, depression, high anxiety. etc" for you to accept that she has issues because she won't outright say what it is? That shouldn't at all be the case and a bit rude.

 

[Deleted member 34424]

I think the point of this thread is that for those of us who are highly symptomatic, we ---cannot...

You're assuming I'm not symptomatic from excluding me that I can get out of bed vs. stay in bed not knowing all of the mental illnesses I have or their level of severity and knowing that no medication works for me, so I really only have therapy and myself to work through this, which can be very exhausting.

I was in bed for half a day because I was depressed and couldn't/didn't want get up. But after getting over my self pity (for which I had no reason to; it was just my anxiety making up random things once again because of my OCD) I said "eh, not today brain, not today" and got up to go for a walk. Was I cured? Of course not, but I 100% know I felt WAY better than me being in bed all day crying because I'm listening to nothingness in my head. For my 23 years of life and knowing myself extremely well and all of my triggers I know it's all BS, so I get up and work on things.

So, the vast majority of the time, it is a choice and it is your responsibility to think things through and ask yourself "am I going to say in bed for 5 days straight, or am I going to do something else even if I feel like crap for a little while?" Would you rather be eating outside and people watch vs. stay in your bed, not showered, no social interaction? That's not good for you; science agrees. It makes anxiety worse because you're isolating yourself and not doing some sort of activity. Distractions are good; ruminating over things when you are not in therapy, working yourself up where you put yourself in a ball in the corner, is not helpful. You are just rehashing your trauma.

There's a difference between accepting and letting feelings, emotions, and thoughts flow freely and getting so wrapped up in them that they make you sick in all ways imaginable. It's simply not good for you; I've done it many times and it's not the way to go.

 

[Nevermore]

I just watched the video - heartbreaking. I think he is trying to move past it, but still such sadness in his eyes.
i tried to move on too, surely everyone here did also. I pressed it down for over 10 years, and then I still kept running as fast as I could away from it.
It was only when more trauma happened in my life that the stuff from the past could not be pressed down any more.
I saw that in his eyes, that he presses it down. He doesn't want it to define his life.
I used to feel i could choose to keep the past away from my life and then there came a day where I no longer had that choice!
So it wasn't really a choice after all.
I really wish everything good to happen for that kid.

 

[EveHarrington]

She has said many times that she suffers from her rape and is still working on it. Does she have...

I stand by what I said. It was a direct reply to your comment-----

"She was raped; it's highly safe to say that she has some sort of mental illness, including PTSD, because of it."

And I mean we should ---not--- assume someone has a mental illness, ---ever--- (ever!)

Wanna know the truth? I have lots of symptoms that aren't part of this disorder or that disorder but they are very debilitating. (My psychiatrist won't diagnose another disorder as none fit.) If someone assumed the "typical" disorder for those symptoms, I'd be LIVID!

Please drop your assumption that in order to suffer from something that someone must have a diagnosable mental disorder.

Stick around a bit longer and you'll start to see all of the people who are posting, suffering with one thing or another, but it sure isn't PTSD and in many cases it's just normal life suffering that happens to everyone.

I realize you're quite young but I hope you can open your mind and see that things aren't so black and white. Suffering isn't married to mental disorders alone. I'm not trying to be rude. I stand by what I said in that it IS dangerous to assume someone has a mental disorder.

 

[EveHarrington]

You're assuming I'm not symptomatic from excluding me that I can get out of bed vs. stay in bed n...

Really, it's no fun to have discussions with people who can't understand that there is a dark end of PTSD and mental illness where one can't put on lipstick, go to lunch and be fine.

I am not going to defend my symptoms to someone who tells me what my life is like and cannot understand how bad things can be.

 

[joeylittle]

said "eh, not today brain, not today" and got up to go for a walk. Was I cured? Of course not, but I 100% know I felt WAY better than me being in bed all day crying because I'm listening to nothingness in my head.

I only wanted to comment that this is a more realistic example for most people, than your example of getting up, putting on lipstick, and going to lunch.

Emotional capacity is an important concept; it speaks to identifying what an individual can tolerate, and let's them set realistic, achievable goals.

Just as you wrote above - on a very bad day, I can consider it a victory if I get up, have some coffee, and go for a walk around the block. That's actually ambitious for me, because of various problems I have being outside - but, I can achieve it, and can appreciate that I met a goal.

On medium bad days, going out in public is a reasonable goal I can set for myself.

Everyone's capacity is different. It's actually damaging to set a goal that is at the extreme end of your capacity, because you will create more stress, not less. I used to do that. On the worst of days, I would push myself the hardest, to try and do a 'perfect' day: get up, clean the apartment, dress really well, go to work, be the friendliest person there, go to the gym, run errands...all the while telling myself I was a failure if I couldn't just be normal despite my depression. About 3 days of that, and then I'd hit a physical crash where I was unable to move for a few days.

Anyway, that was a sidebar - I only wanted to identify the differences in scale, when setting goals, and how what matters is trying to be realistic about what we can do, so we can actually achieve it.

For some people on some days, just getting up can be a major victory all its own. A great thing I learned in a PHP was about setting five goals for the day - and they might be get up, eat breakfast, get 30 minutes of physical activity, do 30 minutes of something for myself (read, knit, puzzle, whatever), and pay one bill. If that's what you can do that day, make that plan and do it. With permission to take breaks as often as you need. Invariably, I'd feel a bit better by the end of the day, and much less guilt about all the things I 'should' get done (if that makes sense).

I'm not saying you don't know these things, @ShamrockChalk - I'm only adding to the concept you are speaking of, in more detail.

 

[Just Sayin']

I'm not sure she was trivializing anything. I don't know that she was suggesting getting past stuff is...

@scout86, I had the same thought you did. I also thought. "What if he's repressing, dissociating and/or in denial?" Not denial that the trauma occurred of course -- he's there telling the story of it -- but denial that it DOES affect him. Telling his story in this way seems more like distancing himself from it, but that could be me. I've told the same version of my story enough times it's it's own script, and it doesn't phase me at all to say it. It's A story. Chain of events -- facts, objective like news Not MY story -- fear, sadness, flashbacks, the inability to cope sometimes, self-worth issues, attachment and trust issues ... and all the other PTSD minions.

I hope for his sake he's not avoiding it by hiding it from himself out in the open. Especially if that's the case and he's receiving so much praise for it.

I had a friend in high school who had put on a little puberty weight and had some other personal things going on. She stopped eating -- it was an apple every other day and an hour on the treadmill to burn off the calories from the apple (twice). When she stared losing the weight, everyone told her how great she looked and how good she was doing ... they had no idea what they were reinforcing.

Then again, radical acceptance, right? And not every traumatized person ends up with PTSD. I would have liked that fact to come up in conversation, so it's not ... See? If HE can do it, why can't you?!