I haven't been here in a long time, but I have a different take on what The Observer said. I recently kind of forced myself to do a long free range walk in another country - I forced myself because I felt like I was becoming walled in by the way I was living! I learned many things on that walk, and one of them was that I will always listen to my own self before I listen to a counsellor/therapist/psychologist because, although I needed them and they helped me, I really didn't want to stay in the closed up situation I found myself in.
I don't think it's self pity, it's kind of not knowing where to from here! I'm not all healed and cured, but I liked seeing myself be brave in spite of it all, and I liked seeing that I could do this thing, albeit with many fears and paranoias, and as a result I take my fears and paranoias less seriously than I did!
Maybe this poster is just trying to say it's possible to live anyway, it's possible to go forward - even with debilitating dissociation and distrust in our fellow humans. It was better therapy for me going on that walk than all the talking I've done, and all the antidepressants, tranquilisers etc. Even though I did still feel some isolation and fear, it instilled hope in me that if I keep trying not to limit myself and keep accepting the changes in me I can still do what I want to do, and not have to look forward to a lifetime of therapy and pills - because I realy hated that thought!
It's not a pity-party the way people feel after immense trauma, but I did feel after the walk that I know better how to look after me than any therapist or any drug - and it really helped me. I don't feel so stuck.
I don't think I ever posted my specific situation, but I do still feel the echoes of it and maybe I always will. But still! I learned I can operate in the world even with anxiety, PtSD etc etc.
Maybe that's what he was trying to say. You can't go back to the person you were before, but you can go forward into a world informed by prior trauma - and that world can still come up to greet you and to meet you. There is hope!