I was in therapy for a year, (2 hours per week) with the therapist that I found 'worked for me'. However, before that, I was in and out of therapy with multiple different therapists for at least 8 years. Having said that, I was also scared of the therapy process. I was scared to talk about it, because I didn't want to feel worse.
Eventually, after lots of searching, I stumbled upon the MyPTSD forum, and discovered that feeling a hundred times worse during therapy, before feeling better was how it is. I put my trust in that thought to a certain extent. But I was also very lucky to be accepted for therapy by a charity which specialised in sexual abuse, because what was available on the NHS (National Health Service UK) just hadn't helped me.
Therapy was a tough road There's no way I can say it was easy. By that point my family and a few friends were aware, so gave me some emotional support. However, in the early days I reacted to just how difficult therapy was. I ended up in hospital on several occasions due to non fatal od's, or self harm. Eventually, I figured out that I had to just ride out those bad times without reacting to them, by doing something silly. Once I'd accepted that, I started to make progress.
Honestly, I don't think you 'get over it'. But I do think that with the right help, traumatic memories can be stored properly in the brain, rather than being a myriad of raw emotions that take over your life.
It never goes away, but it does become easier to live with.
However, as I've learnt recently, all those PTSD symptoms, including flashbacks and nightmares and intrusive thoughts of the original trauma can resurface if life gets too stressful. My life has been more than a bit stressful for several months now, and I lost my way a bit. I honestly felt like I was back at square one, and questioned whether I'd ever really 'processed' my trauma at all. But that's just the way PTSD works. It will beat you down, as soon as life becomes too stressful, and you stop managing that stress.
So day to day, it still takes constant amounts of effort to 'manage', and as stress increases, it takes more effort. But also the more you learn to 'manage' any symptoms, the more it becomes part of your daily life, and the more normal your life becomes. You actually learn to manage stress, to the point that it becomes second nature.
