The Paradoxes Of Healing, Happiness And Love

[Firefly44]

Over the last few months as I've started my journey of recovering from trauma and PTSD, I've realized that there are a lot of seeming paradoxes to grapple with. Has anyone else noticed this? What paradoxes have challenged you? How were you able to reconcile them?

Here are some that I've realized:

1A. The key insights I've had have all been, in hindsight, so simple and obvious
1B. I will only realize things when I am ready

2. Beliefs and emotions can be incredibly real and feel so real that it seems that they must be true. And yet, things can be real but not true.

3A. Accepting that I was abused and that it has had a profound effect on me, how I relate to myself and others. I need to focus on my healing.
3B. Nothing is wrong with me. I am all right. I am an amazing, wonderful, generous, kind person

4A. There are people that I care about very much. I deserve to have such people in my life
4B. I cannot control other people. Only by respecting that can the natural and positive future manifest itself

5. Being human means opening up myself to vulnerability. Only by fully opening up to others and possibilities can I have a full life. But this also means that I open myself up to more profound pain-- pain that sometimes cannot be explained. I choose to do it anyways.

6A. Other people can be great sources of happiness.
6B. I must be responsible for my own happiness. Only by having a strong foundation of self-love can I receive and give love fully.

7A. Culture today teaches us that being busy, productive, accomplished is the key to success and therefore happiness.
7B. Happiness is in the small things. It's a beautiful day. Connecting with friends. Sleeping in. Allowing yourself to enjoy what is happening now without feeling guilty or judging.

 

[Firefly44]

8A. A horrible thing has happened to me that has created maladaptive beliefs and habits in me-- distorting who I am.
8B. Now that it's happened, I'm grateful for the opportunity to discover my own strength. To learn the skills to recover. To have the chance to start almost from scratch and allow myself to become the best possible me. Everyone has some maladaptive habits-- we just have more and stronger ones. For most people, the consequences of these are not bad enough for them to work on the habits. For us, once the denial breaks, we must identify and correct them. It's a dark gift but a gift I hope to be worthy of.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I see these as paradoxes that everybody deals with, not solely those with ptsd.

 

[Firefly44]

Solara, agreed. A lot of these are paradoxes are ones everyone grapples with. I'm slowly beginning to believe that those of us with trauma/PTSD have more of them and may get stumped by them more. Sort of what I alluded to i n 8B. Thanks for calling it out more explicitly.

Have you come across any or are you working on any currently that aren't on the list?

 

[Survivor2Thriver]

vulnerability

Vulnerability. Ohh what a word.

I suspect my T would like to tape number 5 to my fridge,forehead front door and anywhere else I commonly look. :D

 

[Al_Lurker]

An excellent post. I hope that you continue to progress towards 6b. That is the one I think we all struggle with sufferer or supporter.

 

[Notsowild]

Yes I have been thinking about this a lot. Number 5 is hard. Love number 7.

 

[Survivor2Thriver]

Trust and trauma. :eek:

~If you want the naked beauty of my vulnerability, you have to have the strength to share the understanding of, the private pain, that makes me feel so tender and fragile. For I am as strong, as I am, weak. If you want me to come home to you, be the safe harbor, in which, i can seek refuge.”
―

 

[Al_Lurker]

@Survivor2Thriver

Please help me understand how to build that harbor for I can't understand number 5 as I've never sailed that course. Though I wish to shelter even the safest harbor requires a pilot.

That's what I'd love to tell my sufferer if she thought I was part of the happiness for which she sought.

 

[Firefly44]

Oh vulnerability is hard-- I don't deny that. It's a challenge everyone has and that trauma survivors have even more. It's particularly hard if you still believe deep down inside that you are bad / toxic / broken. Because you never want anyone to expose that. At least that was the challenge (and is the challenge) for me.

I'm a fan of stories and metaphors-- they help me understand things in a way straight forward sentences cannot-- so I'll try explaining it this way. Imagine that when you were little, one day you looked directly into the sun and was blinded temporarily. From that day forth, you decided that the sun was bad and you lived your life only in the night time. Is it possible to only live when the sun is not out? Yes. Is it safer? Perhaps. But what at what cost?

We all have a reason to be extremely fearful of vulnerability. We more than anyone know the pain that can result. But I think we must also realize that we more than anyone should understand the joy that it can bring.

I can't guarantee that by being vulnerable, you won't get hurt. In fact, almost by definition, I can say that you will get hurt. Yet even now I know that I will choose to do it again. That the next time I will be even more vulnerable in my relationship.

(I must add here that I'm not advocating for throwing all caution to the wind. You must take the proper precautions. Don't run out into the sun straight at a lion. Don't get into a relationship with someone who uses drugs / drinks heavily/ has a history of violence.

I have been fortunate that the relationships I have chosen to develop, again both platonic and romantic, have been with wonderful, caring people. I know that unfortunately this has not been the case for others.)

 

[Survivor2Thriver]

Please help me understand how to build that harbor

You can't build it. She has to feel safe. That is within her. Her walls will not come down until she feels safe.

 

[Survivor2Thriver]

We all have a reason to be extremely fearful of vulnerability. We more than anyone know the pain that can result. But I think we must also realize that we more than anyone should understand the joy that it can bring.

I have been pondering this since reading this thread. Is it fear? Or is it as trauma survivors we understand too much? Or both?