News Upside To Trauma?

[fairywings]

I'm happy that some can emerge stronger, but when you throw everyone into the same bucket, it almost makes it sound like - what's wrong with you - why can't you just make lemonade out of it like that guy over there? ericaboo


Right, I've heard that one not once, but hundreds of times!

 

[tvzz]

There has certainly been research that has been more prevalent into the positive side of experiencing psychological trauma which is rather intriguing in that incorporates a different viewpoint in experiencing trauma. Stephen Joseph is a great professor and researcher who has published several articles and books about the idea of "Post traumatic growth"

 

[EloiseLandau]

When life gives you lemons, make a lemon cannon.

 

[fairywings]

When life gives you lemons, make a lemon cannon.

:)

 

[Eleanor]

Modifying the potato gun.... will come back with results....:D

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Humans have a need to find something positive in everything. In death, it's "they're in a better place." we can't just accept things for what they are! As in PTSD just all around sucks. I think this sugar coating is really a form of denial.

 

[Eleanor]

Maybe it is a form of denial. But maybe it is possible to acknowledge the good AND the bad without losing sight of either. Denial requires (as I understand it) actually denying or minimizing or otherwise downplaying the badness. And perhaps it is possible to fully understand and accept the bad, AND still choose to acknowledge and value the good that accompanies it.

Or perhaps the whole labeling "good and bad" thing is a mistake of sorts. Maybe everything just "is what it is" and we do best when we accept it and deal with it in a way that helps us to become more compassionate and response-able persons.

Surely sometimes people doing denial will use any and every intellectual move in the book. That doesn't make the intellectual move about denial - any more than using a hammer to break someone's knee caps makes a hammer inherently an instrument of torture. Its just a hammer at the end of the day. It is how its use is shaped by our agendas and intentions that makes the actions helpful or not.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Denial or not, it still all around sucks. I refuse to find something positive in it as it would somehow be validating my abuser. Like ohhh, thank you soooo much for molesting me when I was four because I'm a stronger person because of it! No, I don't think so.

I was on another forum and someone was doing the sugar-coating thing and they made a comment about how it was good that the victims of 9/11 are dead because they don't have to live in a post-9/11 world. Or something like that. Yes, sugar-coating to the extreme. I'm sure the victims families are happy they're gone, too.

I don't sit around and acknowledge the bad side of everything that's good, so why do I have to acknowledge the (imho faux) good side of everything bad? No, I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. I came from a family where everything was hidden and denied, so i really don't like to do it now.

But I suppose to each their own. If you need to find goodness, all the power to you. I'm sure there are those out there who can find good things about the holocaust, too. SMH.

 

[Philippa]

Yeah, I don't know how victims of the holocaust manage to be able to forgive the german people who did that to their people and their families...but I do know that not forgiving can be empowering for a while, but eventually it will eat you up and that's the same as abusing and punishing yourself on top of what an abuser did to you. Forgiving lets you be free...and that's the only reason I am willing to forgive now...for my sake, not theirs.

I like to see the good and the bad in most things, not just acknowledge the good...which used to shit me to no end hearing my father talk about how wonderful his parents were, even though they never gave him any love or acknowledgement or praise for what he made of himself. People who always see the good and never let themselves acknowledge the bad are missing a vital part of their life, I believe, and as hard as it is to face it, I'd rather live in truth of things than walk around in denial, though that would be easier...which is why so many people do it of course.

 

[Eleanor]

Re Denial: It *seems* easier... and it is, maybe, right up until the point where they take you to the hospital, or someone gets hurt, maimed, or dies....:(

 

[LC23]

The 'upside' to trauma is definitely a silver lining sort of thing., There are ways in which people accustomed to the trauma experience can function in ways that seem impossible to a non-PTS survivor. Like when things are absolutely chaotic and it actually feels normal, the ability to be clear headed in other kinds of trauma situations, the ability to visualize more clearly and vividly (both as a recall mechanism for our wound trauma as well as a method to visualize a different, happier reality as we learn to put the PTSD gremlins aside.

My martial arts teacher once put it something like this: When you push past where you think your limits are, you often discover those limits are further out than you think they are. There is a martial arts training concept called 'shugyo' - intense physical conditioning designed to wear out the body and mind, the idea being that if you ever have to use your martial arts to defend yourself, it's not going to always be when you're rested, ready, and on an even-keel. Learning how to overcome intense stress and trauma is as useful to the karateka as it is to the PTS/PTSD sufferer. In the case of a martial artist, though, they undergo that voluntarily, with the intent of strengthening themselves and with the guidance (usually) of an experienced teacher who knows how to cultivate that. Being pushed involuntarily through that experience via trauma makes that experience more fraught with psychological peril, makes it more a roll of the dice. Some of us roll a 6 and come out stronger. Others roll a 1 and are permanently broken. To re-traumatize PTSD sufferers before the original traumas have been dealt with is almost a sure-fire recipe for disaster, IMHO. A few people might transcend in that fashion, but that seems a longshot at best.

There's things I can do mentally and emotionally that most other people can't, quite bluntly, because they've never had to. It simply wouldn't occur to them to try were they not put into an extended trauma situation like I was. In some ways those things are a point of pride for me in having overcome that pain, confusion, and anguish. But it's nothing I would ever wish for someone else, not my best friend, not my worst enemy.