What Does It Mean To Process?

[Uwi]

I hear over and over that ignoring trauma just makes it worse in years to come, but what if you feel like it's so locked into its own box of distant memory that it doesn't feel like it happened to you? It changed the path of my life, turning me back into eating disordered behavior, but now it is the ED ravaging my life, not the trauma. What does my T mean by processing? What does that look like? What is the purpose? And, is it actually necessary?

How do you know when the trauma is just a past and not your past?

 

[Hopeh]

https://www.myptsd.com/threads/what-does-processing-trauma-really-mean.27858/

 

[Ifawu]

And, is it actually necessary?

You can certainly work on improving each of your symptoms without working on (or even knowing) their causes, but I think you will be limiting your recovery. That said, some recovery is better than none.

 

[Kera]

Yes, but what is at the root of your eating disorder?

Likely your trauma.

If you don't resolve the trauma, the ED isn't going anywhere anytime soon.