What Does Long-Term Healing Look Like?

[the racha]

Just wondering if anyone out there has thoughts or experiences on what long-term healing looks like. I know that PTSD is a rollercoaster, but I'm wondering if-- with therapy, dedication to healing, and patience-- the rollercoaster evens out just a little bit over the years.

My best guess on healing is that some, or all, symptoms lessen, but it would be great if anyone out there has experience with this. What's the longest you have been between horrible bouts with PTSD? Did anything in particular trigger the horrible bouts? How long did they last?

Right now, in terms of my own healing, I can maybe go about 4 or 5 days without any symptoms at all, and I am optimistic that things will continue to get better.

racha

 

[cat]

Hi rache

Thanks for starting this thread I guess this is the question we all would like an answer to, I know I certainly do!

My recovery is at the stage where I might have a day or two without a trigger & I'm so relieved to have got this far. I'm sure this is definitely due to therapy - CBT & EMDR & dedication to the process in keeping up with all strategies needed to stay with positive thoughts. I've found the more recovery I achieve the more exhausted I feel & then unless I make sure I look after myself with extra relaxation time my symptoms increase.

For me healing so far has been a case of accepting that life is not as it was but it can be a good again providing I don't over stretch my boundaries.

It would be so reasurring to hear some longer term recovery stories.

Cat

 

[Claire]

At first I was stuck in PTSD hell and then I noticed I'd get a few glimpses of calm and they way things had been. I used to relish those time times and try and buid on them but they'd go almost as soon as I noticed them. I couldn't hang on to them. Gradually those moments became hours and then days. I'd get good days and bad days. Now I'm mostly experiencing good days. I do still sink back but usually I know why. I've neglected myself in some way, taken on too much work, not had enough sleep or done something that has pushed me too far. I can recognise what makes me bad and accept that it is and will get better. I am currently experiencing life with much more of the carefree attitude I had before my accident. I'm enjoying my sports without getting frightened all the time. I'm starting to live again rather than just exist.

I've had loads of therapy and EMDR. Its an ongoing process but at least I can now see the light. For years I couldn't and it was really hard to keep going. I'd constantly worry that therapy wasn't helping. I couldn't see improvement. Everything was just wrong but I couldn't see the levels. It was black and white, and black mostly.

Its like training for a marathon. You cant run at all at first. Maybe you cant even move your legs but with slow, constant work you gradually improve and start setting goals that you never thought you'd make.

 

[kers]

When I first started this process, I would have said that healing PTSD means 'being normal' and definitely symptom-free. As I've learned more about PTSD and why I got it, I've changed that view (grudgingly). I think long-term healing means being able to deal with the PTSD by taking care of myself and getting support without massive shame hampering me.

 

[starshine]

For me, it's the moments of when I walk down the road and feel safe and comfortable in my own skin, and my space doesn't constantly feel threatened. Healing for me would be when those moments are the norm, rather than the exception.

 

[Friend1954]

Dear Racha,


I am in the healing process since two (2) years ago. I did not know that I had PTSD until I conducted as extensive research trying to find out what was wrong with me and why and finally understood the issue.

I was married to a BPD and ND spouse for over 9 years which left me in a financial and emotional ruin. I can share with you some of the things that I did to overcome the disorder:

1.- To stop thinking about the past and feeling sorry/angry about myself.

By understanding the true root causes that triggered the PTSD, I came to
understand that there was nothing I could do to change things that happened in
the past and slowly did away with the guilt.
Our minds are like a flask, If you do not fill it with possitive matters then the old
matters will remain filling the same. Having said that, to displace the old matters
you to pour new and possitive thinking into the flask. I learned to play guitar and
started singing has a hobby, which provided me of sense of achievement and a
lots of new friends (killed two birds in one shot, did away with isolation and
empowered my self steem)

2.- To learn and continue.

After step 1.- I choose to slowly learn from past events, in manner to grow up
emotionally and profit from my experiences (both good and bad). Eventually I
have grown stroger and happier with mysellf over time. I feel that I still have to
run for some more miles ahead, but I have a possitive outlook of my future

Try to do what you like and get better at it. Make some achievable goals and go for them!!!

I sincerely hope the above words can be of some help to you..


Best Regards,

Friend1954

 

[Marlene]

For me, long-term healing means accpeting myself without judgement. Accepting that yes, all of the things that I remember did happen to me and I'm not making it up or making a big deal out of nothing. Even though it's still a battle for me. A smaller battle...but still a battle. Accepting that this is my life now and not beating myself up for not being what I feel like I 'should' be. Being reminded by my therapist that 'getting back to who I was before PTSD' isn't a good goal for me. Even though I was feeling ok, I still had 10 pounds of junk in a five pound bag and I had no skills to deal with anything I had put away.

Seeing this changed person that I have become as a worthwhile and necessary being and learning to relax and enjoy my life.

Lisa

 

[BethRSA]

Hi! I also used to think that "healing" would be being back to "normal". Since I (thankfully) had 29 years of relatively normal, nice life, I thought I'd get back to that.

11 years later, "healing" for me is that at times I can go for weeks and maybe 2-3 months before I have bad bouts of flashbacks/PTSD symptoms. When I finally started talking about it and putting the pieces of what happened into order in 2004/5, it helped a lot. The "good days" are becoming the norm, but I have to remember that having a "bad day" with lots of flashbacks doesn't mean I'm back to square one. (Usually I get so upset with myself. "Why can't I just be "normal"?") Someone gave me a good comeback for that--"Why do you want to settle for normal?" :smile:

Hope, trust, and pray for more good days than bad ones for you and each of us.

 

[Seychelle]

I used to think that recovery would mean I would *finally* get to experience what normal was like, having never had that in my entire life.

Now I'm learning to recognise that I'm never likely to be completely free of all this, that even if I heal really well, there are likely to still be some mental scars and my resilience is still not going to be as good as those who didn't have a traumatic childhood.

I'm still prone to dissociation at times, which is probably the most disruptive symptom for me these days. I have a reasonable set of tools now, though, and something of a support network (mostly a few people I work with, my counsellor, my GP and a few online friends).

This past week had a huge number of trigger events but apart from a couple of days feeling distressed, and a couple of days of mild dissociation I've been doing pretty damn well.

Major triggers for the past week: phoning the police several times to sort out an appointment to talk to them about my past, going back to my ex's place to pick up some stuff, a work trip to a place that has a lot of trauma memories tied up with it (several sexual assaults, some violence) and my sister's birthday.

I've had to travel to that particular place for work several times in the past few years and each time it took me a few weeks to recover from it, maybe longer. I was still able to turn up to work but I was badly dissociated and full of fear, and not particularly functional. But this time, I had no emotional reaction to it. I was concious at times that 5km south of the meeting location was my own personal house of horrors, but it barely affected me and I was able to make the concious effort to stay in the present. And that was with everything else that's going on.

I can now also sit at cafes and have people walk behind me without getting triggered. I used to get so jumpy and extremely angry and wanted to scream at whoever walked behind me. But now, the only time I'm slightly triggered by someone walking behind me is if they're right behind me and their shoes are click clacking on the floor.

Long term healing is more of the same, I think. Needing to be conciously aware of triggers and prepare for them in advance, and still get occasionally triggered badly when under stress, but mostly functional otherwise.

 

[Seychelle]

Needed to add a bit more: I still have a bunch of triggers that I haven't yet desensitised to yet, but I'm hoping I'll eventually get to the point where they're all like my experience of having to travel to the place with bad memories. ie, I still haven't got the courage to have a pap smear, go to the dentist or have a haircut, but once the police stuff is out of the way, I want to start addressing each of those and eventually get somewhat on top of them.

 

[the racha]

Thanks, everyone. I think this is pretty inspiring. The truth is that I (and we) have been through sheer hell and back, so I'm trying hard to be grateful for what I have and do the best I can with the cards I've been dealt. Every now and then when I start stressing over something, anything, I try to remind myself that I spent nearly all of December in a psych ward, taking baby steps towards taking my first shower in weeks.

It's a scary thing, to hope for better days and maybe even a return to pre-PTSD levels of energy. But hope is all I got, so I'm gonna take it and run with it. Like a lot of you, I have developed an ability to tell why I may be having symptoms (too much stress, too little sleep, too much intimacy, pushing myself too hard, family). But I also have a great set of tools, and I know that if I listen to my body and use my tools, that I do not have to go back to square one.

I hope some more folks post...

racha