What has healed you?

[alt]

I am curious as to what has healed you?

My methods of healing consisted of (from least to most effect):

1) Self-medication
While I didn't touch alcohol like many others, I did Iboga (a psychedelic plant) in.microdosing the months after my trauma. I don't know if it helped me stop the PTSD or milden it, but it did make me ok with being traumatized. I never had too much of a bitterness or hurt over having been traumatized, and I somehow feel I would have felt a lot more desperate if I hadn't done the iboga, as the iboga helped me understand the "purpose" of my trauma.

2) Quitting smoking
As we talk about self-medication, I smoked like a chimney from a few months into the trauma and for more then 2 years. When I say "a chimney" I mean anything from 0 to 100 cigarettes a day. I tried to reduce the smoking and tried to quit several times, but the anxiety during withdrawal after PTSD is a lot bigger than the anxiety if not traumatized. For long I feared the withdrawal so much, and couldn't go through it to the end, but then I realized I could use the withdrawal to go into my pain, and managed. 3 days in emotional agony during withdrawal from cigarettes gave me a lot of insight into my issues, and ended up helping me a lot.

3) Therapy
While therapy hasn't really helped the PTSD directly, it has helped my self-insight a lot. 2.5 years of therapy now and I know myself so much better. As I learn to know myself, I also get stronger in other realms.

4) Shamanism
Well, I don't necessarily believe in ghosts or other realms, but I learned a lot about these other realms and became a rather good shaman myself. That's right, I learned it. Either my fantasy is genius good (to the level of making others believe that they see me seeing things) or I'm actually psychic, and either way, it helps me to use my abilities for healing purposes. I understand more of the world, and I can bring back the pieces of my soul that I have lost and I can do internal energy works to shift energies inside and make the energies flow.

5) Working out
I think working out is the best thing I started for healing PTSD. I love the effect, both on my self-esteem as I get fitter and fitter and on my psyche as I feel better and better in my skin.

6) Eating healthier
Keeping a healthy life style has helped, and diet and also certain supplements have helped balance my body

7) Time
The best helper - time - it heals all wounds. I'm impatient, so it isn't my favorite, but definitely the best.

 

[Deleted member 40995]

Things that have helped in the healing process for me
1 Time :)
2 Patience with myself
3 Therapy
4 Being on this site:hug:

 

[alt]

Things that have helped in the healing process for me
1 Time :)
2 Patience with myself
3 Therapy
4 Bei...

Awww! Number 4!!!! <3 :)
I agree!

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Time,
Being here on the forum and the friendships made to help and support each other.
My higher power
CBT with my therapist.

 

[Mach123]

I wanted to write something positive. There is a trick I use in my thinking. It is fairly new and I got it since I have been with my current therapist. I have written about it before but it has been changing and is worth writing about it again. I spent my whole life feeling bad. You can call it lots of other things. You can attribute it to my condition. The bottom line though is I felt bad mostly always and when I felt worse things were getting pretty serious. A few years ago it was suicidal depression. High tide raises all boats it's said and I have found in my recovery I feel better overall, about everything, which enables me to control my thinking a little better. So, no matter what it is I ask myself, "what if that wasn't bad or you were not bad because of it or you didn't feel bad about that?" This is amazing because I was able to tack bad feelings onto almost everything, blame myself for it somehow or say if I was a better sort of person a thing like that wouldn't happen to me. Sometimes I have justifications for why it's OK for me to feel bad about X,Y or Z that are almost insurmountable. I mean there are some things that I just have a right to feel bad about. The problem is though that feeling bad never made me feel better. Sometimes I think it's like that. Sometimes I think I was actually trying to make me feel better or do better or be better by telling myself I was bad. But I got so good at it being bad/feeling bad) I guess I actually started to believe it? IDK. It's a terrible motivator though. So now, when I'm able, I don't do it. It feels good not to feel bad but it takes getting used to. Sometimes I think I hear someone in my head saying, "who do you think you are to feel good?" or"don't you see how bad this is? you are in a dream world." People will always tell you that. Misery loves company. IDK. I don't know who I think I am for feeling good. I do what I can do. It's easy to see plenty of things in my life as bad and I can easily find people who'll agree, it is bad if I open my big mouth and ask. Now I'm not so sure things are as good/bad as I thought. I feel occasionally like if I do it hard enough nothing will ever bother me again, no matter how bad it is. It's just a trick in my thinking.

 

[Tornadic Thoughts]

My healing continually comes from my breath, my fork, my daily overall consumption choices, kinder self-talk, daily purposeful movement, daily nature connections, a talk therapy outlet, unlearning all the shit I was made to believe in my youth, and re-learning how to truly and healthily love myself.

 

[seabadger]

Can I talk to you about the shamanism? I got up close and personal with my buried trauma at a series of ayahuasca ceremonies 2 years ago. The shaman wasn't a good one IMO. I went through a full on exorcism, it was really intense, something you'd expect to see in a horror movie. The shaman seemed to have got overwhelmed and bailed out during the process. She wouldn't let me come back to her ceremonies, she says I'm too wild on ayahuasca. I had a bad feeling walking into that room with her, I ignored it but I'm thinking now my gut instinct was right.

 

[user27357]

staying busy is my best healer.

When I am totally engrossed in a project I am not thinking the thoughts that lead to the depression tailspin.

If I want some time off I find ways to stay focused on something fun, flying sport kites, boating in whitewater or in very shallow water with our jet sled, exploring in the woods- stuff like that. The key is to be able to push a limit, focus on a challenge, try to overcome a blocker, otherwise I might as well be reading or watching TV, not bad either one of them if the subject matter is able to retain my interest.

That and a long steady pull of therapy, benzoes, and EMDR.

 

[bento]

Staying away from toxic people/situations
Spending time with kind people
Embracing minimalism (I find dealing with clutter stressful)
Getting real with what my deal breakers are and maintaining good boundaries in all situations
Therapy, both CBT/EMDR
Quitting self medicating with substances (might be ok in the moment, but the resulting chaos
factor and health consequences are never worth it)
Getting organized--ie keeping on top of paperwork, bills, etc.
Having fun (it's weird how much I struggle with this)
Getting on top of my health concerns and actually following through with doctor's recommendation
Working on developing my skills
Working on becoming as self sufficient as possible (while allowing for healthy interdependence)

Eating well, getting fit and sleep hygiene are my current focus and struggle. Kudos to those
of you here who have made this a daily part of your life. You are an inspiration!!