When They Say Healing Yourself, Is Redefining Yourself: It’s no joke.

   

I always kind of wondered what that meant, when I was first diagnosed, I didn’t even know what PTSD stood for, nor did I know what it was. The girl said I know what you are going through its called PTSD and EMDR can help you overcome it. So I began therapy shortly after and was miserable still, started EMDR and it always made it worse, which I come to find out, if you aren’t at the right stage of healing or if it isn’t done properly it can actually make you worse. Well I’m pretty sure that is what happened with me, because I would have a session, feel okay when I left, and then a couple days later I would be worse than I was to begin with. And it became a very vicious cycle. So finally, I kicked EMDR as a whole and began seeing a new therapist, doing talk therapy which helped but I saw the one on the EMDR kick for almost a year. But you read all over, after trauma you have to redefine your life and what it is about. I would read that all of the time and be like what? I know who I am, I know what I have gone through, and most of all I know it has sucked. It’s left me dealing with PTSD, and before that with a lot of built up pain, confusion and anger. But I wasn’t quite getting it. But now that I hit rock bottom and then things suddenly started coming together I realize I wasn’t going to get it until I got to that part of my recovery. You will always be saddened by the loss of a childhood, good parenting and your innocence. But when you reach the point to where everything FINALLY makes sense, its like, WOW! That’s what they meant by that. Finally you can put things into proper perspective, things start to make sense. You can put blame and responsibility there, anger here, grief and sadness there. You finally realize where everything belongs and whose shoulders it sits on, after so long of believing and feeling as if it sat on yours.

Now I don’t really give much credit to therapy it was nice to be reassured  but it almost seems to me like it took time. No one wants to hear that, but I didn’t have much support, nor was I ready to talk to many people. So I isolated and at times only relied on myself because once again, I pretty much have always had to do that. But I would have to say, just like my 1st therapist who wrote on a sticky note one day when I said “I just wanna know how long this will take!” she replied with, “It takes as long as it takes” and wrote it down for me, I still have it. Those words are so true. I also have a background that says, You cannot heal a lifetime of pain overnight, be patient with yourself, it takes as long as it takes to rebuild yourself. Those words CANNOT be any truer. If you went through a lot of pain for many years, you can’t expect it all to heal overnight. But to get to the point of the post…

Okay, many people including me probably get scared or nervous when they say you have to redefine yourself, I even got nervous when they would talk about subconscious stuff, because I was like, what? I knew what I went through, I know who I am, but I just didn’t want any surprises. But your baseline stuff will stay the same, your gender, race, sexual orientation, hair color, and so on and so forth, no need to worry there. But what they mean by redefine yourself, they mean the following:

• If you were never loved as a child, then you don’t know how to be loved, you don’t know how to accept love, you don’t even know if it is true. And if you don’t know how to accept it, then guess what? You can’t give it either. You have to learn to be loved and give love. Which is vital for humans to experience, it makes life worth living and all of those big special moments in life, aka marriage, having children, etc..
• Trust: If you were abused as a kid, or in and out of your home, maybe raped as an adolescent or something, you lose the sense of trust. In my case, I can’t recall a time when I have really trusted anyone. I thought I did, but looking back I was always skeptical of everyone. No hyper vigilant like with PTSD, just weary of them. Thinking I knew how it was to be hurt all too well by people who should care, so if you say you love me or care then I’ll be prepared to be hurt sooner or later. You become to realize when you are further in the healing process like I have just reached, that you notice how important it is to have close relationships, where trust is kept and important, not just tossed around. And you realize how vital it is as humans to be able to trust those who are trustworthy and also be trusted ourselves.
• You have to redefine how you see things, and that kind of comes together in time, but when that happens and those negative emotions and feelings can be put into check, or placed in the proper places, then that’s when the PTSD stops running your life. You know you are or aren’t safe. You know you are capable of keeping yourself safe, unlike when you were a helpless child. You know you aren’t and never were weak, but strong to confront the hurt that lies so deep, to get things under control and understood to live a healthy, enjoyable life that isn’t tainted by the poor choices of others years ago. You begin to see that everything you are or were hyper vigilant of with PTSD, are simply safety mechanisms, your brain says, whoaaa people of that sex, or race are dangerous, remember what happened when you were a kid, when it is actually stuck in  safety mode using past references from times when you were helpless as references. It really can make you feel crazy. It’s like knowing you are safe and capable but yet your brain trips as if there is some real threat, and you go along for the ride because of the adrenaline and hormones released, and sure enough your brain and body has a way of making it seem like a real threat so its scary. And every time that stimuli triggers that response it gets more and more en-grained and becomes your “normal” response. And will continue to control until you’re far enough in your healing process to reclaim your life and sense of safety in the world aside from your past hurts.
• And last but not least, traumas, such as abuse, rape, domestic violence, instability in childhood, lack of parenting, all of that stuff is traumatic to children and adolescents. They take a huge toll on your self worth, your self image and self esteem. You begin to feel only good for sex, or sex=love, you begin to feel you’re dirty or different, that you don’t fit in, you aren’t worthy of love if you were your parents would have loved you, and taken care of you, that you are weak, not manly enough, drowned in the world of stigmatization, and all of the myths that go along with the different events. But once you reclaim your life from those negative events, those things that hurt you so badly, because other people were selfish, sick, or made poor choices, you can begin to redefine your purpose in life, your self worth, esteem and image and know it WASN’T you, it WAS them.

I really hope this helps some of you and spread the word!

Stay blessed!