Living With PTSD - Hold On
When you have experienced trauma that imprints your brain with memories that remind you of how you felt on your absolute worse days, it is so easy for the unexpected sense (sight, sound, taste, touch) of something familiar to your trauma memory to drag your body and mind back to the initial experience.
Your body chemically responds as though you are once again living in the trauma experience.
You start to physically feel a change.
For every person this physical response is somewhat different: heavy arms, upset stomach, raising heart, pain in a body part, etc. and an overwhelming sense that something is just not right.
You begin to feel unsafe. You think you need to fight, flight or freeze. All of this happens to you. It is not something you are doing. Your body takes over. No matter how strong you are you can not stop it. It is an involuntary response.
What is so utterly frustrating is no matter how much therapy you do to stabilize, you never know when something else is going to trigger such a response. It is almost impossible to desensitize everything associated to the initial trauma experience. So while you can obtain a relative level of normality and what I like to call "victorious recovery", you can never be completely finished.
Living with PTSD is defeating. Can you see why people want this cycle to end? Can you see why suicide seems like a good option? (I hope that does not shock you.)
As a Christian I have learned to endure, to HOLD ON. I have never met a "trauma trigger" that cannot be overcome, and I never will.
The PTSD responses can be dealt with in a variety of ways: take more drugs (or other means to stop the body from responding), figure out what is causing the trigger and remove it from your life (if possible), or go to trauma therapy and do sessions to desensitize.
Of course, you can do all three. But understand, the process is tiring. I think, one day that I am over it all, that I am doing great. And then the simplest of things can shake my peaceful, cheerful stability.
Still, I have learned to HOLD ON.
I think this is why I enjoy life so deeply when I am not in a trigger state, why the simplest of things are so delightful. Living feels so amazing when you are not in a PTSD state.
So until I get over a present PTSD episode and figure out how to deal with it, I must put one foot in front of the next.
We can do this. The people in our life who love us and count on us need us to endure. God is calling on us to walk through these times with Him.
Yes, it is exasperating that it is never finished, but I think facing that "this" is part of life instead of thinking it will be finished is a part of the healing. Embrace it. How weird that might sound. Because if we still experience PTSD we are not defeated, we are living, and that in itself is a mighty victory!
I wrote this not only for the person who experiences PTSD but for those who love a person who experiences it so that they can better understand. Sometimes as a love one you can help by listening, helping to identify what caused the trigger and within reason removing it. Understand if a person has to live with the trigger, they will need therapy to stop the physical reactions.
As always, I hope these insights help.
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| Hold On photo by EliseEnchanted on DeviantART |
Your body chemically responds as though you are once again living in the trauma experience.
You start to physically feel a change.
For every person this physical response is somewhat different: heavy arms, upset stomach, raising heart, pain in a body part, etc. and an overwhelming sense that something is just not right.
You begin to feel unsafe. You think you need to fight, flight or freeze. All of this happens to you. It is not something you are doing. Your body takes over. No matter how strong you are you can not stop it. It is an involuntary response.
What is so utterly frustrating is no matter how much therapy you do to stabilize, you never know when something else is going to trigger such a response. It is almost impossible to desensitize everything associated to the initial trauma experience. So while you can obtain a relative level of normality and what I like to call "victorious recovery", you can never be completely finished.
Living with PTSD is defeating. Can you see why people want this cycle to end? Can you see why suicide seems like a good option? (I hope that does not shock you.)
As a Christian I have learned to endure, to HOLD ON. I have never met a "trauma trigger" that cannot be overcome, and I never will.
The PTSD responses can be dealt with in a variety of ways: take more drugs (or other means to stop the body from responding), figure out what is causing the trigger and remove it from your life (if possible), or go to trauma therapy and do sessions to desensitize.
Of course, you can do all three. But understand, the process is tiring. I think, one day that I am over it all, that I am doing great. And then the simplest of things can shake my peaceful, cheerful stability.
Still, I have learned to HOLD ON.
I think this is why I enjoy life so deeply when I am not in a trigger state, why the simplest of things are so delightful. Living feels so amazing when you are not in a PTSD state.
So until I get over a present PTSD episode and figure out how to deal with it, I must put one foot in front of the next.
We can do this. The people in our life who love us and count on us need us to endure. God is calling on us to walk through these times with Him.
Yes, it is exasperating that it is never finished, but I think facing that "this" is part of life instead of thinking it will be finished is a part of the healing. Embrace it. How weird that might sound. Because if we still experience PTSD we are not defeated, we are living, and that in itself is a mighty victory!
I wrote this not only for the person who experiences PTSD but for those who love a person who experiences it so that they can better understand. Sometimes as a love one you can help by listening, helping to identify what caused the trigger and within reason removing it. Understand if a person has to live with the trigger, they will need therapy to stop the physical reactions.
As always, I hope these insights help.
Comments
i followed your link from a time magazine article ... thank you for your posts ... it's good to know i'm not alone ... for what it's worth ...
ralph oden
Anyways, thank you for sharing. It's nice to know there are others out there that get it.
Thank you so much for commenting and sharing your experience.
I also had to remove my parents from my life. It also was what was BEST for me and my current family. Don't take on false guilt. You did the right thing.
Get in therapy with a specialist that works specifically with your type of trauma. I know timing can be hard and you have to do it when you feel it is best, but I am so grateful for having dug in hard so that I can now experience healthy, positive times with my children and husband.
I recommend EMDR and Brain Spotting or anything a therapist is doing to rewire the brain, not talk therapy.
The great news is that it is now proven that the brain can regenerate new cells and pathways!!! This was not known when I began therapy. So there is great hope in brain-based therapy.
Hang in there and I am here to support you in your journey.