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Trauma! A PTSD Blog

Developing hope in PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder) recovery is, in a word, difficult. You're struggling with the symptoms of PTSD that include depression, insomnia, nightmares, anxiety and hypervigilance (all of which can lead to despair) and you're supposed to find some way to be optimistic? You might be tempted to say, "No way," but if you want to heal it's going to be important to find a way to say, "Heck, yeah, I can develop hope in PTSD recovery."
I wasn't actually diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when I started therapy. So years into my first therapeutic relationship I realized we were going nowhere -- fast. I'd gotten into therapy to learn how to live as a chronic patient, but what we were doing was talking and talking and talking about my trauma and the enormous fears I carried. I was mentally and physically deteriorating at a frightening speed. I needed to know how to find a good PTSD therapist.
Within five years of the start of my posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms I was deep into self-destructive food restrictions that caused me to drop an enormous amount of weight. My parents had tried to get me into therapy after my trauma but I flat out refused to discuss it. With the weight loss, they forced me to see eating disordered specialists, none of whom knew what to do with me. I wouldn't eat and I wouldn't talk. Back in the early 80s the clear connection between PTSD and eating disorders wasn't well documented or understood. Now it is and the data is clear: the link between PTSD and eating disorders is real and very common.
When I was struggling with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) I didn't know how to describe what it felt like  to others. How can you possibly express what it feels like to live with anxiety, depression, desperation, insomnia, nightmares, flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, suffocating memories, terrifying sensations, boiling rage or anger and the slew of other PTSD symptoms? Rather than describe it I just isolated further and felt more and more alone -- and crazy. I didn't realize then that I wasn't alone in being stuck not knowing how to communicate my experience. I didn't know, at the time, how to define PTSD.
For anyone who experiences dissociation as part of the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), (and this includes me during my PTSD years) you know how frustrating, embarrassing and uncontrollable it can be. Reducing dissociation in PTSD is something we all want.
Enormous and consistent stress on a body will always be evidenced in maladies. Symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) cause many physical changes that frequently create medical issues. In my own PTSD experience, I developed significant digestive, immune, bone, hair and liver problems. Now, new research suggests PTSD might also cause type 2 diabetes.
In my own recovery from posttrauamtic stress disorder (PTSD), I came to see PTSD symptoms as a trauma addiction and this affected my self-esteeem. Let me explain.
Recently, I’ve spoken to two survivors who are just discovering (after years of invested time and work) that their therapists are not equipped to work with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  This breaks my heart to hear. You’re struggling enough to cope through the day without being stuck in a treatment approach that can’t help you reach your recovery goals as quickly as possible. But the two stories I recently heard don’t surprise me. In fact, it was my story too.
You change after trauma, but everyone else expects you to remain the same. Up until the day of your trauma (whether that was birth or any time afterward) the people around you have expectations for who you are, how you should behave, what you will and won’t do and that you will make choices in alignment with their agenda. The stress and pressure of these expectations can become enormously overwhelming – especially over the holidays.
Blocks in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) recovery are so common that they deserve their own book. From the varied origins of what gets you stuck to the way resistance sneaks up when you least expect it to the things that slow, stall and even flat out stop your PTSD recovery process can leave you feeling like a failure.