ok. Great topic! I want to share my answers in points because it is easier for me that way to be clear. This is just my personal experience.

1) My level of trauma was severe. Borderline critical at times due to threat to life and lives of others. It began from the time I was an infant and lasted until I was 27.

2) My DX is Complex PTSD with DID.

3) People seeing me on the outside often have no idea at all the level of trauma I had (they are shocked when I share just the "smallest" bit with them).

4) Now, I share all this because I do think that the level of trauma may impact how healing trauma work can be for a person.

a) In my case, the trauma was such a HUGE part of my past that the "good" of living was not even known to me growing up. The only thing I knew about life at all was how painful it was.

b) The "good" that I did find in life was usually my mind using dissociation to wall-off the pain in order to function and remain alive. While this works when the trauma is going on, it is not a healthy way to live. For me, it was not authentic joy at all.

5) I spent time in my 20's going to a college T - was "forced" to go after the sudden passing of my fiancee. During that time, I was still in a "relationship" with a primary abuser. My college T could not do anything to "rescue" me from that situation, but he knew I was in very deep pain. So all he could do was get me to come see him so he could make sure I was "ok" and could go to classes.

That college T spent hours with me in silence. He got enough out of me to realize that the level of trauma was too deep for him to work on with me, and I was not at a safe place to do that work. He told me these things. So his focus was on helping me get skills to stay alive and be able to survive until I was able to escape my last abuser. His focus was on what they call the "stabalization" phase of trauma healing. And that took YEARS.

He told me when I left college "Your mind will need to process through these things. But don't rush it. It will do it when IT is ready to do it. When that happens, this is what it may feel like to you ..... " "When that happens, call me or go find a therapist who specializes in trauma."

6) I spent 10 years after college in a very wonderful state of finally being free from all my abusers and being able to build my own foundation under my feet. I still had DID and PTSD, but I wasn't in obvious pain. Deep down, I was still very wounded, but I was doing very well.

7) One day a couple years ago, I started to experience crying at work. The work had picked up stress, but it was more than that. As things got worse, I realized I needed help and did what my college T told me to do - I went out and found a T who specialized in trauma therapy and PTSD.

For me, I didn't have a choice on doing trauma work, my brain saw I was on a solid foundation - I was SAFE (no more chance of being tossed onto the streets and being homeless or starving to death - both real threats in the truama past) so my brain finally said "NOW I can get through this!"

Our brains are like animals. We can't and won't process through trauma until we are at a safe enough place to do so. It does more harm for a person to try to force the brain to deal with the past if it is not ready. When the brain is ready, it is like giving birth to a child - that baby is going to come - like it or not!

Because my T knew how to do trauma work for me, I didn't have to do in-patient. I used PC as a major support. And I went on short-term disability from work for a while. I saw my T three to four times a week when doing the trauma work. My life STOPPED. There was no way I could have worked while processing through all that stuff.

When it was almost done, I was able to get back to work. It has been hard because it felt like major surgery inside. And I still have some bits that have to be worked through. But I finally have a freedom that I deserved.

For me, trauma work was not a choice any more than it was my choice to have those things done to me. It stunk. It was NOT FAIR. And it was criminal I had to experience trauma and the resultant trauma healing.

But I made it through. And now (forty years later) I can finally have the life that should have been mine from the time I was a child.