(((Tam))),

My loudest message I can give you here is, "that working through PTSD is a challenge that many people will truely NOT understand. That there will be days of clarity, and days of real challenges that are really hard to understand. That what you have to reach for to the depths of you is a way to truely say to yourself, "I am really struggling and confused and I am trying very hard to understand it as best as I can, and what I have to keep telling myself as I struggle is that while I may feel very lost and frightened with this challenge, I have to keep telling myself that it is okay and it is a challenge and I have "YET" to master it and get myself back in order again. Do not be hard on myself when I fall and struggle, it only means that I am not "yet" capable of controling it all right now. I might get badly triggered and lose complete control sometimes and all it means that that I have not figured it out "YET". "

With PTSD it is very important that you learn to keep yourself in a place where you can remain constantly "forgiving and kind to yourself". That whenever you have a bad day, you have to learn to keep saying to yourself, I have not learned how to keep myself from having these reactions to the outside world "YET". Recovering from PTSD is a challenge that many will not understand. But the important thing to always remember is that you CAN work through it and each person is different in how long it takes for that to happen. Always remember that you are not a failure, that you CAN slowly LEARN HOW to find your way past it. And by saying to yourself, I have YET to get more control over this anger, fear, frustration, confusion, and exhaustion that is the depression part of PTSD keeps you in a state of mind that remains open to the healing that IS a lot of work when dealing with PTSD.

It is not about failing, it is about keeping an open mind to noticing what leads up to that sense of failing or losing control to a flashback or a day of just getting through the day and feeling tired or having a sense that that day is more of a challenge. And yes it is a whole new way of learning that is different from any other time in your life. It is not about "just" dealing anymore with PTSD. Because with PTSD things that do not seem to bother or disable other people, do disable someone with PTSD because they have been injured by the experience of a trama, or many tramas in their past. So anything that seems sudden or a threat or a question of trust is going to be felt a lot more than a person who doesn't have PTSD feels.

It is all about patience and time to heal with PTSD. And recieving as much support and understanding to give someone permission to just take it one day at a time and rebuild their abilities to have the capacity to once again gain control of their reactions to the challenges of interacting and functioning in a more comfortable way. The goal is to slowly build the capacity to rebound from any given trigger better and better. To learn to understand the the troubling flashbacks and memories of being in an experience where you did not have the life skills or capacity to deal with whatever was, is not your fault and you CAN slowly address that now and come to realize that you did survive and it is ok to learn from it in a very different way now. And more importantly, you can still be a person of value, probably even more valuable then you have been in your past. You may not know what you want to be in your life right now, that is also a part of PTSD, But what it really means is that you don't know "YET" and that is ok too.

Open Eyes