I see on here sometimes that people view therapy as damaging to PTSD patients. It really bothers me when I see this. In my experience, its exactly the opposite. Therapy really helped me by confronting and taking control of my trauma.

Therapy can absolutely reduce symptoms. It can be painful, but with a good trauma therapist painful and scary memories can be filed away in your mind.

It was explained to me that PTSD is kind of like a computer with fragmented files. This memory over here, that physical sensation over there. A trigger comes up, internally or externally, and one of the memory fragments comes to the forefront, seemingly out of nowhere.

With good therapy the files can be organized and stored away. The memory loses power, and eventually the once overwhelming memory is simply something distasteful. You can access it as a whole memory, and you can begin to have more control. You begin to realize that the memory has less power than you thought. You can gain the confidence that simply thinking about trauma is not going to destroy you.

The therapy that I went through is called Prolonged Exposure Therapy. It was painful at the time, but it was kind of amazing how I progressed from one week to the next by telling my story in vivid detail and then exposing myself to it throughout the week.

Just when I was at my limit and thought I couldn't take it anymore, something just shifted and I got through a session without being in pain. I still have emotions about what happened to me, but they can be controlled with coping skills. I am now rarely triggered, and never to the point of panic or flashbacks.

Whats even more amazing to me is that even though only one traumatic memory was directly addressed ( I have multiple major traumas), the other memories kind of fell in line.

I'm not cured, no one is ever cured from mental illness. But I am positive that it would take some major new trauma for the worst PTSD symptoms to be shaken up.