Hello Fuzzy, you wrote:
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I’m wondering if anyone here has had good experiences with therapists... ...Another question is, what does healing mean to you?
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I have had extremely positive experiences with therapists and extremely negative experiences with therapists; ultimately, they are human beings - so they are fallible. Expecting perfection is my mistake, not theirs. But just because they are fallible human beings doesn't mean ALL therapists cannot be trusted. Generalizing about all therapists after having traumatic experiences and being re-traumatized in a therapeutic setting is certainly a normal response (and it is becoming more common), however, there are MANY great people who TRULY want to help. I have learned this personally. It took everything in me to go back to therapy after being hurt, (only to be hurt again after that) but eventually you will find someone who can prove you wrong. There ARE really good people in the profession, some of them just like you or I who have been through personal experiences.
The ideal definition of healing and being healed is something I have had to jostle around in my mind and change more than once. (Just like the definition of justice against my abusers) Initially I thought I could be, "cured." But trauma and PTSD is not about being cured, it is about accepting the past and learning to live with it so that the past does not dictate the future.
Crystal Blue wrote:
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...Healing to me would mean being able to go out and be in the world without being triggered...
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This is certainly a reasonable goal! We can't completely rule out our triggers but we CAN desensitize ourselves to them so that they hold less control over our future. Trauma is a physical injury, it never fully goes away. Expecting anything different only leads to further secondary emotions and frustrations. We need to accept that we have been hurt, that we did not deserve it, that our reaction to the trauma was normal given the abnormal circumstances that we lived through, and that we have survived it. It is our responsibility to harness our baggage (even though it was dropped on us by our abusers) and learn to live with it. Healing is a life-long journey and requires utmost priority and self-awareness; we CAN have a life worth living. We deserve it!
Thanks,
HD7970ghz