Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
Find support with others who have gone through a traumatic experience. Whether you have chronic or acute PTSD, we are here for you.
http://feministing.com/2014/12/10/hurry-up-and-heal-pain-productivity-and-the-inadequacy-of-victim-vs-survivor/
This is specifically about rape trauma. But I'd think it applies to PTSD more generally.
We're supposed to go get fixed and be all better.
...even if we manage to get ourselves symptom-free, there's a lot of stuff we never, ever are going to get back. If nothing else, the years and time we spent being stuck and getting unstuck.
...getting ourselves better also doesn't change the dreadful commonality of interpersonal violence, it's a pervasive thing in our culture.
...war is interpersonal violence, of course...
This whether you consider the cause of said war just or not.
This is specifically about rape trauma. But I'd think it applies to PTSD more generally.
We're supposed to go get fixed and be all better.
...even if we manage to get ourselves symptom-free, there's a lot of stuff we never, ever are going to get back. If nothing else, the years and time we spent being stuck and getting unstuck.
...getting ourselves better also doesn't change the dreadful commonality of interpersonal violence, it's a pervasive thing in our culture.
...war is interpersonal violence, of course...
This whether you consider the cause of said war just or not.
So this article required some translation, but it wasn't that hard to do. I took a really good course for my hospital residency counseling patients, and it was actually called "victim to survivor." It had a generally more positive tone, though, than a tone that basically requires a person to move from victim to survivor "or else."
I really related to your comment that "there's a lot of stuff we never, ever are going to get back." I think that's one reason why, after I did make the move from victim to survivor, I wanted to counsel patients in a trauma level hospital like I did. There is no time machine for going back to what it was like before. We not only have to help others like us accept that, but society needs to accept that, too. In my opinion, at least.
The other comment you made that I relate to as well is the one about war. My 2 rapes came when I was a child growing up in a war zone abroad. My rapes are war-related to a military advisor who ran amok in the war zone with its lack of law and order. He preyed on 5 of us kids, boys and girls.
In the war I also got PTSD from being in a car that was bombed with me in it, and other combat experiences. I appreciate how you relate rape and war PTSD, then, because I got both. In my experience they were very different, of course, but similar enough to share recovery tools. At the very least, one thing seems sure, and that both traumas leave you in that condition you mentioned in which "there's a lot of stuff we never, ever are going to get back."
The thing that struck me was, like muji mentioned, "there's a lot of stuff we never, ever are going to get back." It kind of made me remember was taken from me and how the abuse has changed me from the person I was before the abuse. It also made me think about myself making that transition from the victim to the survivor. Not an easy transition, but now I can use my courage to help people who've been in a similar situation. And also I agree that society wants us to magically "get over it" and then be done and never deal with it again. I think that has to do with the ignorance of what PTSD really is. Just my opinion.