Hi Defeatedmum. Welcome to the forum

Can you ever really get over trauma? The more I ponder that question, the less I understand what *get over it* means. It seems to mean something different to everybody. What does it mean to you? What have you tried so far?

I have yet to find a road map for recovery. I take it one challenge at a time with lots of help from my therapy support network. DS is one of the nodes on my peer support network. One of many. I believe that recovery requires a village and I try to keep my healing village well-populated.

Welcome aboard. Hope you find healing companionship here.

I guess I just want to have a day without reliving pain. Although now that youve said that I dont really know.

Thank you for replying

"Get over"...I don't know.

Get around...yeah, there are things that I do to get around it all of the time. Many of them I don't even notice anymore...like brushing my teeth, it's just part of the day.

The old joke about going to the doctor and telling the doctor "It hurts when I bend my finger back." and the doctor replies "Don't bend your finger back."

Well it's not easy to stop. But it does get better when I stop. I do a lot to not think about my finger. It's still there. But I'm better at ignoring it.

Did any of that make sense?

That makes so much sense actually. I just cant seem to not think about it, I feel like im faking life pretending im fine,

It can't be made to "un-happen," no. There is no un-trauma time machine. I've wished for one my whole life since my first major trauma when I was 9. It got hard wired into my brain instead because my brain was still developing, I was so young.

The nightmares, the flashbacks, it all became permanent. By age 13 I was in the hospital for fainting spells just from intense flashbacks that made me pass out standing in line for lunch in the school cafeteria. And more fresh traumas were still to come until I got out of my house at age 17. That was even more unfair.

So eventually I had to decide what getting through it would look like for me, since no one can just get over it. For me that meant to become a hospital ER chaplain to be there for trauma patients right after it happened to them. It didn't take away my trauma, it just put it to work instead of letting it just hang around lazy and bugging me all the time.

Now I teach nursing students, so to function on the job without brain fog in front of classrooms I had to cut back on medications. I balanced them out by taking up weekly meditation classes for 5 years.

Meditation didn't take away the trauma memories that intrude, it just gave me something to do to other than taking Ativan to stay calm when my brain relives them like it does every day. Meditation has less side effects afterward for me than medication like Ativan does for me and I can function at work better for the rest of the day. I do take Prazosin at night for my nightmares.

So that's what I'm doing up to now--making trauma work for me some instead of me working for it full time, meditation over medication when possible. Coming here to DS PTSD for support, giving support when I can. Speaking of which, let me know if you hear of any more tricks for getting through this I haven't heard of yet. That's one of the reasons I come here. Much support to you.

Hello:-) I don't get ovdr things. It's not like what happened to me was flu. More that I get used to living around its effects. Or, y'know, I really don't get used to it, hence teh PTSD diagnosis.

Healing hopes to you