A friend of mind said to me that "every 20 years your relationship dynamics change". I thought give or take a few years she is right. I am now at the stage where the children are growing up and starting to leave. They are independent.

As for the 3's. I agree that awareness is vital. This applies to all, not just use lucky enough to have ptsd. You need to be aware of your feelings, your needs, the needs of others, your surrounding etc.

I would rather call acceptance, unacceptance. To me you have to find something so unacceptable that you decide to take action to change it. That unacceptance will drive change.

Action, yes. Once you have become aware, found it unacceptable then you can take action. This is the part where many people get lost, fear taking action and in rhe end do not do anything. This is the hardest part as it has the most risk and takes us unknown directions. Action means change and change is uncomfortable.

What you have decried is a good formula for problem solving and finding solutions. We might not be completely on the same page with step 2 but either way it is problem solving.

Awareness is a good place to be, for me. I am aware of the crap-fest with my mom. I am trying to act, based on acceptance that it is a crap-fest and not gonna improve until my actions bear fruit and she's out of the house....

Accepting that a situation is a certain way is, for me, the same as unacceptance in terms of motivation. Saying something "sucks" is as much a recognition of its suckiness as not, for me. And if it sucks, okay, then what? Well, I can choose to take action, or not, or take action via inaction and go all tao, but it's tough for me in any case.

The first A is the "easy" one.... The other two? Give me ulcers, panic attacks, etc.... Stay th course that works, Arfie. The way tends to show itself.:-)

Awareness is the key is it not? So they say, whoever they is?
However, Awareness is the key,cause if you are not aware than you cant accept something you are unaware of, nor can you take action on something you have no awareness of.
So it seems to me awareness is the key and in fact the most important of the triple A's
Thanks for making me think this morning. Love it

I think of "Acceptance" in navigational terms. It is a dot on the map of my life. It is easier to get to where I want to go if I know where I am now. I don't have to like where I am now to let it be a simple fact.

In course of my physical travels, I have been so lost that I did not know where I was, or even where I had been that day. That was especially colorful in the places where I did not speak much of the local language. To me, the analogies translate easily to the emotionally lost feeling I get from my PTSD, family estrangement, aging, etc.