When and where will it end?

     I am often asked by my clients whether they “will ever be normal again”. I hear over and over something along the lines of: “Will I ever be able to move on?” or “Will the time come when I am not affected by my past traumas?” or “When will I be healed?” In other words, most clients want to know when will IT be over? People often wish I would say that I have a magic wand that would completely heal them once I wave. They hope that I would at least tell them that they will be completely done after N number of sessions or months or if they work really hard.

     Nobody wants to hear that his or her life was changed FOREVER by the traumatic events that happened to them and that the more events happened or the longer in duration and the higher in intensity they were, the more it affected their bodies and souls. No one is prepared for the idea that there is NO WAY BACK. You are NEVER going to be the same person, ever! It is very hard to swallow. Believe me I know, because I am both in your shoes and the shoes of the mental health professional.

     My conscious healing journey from the traumatic events of my past started in 2005. Even though I struggled with depression and suffered from anxiety for years before that, and I even sought help and benefited from psychotherapy and alternative treatments, it was NOT until I acknowledged to myself that I had been deeply affected and continue to be affected by the traumas of my past that I took the first steps on my path towards healing. I am still on this journey, and I will be for as long as needed if not forever.

 

    Today I look back at the nine years of hard personal work that included consistent psychotherapy, daily self-care practices, countless sessions of acupuncture, massage, energy healing, numerous meditation and healing retreats, and I experience both pride and shock. I wonder how I would have felt on that day in 2005, when I realized how wounded I was by the past and that I cannot continue running away from it, if I knew that nine years later I will still be healing? Would I have taken that first step or would I have decided to keep running away? Was it even a free choice at that point? Maybe I took that step because I reached my personal bottom of sickness and exhaustion? Even though I have all these questions, I know that today I feel HAPPY  taking that step in 2005. I am very glad that I kept taking one more step every day of those nine years. Some of these steps were backwards, others were accompanied by despair, some were taken in anger or rebelliousness, others were more like inch-long baby steps, AND it all is OK.

     There is ONLY one wish I have, when it comes to reflecting on what I could have done differently. I really regret wasting so much of my time, energy, and emotion on the question of whether I will ever be NORMAL. I thought about it, I talked about it, I cried about it, I raged about it, and then I realized IT DID NOT MATTER. What the fuck????  How did I not see it sooner? But that is OK too. I guess it is all a part of a journey.

     So, you might wonder where am I at in the end of my nine-year long healing journey and what do I have to show for it? Here are my thoughts.

• ·    MY JOURNEY IS NOT OVER and IT IS OK with me. I continue to work daily on supporting my traumatized brain and nervous system by meditating, journaling, and practicing yoga. I am religious about my sleep, eating, hydrating, and taking medications and supplements. Sometimes I need more support, when the stress level in my life increases. So, I sleep longer hours, practice reiki daily, do grounding multiple times a day, write in my gratitude journal, take long walks outside, etc. Sometimes I get cocky, because I have been feeling really good for a while. Very quickly my brain and nervous system put me in place by escalating migraines, increased irritability and anger, or intensifying depressive symptoms, and I am back on track. Again, I am focused on one day at a time and one step at a time.
• ·         I HAVE GATHERED A LOT OF “FRUITS” from my endless labor of recovery. I have much more empathy for myself and other people. I enjoy my life much more. I have learned so much about Myself, other people, my two cultures, and the world in general. I would not have done it if my PTSD has not continued to push me. An added benefit in my situation is that I have become such a better therapist as a result of all that personal work. I know how to deal with the flare-ups and can detect them much quicker than before.
• ·         I AM CHANGED FOREVER by what happened to me. Because so many different traumatic events happened over a stretch of twenty years, because some of them happened when I was a child, and because I have been running away from the past for a while, my mind and body are much more sensitive to the daily stressors and much deeper affected by them. I have many more needs than your average Jane or Joe. I need much more support and resources to keep going. I used to agonize over all of it: my “weak constitution”, my “neediness”, lack of normalcy in my life and so on. Here is what I believe today. I NEVER ASKED to be traumatized. WHAT HAPPENED to me was NOT FAIR, and I DID NOT have a choice. Therefore, it is not my fault I have so many needs. HOWEVER, it is MY RESPONSIBILITY to take care of myself and my needs as an adult. I am working hard and doing the best I can to minimize the impact of my condition on those around me. That is all I can really expect of myself.
• ·         THE JOURNEY HAS BEEN DIFFICULT and PAINFUL but LESS AND LESS so, as I kept moving forward. Today I am walking my path with acceptance and curiosity, and it is much nicer to me than in the past, when I was moving along it kicking and screaming and trying to run in the other direction.
• ·         I keep at it NOT because I have to anymore. I continue my journey, because I firmly believe that I DESERVE HEALING and so does everyone else and so does the world. So, every step that I take on my own healing journey makes our world a little brighter and a little more loving and a little more peaceful. I know that if everyone in this world were to do their

  

  own HEALING WORK, we will have no more war and no more violence and no more trauma to pass on to the future generations. I did not have a say in whether I will get to experience violence, HOWEVER, I have a say in whether I am going to perpetrate it and pass it on. And I have been saying “NO!” every day for the past 9 years. So, my HEALING WORK is NOT only my gift to myself, it is my gift to you and to the world.

             As a result, today I am not worried about when and how and whether it is going to end. I hope that this account will help reduce your worry too. I wish you the best on your healing journey. I know you can walk the path and learn to enjoy it too, because I did, many of my clients did, and because there is a lot of support available for this kind of healing today.

 

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