What if I will never heal from trauma?
What if my nervous system is so damaged from childhood trauma that no amount of therapy and practice will reteach it a sense of safety in places and situations that trigger me?
Is it possible for a nervous system to be so severely damaged by trauma that no amount of therapeutic techniques help 100 percent?
These are questions spinning around in my brain regularly, and I’m now speaking them because I can’t push them down anymore.
I was suppressing these thoughts because I wanted to keep up hope that I could “fix” my nervous system and repair damage done by trauma. I want to have faith in the power of neuroplasticity. None of this is to say that nothing has helped me. I have seen progress in building up some resilience.
However, there is so much more progress to be made, that I grow frustrated at the rate healing takes. Being in an intensive outpatient program (IOP) has shown me how much work I need to do on myself, and quite frankly, it’s overwhelming. The amount of work is dizzying, and I can’t always seem to get a grip on myself when I think about all the therapy and practice I need to do.
There are so many techniques and modalities for trauma, and through the IOP I have received a taste of a couple that seem really helpful, such as Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) and somatic exercises. DBT and somatic work are modalities that I have been wanting to do for a while, but it’s so hard to find therapists who take insurance for somatic therapy.
I’m cracking down on practicing my meditation, somatic movement, breath work, and emotional regulation skills. It becomes overwhelming, and I want to cave under it all at times. There are so many facets of my trauma and mental health in general that need to be addressed, it almost feels as though I need a specialized therapist for each one.
For instance, I noticed the other day that while doing a body scan, I struggle with body scans, because I struggle to be in my body. I don’t love my body. In fact, I don’t even feel neutral about my body. I have so much dislike for my body that goes way back to my childhood and conditioning, that I don’t even know where to begin. When I talk to therapists about this, they don’t seem to have the best of answers or to be the most comfortable talking about the topic.
It’s very weird, and it makes me feel like I have to do the work all on my own. I have to do my own research into how to even feel neutral about my body and then how to feel positive about my body. The frustration grows.
Dental and medical phobia are other mental health conditions I have that seem to need their own therapists. All therapists I’ve had have recommended exposure therapy, but they don’t seem to go into detail about practical ways that I can expose myself to the dentist and the doctor. One therapist once recommended that I practice just entering and leaving a doctor’s office without doing anything. I imagine myself entering the building to my primary care provider’s office, standing there for a minute and then leaving.
If I did this frequently enough, wouldn’t they notice and question what I was doing? It might just draw too much attention and would be really weird. No one seems to have good exposure techniques that I can try. Maybe there aren’t any. Maybe that’s just the pessimism speaking.
There’s also the entire childhood trauma I experienced. I had to live in a near-constant state of unbearable anxiety as I walked on eggshells around my mother and former stepdad. The abuse from teachers and incessant bullying created a deep wound within me that I am carrying with me as an adult. This trauma makes living and functioning in important ways very difficult for me. I struggle with severe anxiety at work due to my fear of authority figures and of punishment if I make mistakes. That’s because I was screamed at and hit on multiple occasions for making mistakes as a child. The list goes on.
I’m not really sure how to end this. I guess I really want to have hope, but I need to acknowledge that realistically, I can’t always be hopeful in my treatment.
There will be bumps along the way. I need to forgive myself, show myself compassion, and know that it’s okay for me not to heal “perfectly”.
Photo Credit: Unsplash
Guest Post Disclaimer: This guest post is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing shared here, across CPTSDfoundation.org, any CPTSD Foundation website, our associated communities, or our Social Media accounts, is intended to substitute for or supersede the professional advice and direction of your medical or mental health providers. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CPTSD Foundation. For further details, please review the following: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
hola alexander te escribo desde México y muchas veces me he sentido igual como un túnel oscuro que no tiene fin y cuando siento una mejoría por insignificante que este sea hay algo que echa todo abajo, vuelven las ideas suicidas, la desesperanza, la impulsividad y la agresividad, sin embargo me repito a mí misma que es solo mi cabeza haciendo una mala broma, hasta tengo una alarma en mi teléfono que lo indica cada hora, a veces siento que exagero y estoy un poco loca, otras que la realidad es demasiado brutal que si paso. así le levanto reconozco mis síntomas y sigo adelante de nuevo, cada vez un peldaño más arriba.
Translate: Hi Alexander I am writing to you from Mexico and many times I have felt the same as a dark tunnel that has no end and when I feel an improvement no matter how insignificant it is there is something that brings everything down, suicidal ideas return, hopelessness, impulsivity and aggressiveness, however I repeat to myself that it is just my head making a bad joke, I even have an alarm on my phone that indicates it every hour, sometimes I feel that I exaggerate and I am a little crazy, other times that the reality is too brutal that if it happens. So I lift him up, recognize my symptoms and move on again, each time one step higher.
Idk what to say except im terrified about everything. I dont think I want anymore relationships with anyone,, physical or emotionally. Im ok being a recluse now but ive not always been this way I graduated nursing school with honors. My grown children said they’d deal with it when I was dead. Sexuallly abuses my whole life. And now it feels like my nervous system can’t come back. I admit myself to mental hospitals and they also don’t treat me as a person just the weirdo ive becom. Why did this all happen to me. Relive my husband’s suicide over and over and I dont know how to act around people. I feel like ill never escape all the pain.