Meandering Michele’s Mind: Thankful PTSD Thoughts

Today’s a day we’re conditioned to be ‘thankful’ in the U.S. We fly across the country to see family, we get together with friends, we eat turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie and everyone promotes the idea of thankfulness.

And what about we PTSDers? What are we thankful for? Insomnia? Flashbacks? Depression? Emotional numbing? No, wait, I know: rage, hypervigilance, hyperarousal and fear….

With all of our post-traumatic stress symptoms sometimes it’s tough to remember or even imagine what we have to be thankful for. Life is a sort of hell we trudge through, pulling the weight of the past and dreaming (?) of a future in which we will be free.

It’s easy, in the PTSD darkness, to feel and think there’s nothing to be thankful for. And then there is this:

We survived. We are alive. We have, every day, the chance to take action toward liberating ourselves from PTSD.

Today I am thankful for all of you who visit this site, who are making the effort to heal, who are building a community here of survivors who do not let trauma win. I’m thankful for all of you who do not go down for the count, who do not give up, who DO decide you will rise up, fight back and move into a better future.

I am thankful we are all walking together on this PTSD journey, succeeding, failing, sharing, trying again.

I am thankful each and every one of us have the possibility to heal.

I am thankful none of us is in this alone.

I am thankful that together we make progress each and every day.

I am thankful someday each one of us will heal.

(Photo acknowledgement on Flickr.)

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