Meandering Michele’s Mind: Knowing When to Seek a Different Kind of Help
Monday, March 8th, 2010 • Uncategorized •
I have a client who has had PTSD for almost 50 years. Her psychiatrist and therapist both told her she cannot heal. They pumped her full of meds and told her to get used to living with post-traumatic stress symptoms. She was suicidal when we met. That was six months ago.
Today, she is fully functioning, off the meds, sleeping and restructuring, redesigning and rediscovering herself, her life, her choices and her desires. Funny how the ’traditional professionals’ could have been so wrong. They gave up on her and so she was about to give up on herself. And then she and I began working together and she buckled down, believed in herself and the process, faced what needed to be faced, felt what needed to be felt, and learned how to think things through and work toward change.
Amazing what can happen when we as survivors find the right people to work with.
My own story is similar: I’d been with my therapist on and off for eight years. Finally, we hit an insurmountable wall and I crashed into a worse place than I was when I began therapy. I left him and wallowed and cowered by the wall for a while (a really looooong while — over a year and a half!) and then I hauled myself to a new, alternative source and together we accomplished what had to be done.
I’ll bet many of you have histories that echo the same theme. We’re feeling so powerless in our PTSD symptoms. We so want to believe in the professional sources around us. We so want to think their words are Truth.
What’s meandering my mind today is how much, how often and how important it is for us to always question the diagnosis, prognosis and Truth that we receive. It’s up to us to double check, get second opinions and dig deep inside ourselves in order to hear, see and feel our own instincts versus what is handed out to us. Just because someone has a degree does not mean he/she is infallible, omniscient, or the final word.
We are the survivors. We are the ones who are healing. We have the final word. The only word.
Let me hear from you if you agree.
(Photo acknowledgement on Flickr.)
Tags: Meandering Michele's Mind, post-trauamtic stress, ptsd, symptoms
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There is always another therapist, and always another therapy! But it is so terribly hard to keep reaching when you are under the grip of terrible depression. And so easy to think ‘they’ must be right, since they aren’t the crazy ones. But in my experience, any therapist or therapy can be right or wrong depending on where you are in your healing process. Sometimes the fit is perfect at first, but in two years you’ve run out of what can be gleaned from the relationship. This isn’t a failure on anyone’s part, just the natural progression as we keep healing. I see healing as growth, and sometimes, well, we outgrow things.
Blue Morpho
http://www.anxietyland.blogspot.com
I cannot fathom telling a woman she could not heal. Can. Not. Fathom.
I agree! I think traditional therapy is useful & effective for certain things. I also think that it fails individuals healing from trauma. I myself am exploring tapping, Tai Chi, Water, and other methods of healing.
Well, I’m sure you know that I’m on this boat with you, Michele. It is amazing to me that this is where we find ourselves today in the year 2010 but – this is how change begins. So – thank you for doing what you do. Together we can create the change that is needed to reach those who need it.
I feel such anger at these stories – too many still. The injustice of how we are given a life sentence instead of hope. Yes; we have the final say but I’m afraid too many of us still take the word of the professionals as the final word. We don’t know there are options out there; we trust blindly what we are told by the doctors and therapists.
In my mind, part of the process is teaching trauma survivors – that there are options and a process that will guide us through the dark jungle and to the light of living free of this nightmare. And – while we can’t change the world overnight I still believe that those who are ready will be the ones that we can reach.
Michelle,
I couldn’t possibly agree with you more and I echo Virginia Wood’s comments – I have never met a person who could not have healing. I have met many clinicians who did not know how to help a client. Many of them tend to blame the client for their own lack of skills and insights. Rather than admitting that we don’t know what we’re doing and helping the client to connect with someone who does, many of us blame the client by saying that they “aren’t engaging in treatment”, or “appear to lack motivation.”
I have not met folks who can’t heal, but I have met many who are afraid to do the work of healing and I have met some who want to believe that talking with me for 50 minutes or so a week will magically change them. I urge all of my clients to trust their “gut feelings.” I declare myself an expert in nothing and I insist that my clients are experts regarding who they are and what works for them and what doesn’t work. Don’t let a professional tell you what you can’t do. Instead, know what you want and ask your clinician how they are able to help you attain it.
Best,
Jim LaPierre LCSW
@ All of you — THANK YOU for responding to this post with the clarity, genuineness, hope, belief and openness that you each did. There are so many people joined together on the other side — the side of no hope, life sentences and disbelief. If we are to help survivors do what needs to be done it is so imperative that our voices become equally strong, united and audible in order to balance out those who, for whatever their reasons, are dedicated to ensuring many survivors never become free.
HI,
I don’t understand what you are saying. Are you talking about alternative treatment and what is that? I am on SSDI for PTSD. I guess I am wondering what and where the truth is. My therapist has really been there for me and cares. I am still complaining of severe to moderate symptoms that come and go. Could I be with a better therapist?
I to felt like the misunderstood for 30 years. Take a few minutes each day and read the posts on this blog. I can’t believe how much I have learned and how much it has given me the tools to help heal my PTSD. Michele will never let you feel alone and she is one of us.
“Healing” means “to make whole” … and sometimes I think that it also means that we need to make a “new wholeness” out of ourselves after we have been shattered (so to speak) by trauma. I’m presently in a space where my sense of self is in limbo … So many fundamental changes and shifts have been moving through me over the past while that if I ask myself, “Who am I?”, the response from within is largely … blank. “I don’t know” would be the most accurate worded response, I suppose …
There is a healing path for everyone … and our paths are as unique as we are.
It’s a terrible mistake for anyone — especially someone in a position of so-called authority — to tell another that s/he can’t heal. That’d be like placing a curse on someone. “You’ll never heal” is a reflection on the speaker’s state of mind, not a fact!