PTSD Recovery Tip: Decide What You Want
Monday, February 6th, 2012 • PTSD Recovery Tips •
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When you’re struggling after trauma you’re working really hard to put in place strategies that allow you to feel safe and in control. Often, that puts you on a hamster wheel just running trying to catch up. There’s not a lot of time to think things through.
In recovery, you are faced with many decisions – and a really great gift: the time and focus to decide exactly what you want. Reclaiming and rebuilding your life after trauma is a great time to think about what you have always wanted, and what you want right now.
When was the last time you asked youself, “What do you want?” When was the last time you gave yourself the option of thinking about that and honestly answering what is right for you?
As you move toward feeling better, you’re moving toward freedom from the past. What do you want your present and future to look like, sound like and feel like? Now is the time to begin imagining these things. You have choices to make; decide what you want and then…. let loose all of your planning to get yourself there.
This whole process takes time, go slowly.
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Sometimes the choices and decisions faced in recovery are overwhelming! In the midst of my trauma I had forgotten I had options. As you say, it is important to take it slow. Now it feels good to have choices and to ask myself a question I had not asked myself for a long time, “What do I want?” Thank you for your perspective.
@Krista – This was one of my biggest revelations during my recovery! Your’re so right, it feels GOOD. Enjoy the newness of taking back control.
Read this today…for a very long time, I was so lost, I just wanted someone to tell me what I should want so that I could just start there and not face the sorting out of what I had lost and what I wanted to keep. It’s taken me a very long time to go from just tell me, feeling abandoned because no one cared enough for was willing to give me that restart information, to getting over the fear that if i did work toward something it would be taken away or blocked. It seemed for a very long time that if I voiced what i wanted it was the last thing I would get. I had decided that the therapists advice to ask for what I wanted was b.s. It seemed that anything that I mentioned was supportive would be taken away. So, at this point, I have removed myself from anyone and anything that “speaks disability” into my life and protect myself from people who can’t be patient with my shortcomings. Now I am starting to see what I want and to be less of a dump for whatever comes along. Michele is so helpful in taking it slow and in being present. Much much needed for making up my mind.
@Valerie — I think what you describe so beautifully is exactly what so many of us experience: a sort of disbelief and lack of positive results, and then a shift to adding together what we want PLUS: what we want in the environment around us. Getting rid of negative and unsupportive people is a brilliant move that really allows you to then go after what you truly want. Bravo!