Healing to new horizons - a story of hope

[Boatsetsailrose]

Hi
*TRIGGER WARNING
I would like to post about my story and the journey of  the past 4 yrs. Having trauma therapy and the results that have become apparent over this time  and where I am at now.
I had 1yr trauma which began about 4 yrs ago with a charity in the UK and this was amazingly no cost. The t I worked with was highly skilled and we worked using  varied therapeutic models Inc regulation and stabilisation
Ifs integrated family systems, creative and explorative all overarched by psychotherapy..
I gained deeper awareness about what happened to me in my foo and some good healing occurred. I was at the time having severe flashbacks, was v fragile and had been recently diagnosed by mental health services with cptsd.
I had become suicidal, had severe self hatred, intrusive inner critic and was not functioning too well. This therapy helped me stabilise and gave me a good foundation.
The t at the time really commended me on my inner resources.. How I'd be doing therapeutic work since my early 20s some 20+ yrs previous, how so v resourceful I'd been over my younger life and how much I'd achieved in life despite...

She was v good to work with and leaving the service was hard..
I am thankful for the work I did there and it definately helped me.

At the time I was nursing but not coping too well and over time having more sick time and struggling. I left my career 18mths ago and after a succession of bad mental health spots, serious low mood/anxiety /difficulties sleeping /severe flashbacks and wanting to end my life. I was referred to a  community mental health team. I'd been referred a couple of times prev over the yrs but this time I was taken on and assigned a mental health nurse and a treatment path. Ironically (but not really) I got referred under the same NHS trust I'd been working for..
This team have been truly incredible in fact the support I've received from the NHS over the whole journey of the past 5 yrs has been v good. I know this isn't everyone's story. I did need to fight and become my own advocate in some ways. I look back now and am so grateful that I found out about BPD found a group on fb.. Started piecing together that my m seemed to fit ubpd and then was led here to out of the storm the start of my healing journey.
Under the mental health team where I have been for well over a Yr now I have been meeting wkly, then 2 wkly and now 3 wkly with the mental health nurse. She has been incredibly supportive and good at what she does. We have talked over many many issues inc coping with life and she came to a disability benefits assessment where I got awarded. She has written letters to support things such as getting a bus pass and given supporting evidence where needed. She has treated me with respect and has listening intently to me hour upon hour whilst having a large caseload of patients some of whom are in terrible crisis. We have worked therapeutically with issues as they have come up past and present.
For the past 3 mths I have been having CAT therapy with a clinical psychologist under the same  service which has proved and is proving to be so deeply healing and transformative. I have hit pain in some of the sessions that I didn't know lived so deeply in me.. Releasing and expressing my hurt and anger and coming out to be met with being helped to more fully accept... What happened really wasn't my fault. The CAT model is working with my learnt relational styles and looks in a deep way at how those patterns, attitudes and parts of my personality affect my relating now and I get to go out in the world and make significant changes.
I'm triggered much less and can't actually remember my last flashback (a miracle).
I feel the most integrated I've ever felt so far in my life, my self worth is growing and I'm putting up with less rubbish. I have gone v lc with my 2 family members and I am able to handle any guilt around that.
The biggest thing is I'm finally actually truly starting to like me and it's not attached to other people, work roles or externals. I can feel my worth.

Dont get me wrong life isn't all rosy and my feelings can and most probably will change. Difficult times will come and who knows what support I may need in the future but somehow I am daring to feel my healing. Daring to feel 'I have made some real significant headway at overcoming complex trauma. Sitting back and breathing saying' I've got somewhere... I'm stable.
And thank the universe for that as now I just got a diagnosis of cfs and fibro so physical conditions have come knocking on my door.. Not to minimise them (because they are pretty severe) but the * I'm been with with cptsd over the past 20 + yrs it seems almost easy to cope with physical health.

I wanted to write this account of my journey to not only write it for me but to give others hope on their journey.
I know how hard and dark it can be.... When the light of  hope seems out, the loneliness and loss is chronic and the self identity so broken. When the fear, anxiety and low mood is relentless. When self hatred is a constant companion and relationships with others is too hard to bare. Within all this there is hope and there is healing. We all are on our journeys together and individually. No 2 of us will experience exactly the same yet we share so much of the same. I decided I wasn't going to stop fighting for myself when I was a teenager leaving 'the house of horrors' and I don't know where my fighting spirit comes from after being beaten so many times, I get back up maybe it's just primal survival. I'm pretty incredible and I say that with prideful humility today.. The broken ness is the fore runner for the healing Ness..
I should be dead, I should be homeless, I should be deep in addiction, I should be in toxic and dysfunctional relationships, I should be people pleasing and Co dependent, I should be self loathing, I should be being used by others, I should be being abused, I should be a complete train wreck.
I've been all these things and more...
I must be a miracle
I must have experienced a miracle...
Of healing
Of growing
Of changing
To find myself
Outside of that...
Aside of that
That which was never me 
Dare I walk free
One life
My life
The story of my life

[Not Alone]

Amazing, touching story of hope. Thank you for sharing.

[arale]

Thank you so much for sharing this affirmation of hope, of life, and of the power of relationships (when they are healthy and supportive). Sometimes I'm so stuck in my story that it's really hard to fathom that anyone would want to be help me or that I would ever get better. Thank you for reminding me that this kind of thinking is also a sort of catastrophizing. Good or bad, and all colors of the rainbow, all possibilities are out there, and it's not necessarily useful (any longer) to only focus on the darkest possible outcomes. And as you said, no 2 of us will experience exactly the same thing.

You've gotten so much from this journey and I wish the wisdom, the equanimity that you have gotten will continue to accompany you through easy and challenging times.

[MoonBeam]

Boats...     Thank you for sharing your story. So much, respect, love and gratitude for you and what a powerful, amazing being you are.

[Boatsetsailrose]

Arale and moonbeam and not alone
You are all beautiful miracles keep asking for what u need