Topic Tuesday // PTSD & Post Traumatic Growth // Tues 20 Feb, 7pm AEDT

Hi all finally made it and caught up on the posts so far. I too 'have' PTSD from multiple traumas beginning in childhood.

I could probably say that for a time in my 30's or so I experienced some growth as a result, if taking the attitude that I just 'need to get on with life regardless of what else was going on for me' comes under that banner.

I've thought that my experiences have made me more empathic of others and the potentials of their situations,but not knowing 'who' I might have been without the traumas, makes that more or less unknowable I suppose.
looking forward to popping in and out as I get dinner ready.

Hey Lisa-Jane, that's a really great point. No-one is recommending trauma as a route to growth and this discussion is no celebration of trauma. It's more an opportunity to do what you've done in your post, which is to reflect on the parts of your life that have gained from that adversity. It doesn't cancel out the negative but shows that the scales aren't only weighted in one direction.

I still can't make much sense of the trauma I have experienced but I guess I am more resilient and have a greater capacity to recover from difficulties.

I also feel less fear as I figure I have experienced a truly horrifying situation and there couldn't be much worse that could happen. The only thing would be if my children were harmed in a similar way.

Sometimes it is not evident (even to ourselves) that there have been any positives that have come out of our experiences relating to PTSD - this also depends on 'where we are at' in relation to our own journey. @Former-Member hit the nail on the head when she said 'it has come at a cost...'

@Phoenix_Rising I disagree - whether I have 'known' someone pre-traumahas littleor no bearing on seeing their growth over time on here.

I work in the caring field (Disabilities).

Although my trauma background may have made me more empathetic & caring towards others -

It also makes it much harder to be emotionally available & caring, without feeling utterly drained (each day).

Adge

@Former-Member, I am finding this very very interesting , is it results in something that has happen to you ?? and also can you be undiagnosed with PTSD and Post traumactic growth in your life without knowing it

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@Zoe7wrote:

@Phoenix_Rising I disagree - whether I have 'known' someone pre-traumahas littleor no bearing on seeing their growth over time on here.

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@Zoe7 But then you can't know if the growth you are observing is due to the trauma or other factors such as natural aging. To know if it is specifically the trauma that leads to growth, we would need to measure the factors that make up the construct of "growth" before and after the trauma.

great point @Former-Member

Hi @Phoenix_Rising, I haven't been able to make any kind of an in-depth study into the relationship between PTSD, C-PTSD and post-traumatic growth. But from what I've read moderate or intermediate levels of PTSD are associated with stronger growth.

Don't ask me exactly what 'moderate' or 'intermediate' would look like for someone but it shows that they are not mutually exclusive. So someone diagnosed with PTSD is still likely to experience growth in some area.

Traumas relating to early experiences are more problematic in relation to post-traumatic growth. There are lots of reasons but one of them is that a key pathway to growth is through cognitive processing - the re-telling of events - or creating a new post-trauma narrative that starts to make sense of things. But if events happen before we're sufficiently developed to do that, this pathway is cut off.