Posts tagged recovering for real
Standing up for yourself: When practitioners say your symptoms are "trauma like", is that the cue for "treatment-like" care?

After discovery, we can be confused about our trauma symptoms and by our trauma symptoms. Memory and concentration problems, self-doubt, numbing, intrusive memories, hypervigilance, and unexpected triggers are compounded by gaslighting, denial, lying, personal criticisms, silent treatment, rage, etc., from the man called a sex addict. Then, after a hard-fought battle to have our trauma symptoms correctly identified, we can still face practitioners who call us codependent and co-addict. But when “experts” talk up partner trauma to gain our trust, and then tiptoe backwards by saying our symptoms may “sound like” trauma symptoms, or that we have “trauma-like” symptoms…you’ve probably had about as much as you can take.

Research says when things look like traumatic stress symptoms, act like traumatic stress symptoms, and sound like traumatic stress symptoms—they’re traumatic stress symptoms. And in our case if they meet the criteria and last longer than a month, nearly 70% of the time they also indicate Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. That means we need something a little more than “treatment-like” care. We need informed and competent clinical care. And yes, it also means we’re right back where we were—having to stand up for ourselves and demand a correct assessment of our real symptoms and a correct treatment protocol.

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Post-traumatic stress, expectations for recovery, self-care, therapeutic abuseDiane Stricklandtrauma symptoms, the right thing for you, therapeutic incompetence, partners look after themselves, partners are priority, recovery for partners, recovering for real
Hang On To Yourself

Truman Burbank: Was nothing real?

Christof: You were real... that's what made you so good to watch.

Lines from the movie called “The Truman Show”, after Truman (played by Jim Carrey) learns that he was the only one in his life who wasn’t acting a part in a world that wasn’t real.

 The Truman Show resonates with my discovery that most of my life had been absorbed into my husband’s ugly deception. The movie’s ending grips me—where, after Truman’s sailboat prow accidentally pierces the fake horizon, Truman climbs out of his boat onto a fake lake, and seeing a staircase climbs up to find the “exit” door. The show’s creator tries to keep him from going through it, and after they exchange some words (including the lines above) Truman takes his final bow and walks through the door into the real world—a dark unknown. What would he feel—fear, anger, hope, courage, grief, doubt? All these, but still he chooses to leave the fake life and hang onto himself—because he’s the only thing in his life he knows is real.

Truman hung on to himself. And that’s exactly what you need to do.

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therapeutic abuse, self-care, making decisions, Post-traumatic stressDiane Stricklandrecovery ploys, recovering for real, recovery for partners, saving yourself, sex addicts are abusers, sex addicts tricks, sex addicts hurt women, domestic violence of sex addiction
Healing Begins

I don’t know about you, but I’m still processing the two lists that formed the core of the last two blogs—and I wrote them! There is no “light and breezy” way to name what we have endured and how it impacts us. It’s abuse. That means it’s ugly and it leaves a mark.

Today I want to share a few of the ways I have put myself back together and grown into more than I was before this nightmare began. I live a good life. Yes, it is a diminished life. I lost a great deal and live with many challenges because of the never-ending impact of PTSD. But my life also is much richer because I chose to live the rest of my life differently. You can do this too, in your own way. This blog will help you begin.

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self-careDiane Stricklandhealing, partners are priority, your strength, recovering for real, loving yourself