Is trauma an incentive for growth?

Recently, more and more attention is paid to the so-called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But have you ever heard of a related phenomenon called post-traumatic growth (PGR)? Unlikely. This is not a diagnosis that you can make money on, so this phenomenon does not attract the attention of the press.

Nevertheless, it is important to know that a person after an injury can become stronger, more resilient and even happier than before. What leads to such a favorable outcome? Here is how this process takes place.

At first, you don’t hold back your emotions. You cry. You sob. You isolate yourself from everyone. You scream, you scream, you get angry. You are free to express whatever emotions arise. You cannot believe that this has happened. You want revenge. You want to turn back time. You feel so helpless, vulnerable, lost. It’s not fair, it shouldn’t be, it shouldn’t have happened. But it happened and changed your life.

At some point, you accept what happened. You yourself will feel when the time comes for this. You have an injury left — no one argues with that! But life doesn’t end there. You stop mentally reliving what happened over and over again, as if trying to “fix” everything. “Why didn’t I do this?”, “What if I had done differently?”, “Why did this happen to me?”, “I should have…”. You understand that endlessly asking yourself “What if…” is unproductive. It only blurs the view.

You begin to act, despite the raging emotions. You no longer want trauma to control you, but for now, it continues to control you. And even though every cell in your body seems to be screaming, “Leave me alone! I don’t want anything!» you start trying to take «one bold step» anyway.

Which one? Bold moves, like injuries, can be very different. Step by step, little by little, you are coming back to life. Sometimes it’s tiny steps, sometimes it’s huge leaps. It doesn’t matter, what matters is that you come back.

Despite overwhelming emotions, you take a step forward, towards a future worth living for. Then another step. And further.

You understand that experience heals. Now, after your life has changed dramatically, you are looking for a new meaning in it. You contemplate relationships with others. Which ones would you like to keep? What new acquaintances would you like to make?

You begin to wonder what you are spending your time on. How much time is wasted and for what exactly? What activities could have a healing effect? Maybe it will become easier if you start helping people who are in trouble? Or maybe you should think about finding a spiritual path?

Hope returns to you. You feel that, despite the injury, the road to a happy future is not closed. You feel stronger than before. You began to appreciate life more. You know that you can endure a lot and return the joy and meaning of life.

Ouch! You again lost confidence in yourself, and the desire to move forward was gone. What happened? It is important to know that there will almost certainly be occasional «backtracking» along the way.

Yes, despite all the progress that has been made, there will be hard days. You will lose heart, you will want to give up. But don’t give up! Treat this as a temporary «kickback» and gently push yourself to get up and move on.

Success! You survived! You are moving forward again! Bumps and bruises are inevitable on the path of life, and sometimes real injuries and tragedies, but it is personal growth after trauma that makes it possible to begin to live more meaningfully.

This path will take time. Be determined and patient. Yes, you cannot turn back time and get rid of the trauma. But you can start working on a different ending for your story right now.

About the author: Linda Sapadin, psychologist, coach.