Meet Post Traumatic Growth
PTSD's less talked about cousin
Hi Readers, It’s my 50th post! Wow. Thanks for going on this journey.
Here’s a little concept I loved learning about. It helped me put a label on my some of my journey. Take it if it serves you. Share it if it resonates.
If you’re new here, I started writing this when I was on dialysis. It’s intended to be both memoir and a practical tool to help folks who might be going through something similar or those caregivers and family supporting someone with a challenging diagnosis. I hope to include excerpts here as I write. NOTE: This is not intended to replace actual medical guidance. Please consult your doctors on your individual challenges and situations. Also names have been changed for most of my medical staff.
POST TRAUMATIC GROWTH needs more attention
Post traumatic stress disorder is pretty buzzy in our vernacular. According to the American Psychological Association it is a “psychiatric disorder that may occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event, series of events or set of circumstances. An individual may experience this as emotionally or physically harmful or life-threatening and may affect mental, physical, social, and/or spiritual well-being.” People use avoidance, for example, to keep these stressful feelings at bay. When I say people, I mean me.
In the wake of everything that occurred, I have PTSD. It’s come in peaks and valleys and I’ve used avoidance to cope. When I started writing the book, it may have acted like an exposure therapy in a way. Recounting moments has become easier and easier as the writing process has gone along. I remember a lot. That’s not always easy. But in this excavation, I’ve found a peace I hadn’t expected. From the future, I can take care of myself in the past. Looking at myself with the kind perspective of someone who endured and survived.
Now here’s a term that doesn’t get enough attention in my opinion: Post Traumatic Growth.
Post Traumatic Growth is a theory developed in the 90s by Richard Tedeschi, PhD, and Lawrence Calhoun, PhD to explain the positive transformation that occurs after a psychological struggle.
But don’t confuse it with resilience. Post Traumatic Growth is different because it’s the journey a person takes to transform. “Someone who is already resilient when trauma occurs won't experience PTG because a resilient person isn't rocked to the core by an event and doesn't have to seek a new belief system, explains Tedeschi.“
They look for several key positive changes to identify Post Traumatic Growth:
Appreciation of life.
Relationships with others.
New possibilities in life.
Personal strength.
Spiritual change.
To be clear, this isn’t to say the traumatic event was in any way GOOD. I categorically wish in all my heart the event never happened in the first place. Life isn’t fair. As I’ve said, things don’t happen for a reason. Devastating and terrible acts happen to beautiful, innocent, and good people all the time.
However, if a traumatic event does occur, I do think it’s possible to grow from it and allow ourselves to heal and find additional reserves of personal strength.
My therapist says it’s in the rebuilding where a person finds aspects of their lives benefited. She noted personal connection as a common area of growth.
There is some debate about the original studies on post traumatic growth as they involve mostly self assessment- but the value seems present either way. If I perceive myself as growing and evolving in positive ways, whether it’s measurable or not, that seems like a worthy reward.
While a crisis is occurring, it’s very hard to head pain off at the pass. Acute stress is real. In the aftermath, I do think reframing stress is possible. With some distance, reflection, the aid of a therapist, I can see myself anew: wiser, gentler, grittier all at once.
Not everyone may have post traumatic growth and that’s okay. Apparently it’s more common in women. And it’s not blissful happiness after pain. This isn’t rainbows, disco balls, and happy endings. The growth simply acknowledges that despite the challenges we have faced, there is change. And that change isn’t all bad. In fact, it’s positive growth.
Fundamentally, I wanted to introduce the concept to folks. I felt like I experienced it before I knew there was a label.
When my wise therapist brought it up in a session, I felt a dawning, like the sun rose on a concept I couldn’t put my finger on, but experienced emerging from me.
As a person diagnosed with PTSD, it’s lovely to see it coupled with post traumatic growth as well. That the experience of pain and anguish didn’t just take from me.
Most of my PTSD today lives in my breathing. After haunting moments of losing my breath in the hospital and multiple intubations, when I get winded now and feel the pressure in my lungs I feel deeply anxious. For about a year or more, I avoided physical activity that pushed my cardio.
Last week, I took my first long bike ride since before getting pregnant. As the day drew to a close, there was a final hill before my house. On the other hard hills of the day, I just got off the bike and walked up. But on this final hill, I decided to go for it. I breathed in and out of my mouth and pushed and cycled and slowly made it up the top.
It wasn’t pretty. I felt a profoundly uncomfortable tug in my lungs that reminded me of dark moments.
But when the exertion was over, I felt proud. Breathless but full of euphoric pride.
I could face the hill, the limits of my body, and the edge of trauma.
I’m brave. Braver than I ever knew.
Even if I didn’t make it up the hill (and who knows maybe next time I won’t), I didn’t hide from the challenge and that is enough to let me know I’ve grown.
I’m not trying to be Pollyanna. This is not a cure for PTSD. I think they exist alongside each other. PTSD is quite physiological and there is a lot of interesting research about whether it can be cured. It’s completely natural and fundamentally biological to experience PTSD and I hope there can be progress made as science continues to study it.
I respond to this concept as well because I feel like it’s embedded in story, and I am a storyteller. So many films, books and pieces of art show a character facing conflict and often trauma, and through the struggle they find a rebuilding that allows for growth.
Somewhere in the dark, there’s a hero’s journey available. I find that incredibly hopeful.
We can’t avoid pain as the result of trauma, but I do believe beyond suffering, we are capable of healing, growth, and joy.
If you’re new here and wondering, “what happened to this lady?” read The Fighter Still Remains Part 1. xo
Thank you forever and always to Roy Lenn and Richard Burwick as well your founding level donations.
Loved every word of this. I believe the learning and growing, not always easy or fun, the incredible inner work it takes to rebuild and transform is the hero’s journey. Though I, too, wish you never had to go through the trauma you experienced and the PTSD that inevitably follows, the power and inspiration revealed to you in your PTG is so very worthy and important. Thank you, Taylor, for sharing this so beautifully.