The Positive Side of PTSD

September 2022

Over the past six months or so, I have been becoming aware of and acknowledging the gifts that I have gained from having complex PTSD. While the PTSD has had all manner of profound negative affects on my brain and body, in terms of comprehension and memory, and the notorious psychological side-effects such as intrusive thoughts, catastrophizing, hypervigilance, depression, avoidance and the need to isolate, and dizziness and fatigue, amongst others, I have noticed that positive things in my brain are becoming amplified as well and I believe they are due to the PTSD. Or more pointedly as aspects of recovering from PTSD—but I guess we could also debate which is the chicken and which is the egg here? Immediately after the fire (November 2018) I definitely had a shift in my attitude and perception, as I wrote about in my Paradise Not story; a devil may care, life is short attitude. But the excitement I feel in my brain is a newer experience. I have always loved art, music, and nature, but colors, sights, textures, some smells, and sounds are just so much more vivid, invigorating, electrifying, deep, emotionally moving, satisfying, and intoxicating as to, at times, be nearly orgasmic. I would love to know, Fabulous Readers, if you have had similar experiences.

I was reflecting yesterday (September 2, 2022), that for all of the negative things we hear about PTSD, we don’t hear about the potential positives that might come out of it, so of course I had to research it. I came upon psychologists Richard Tedeschi, PhD and Lawrence Calhoun, PhD, who developed the Post-Traumatic Growth theory in the mid-1990s. They posit that people who go through psychological struggle following adversity can often see positive growth and self-improvement afterward. They developed the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory that measures five factors: personal strength, new possibilities, improved relationship, spiritual growth and appreciation for life. This link to PositivePsychology gives a really nice overview: https://positivepsychology.com/post-traumatic-growth/

I also reviewed that the part of the brain, the amygdala, that regulates fear can also regulate happiness, leading me to speculate that what I am experiencing, the juxtaposition of the negative side-effects and the positive side-effects, are coming from the same part of my brain, but different sides: the right side of the amygdala is more strongly associated with negative emotions such as fear and sadness and the left side of the amygdala is associated with both positive and negative emotions. Of course I know this is all very subjective, but I am very driven by being my own psychological petri dish and I like to reflect on and analyzing what is going on with me and how things are connected. I can say that as far as how very, very bad and immensely strong the negative attributes of the PTSD have been, the positive attributes have been just as strong (but a LOT more pleasurable) and I am profoundly grateful that I am experiencing them. I am very intrigued and happy that studies and brain scans are giving us more insight into how what many people believe to be weaknesses, character flaws, something we just need to forget and move on from, are in fact responses rooted in the structures of our brains. Trust me, if we could just get over it, I think we would choose to do so. I don’t think anyone with PTSD would choose to feel or be this way.

I think it is fascinating, but I am admittedly a bit of a nerd, to learn about the different parts of the brain and how they regulate our thoughts and emotions. I encourage you to do research on the internet to learn more; it can be very insightful.

It is also important to note that the brain has “plasticity,” meaning it can rewire itself to relearn and overcome damage, whether this be from a stroke, traumatic brain injury, or PTSD. No, the relearning or rewiring will not be 100%, but that the brain can do this at all is amazing! This is why all the tools (see Tools section under Resources) I have been using personally, and professionally with my former clients, are so important to me—I want to do as many positive things for my brain and overall health to give me every chance at recovery and having a better, more positive life as possible.

For me, the PTSD from my career in Child Protective Services and then the complex PTSD from the fire, were in and of themselves not seminal moments in personal growth, but a deeper continuation of it. Those life circumstances most certainly contributed to it. Personal growth, striving to have hope and a positive outlook in general are something I have been working on since the recurrence of my depression and the onsite of the fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue at age 33 (1999), and I would not call that time in my life traumatic. That time, however, became an extremely decisive moment—had had to choose between killing myself or figuring out what my new life was going to look like and deciding to get on with it. I had to learn how to navigate all the barriers and challenges that comes with needing to support oneself financially and make a meaningful contribution to society while being chronically fatigued with a “hidden disability.” I can say for certain that had I not done all that personal growth work before, including the gathering and use of my “tools,” ultimately I would not have been able to as fair well through all the years of working while having PTSD (a thirteen year journey from the creeping in of the symptoms to a diagnosis of full-blown PTSD) and then the fire and the complex PTSD. I do not know what are personality characteristics, temperament, and presilience, the concept for preplanning for hardships, and how they each played their part in me being able to first endure, and then thrive, through what has happened in my life. I just know coming to the other side now, that these positive attributes of the PTSD are almost like some sort of fucked up reward for coming through—a reward I am only too happy to have!

Burning Question Fabulous Readers!!

I want to know what positives having PTSD has brought into your life. Please send me your sentences or a short paragraph about positive things you now have in your life because of having PTSD. Please provide your name or how you would like to be identified (or not), a line about the origin of your PTSD, and give me permission to publish your contribution here with no monetary compensation in return—thanks for your contribution to our community of survivor and thrivors. Please send to bunny@theabsurdess.com.

Life Want’s To Live

Photo by Greg Beengin, Paradise Camp Fire survivor and working as part of environmental fire recovery. Photo taken in the Berry Creek area, California, the Complex Fire of 2020.

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Photo from Pixabay

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