When I think back over the past few years and my trauma recovery journey, I remember how difficult it was to have faith that what I was doing would help me find my way through the muck.

I was lucky because the counsellor I was seeing specializes in trauma. His treatment approach for me combined talking and a form of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) that combines Western medicine knowledge with Eastern spiritual practices.  And it worked for me.

As I reflect on my journey so far, there are four tips that have helped me regain my confidence and start to feel more normal:

1. Talk about what’s happening with those you trust
2. Keep what works, toss what doesn’t
3. Give yourself time to heal and be patient with the process
4. Understand that sometimes you think you’re done, and you’re not

Talk about what’s happening with those you trust

Mine was a slow, gradual decline.

The first unexplainable symptom happened one day in July when I just couldn’t face going to work. I was walking to the Skytrain to go to the office and I made it about three blocks, when I just turned around and went back home. My son ran to the door and asked me what was wrong, and my husband told the kids I had been working too hard and had pushed myself too far. But he didn’t realize it was way beyond that.

As I described in more detail in this article, I found myself in a situation at work where a team leader created a damaging environment that negatively impacted my mental wellness.  The situation at work continued and I found myself tearing up for no reason, my adrenaline would spike up and stay on high alert, and I had no interest in anything.

The symptoms are what made me realize things were not normal. So, I started to talk with those close to me. My husband was concerned and 100% supportive of any action I wanted to take to get better. Colleagues tried to support me as best they could. Some offered their opinions of what was going on: one thought I was depressed, another thought a new role would resolve it.

When I talked with my sister, Rachel, we were sitting on the edge of the community swimming pool in the sunshine with our feet in the water, and sunglasses on. I told her about my symptoms. Luckily my sister has researched a lot of health symptoms and treatments on her own health quest, so she listened very carefully to what I said.  Then she responded, “I think you’ve been traumatized”.

Knowing it was trauma was very helpful. It meant I could use my Employee Family Assistance Program to get connected to a trauma certified counsellor. And once I found the right counsellor, it meant I could get help.

Keep What Works, Toss What Doesn’t

Rachel gave me the best advice. She said that healing is a big complex experiment. I should evaluate each treatment, supplement, approach very simply. If it’s making me feel better or I’m staying the same, keep it. If it’s making me feel worse, toss it. So I continued my big, complex experiment of trying to heal from trauma using this keep it and toss it philosophy.

The counsellors

The first trauma counsellor I went to see was a woman. She listened to what I told her and asked me if I had any time off available. I said I’ve got about 32 hours saved up. She said I should take that time off and do some self-care – go to the spa, have a bath, etc. I didn’t find her advice particularly helpful. In my mind, I wasn’t going to get better by chilling out for a few days. So I decided to toss her as my trauma counsellor.

My second trauma counsellor, who remains my current counsellor, is a man. He listened to what I told him and said there are a lot of different treatments we could try, but recommended a particular approach that he believed would be the most effective for me. Then he described a variation of EMDR (luckily Rachel had also mentioned this treatment approach to me so it wasn’t a surprise to hear about it.) And I said: “let’s give it a try.” I’m very fortunate that talking with this counsellor and working through the trauma using this technique worked well for me. He is my keep trauma counsellor.

The treatments

I applied this advice to keep what works and toss what doesn’t to my supplements and other treatments as well. I had two practitioners helping me: a naturopath and a homeopathic integrated health professional. One supplement I’ve been taking is magnesium bisglycinate. After I took this supplement for the first time, I checked in with myself about 30 mins later and I was surprised at how quickly it had helped.  I actually felt better, so that went into the keep pile.

There were a couple of instances where the homeopathic health professional prescribed a supplement, and I noticed that I was tearing up at work all of a sudden. The only thing that had changed was the supplement, so I decided to toss it.

The doctors

I also sought help from a Western medical doctor. He did not think I needed time off, rather recommended talk therapy counselling. I found his advice particularly unhelpful and unsupportive. While I respect his knowledge of Western medicine, I found functional medical professionals, naturopaths and Eastern philosophies more helpful for my healing. So I put the Western medicine doctor’s advice in the toss pile, and I actually didn’t schedule any appointments with him for quite a while.

I found my (Western medicine) family doctor a lot more supportive. She asked lots of questions and recommended I take time away from work. Since the counselling seemed to be helping, she recommended that I continue with it, as well as hot yoga. She also told me to come back and see her on a regular basis. She is in the keep pile.

It’s unfortunate that so much of figuring out how to heal is left to the patient. But remembering the keep and toss philosophy is a good one that can help each of us find ways to heal that are effective for us.  And what might work for one person may not be as effective for another.  So try things out and monitor whether they make you feel better or not.  Then keep what works and toss what doesn’t!

Give yourself time to heal and be patient with the process

One of the most frustrating parts of healing, for me, is that there’s no defined timeline.  Let me repeat that: there is no defined timeline for healing from trauma.  There’s often a recommended process, and this was certainly the case with my counsellor’s technique. With a combination of EMDR and Eastern philosophies, he has a clear idea of the process that we go through, but no way to predict how long the process would take.

Sticking with the process without a clear idea of when it will be done, gosh it’s hard. It’s demoralizing to just keep going through the steps and having to keep faith that sticking with it is actually moving you towards healing.

Argh, so frustrating!  So that leads to the next tip…

Stick with the Process

I remember talking with my therapist and he told me that he understood how frustrating it could be. He also told me that I could believe him, and that I should stick with it.

Honestly, I didn’t believe him. But what other option did I have? I couldn’t bear the idea of not getting better. I needed to keep doing something to try to get better; I just had to stick with the process.

Sometimes you just have to keep on, keepin’ on. Or like Dory says in Finding Nemo, “just keep swimming.”

So I went through my counselling, and I got A LOT better. I had to go back to work after about a seven months off. Even though I really needed more time to truly heal, the insurance company wouldn’t approve the request (and that’s a whole other frustrating story!).

My bosses and colleagues were very supportive and enabled a gradual return to work for me over the summer. By the fall, I was back to work full-time and had been positioned in a great role with a great client. I was able to clearly articulate the help and support I was going to need to be successful, and I had the right structure in place around me.

Understand that Sometimes You Think You’re Done, and You’re Not

After having been back at work for about 8 months or so, I was nominated for a coaching program. My coach was pushing me to articulate what I was passionate about, what I was good at, and what I wanted for myself in the next stage of my career.

During that coaching process, I realized that I wasn’t fully healed: I couldn’t answer the questions the coach was asking, because I was still processing what had happened, and I wasn’t fully ready to look forward.

I realized I wasn’t done with therapy.

Talk about frustrating! I really didn’t want to have to go back to my therapist, but I also realized that I needed to because I wasn’t done healing.

So I called up my therapist..  By that time, it had been about a year and half since I had seen him and I launched myself back into treatment. He was able to help me identify that there were two other aspects of the trauma situation that I hadn’t processed earlier, and so he helped me work through those.

When Therapy Sucks

Therapy can really, really suck. It can rip open the wounds and leave you with a bit of a scab, or it can leave you feeling raw and exposed. A scab can protect you as you wander the world until you get to your next appointment. But a raw, oozing, invisible wound can leave you feeling like your innards are completely exposed.

There were a couple of times when I had to reach out to my counsellor, in between appointments, to let him know that I was feeling very raw and couldn’t stop tearing up. He gave me some breathing exercises to do to release the stress and trauma as a temporary measure, and I found that those exercises were at least enough to help me function until I saw him again.

So I stuck with the therapy again. These two remaining aspects of my trauma experience were not as central as the main issue I had worked on in the first place, so I was able to get to ‘done’ on these two issues more quickly than with the first one.

But the recovery process has taken a long time. By my calculations, from my first symptoms to completing this second round of therapy, it had taken four years. And even with completing that second round of therapy, it took almost a year for me to really start feeling more like myself.

Feeling More Like Myself

I’m so grateful to be feeling more like myself. How can I tell? Well, I’m:

• more interested in options for my role in the future (finally).
• able to laugh and find things funny again.
• able to easily find things I’m grateful for.

Healing is a journey.

It takes a lot longer than you think.  And honestly, I may or may not be done.

I hope that by sharing my healing journey with you, and you are going through your own mental wellness challenge, you might find these tips helpful:

1. Talk to people you trust.
2. Keep what works and toss what doesn’t.
3. Give yourself time to heal and be patient with the process.
4. Understand that even if you think you’re done, you might not be.

Stick with it, and you’ll come out the other side just like I have.

You won’t be the same person as you were when you went in. But I’m happy to report that I like who I’m becoming just as much as I liked who I was before.

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