239 - What would recovery be ?

* mild trigger warning* 

During May 11's #talkmh chat on twitter regarding recovery, I expressed that I wasn't even sure how much real recovery I had experienced. I just looked and found that I had discussed the subject just over a year ago, during MHW2K16 challenge, in this entry, where I managed to imagine what recovery would mean to me. 


I realize that my moods affect my viewpoint about such questions and that I tend to be overly self-critical in most depressive states - about which I understand the logic, by depression's very nature. 


But, this isn't the only factor. Indeed, as Hannah Rainey pointed out during the chat, experiencing traumatic events and suffering from the subsequent (c)ptsd can complicate the matters greatly.  My life has been tainted from repeated trauma, even before my actual birth, but off course, especially after it. 

Even though I don't recall my first few years of life, I do know that I witnessed domestic violence, which would continue for many, many years after that. My parents divorced, my dad remarried, and had uprooted me to a whole different country where he lied and abused me, in numerous ways. 

So, since I never truly knew any normalcy, it's extra difficult to imagine what my fuller recovery would bring me - more than those few easier aspects regarding social phobia and abilities to go to social events more often and not experience the anxieties that I suffer from, to this day.

Regarding happiness, I didn't have a normal level to compare with ; I only know what a happier event is to me  ; some fond happier memories either from childhood or adolescence, to those more numerous ones I had in adult age - such as getting married, going on a honeymoon, making new friendships... 

Another difficult aspect in cptsd are dissociation and emotional numbing - so although sometimes I intellectually recall a happy memory, my access to the emotional reaction of it can be somewhat, or fully, blocked. This, in turn, creates confusion within, because I'm generally hyper-emotional.

At over 40, all I know is that I have survived my trauma, but have been suffering from all my various mental illnesses for the majority if not entire life, that any notions of recovery are very vague for me. 

What would recovery mean to me regarding my trauma? I can hardly imagine, because I only scraped a portion of that, in 17 years of psychotherapy and a lot of personal research that is an ongoing process. 
I only recently made some progress in avoiding a traumatic anniversary "get to me" with its usual doses of flashbacks, intrusive nightmares and depression, which was a huge achievement. Does this one-time, 3-week effort and victory mean recovery ? Is it still recovery when you experience burnout from this effort ? Is the former part of my recovery and latter a relapse ? 

Since I have so many triggers for phobias and trauma, both in real life, conversations and what I can watch on tv/movies, but cannot cope with many (domestic violence, heavy cult stories, blood, and many more) , would recovery mean that I can cope with those fictions and triggering moments in life in a better fashion ? or, better yet, not get triggered at all ? 

Would recovery mean that I can not only openly talk about my trauma but not get over-invested and self-triggered from the emotions that are stirred in such conversations ? Maybe so, maybe each of these questions should get the answer of yes, this, and this too.

Any thoughts ? Feel free to share in comment or via my twitter  (but I'd prefer on this blog post, off course) Thank you!