Trauma planned the trip but I bought the ticket

Which Train Are You On?
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
August 27, 2017

One of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves is doing the work to get to the point where our lives are lived as well as possible. Actually, make that as "good" as possible.

After something happens, we hop aboard the grief train. How long it takes you to get to healing, depends on which train you managed to get on.

Sometimes it is a slow ride, making lots of stops along the way. You are stuck until the train gets moving again. The only mistake you can make on this trip, is getting off without getting back on. 

History The Trains That Changed The World

For me, the train was like the Acela, "fastest trip with fewer stops."

"Superior Comfort, Upscale Amenities, Polished Professional Service, at Speeds up to 150 mph."

Reminder: I am not a veteran but faced life altering events far too many times to be able to reasonably explain inner happiness afterwards without pointing out how human all of us are. I do not have PTSD because of how it was dealt with. Even if you have PTSD, you can live a life where you get to decide your own trip.

Trauma planned the trip but I bought the ticket. I had to pay for what the event did to me as a victim but in the next second I went into survivorship. It didn't get me first time and I did whatever I had to do to make sure it didn't control the rest of my life. It didn't get to plan what I did with my life. It just hitched a ride popping up every now and then to remind me it was there.

Generations of veterans have been dealing with the same struggle as other simple humans but their fellow riders have scattered onto different trains. It can be a very lonely, long trip, if you are surrounded by people who have no clue what caused you to get onboard.

Civilianize yourself again to a point where you can get them to understand it as a human. Unless you surround yourself with other veterans, few will understand what you went through but everyone who survived trauma can understand what it did to you.

Maybe you can learn from this Mom who lost her son because someone else did something wrong. I copied the part that you really need to read first. Please go to the link and read the rest.

'Meeting the man who caused my son's death helped me learn to live and smile again'

Mirror UK

Rachel Toal

August 27, 2017

"Meanwhile, I was left to deal with my bereavement. The sadness I was never able to physically express due to my chest bruising had stayed inside me. Slowly, it was coming out. Counselling and EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing) therapy helped to retrain my brain and replace traumatic images with positive memories."

"I discovered a life-changing programme called the Grief Recovery Method, which transformed my relationship with Flynn. Instead of being stuck with painful memories, I was able to remember him with happiness." read more here