Trauma - what do you do when there's no hope left?

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When you've been deeply traumatised, and then traumatised some more, and a bit more, and then some more for good measure, and you've spent the first too many decades of your life just trying to survive repeated trauma when finally a light at the end of the tunnel appears... It seems like things are finally changing, all your perseverance and determination is going to pay off. You kept going for a reason.

The trauma stops accumulating and instead you have people saying "we can help" and "things will get better for you".

And you work with them, and you build trust in them, and you start to be able to picture how all this work and years in the dark just trying to survive endless pain is finally going to pay off. You start to hope. You dream a little bit. You can see how with a bit more time this work you're doing with them will change things.

And then more trauma. But you try not to be deterred because you could see a reason to keep going for the first time and a life without (round the clock pain and bone crushing levels of) trauma seemed possible. You can't bear the thought you've lost that when you'd only just dared believe it would happen for you. You make yourself keep going.

And then more trauma. And at first you try to be brave and strong and positive that this time is a temporary blip, unlike all the others, and soon you'll be back on course.

Except that doesn't happen. It gets worse. And now everyone is saying they've exhausted everything they can do and there's nothing more they can do to help you. And you have already exhausted everything in your armoury (and over the years you had developed lots of strategies to call upon to survive unbearable pain). So you have nothing and no way to change this or heal it or survive it and no hope anymore.

But they tell you not to despair because "there's always hope" (although clearly not of a cure or being healed or living without trauma/pain), even though they and you both know - because apparently the universe hates you - you're already consigned to a future filled with repeated trauma that you can't do anything to avoid or mitigate. Not a "maybe" or an "if" but a "definitely" and "repeatedly". It's already been confirmed.

What the hell do you do?

I can't spend the rest of my life having trauma heaped on top of trauma heaped on top of trauma faster than I ever have any chance to reduce the burden I'm carrying, no respite in between, no quality of life, just endless pain that's promised to continue for the rest of my horrific existence.

I can't even lie and tell myself all my trauma is behind me now and exist in a delusion that in five, ten, fifteen or twenty years my suffering might finally reduce and my life might be worth living. It's guaranteed I will be traumatised again. Nobody can help me, there is no hope. And I am alone.

I'm aware of Samaritans and the various other helplines, GP, CMHT, crisis team, a&e, 111\999, IAPT, etc etc and have dutifully raked up my worst experiences and apparently endless pain for multitudes of strangers to poke around in and then bin me off as unhelpable. It's just retraumatising at this point.

I’m sorr. It sounds really really shit . Are the traumas linked or is it a run of really really bad luck? I ask because shitty luck isn’t a sign that you will carry on having shitty luck for ever (it’s perfectly possible to roll a 6 on an unloaded dice 100 times in a row but that doesn’t make it any more or less likely that a 6 l come up on roll 101). It’s just really really shitty luck. I know none of that is very helpful, I wish I had a better answer

Thank you for taking the time to read that long post and reply.

Some of them are linked, some of them are just having the wrong kind of luck. The very wrong kind.

The future ones are linked. That's why I know I can't avoid them. I thought I could wrangle my way out of the last one if I was innovative and determined enough, but I was wrong.

I think I just posted to try and see if there was anything I was overlooking, but I don't think I am. When even the professionals are admitting there's nothing left to be done for you it's time to admit defeat.

So admit defeat and what happens next? Time doesn't stop moving and you're forced to trudge on, forever wondering when the next trauma happens even if it doesn't ever turn up.

Somewhere you will click and revisit those strategies offered to you and one of them will finally light bulb moment.

For me it was in the depressive episode after a manic one that I read into Buddhism and thought what a load of toss... but this Buddha guy sure does get a lot of pleasure from accepting life doesn't get any better, how do I get like that?

Please watch videos on Complex PTSD by Richard Grannon. He highly recommends buying the book by Pete Walker called CPTSD From Surviving to Thriving.

Keep researching ways to deal with trauma. Pinterest will be good. As above poster has said you may get great comfort from Buddhism and spirituality.

I hope you are getting lots of support from family and friends whilst all this is happening.

No advice but wanted to say that I'm so sorry that things have and are so bad for you. I hope you find a way through this and I really hope things get better for you. 💐💐

I don't need to wonder if or when the next trauma "might" happen, the hospital have already tried to call me back for the next one.

And I went into the last one armed with all the strategies and with support from the professionals, feeling positive this time would be different and I'd finally cracked it and yet I still walked out too traumatised to be helped. I'm not choosing to be traumatised.

I spend all day and most of the night using all the strategies from the professionals plus my own - I've even spent time reading about Buddhism - it gets me nowhere.

If dogged perseverance and a determination to build a livable life of any description was all it took, I wouldn't have been driven to post.

Make a little headway, bam, back to being unable to tolerate even brushing my hand across my skin without it triggering flashbacks. Which is a bit of a hellish trigger to try and carry on any version of normal life with. Especially when it's a long way from being the only trigger.

Most of my family are dead. And most of the time I'm quiet and dignified and brave and self sufficient about that, but right now I just wish I was with them.

Thank you for the flowers and kind wishes and suggestions.

My situation is different I'm sure but I greatly relate to your words. I feel like people see it as a lazy nagging whine when all you can do is despair in a situation. But when theres nothing else you can do, no hope or path to a brighter future, what else is left to do besides sit in this pitiful existence and reflect on how everything has gone wrong and the steps you took to get there, or to avoid the constant trauma were meaningless. No amount of positive words will make any difference, when you look up from those words the outcome is the same, the outlook is as bleak as ever and your just left thinking these positive words are nice but there meant for someone else, someone who still has hope.

For me it's been about three years of getting up everyday with that cloud over head, searching and clinging for that positive optimistic future and yet in this life, in this particular situation it was all meaningless.

Today I find out I have no future, I am not able to hold this fractured existence together. Like you say, when the professionals can no longer help, what possible positivity can one really expect. There is no future, there is no life, only a ticking clock to a burned out flame.