How do you recover from trauma?

[HopelesslyHopeful87]

For background, I'm in my 30s and have had a traumatic life, from birth really, well into adulthood. Abusive and toxic parents, abusive boyfriends, controlling relationships, sexual abuse, financial abuse etc etc. I won't go into details but it has left me with a lifetime of anxiety and depression and a potential diagnosis of personality disorders. I've been on countless medications to try and alleviate my symptoms but everything I've tried (beta blockers and mostly SSRIs) hasn't agreed with me. All beta blockers lowered my BP and I was faint all the time which was unmanageable. I have had terrible side effects from Citalopram, Escitalopram, Fluoxetine, Sertraline, Duloxitine and Amitriptline. They don't want to try Mirtazipine as it is sedative and I have a 4 month old baby.

I'm currently doing a CBT course through steps2change and although it's kind of helpful in understanding worries and anxiety, it isn't actually addressing the root cause of my problems. I'm finally in a healthy relationship with a guy who treats me well, respects me, no red flags, understands my past and accepts that my head is a mess and loves me anyway, supports me through all my crazy moments but I'm pushing him away. I'm going to ruin everything if I don't sort myself out. I've got two modules in my CBT thing left and then I'm done. Where can I go from here?

I can't afford private therapy but I know I need it. Financially I'm on my arse so paying for therapy is truly out of the question. In my locality, it's around £50-100 for a 50 minute session and I just can't find that money from anywhere to have regular counselling.

Does this kind of thing exist on the NHS? After my CBT, can I request higher intensity input? Really appreciate any advice as I'm desperate to try and help myself out of this.

I wish I could help, unfortunately I haven’t got any advice I can give but couldn’t ignore your post. I’m so sorry you’ve had to deal with so much, life is very unfair. Could you speak to your GP about speaking to a psychologist? I don’t know whether it’s available but no harm in asking.
I really hope you find some help.

I self-reffered myself for nhs therapy online, didn't even have to speak to my gp, it was really quick and easy. I ended up getting a block of 12 emdr sessions which were really helpful - emdr works if you struggle with flashbacks to a particularly frightening trauma. But I know they mentioned cbt so you can definitely get cbt on nhs.

I'm really surprised if your gp hasn't offered you this already, but definitely Google around to see if you can self-refer online in your area.

I had emdr to help work through trauma. Is that an option?

It's really difficult to try to make sense of the senseless and indefensible things that have happened to you, but your mind is trying it's best to find answers and that's why you are in such a bad place.

Drugs might mask the symptoms and CBT will certainly help you make sense of your current patterns of thinking but neither will deal with the root cause. I don't have any experience of EMDR (although I've read lots of good reports) but I do know that hypnosis/hypnotherapy will allow your subconscious mind to make make peace with your past and help you to change the way you think and behave.

You could also have a read through this article about how core beliefs are formed and how we can change them and also these two videos which deal with child abuse and how to survive it;

I've just looked into the emdr referral and I can self refer through iapt which is where I'm going through now and they said to have the cbt. So perhaps once I've completed the cbt I can be referred on to the next level.

Just feel like it's so hard to access these services and there seems to be an expectation to fit in a certain category and if you don't there's not movement or option.

Thank you Sarah ill take a look at those links now.