What's too painful to remember

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
April 28, 2021

When you hear the song The Way We Were, what do you think about? Was it your relationship with someone else that ended? For me, it was the relationship I had with myself. Those days are now too painful to remember.

What is too painful for you to remember? Is it the life you had before "it" happened? Is it the way you used to think when you the life you were used to, was still the way it usually was? How about you know there is another time ahead for you? A time can come when you are happier and think of the days you were miserable as "too painful to remember" instead. That is what can happen when you heal.

I know I have to share things that happened in my past so that you are able to know what I dealt with, what I struggled with and how I healed. The events and residual left behind, were hard. It makes me sad to even think about those days. It is a lot better for me to talk about happier times, like now.

I don't live there anymore. All the events, the heartaches and misery are in the past. I don't dwell on them but this work has me remembering a lot of those times when I need to. Once I get out what I have to, I usually play a computer game or watch TV, and then I am done with that memory.

You have to make sense out of what happened and understand you had no power over "it" happening but you have power over it as a survivor now. Then you have to make peace with it. It takes a lot of work, but you can get there. You have to forgive yourself for whatever you got wrong up to this point because we are all just humans, untrained to deal with anything that isn't part of our usual life. We have to learn what has been haunting us, hurting us, is no longer in control. It doesn't deserve to be in our lives now. The only power PTSD has is what we allow it to have.

Once you understand PTSD, then you gain even more power over it. It ends up being drained out of you. While there are some parts of it left behind, there are tools to cope with what you cannot totally rid yourself of, but for the most part, each and everyday is what you will make out of it.

I've already healed and so can you. I left most of those days behind me because I'm too busy looking ahead to the next moment. That comes with practice and patience. It also comes with an understanding of myself. I know I did the best I could with what I knew at the time, as much as I know I wanted to learn all I could to discover what, if any, power I had. The more I learned, the more power I had over my own life and that, that is because I don't want to go back to the way I was instead of move to to what I can become.

Remember, it is your life...get in and drive it!
#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD

The Way We Were

Barbra Streisand

Memories

Light the corners of my mind

Misty watercolor memories

Of the way we were

Scattered pictures

Of the smiles we left behind

Smiles we gave to one another

For the way we were

Can it be that it was all so simple then?

Or has time re-written every line?

If we had the chance to do it all again

Tell me, would we?

Could we?

Memories

May be beautiful and yet

What's too painful to remember

We simply to choose to forget

So it's the laughter

We will remember

Whenever we remember

The way we were

The way we were

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Bergman Alan / Bergman Marilyn / Hamlisch Marvin

The Way We Were lyrics © Arlovol Music, Colgems-emi Music Inc.