Does it get better guys?
Hi everyone,
I’m a 20-year-old woman in my junior year of college, and I was recently diagnosed with PTSD. I’m reaching out because I’m wondering if any adults here with similar experiences can tell me honestly: does it get better?
Right now, I feel like I’m at one of the lowest points in my life. Since leaving my toxic household to attend college, all of the symptoms I used to suppress have caught up to me and intensified. I’m still processing just how abusive and unhealthy my adolescent years really were, and honestly, how I managed to survive them.
I’m currently in the process of separating from my parents and learning how to stand on my own two feet. I finally have insurance that covers the mental health care I’ve desperately needed for years, so I’m beginning to access real help now.
At the same time, I’m also going through an incredibly heartbreaking breakup with someone I deeply loved. We were both survivors of abuse, and although we ended things because of outside circumstances, part of me still feels like it was my fault. Rationally, I know it wasn’t. But emotionally, I struggle with believing that. Looking back, I didn’t fully realize how much my PTSD was affecting me. Sometimes I projected my fears onto him or unintentionally triggered him. Once I realized something was wrong, I did everything I could to seek help, but I just didn’t have access to the resources I needed yet, even though I was trying.
What makes this harder is that, objectively, my life is finally moving in a positive direction. I’m moving into a permanent apartment with close college friends who have helped me unlearn so many unhealthy mindsets and shown me what safe, supportive relationships can look like. I’ve earned a promotion at work, I have an internship lined up for the fall, and I’m even going on a vacation with friends that I funded entirely by myself. For the first time, I’m building a life that belongs to me and not to the environment I grew up in.
But despite all of that, I still struggle deeply with abandonment, grief, and this overwhelming fear that I’m somehow “too damaged” to ever fully overcome what I experienced.
So I guess I’m asking: for those of you who have survived this and made it further down the road, does healing actually become possible? Does the constant weight of it all eventually become lighter?
Thank you for reading.