re: For anyone who has suffered serious trauma.. do you ever get to “normal” again?

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The honest answer? Could be. It’s not a given though. You’ll never regain what you lost. And you’ll never be the person you were before the loss. It will always haunt your steps to some degree. Don’t wallow waiting for it to get better on its own.

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This is a valid answer.

My mom was on a walk and hit by our next door neighbor who inadvertently looked away for a second. She was declared dead, revived, in a coma for 6 months and then after a few more months made a partial recovery. She’s still with us today.

I was 10, but had a full grasp of what happened.

My sister was 14 and this event irrevocably ruined her life. She was a fun somewhat popular girl involved in sports. She withdrew from all of that, stopped hanging out with her friends, dropped her faith, quit all extracurriculars, and headed down the progressive cat lady path.

I hate to call myself more successful or say I handled that trauma “better,” but by every measure, I moved on with my life, and I still feel like she’s stuck at the age of 14.

I paid for all my own school, got politely kicked out after HS, got a job at 15, got married, had kids, left town and built a wonderful life.

My parents paid for her school, let her live at home till she was almost 30, let’s her do laundry there every weekend, and then hired her to work at their business.

I asked my dad once (25 years after the accident,) why they made it so hard on me and gave her such an easy path. He said because we knew we could throw you out or the wolves and you’d come out on top and we were right. We knew she never recovered from that event and she’s stuck at the same mental age as she was when my dad walked in covered in blood and said there had been an accident.

I don’t know if that story helps at all but it’s my story with trauma.