There is no predetermined timeline for healing from trauma. One of the most challenging aspects of living with PTSD is that its symptoms are often invisible. People may tell you to “get over it,” assuming that traumatic experiences fade away like ordinary memories. They might comment that you look great, that you’re doing well in school or thriving at work. But those external markers rarely reflect your inner world, how you perceive yourself, or how you feel deep down.
Therapy can certainly reduce the impact of trauma on your well-being, but there is no fixed schedule for this process. The pace and direction of healing are yours alone to determine.
Importantly, trauma work is never linear. Words like healing, curing, or erasing often carry misleading connotations. They suggest a straightforward path, a gradual lessening of pain until it eventually disappears. In reality, trauma resists such linear progression. At first, confronting the traumatic event and learning about PTSD may bring relief, even a sense of daily improvement. That’s beautiful and valid. But you don’t need to force yourself into crafting a neat “success story” around your trauma.
Life is complex, unpredictable. New experiences whether joyful or distressing interact with your past, reshaping your perceptions and triggering old wounds in unexpected ways. That is not a failure; it is the nature of trauma. The nonlinear nature of life itself ensures that the effects of trauma do not simply fade—they shift, evolve, and resurface.
While PTSD is not visible in the way a broken bone is, it is not truly invisible, it is rendered invisible by society. The silence survivors face is not accidental. It often stems from systemic erasure, a refusal to acknowledge trauma because doing so would disrupt existing hierarchies of power. This silence is political.
True healing from trauma cannot happen in isolation. It requires collective responsibility and structural change. A survivor of sexualized violence, for instance, cannot fully heal in a society where gender inequality persists, where public spaces are unsafe, where red flags in relationships go unaddressed, and where survivors lack access to information, legal resources, or emergency support. Healing is only possible when survivors are actually protected and empowered.
Otherwise, “working with trauma” risks becoming another way to silence survivors, encouraging them to adapt to their wounds without ever challenging the conditions that inflicted them.
Author: Zeynep Cekinmez