“It depends on so many different factors. The type of trauma. What parts of your life it affected. What parts of your emotions it affected. Your coping mechanisms. How much you hide it from other people. How much you talk it out. How much you let other people help to ground you when your emotions from that time separate you from the current now. How much you accept your reactions as valid and try to work through them.

I am by far not an expert. I know my own experience only. Mine was PTSD from emotional relationship trauma x2. It took a few years and a couple psychologists and my now-husband to work through it. He’d say something in the same tone of voice as one of the previous two guys, and it would fly me back to that time. I’d flash back and mix up who he was and curl up in a ball. It was horrible. But whenever it would happen, I’d talk about it. I needed that external grounding. That reminder that my flight or fight response was no longer necessary because it was in the past, not now. I had to repeat that over and over. It became soothing – “that was 5 years ago, not now, not now, not now. This is a different house with a different person and different job and different life. And I don’t need to be that scared girl any more, because I’m safe.” Over time, the memories started to fade, and so did the reactions. Sometimes, they still come back. But the grounding is easier. It’s almost easier to believe it wasn’t real, because there’s nothing but pain there. I worked through the emotions and pain till I could safely put them in a box and forget. Pretty sure that if I saw either of the guys again, that box would open for a while. But I’d talk it out, find my grounding, and put it away again.

Again, that doesn’t work for everyone, it’s just one data point. But for me, that trauma was real and palpable. Now it’s a faded memory. So I’m going to call it possible.”