Unlikely Flowers: Growing Through Trauma

Most people have heard of PTSD, but far fewer are familiar with what happens when a survivor doesn’t just recover but transforms. This isn’t toxic positivity, dismissing pain or wearing rose colored glasses. It’s a real, research-backed phenomenon called Posttraumatic Growth. PTG is a process in which individuals experience meaningful psychological growth after trauma. For many survivors, including myself, this concept can be both validating and deeply hopeful.

What Is Posttraumatic Growth?

Posttraumatic Growth refers to positive psychological change that occurs as a result of the struggle with highly challenging life circumstances. It’s not the trauma itself that causes growth, it’s the person’s response to it. PTG doesn't mean the trauma was “good” or “worth it”; rather, it acknowledges that pain can be a catalyst for transformation. Growth and suffering can coexist.

Researchers have identified five domains of PTG:

• Greater appreciation of life

• Improved relationships with others

• Increased personal strength

• Recognition of new possibilities

• Spiritual or existential development

These are the hard-won outcomes of deep emotional work, reflection, and a robust support system. While not everyone will experience all of these, they represent the potential for something meaningful to emerge after deep psychological upheaval.

What PTG Is Not

PTG is often misunderstood. It’s sometimes wrongly equated with “bouncing back” quickly or becoming stronger because of trauma. It's also confused with resilience, which is the ability to withstand stress. PTG is neither of those things. It involves a reconfiguration of beliefs, identity, and meaning after the foundation of your life has been shaken.

For some, symptoms of PTSD and growth occur simultaneously. You can struggle with triggers or anxiety while also feeling more self-aware or connected to others. The growth doesn't erase the wounds, but it can reframe them and impact how you respond.

How Growth Emerges

PTG doesn’t happen overnight. It often begins in darkness. Survivors may feel shattered, lost, or unsure how to move forward. That’s normal. The process of growth often begins with meaning-making, or the attempt to understand what happened, why it affected you so deeply, and what it means for your future.

Social support, self-reflection, time, and safe spaces to grieve and explore new perspectives are key ingredients. For some, faith plays a role. For others, therapy, journaling, art, physical fitness or helping others become outlets for transformation.

Trauma It’s Not the End

Growing up in a home shaped by dysfunction, I came to see constant conflict as normal. I didn’t choose the chaos I was born into, but I did carry it with me for far too long. As a young adult, I stumbled into a relationship thinking I could escape what hurt me, only to find myself back inside the same kind of storm. I didn’t know how to cope in healthy ways, so I numbed, avoided, and over-functioned. I gave parts of myself away trying to keep the peace, trying to be “enough”. I didn’t believe I’d ever be more than “a fuck up”.

Throughout those years, there was certainly pain but there was anger, too. The kind that simmers in your chest when you realize how stuck you feel. Anger is a secondary emotion. It shows up to protect us from more vulnerable feelings underneath, like fear, betrayal, shame, or disappointment. It's the armor we wear when our softer emotions feel too exposed. I wasn’t ready to face the hurt buried beneath my anger, especially when I was tangled up in a relationship I didn’t chose on my own terms. I held onto the hope that forcing myself to “love” someone I barely knew would somehow turn out alright. But no amount of willpower could mask the truth: the relationship wasn’t what I wanted or deserved, and the toxic dynamic only deepened the wounds I hadn’t yet begun to heal.

Eventually, along with the pain and the anger, there was learning. I started understanding trauma, boundaries, and nervous system regulation. I stopped blaming myself for what happened and started rebuilding from the inside out. Slowly, the pain began to bloom into something unexpected, into a purpose. I realized I could use my voice and my story, to help others feel seen. To show them that surviving isn’t the end of the story and that you don’t have to wait until you’ve hit rock bottom to begin again. Change doesn’t require catastrophe, sometimes clarity is enough.

Heal Out Loud

When you begin to break that cycle, don’t be surprised if not everyone celebrates your growth. Some will be deeply threatened by it. Those who exploited your silence will be the first to try to discredit you. When they see you healing, speaking truth, setting boundaries and living differently, they may respond by rewriting history, weaponizing your past, and accusing you of half-truths and lies.

Just remember, a good person wouldn’t feel attacked by your healing— but a guilty one would.

So let them talk. Let them twist. Let them flail. You don’t owe anyone a justification for the work you’ve done to reclaim your life. Posttraumatic Growth is not about pretending the trauma didn’t happen but instead refusing to stay trapped in it. It’s about rising from the ashes with a stronger sense of self, deeper empathy, and renewed purpose.

If you’re here, reading this, then maybe your growth has already begun.