Correct. Reprocessing is almost always re-traumatising. That is the nature of therapy. It gets worse before it gets better. Breaking the cycle requires causal insight. Breaking the cycle is not the same as suppressing it. One does not move past unprocessed trauma, one moves through it.

Let me offer a different mental model. Instead of a queue that needs to be processed to reach a productive conclusion, what if we view PTSD like more of a stuck process that just sits there taking up a core's resources without doing anything valuable?

Thats a very interesting analogy that moves the discussion beyond "Gods will", "cancerous opinions" and endless bleating for "proof" that occupies some other outbursts.

I think stuckness is a good metaphor. And yes I see where you are going with that - persistent nightmares are taxing, waking up feeling physically drained etc. There seems a strong case for instrumental suppression, much as anti-depressants can help set the necessary conditions for long-term therapy.

But I'd take the metaphor further and suggest the nightmares are processes that are signalling, but those signals are not acted upon. We sometimes need help in interpreting and verbalising those signals so that we can hear them ourselves. My objection would be to blocking those signals as a first recourse (and allowing that to become a normalised response to intrusive reliving as other self-medication is so often with veterans I've had contact with).