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PTSD
Dec 10, 2008 12:46:15 GMT -8
Post by Susan Peabody on Dec 10, 2008 12:46:15 GMT -8
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
I have PTSD from the abuse I have suffered in the past. I was not diagnosed initially because they associated PTSD with veterans, but one day my therapist asked me to change my appointment from the morning to the evening. I broke down in his office because I was afraid to go out in the dark by myself. He diagnosed me on the spot. I take medication. I avoid triggers like going out at night alone. I have processed what happened to me in traditional therapy and also using cognitive behavioral therapy. Nothing really helps. When I have an episode I am a basket case. The key to PTSD is that you are not remembering the event(s) you are re-living them. People around you should make note of this and help you feel safe. Pulling yourself away from the past and back into the present is all you can do. I call people to break the spell of having been transported emotionally back to the past. I think positive thoughts. I pray. I lie in bed and hold on to my pillow. I wait it out. Eventually the episode is over and I am back in the present. All is well. In between episodes I dread certain things that don't bother others. Many people don't understand and judge me harshly. People have been known to say to me, "What is wrong with you?" Sometimes I explain, other times I don't bother. If you have PTSD have a plan. Learn how to care for yourself as others will not always understand what you are going through. People on this board will help. There are also PTSD message boards as well.
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PTSD
Dec 10, 2008 12:51:54 GMT -8
Post by Judy on Dec 10, 2008 12:51:54 GMT -8
Honey, I'm sober 26 years and I'm JUST seeing the manifestations of ptsd. I, too, experienced verbal, emotional and physical abuse. My whole family did.
I was just telling someone yesterday that I swear that that kind of trauma as a child lodges in you somewhere and starts to manifest in a very physical way in your 40's/50's. I'm no doctor, but from situations I've seen and experienced it's just a theory I've developed.
Both my sister and I (the two oldest of a large family) are in early 50's, both long term sober, both very physically fit - but both victims of a weak immune system due, I think, to years and years of stress.
I have a low-grade case of shingles right now which apparently is due to stress. I thought I was doing so well, too! But I know I am anxious about how to make a living. And I had a flare up connected with my last poa last week which surprised and disturbed me and sent me into obsession again.
Tough tough tough stuff.
Trying to learn to accept this stuff rather than fight it so hard. The fighting it only causes more stress!
Yikes. Thank god for my swimming. It's one of my bright spots in the day - and I'm doing so well with it.
Interested to hear what others have experienced with ptsd.
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Chrissy
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Posts: 75
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PTSD
Dec 10, 2008 17:53:28 GMT -8
Post by Chrissy on Dec 10, 2008 17:53:28 GMT -8
I realized I suffered when I started going a group for woman survivors..I realized alot of things I believed I was quirky about were actually manifestations of my trauma..
I know one of my issues was driving, always hated it didn't learn until I was 25, put the pieces together my alcoholic father was a nut behind the wheel, my mom was scared to drive..
Only recently the last few years can I get in the car and just drive not rehash it all out in my head, I know seems like small stuff, but just one of those things that happened because of my crazy upbringing..
PTSF is tough stuff..my ex h was controlling and would say stuff he knew bothered me then all the stuff would surface, he told me I had no sense of humor when he picked on my Ukrainian heritage, well I was molested by Ukrainian grandfather,he knew it just chose to be a jerk about it..
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PTSD
Dec 10, 2008 19:54:07 GMT -8
Post by Sobrietythirst on Dec 10, 2008 19:54:07 GMT -8
I get anxious...one of my abusers is still in my life and once in a while he touch me to greet, dance, or some other act, and it will trigger me to a deep spiral of obsessing and analyzing. PTSD is that in any situation I will immediately go to the horrid of rape. I also am realizing that because all of my abusers did this while I was a child, I am scared of having children. I never know how to really move on and forgive why you have to??? How do I really if I can't keep those boundaries because they are still in my family? I also still have no physical boundaries with men.
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Bridget
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PTSD
Jan 5, 2009 5:23:04 GMT -8
Post by Bridget on Jan 5, 2009 5:23:04 GMT -8
I came from a dysfunctional family, lived in the back of the bar they owned, spent too many hours as a little kid in the bar, and believe that because of my PTSD related to emotional and physical abuse, my memories of my early childhood remain blocked.
Sometimes, like last night when I was reading Love Junkie by Rachel Resnick, something breaks the dam and emotions try to break through.
Resnick was writing about having to draw pictures and doodle, and rely on the attention of the bartender who would give her peanuts, etc., to eat at a bar when she was waiting for her mother, who had brought her to the bar with her, and was spending time at the bar flirting with a guy.
When I read this passage from Resnick's novel, tears came to my eyes as I remembered the time I spent in bars as a little kid, with my mother, or sometimes both of my parents, as I was growing up.
Does anyone have this experience of blocked childhood memories because of PTSD?
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Healing Man
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"today I choose to love me"
Posts: 165
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PTSD
Jun 17, 2009 4:11:01 GMT -8
Post by Healing Man on Jun 17, 2009 4:11:01 GMT -8
I realise this is an old thread but got to reading through it after meaning to come and write a bit of what little I am piecing together of my childhood memories; well, wasn't going to write much on that either apart from "I know I need to face this and write it down sometime so here's a start..." kind of thing. Then found this one which will distract me off that for tonight My ex was convinced, and had me convinced, I was suffering from BPD. Eventually I found a serious specialist who, after a couple of meetings, was more inclined to diagnose "complex PTSD". My ex strenuously and determindedly disagreed with that which was often a point of conflict in our relationship. Yet for me after reading much about both BPD & PTSD, well, PTSD fitted a whole lot more comfortable with what I experienced in myself ongoingly in my relationship with her. Ongoingly, daily almost, I was triggered back into child world, child reactions, fears, beahviours, almost hysteria at times. There were times I would beg, literally begging her not to "take space..anything but..please don't do that anymore..find another way.." and it seemed the more I experienced that, the more easily each and each time i would be triggered. I know i am responsible for my reactivity..I know I should've managed myself better...in the end I learned some skills and self-soothing beahviour but by then after years of it i was literally exhausted, broken from being re-traumatised day in day out. That was my "walking on eggshells"..careful so careful not to do anything that may cause her to "take some space now". it hurts me to remember it; like picking off a scab that's not healed yet..why would someone continue to do that knowing the pain and anguish it would cause... mine is not to reason why anymore, now i have the space to heal and love me. But I feel damaged by that. One of the things I'd learnt about complex PTSD is not just the fight or flight response, but also "fawning"...that is what I was brought too. Fawning, broken, begging, pleading..I would do or say anything to not have to go through the unknowing of "taking space"..never knowing how long for, what could I do to make it stop, mae it shorter, what did i need to say, how could i listen more, hear her more, what more could i do I feel sad for me that I didn't say ENOUGH earlier. I feel sad that I allowed myself to be re-traumatised over and over again. BUt worse, not me. It wasn't me, the adult, being re-traumatised. It was my precious child within..the little boy that sat on the stairs and watched his daddy walk out of the house and away and not come back..each time she stayed away it was he that hurt again and again and againa nd I did nothing to protect him from that and I am sorry for that. I hope in time i can find a way to make that up to him. I think in some ways I am doing that now each day. he is sad and fragile and vulnerable and was hurt so so much and now I am an adult and can protect him and me. I went to try EMDR last year, from all I'd read it offered some hope to "de-trigger", but my ex was very vocal about that and felt that coz it wasn't addressing "my BPD" it was just a distraction and wasn't helpful. I listened to her and thought about it and said whilst i understood I felt it was worth a try. More staying away..so I didn't eventually go and do it. Would be interested to hear more about it, though for today, not being re-traumatised over and over I don't feel the need for it and am finding a way through things another way I guess and that's good too. Anyway, thanks for listening and dusting off an old thread. Was sad to write but good to too. Thank you.
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Chrissy
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PTSD
Jun 20, 2009 6:59:14 GMT -8
Post by Chrissy on Jun 20, 2009 6:59:14 GMT -8
Thanks I am seeing that alot of my behaviors are a direct correaltion of PTSD stemming from my childhood...
I was the caretaker of a mentally ill mother and an alcoholic father and had a brother who molested me..there was no stability in the family at all..
I have begged men to stay with me, one of my clearest memories is when my ex husband and I were separated I was on my knees pleading for forgivenes..I am not sure what I had done..all I knew was that I felt I needed to do that.. He responded by telling me to get up off the f'in floor...his reason for leaving was my emotional scars that were left from my childhood, citing that if I had sought help then maybe I would be able to relate to others..
I am learning through therapy and this board that I was not given any type of tools to learn how to handle anything in life..
I had been given total responsibilty of a household at age nine and up...and when I became a teenager I rebelled and was attracted to whomever would use me...I drank, had sex and was a total mess..
I know that I have a ways to go...but something in the past year has shifted in me I still suffer from shame and low self esteem..but I am work in progress and thats ok..
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