Coping with PTSD

[CarlaMarie]

I've done that. I kept moving forward. Three months in a psychiatric hospital at sixteen for drug and alcohol dependancy/anxiety. My only request not to return home again. One year in state group home for drug dependant adolescents. Please understand how truly grateful I feel for having been "raised" by the therapists at Survival and then Bridge. It truly was a gift.

I didn't know what PTSD was at the time and i don't think they did either. I didn't know what I experienced was disasiation and depersonalization. I never truly trusted anyone to tell the truth to about what was really going on with me.

Adventually I just forgot all about that stuff and kept moving forward. I became what I thought was a strong independant woman. It is hard to explan what it felt like to be me. In some ways I know what it feels like to be two separte people. For a long time I had no idea that I was that child. I had absolutely no connection with myself as a child. I was back hanging out with my family. My Mother found out about the sexual abuse when I was 21. She left my step father. She asked me if it happened to me and I had absolutley no answer for her and no recoglection of what happened. What I did do was help her leave my step father because she was a battered woman and I worked in social services and my old boss ran a battered woman's center. It took her awhile and he stalked her for months. He adventually got alzhimers and died.

Anyway, I will let go. I have to go through the process. I guess part of my process is to get mad and sad at the ones who blew it. And get it out of me! Thankyou for listening and being patient with my recovery process. It stinks being alone with atuff.

 

[Justaday]

Re: PTSD vs Complex PTSD

It's sad that people didn't see what we went through and do something, but we can't go back, only forward.

This is a good point. Someone shared this with me: "It's okay to look back, but don't stare".

I've had experiences as well with a series of betrayals by those who are suppose to protect the vulnerable, CAS are not flawless, underfunded. . . lots of things do get missed, and there's been consequences and it's added to our suffering.

My brain had become seriously looped and overwhelmed by the struggles, the secondary traumatization of difficult to get help again, it wasn't there at the times of the trauma, and it wasn't there when I was going through the re-experiencing of traumas-- it really does wound, and re-traumatize.

It works better for me to spend more time focussed on the "here and now", and with PTSD it does interfere with that, it's like being continually hijacked and terrorized by it, as if it's all happening again (and the body is re-experiencing it as well, in distress, physiologically).

In Judith Herman's book Trauma and Recovery, she underscores the importance of working on basic safety and grounding in the here and now as necessary steps to build our resilience up for the 'remembering" and processing of trauma. It makes sense to me. I went through not having learnt how to ground first, and tried to process, the result was flooding, and very little freedom for living my life between trying to process things and that in itself re-triggering and causing more PTSD symptoms.

But it's also helpful to process things from time to time, and I've discovered that it's a lot helpful to have nice long breaks from processing. Being able to tell pieces of the story, is suppose to help with re-integrating the memories (held by body hippocampus 'hiccups' or however that works that makes us have flashbacks).

Being able to assemble pieces of a story line, is what's needed so that we can let go. Can't let go of anything, we haven't first been able to hold.

For me things do bite back still, but it's a lot easier when I can recognize the story line and so I can also practice mindful detachment, e.g. when fragments from that come to my mind, when I'm meditating, I can call them "thoughts', "storyline" and I can practice detaching and refocussing-- so that it's a glance, but doesn't have to be a stare.

PTSD already robs us enough of our present moment, so anytime we can deliberately and mindfully be in the present moment, is very helpful in healing and recovering and giving the mind/body's phyisology the very needed rest-periods, it very much needs to restore. It's also great to learn flashback management and practice it and discover the awsome freedom from that from the occassions we're able to apply it successfully-- I found it to be a real rush-- wow, big freedom.

CarlaMarie, I relate to the grief of it and the hurt from it. This world is very imperfect and people do slip through the cracks, it's the world as it is.
I sometimes calm myself by reading the full version of Serenity Prayer, the challenge of "accepting this world as it is, not as I would have it"-- it gives me a break from stress and worry about it. I need to take lots of breaks from stress and worry, to protect myself from becoming overwhelmed,

Acceptance of unfairness, of a past we had no power to change, it's the past. It's good to breathe, and calm. Our true power comes in the present moment, when we can find our way back to that, and the choices we can make now, and the choices to affirm our right to some health and joy in our lives.

I need to tell my stories too. It's helped me like a "light exposure therapy", things that were a cluster of anxiety, I process to more clarity and I check on my "Subjective Units of Distress" and I'm noticing some of those stories are losing their traumatic impact on me. That's what I've wanted, for them to have less power over me, my physiology.

That MBSR stuff, the thing about "non-striving" has a lot of wisdom too. When I pushed myself too hard to process, I'd get into a spin. I was misdirected into thinking that was what I was suppose to be doing to try to heal. It's interesting when I connected with my social worker and followed her wisdom and guidance to help me ground in the here and now, taught me some flashback management and to not over-strive to figure everything out all at once-- it's actually made it a heck of a lot easier for me, and by not over-working to process, it seems the healing is just following it's own natural path. I do a bit of work, as I need to, but definitely not good to allow it to occupy and entire day (but it has lots for me), but when I haave freedom from flashbacks and dissociation-- it's a wonderful thing, I consider those to be really blessed moments!

All the Best,
Cheers

 

[CarlaMarie]

Re: PTSD vs Complex PTSD

I appreciate all the feedback. Right now I'm in the middle of the muck. When I get a trauma bubble I like to process it and be done with it. I can do that now. It is what is and I am ok. How about that for progress. It is like I have these feelings left in my body and I have to release them. Once they are gone, they are gone. I have found that to be true with all the trauma's I have processes so far.

 

[Justaday]

Re: PTSD vs Complex PTSD

I appreciate all the feedback. Right now I'm in the middle of the muck. When I get a trauma bubble I like to process it and be done with it. I can do that now. It is what is and I am ok. How about that for progress. It is like I have these feelings left in my body and I have to release them. Once they are gone, they are gone. I have found that to be true with all the trauma's I have processes so far.

Wow-- that's really awesome, that once you process a trauma, it's gone-- are you doing that in conjunction with the EMDR?

Mine, bubble up again and take more bites, so for me, I've just had to accept that. Sometimes there's another aspect that's recalled, or maybe also 'gatekeeper flashbacks', I'm not sure, or sometimes post flashback, I still get after-aftershocks, and I've just learnt to accept this, so I can panic less about it happening, feel less frustrated

It is like I have these feelings left in my body and I have to release them.

That's an interesting awareness-- did you ever check out Levine's book Waking the Tiger? I found that interesting, has an energy perspective to it.

I try to use yoga awareness to help, try to breathe into the tensions, approach with loving-kindness (the idea I think is, is just trying to re-program 1) my reactions to it; 2)hopefully that's helping re-program my mind-body). Yep, experimental, but I think it's helping I try to centre myself in calm, to help me in how I respond to my traumatic re-experiencing (instead of getting angry and frustrated at it, which tends to make things worse). Breathe in healing, breathe out tensions, toxins, "let go". I think that's been a problem, my mind and body get stuck and have forgotton how to "let go". So, I'm trying to re-build that. It's something I noticed from the MBSR exercises, something I've observed in myself. It also tells me that more exercise is probably a good thing-- get moving, not to get stuck, withdrawing, etc.

I think it will work, provided I keep the rest of myself self-care up.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Thread split from http://forum.psychlinks.ca/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/25443-ptsd-vs-complex-ptsd.html

 

[CarlaMarie]

That's an interesting awareness-- did you ever check out Levine's book Waking the Tiger? I found that interesting, has an energy perspective to it.

Yes, I have read the book. I have also recieved that kind of healing with my trauma. I was exposed to many different therapies when I went to trauma treatment in 2008. Somatic therapy, acupunture, and breath therapy were helpful in reconnecting me with my body and releasing lots of body memories. I have been very receptive to EMDR. The therapist I work with has many years of experience working with trauma victims and just knows what I need and allows the process to happen. The goal is to get these trauma memories processed and into my regular memory and I can say that has happened for the most part. I can retell the entire sequence of my rape without becoming emotional. When I remember it I rememer what I wanted to do which is run and I got to do that in therapy while I was processing it. I got to move my legs and shake my arms so all that energy is gone. I no longer feel all the shame. I see the entire situation as it was. Same thing happened when I witnessed my sister being molested. I was eight she was 10. I was sitting right next to her and frooze I felt so much shame and "survivors" guilt because I didn't protect her. When I think about it I can put the shame on him and not me. I can understand that I was a child and I ran to a safe place. The memory is no longer charged with emotion. EMDR really works for me and works very quickly. I am completly calm after bringing up those trauma's. I am not saying I will never be triggered by those issues but I feel confident I can process what comes up. I have processed the bulk of it and inuitivly know how to process through what is left.

There is hope. This is what has worked for me. Processing through the emotions I think is key. I am working on all the little trauma's and the trauma bubble's now. Adventually it will all work itself out and I will live happily ever after, Right? :rofl: