cptsd and fear

[user]

so i have cptsd and i wanna know if anyone else is living like this. i feel like no one is gonna reply but i am desperate. i am fearful and scared all the time. like fearful for my life all day and all life. i am no longer in 'danger' and do not still live with my abusers but I still feel like I am unsafe. Its like being fearful of everything around me at all times. like even if no one is there, I am still looking behind me and chekcinhg everything all the time because I am scared. i also get really bad physical symptoms of the trauma, like vomiting and difficulty breathing. it is not just from time to time my heart is racing and i am scared - it is all the time. It does get worse when i have flashbacks etc but my constant state is fear. How am I supposed to live like this? is this just part of cptsd? 

[GimZim]

The physical symptoms are what I've struggled so much with, I get pretty intense panic and nausea/stomach upset when triggered. 

[Grimfeelings]

The physical feelings suck so bad. Feeling like your going to shit yourself really doesn't help dealing with the sense of impending doom.

[Grimfeelings]

Ive been to afraid to leave my room for about two months now. Afraid ill overreact to something, because i find it hard to process my surroundings and over the years i learnt that violence and agression can keep me safe from abuse. I havent been violent since iwas a teen, but i am still terrified ill have to fight for my life, all the time.

Tomorrow and the next day i have to leave the house and go to public places and pretend to be normal

Wish me luck

[Grimfeelings]

Thanks

[Eagle Ray]

Hi Grimfeelings, GimZim, user and everyone,

I can relate and spent large parts of last year frozen in my home, immobile for long periods. One thing that can sometimes help is drawing on a memory of somewhere that does feel safe. For me that is always somewhere in nature. I don’t know whether you have somewhere like that? I just find having the memory of such a place can help my body calm a little when I know I do have to go to public places. I try to recall and allow that more peaceful feeling to be there.

Right now I’m on the upper reaches of a river, by myself as usual. It is peaceful here and I notice it always makes me feel better. It always stresses me somewhat encountering other people yet I mask and be friendly if they are the kind to say hello.

All I can say is I think things can get slowly easier. I think they have for me when I look back to what I used to be like as a younger adult and was terrified to ask for something in a shop, so much so I often wouldn’t do it even though I might have really needed that something.

So just want to say I understand even though I don’t know all the answers and still working my way through fears. I think small amounts of exposure to things that feel stressful and having some good experiences (or at least neutral ones) helps to ease the nervous system into more of a sense of safety. The body begins to know and understand safety is possible.

Actually, just now after I started typing this on my phone a man and woman came along. His sister is visiting from overseas and he said this is his favourite peaceful spot and he asked if they could sit down on the bench here with me. So I said ok. They turned out to be really nice, gentle people and we had a chat. At the end he said thanks for sharing your time with us. So maybe this is a case in point, that people can be safe. My body automatically recoils with fear - always. But I made myself stay in the situation and nothing bad happened, only a friendly, peaceful chat. I don’t know if writing this helps, but just sharing it in case it does.

Now the people are gone my body relaxes more, but they were actually really nice people. I hope one day my body won’t automatically go into fear. It’s back to the birds now, the hum of insects and a rooster crowing across the river. As usual animals are fine and always actually help me to feel safe.

Grimfeelings I really wish you luck for tomorrow and I’m with you in spirit. Sending you and everyone else here support,

ER

[Megs14]

I just stumbled upon this post after needing some extra support myself.y

body is sending me into spirals of anxiety, self hate and fear and it’s so good damn hard. I’ve been living with CPtsd for years and was diagnosed a few years back and when the pandemic hit I was half way through my recovery and then got thrown back a few steps because of the isolation. I struggle with social anxiety and today I’m here because I’m feeling overwhelmed with life. Everything is falling apart - I’m at risk of losing my job as the company I work for has gone into receivership - Christmas is a big trigger for me and that’s coming up and in the meantime I’m having to look for a job whilst balancing a super stressful busy job - my son is having problems with eating because he had a choking episode and he’s already anxious so this has just added to it. When will it end? I just want some peace. So reading all these comments has been a small comfort to me knowing I’m not alone. The feelings are there but I just need to learn that it’s not from the now it’s from the past and I don’t need protection anymore as I’m safe. 

[Eagle Ray]

Hello Megs14,

I hear you. I know it’s so difficult with all of those things - anxiety fear, self-hate etc that was put into us in childhood. I’m so sorry you have the worries with your job. I hope it works out ok. I hope your son’s anxiety eases soon too.

I’ve been going through the slow process of beginning to sense what safety is. I have found working with a good psychologist helps. Sometimes that’s the beginning of trust. I’m learning to see how much I have struggled to feel safe and that I can actually let go in this moment now. But I can habitually re-attach to fear because I was wired that way from the start. But the knots of fear are beginning to unravel even though it’s such a challenge at times.

Do you have any external supports at all? I have found a couple of key friends have really been helpful where there is a genuine, healthy friendship. I feel my nervous system calm down and know safety in their presence. I try to remember instances of safe feelings at times where my nervous system is fearful again.

Wishing you much peace and I hope all goes well for you and your son in the near future.

Take care,

Eagle Ray

[Megs14]

Thank you for the reply, I have a couple close friends but we don’t see each other much and I struggle to meet up because of my social anxiety. I had an awful night last night and didn’t sleep - very agitated. I often wonder if I’m ever going to get better because I feel stuck right now and I’m just so sick of this disease. I worry I will need to be put into hospital and lose everything. My OH does his best to understand but it’s been happening so often that he gets frustrated and makes me feel worse. I try everything to get better and I feel defeated when it hits me like this. Life is so unfair.

[Eagle Ray]

Hi Megs14,

Are you getting any therapeutic help at all? I'm guessing you have at some point if diagnosed with c-ptsd. I have been doing somatic work that works through the body which I find does more to shift things than talk therapy alone. One of the approaches is Somatic Experiencing developed by Peter Levine who himself had complex trauma experiences from the beginning of life, so he gets it from the inside out. I'm also getting a lot of help from the approach of the therapist Mark Wolynn who wrote a book called It Didn't Start With You looking at inherited family trauma.

With both of these approaches it is not viewing what we have so much as a disease, but that our symptoms are meaningful communications from the body. So the fear is trying to communicate something and our body is also actually doing its best to make us safe, even if the original threats that led to non-safety are no longer there. My psychologist works with these kinds of approaches with me and it is very much working with the body and allowing the body to speak. In the presence of an empathetic therapist this allowing the body to speak often leads to the beginning of the resolution of trauma states.

For me it is an ongoing process because of a multitude of different kinds of traumatic experiences over a long period of time. But I have made significant progress, everything from severe breathing difficulties alleviating to being less self-punishing than I was constantly before. The body wants to organically heal but sometimes just needs the right conditions for that to unfold. I've recently had severe histamine intolerance symptoms and a session with my psychologist yesterday seems to have uncovered internal conflicts within me linked with past experiences that are part of the mechanism in my body whereby those symptoms are getting triggered. I have some indication of how to go forward now, whereas before I was just debilitated by symptoms.

So something like the agitation you were experiencing last night can be viewed as a communication from the body, something to read and try to understand what it's saying. I think we naturally try to push those experiences down and want them to just go away. But sometimes when we just sit gently present with our fear we start to understand it and the fear itself starts to release somewhat.

It's likely with the extra stress you have at the moment that that is making the fear and agitation more intense. I think with c-ptsd our bodies ramp up in more drastic ways than other people under stressful conditions. But just understanding that your body is trying help and protect you can help.

There is something call myofascial unwinding which is another body-centred approach I find helpful. It is allowing the body to move in space any way it wants to without directing it with any kind of thoughts. It's just letting the body release and express what it needs to. It often leads to the body stretching in various ways. It's something animals do naturally but us humans have become really disconnected from. So much tension is stored in the fascia with trauma so it can be a way of beginning to release that. I don't know if something like that may help when you are experiencing agitation? You might begin to sense and feel into what your body needs to do to start feeling better and more at peace.

Take good care,

ER

[Megs14]

Yes I do have a therapist who specialises in trauma and we do a lot of different types of processing. This week we did emdr and used essential oils to do breathing exercises included alternate nose breathing.

I have CPtsd yes and I too also have suffered with histamine intolerance and overcome it with diet changes and elimination diets.

I have done a lot of personal work with a naturopath and integrative gp. They are the team that diagnosed me with cptsd.

This was after 3 years working on my body holistically because of the anxiety I was experiencing at the time - I had a breakdown 5 years ago after the death of a close member of my family. 
I know a lot about my recovery and the reasons why things happen as I’ve educated myself about everything. 
I also have thyroid disorder which can also be linked to CPtsd.

I really appreciate your support - I’m still working on myself this week but talking about it helps.

i have changes happening again so my anxiety is ramped up but I’m sitting with it and trying not to react in fear. 
I will get there.