PTSD - Confused, I just cant understand why this is destroying me 25 years later???

[Great_Dane]

Hi, I've been a member in these forums for a little while but just find it hard to put into words what's happenning in my life. I had a troubled childhood where I was first hand witness my mothers multiple suicide attempts, but the next day life just seemed to go on. Now some 25 years later I'm a bloody mess, I dream about one incident particularly a lot, I think about it many times a day and I just cant handle anything remotely stressful anymore. At the drop of a hat I get angry and anxious. My days are spent in my house and I leave to drop & pick my kids up from school and thats about it. I can't work, I've been diaganosed with everything from ADHD, Bipolar 2, Depression & Anxiety but now my My Psychiatrist & Psycholigist have diagnosed PTSD but is it right that this can occur 25 years after the event? I had a great career, family and everything was moving along well and then BANG all this stuff started? How can that be? I just don't get it? Am I a wierd case?

[MarkJT]

Hey Great Dane, welcome to the posting side of the forums. I think it is really good when people post for the 1st or 2nd time, particularly after being on the forums for a while. Great to have you hear.

I am a member of Victoria Police and attended an incident in 2003. Due to this incident i was hospitlised in 2013 so 10 years between incident and PTSD setting in properly.

25 years is a long time yes but if you cast you mind back, I think you will find that you were showing symptoms of PTSD well before the 25 year mark.

Coming to terms with having PTSD can be really difficult. Much like you i was fully functioning but then bang, i was out to the point where i had to ask the nurse to choose the chicken or the beef for lunch whilst in hospital as that as to big a decision for me to make.

What you experienced as a child is highly traumatic and something that no child should ever have to go through. You have such a squishy brain when you are a child and trauma is impacted onto it so very easily.

I do not know the complexities of PTSD, all i know is that it completely flattened me but you can recover. This is important to realise, you can recover.

So i undertook a course of exposure therapy in an attempt to rid myself of nightmares and flashbacks causing me great stress. Fortunately for me it worked. I have not had a nightmare for years and although i flashback quite often, as the exposure therapy removed the power of the images, it no longer cause me stress.

Are you taking any medication? What have your clinicians said about having PTSD and how are they going to treat it? Exposure worked a treat for me and mates have had EMDR which has worked really well for them so they are a couple of treatments you may want to enquire about.

I picked up these websites from another thread this morning so it may be good for you to have a look at them.

http://www.nctsn.org/trauma-types/complex-trauma/effects-of-complex-trauma

http://www.blueknot.org.au/Helpline

Other things that i did to help me recover, which i am advanced in:

• Mindfulness - love it. Learn it. Helps keep me calm when anxious feelings arise and helps keep me grounded when i am feeling a depressive mode.
• Exercise - I ran. Now i know running is not for everybody but certainly physical exercise is really healthy.
• Diet - improved my diet and cut out a fair bit of sugar.
• Was kind to myself. When i was having a bad day, i was just kind to myself. Took it easy.

Again, great to have you here. Hope to hear more from you.

Mark. ​

[SubduedBlues]

Hi Great Dane

Mark has offered some good advice there, and some links worth checking out. Living through the suicide attempt of another is hard, damn hard. I still struggle with it.

Lately I have intentionally been endeavouring to recall, remember and relive the event/s. Yes, they are most painful to play through in the mind time after time. But I have been noticing that each time I retell the story to someone, I cry a little less, and I cope a little more. Soon it'll be no more painful of a memory than the time I broke my arm, or when my new bike got stolen. Or at least I am hoping that it'll be soon (have a search for the thread: "My head hurts and my heart aches", if you're interested)

Keep posting and let us know how you get on
SB

[Great_Dane]

Hi Mark, Thanks for your reply. I guess I'm just confused but amazed at what my brain remembers and how vivid the events are, even so long after. For the last few months I have been taking medication which has helped with reducing the nightmares so I tend not to wake up suddenly weeping or in distress.I often hear the reference to "triggers" but I'm struggling to know what "triggers" me and what doesn't. I can be very anxious after flashbacks of the trauma event but then again I can be anxious over any stressful situation now. Sometimes I feel like I get into a spiral and can't get out of it, other times I can be walking through the shopping centre and start thinking about the trauma event. I've been reading a lot about EMDR and have an appt with my Psychiatrist in 2 weeks so I'm going to ask him about that. For the past 6 months I've been doing PTSD focussed CBT but I feel like I'm just going in circles. I've got a great wife and kids (The PTSD & Anxiety raised it's head after my son was born so I don't know if that was the catalysts for it all coming to a head or not). Anyway, thanks for the reply and the web links, I'll be sure to check them out.

[Great_Dane]

Thanks SB. I first told my wife about what happenned as a child just after our son was born (so with my wife for 7 years before I told her, she was the only person I told). Now I've slowly been able to talk about it to my GP, Psychiatrist & Psychologist. You're right there are less tears each time so I'm hoping this is a pathway to recovery. I guess I'm just blown away how something from when I was 8yrs old is wreaking havoc now to the point where I can't work & my functioning on some days is pretty non existent. Thanks for your reply.

[MarkJT]

Great Dane, oh yes i have a very very healthy respect for the brain. The power of it - as you say what it can bring up in incredible clarity so many years after the event. One incredible muscle is the brain!

Triggers are very hard to handle and the earlier that you can identify your triggers, the better. Whilst you are getting used to them, you can put steps in place to counter them. Perhaps in your phone notes app, when you get triggered, make a note of what it was and what you felt. Once you settle back down from being triggered, make a note of how you handled it and what coping mechanisms worked best. Over time you will work up a nice dossier on them and will be easier to handle.

Speaking about coping mechanisms, what strategies do you use? Are you practicing mindfulness? Are you able to exercise - i.e. go for a run (that's what i used to do).

Be interested to see what your triggers are when you identify them. Some will be obvious, others not so much. People eating crackers and potato chips - massive trigger for me. The noise grates me massive and i have to slip into a deep breathing mode to calm myself.

The longer this thread goes the more we will cover various topics so if you have any questions, just ask them. Here to help you through this journey any way i can.

Mark.

[Croix]

Dear Great Dane~

Welcome. I've read your replies and get the feeling that others having experienced delayed crises has given you more perspective.

I'll therefor regard myself as a chunk of additional perspective and mention my history too.

Like Mark I was a policeman, though I am not still in the force. I have PTSD and stress related disorders. It started a very long time ago, so long that PTSD was not even a standard diagnosis. I was getting physical and mental symptoms in the late 70's and was finally invalided out in the mid 80's.

I studied and started being an educator. It was then that the real crisis came and I was hospitalized. Well after any traumatic events or the stress of day-to-day police life. I still do not know what set the melt-down off. I had through the last stage of my police career been obviously suffering. During study matters improved.

So that trigger was not known. Prior to it my reaction to the scenes in my mind was different. After it matters became more 'logical'; I could to some extent predict that if I viewed this, or heard whatever, or talked about that, or did so and so, then the chances of an episode were quite high. From that point on identifying and coping with triggers became more possible.

No I have no idea why the timescale worked out as it did. What I do think is that maybe you are now like me after my hospitalization and in a position, with time, to identify what's setting things off.

A most unpleasant time for you, there is great hope for the future.

Please feel free to post about anything whenever you want.

Croix

[Owl_Blossom]

Hi Great Dane. I'm coming up to 17 in early April, and I was diagnosed with PTSD when I was about 13. I suffer PTSD due to an entire childhood, up until I was 12, of abuse. I was medicated and without it, I'm lost. Believe me, they tried decreasing it last year and that DID NOT work. Due to the medication, I got past my PTSD. Or so I thought. I haven't suffered PTSD in years, but now it's coming back and, yes, I am struggling. However I am also surviving. Last year, a 'friend' made a comment and said that if someone comes out of 12 years of abuse with PTSD, they must be pretty weak. Yes, I was a wreck for the rest of the day. However I confronted him. Because when he said that, it made me realize; I am not weak for surviving with PTSD. I am strong for SURVIVING! So, yes, PTSD is tough. It's really tough in fact. However it's manageable. Despite it not being entirely in control right now, I had it controlled for 3-4 years, so I know it's possible. What you need to do, is try to work out what your triggers are. Some might be obvious to you; it disturbs me when my drunk and upset/angry. Some you can't quite put your finger on; I know my sister coming to live with us is a trigger, but I don't know exactly what it is about her or the situation, that is triggering me. Some might seem ridiculous. The smallest thing; being told that you can just be moved around to suit her. What you then need to do is find the root problem; feeling disposable, forgotten, unworthy and so on. So yes, PTSD is hard, but it is manageable. It may also come up for seemingly no reason after a long time. For me, 3 years, for you, 25 years. However something is triggering it, and finding that trigger is the key to control. Best wishes, Owl Blossom xx.

[Amia]

Hi Great Dane

I went through quite a traumatic childhood as well (my mum was diagnosed bipolar and experienced psychosis due to drugs and quite iften tried to commit suicide and my dad who was our main carer was abusive and later on sexually assaulted me for 2 years), when i finally decided to get help I was 20 years old and was diagnosed with Bipolar type 1 and OCD. After speaking to my psychologist and psychiatrist I finally made the steps to change my lifestyle.

With the type of Bipolar I have, medication was a must, but I also stopped drinking (except on the odd special occasions) quit smoking, took my job which is now a career far more seriously, always attended psychologist and psychiatrist appointments and made sure the people I surrounded myself with were all supportive, loving, compassionate people.

Around 3 years later I began to suffer from terrible anxiety, night sweats, horrific nightmares, vomiting every single meal I ate up which led to me beinf hospitalized and reliving the same things that traumastized me over and over again.

I spoke to my psychologist and she phrased it in the only way I could understand

"After years of being in survival mode, living day by day, not even thinking about the things being done to you or around you, you finally have the time to think about it, to heal, and the only way to truly heal is for your suppressed memories to come out, you've dug those memories so deep that you barely recall them, so they come out subconciously".

So I made the decision to see her weekly, I was still working full time, and I know the combination of not working and having children may not seem plausible to be able to afford good mental health care, but there are many great bulk billing psychologists and psychiatrists.

You're mental health is worth it. So up until recently I saw my psychologist weekly and my psychiatrist monthly (unless I or my partner knew I was getting ill then i will see him more frequently).

You're most definitely not a weird case, as cliche as it sounds, it just seems as though you've tried to be strong for far too long.

With overcome every other obstacle thats been thrown in your path, you will overcome this one. Keep seeing your psychologist and psychiatrist and life will be set on the right track again. Just make sure you have the right support network and if you don't have anyone right now I'm sure I can speak for all of us when I say we're here

[MarkJT]

Brilliant post Amia.

Hope your are going ok Great Dane.