You know me.

[RELUCTANTLY_PTSD]

I live in your town, work in your community, I work hard, play hard. You say hi to me at the supermarket. You know me.
You know I never served in a war, but you don't know about the trauma that changed my life. I've never been in a war zone... Except for the one in my head. The one where my own body becomes my enemy, as I struggle to slow my breathing, still my shaking hands, stop the panic that invades every fibre of my being. I couldn't hold a gun, even if I wanted to.
I know the science; my body is responding physiologically to a perceived threat. I know that in this moment, there is no threat. But my brain is searching for an enemy, sweeping the room for dangers, identifying potential exits... The enemy it's seeking, is itself. My brain is telling my body to go into fight or flight. Or freeze. I can't choose. I can be stuck there for days.
You can't possibly know I haven't slept properly in days. If you did know that, you'd tell me to get some rest, relax. I can't. Because science. My brain is creating chemicals that tell me to be alert, be hyper vigilant. My reactions seem excessive to you. They are excessive. And there are days in my life when despite knowing that, I cannot control my physiological symptoms. When I found the words to adequately convey the scale of my terror... His response was "Wow. It's noisy in your head. I don't like it here."

He knows me. Loves me; despite knowing that sometimes I can't talk, get out of bed, be the friend or sister or daughter or aunt or colleague that he needs me to be. Sometimes it is all I can do just to breathe. I know you find that difficult to comprehend. An exaggeration. An impossibility. If I truly was experiencing these symptoms and thoughts, especially for extended periods of time... I must surely explode? I don't; I implode.

You might know that I suffer episodes of manic depression. You have noticed there have been times when I have simply vanished; from my home, my job, my life. Or maybe you didn't notice I was gone. Maybe you noticed when I came back, that you hadn't seen me in a while... I seemed quieter. Flatter. Cautious. Even when I am back, functioning, contributing, "my usual self", in control... There is still a part of me that is still scanning the room, checking the exits.

You may know me, but you don't see me. You can't. I live in your town, work in your community, I work hard, play hard. You say hi to me at the supermarket. You know me. And I have PTSD.

[Cornstarch]

Hi Reluctantly PTSD,

It's such a cruel condition to have because you're are literally stuck in the past. Not in the sense that you're emotionally/spiritually lazy and aren't just 'trying hard enough', but that biological changes take place when you go that extra mile in the anxiety trajectory and find yourself crossing over from GAD or panic disorder to PTSD. I was in denial for a long time that I was no longer part of the anxiety club like I had been my entire life, but in fact had graduated with honors and prized with PTSD for well over 3 years before I was willing to accept it.

I'm certainly not at acceptance yet. I'm frustrated and angry and sad, because my wholesomeness was hijacked by monsters. It was stolen. It's not like I had terrible luck and was just born with a genetic condition, it was inflicted upon me. I've also come to the realisation I will never reach my potential and that I can only accept jobs at lower grades to stay employed instead of pushing myself, hoping that my biology will stand up, only to trip and fall, and be back at the beginning full of shame because I couldn't do it. This makes me really sad. It's like I'm in the dummy class when I know I'm capable of more. I watch other people and they are so light. They aren't weighed down by terror and I get jealous.

Society does not recognise PTSD in the civilian population. They either associate it with military service or emergency responders. Apparently there was something on Four Corners the other night about police officers but I haven't watched it, it is too upsetting. I totally understand the hyper vigilance, fight/flight/freeze in parallel to another part of yourself that knows it's not happening now, not real and ultimately a flashback. I get so frustrated at my body and brain at times like this I consider taking up kick boxing.

I wish I had a magic cure to give you but PTSD simply does not get the research funding to have found one.

Good luck

[Guest_5218]

Hi Reluctantly PTSD. Yes ......... I do know you! You could be me, in so many ways.

Firstly though, let me welcome you to the BB Forums. I feel sure that your courage in posting will benefit many others reading these threads - both fellow sufferers as well as their loved ones. I hope in return that you receive the understanding and support that the many lovely people here provide, just by simply being here.

Your introductory post was so poignant, and I thank you for explaining so well, what it is like to suffer from ptsd. It sounds as though you have a very supportive partner, which is great. It helps to know that you have someone by your side no matter what. It is impossible for anyone who does not experience this ordeal, to truly understand it, so its very very hard.

I too am a friend, sister, daughter, aunt, wife, colleague. I too suffer from PTSD, and have done for 20 years now. I have undergone Exposure Therapy last year and am currently having EMDR therapy. I am finding it helpful so far, with definite improvement in symptoms as a result. I am interested to hear whether you have had any therapy of any sort and whether you have found it beneficial. And also whether you have gone down the medications track.

I hope to hear back from you Reluctant, and will keep an eye out for you over the coming days. I hope you find benefit in sharing your experience here. It does help, I find, to have an outlet to vent sometimes. Nobody here judges us, and it is a very secure and anonymous site, so it is perfect for doing that.

Thankyou for your post, you explain it all so well.

Kind regards to you.

Sherie xx

[Cornstarch]

Hi Reluctantly PTSD,

I send you my compassion.

I hate this condition. It is very hard to not be frustrated at it most days because of the reasons you’ve described. Your rational self knows the trauma is over, but devastatingly biological changes have taken place. PTSD is not often recognised as legitimate in the civilian population, it is assumed that only military service people and emergency responders suffer from it. I feel like it has stolen my youth, my adolescence, my young adulthood
and my full potential.

I have succumbed to the horrible truth that I will never actually reach my potential and can only accept jobs at a lower grade to what I am capable of. This makes me really sad because its not like I had terrible luck with being born with an inheritable disease, my wholesomeness was stolen from me. But I have been given no choice, because the alternative is to continually try to work in positions that align with my potential and I can’t do it. I crumble under anything that has too many unpredictable stressors, or in an environment that is not conducive to someone with a really wonky nervous system built in fear. I look around at others and I see their lightness. I get jealous. They don’t have the weight of terror coursing through their veins. Their biology wasn’t hijacked by a monster in the night. I feel like I’m in the dummy class. My family are all high achievers, so simply hanging out with them means I am constantly reminded that I was “the chosen one”. It feels shit. And sometimes I can’t be around them because reliving the victimisation is just too hard.

May the August winds bring you some white light.

[RELUCTANTLY_PTSD]

Thanks.

I'm learning to talk about it more.. And thought this might be a good place to try. I'm certainly not at acceptance of all of it.. Hence I'm not using my name here. It's not that I am ashamed of my story.. There are just parts of it I refuse to accept, as I still refuse to be defined by this.

The frustration I feel each time I trip up, increases rather than decreases. I was talking to a friend about this yesterday and he said you need to accept that this may always be like this for you.. I refuse. I refuse to believe that my life will always be this see saw of being ok and then coming back down to ground with a thump, like a kid in the playground, and having to work so hard again to get off the ground.

But essentially, you're trapped on the see saw...

Thanks for your support and empathy. Maybe I should take up kick boxing too!

[RELUCTANTLY_PTSD]

Hi Sherie.

Thanks for your lovely reply. I am trying something new, trying to own this disease, rather than be owned by it.. And I write when I am in the night terrors, so thought why not share it, and see if it helps anyone. I'm glad it resonated with you... Sometimes it's so easy to feel that you are the only one feeling like this, that you are an alien... That your feelings are not real, you're not real...

So it's nice to hear from someone that recognizes this story... I was being to feel like I wasn't real....

I've done a lot of different therapies.. Exposure was horrible for me... Re-telling and re-telling my story actually got me totally stuck in the flight or fight mode that I ended up being in hospital, having my heart monitored.

Acceptance and Committment Therapy was more helpful for me... Learning to realize I have been triggered, learning to identify the trigger and therefore talk my self out of that state..

The only problem is, I seem to continue to find new, seemingly unrelated, triggers... And each time I react like this, it's almost like another tiny part of me, my resilience, my confidence, my hope... dies.

I have, however, come to accept that I will be medicated for the rest of my life. Hopefully I will be able to reduce the dosages over time, but at the moment, even though my psychiatrist recently suggested I try reducing my dose, I don't have the confidence to do that. I have been fairly level, until this last weekend, and need the respite the medication gives me. It just helps me have a calmer starting point.

I finally started medication after a friend, who also suffers from anxiety, said "It's not meant to be this hard, all the time." Previously, I was adamant I did not need to be medicated, as I felt it was "giving in". I now know it's not, thanks to a fantastic team of 3 GPs, a psychologist & psychiatrist, who managed my last breakdown.

I still resent this idea that I have to learn to live with PTSD... But at least I'm starting to deny it so much.. As now I'm not investing energy in trying to suppress and deny it, I have more energy left to fight it.

Thanks for the welcome. It does give me hope and courage, that this may well be a useful resource in managing my set backs.

All the best with your recovery xxx

[Cornstarch]

I concur with your experience of "Exposure Therapy". It was awful and I am sorry to say dead set harmful. I heard an American Vet say how backward it is and it was a brilliant quote and I can't remember it.....damn it.....it's gone. But he basically bagged it out as causing him tremendous pain and further suffering.

I am very lucky I have never needed hospitalisation and I don't really get depressed. My problem is chronic anxiety and dissociation. But I managed to make a clinical psychologist feel like a total failure at her job. I was so symptomatic that my regular clin/psych that I've been seeing for years suggested I try someone new, because she started to feel inadequate and out of her depth as she was essentially having to watch me reenact my assault. She only wanted the best for me, she is a very non-egotistical person and my flashbacks were insane. She too was upset and cried at times. I went along with it, participated like a dutiful child and gave %150 to all my sessions. The poor women threw her arms up and said "I cannot help you, you are the most complicated case I have ever dealt with in terms of the variety of traumas sustained over a long period of time, I concede this is not working, stop this therapy".

You can imagine how that felt. Completely desperate. And a health professional who trained for years that wanted to ease my suffering just goes, "Na, this is harming you. The medical establishment have run out of possibilities". I balled my eyes out. She tried lots of EMDR as well as Exposure. Total failure for child abuse. Apparently it is Ok for one off traumas and traumas experienced after a certain developmental life stage. But for stuff in childhood, it is patchy at best.

I drove to the beach and ran into the water and surrendered. I said to myself "I give up". Not in a suicidal way because I've been on the other side of that and it is not the answer, I love life. But I give up trying to heal. And ironically I have had the most seismic shifts in my health when I gave up on healing. I know people in the self-help industry probably don't want to hear that, but I'm sorry it's true. It's like when you're in the shower and you squeeze the soap too hard. You slip. You have to loosen your grip. I steer away form cheesy inspirational quotes but I saw one around this time that I really needed to read and it was "some wounds can never be healed, they can only be held". So true. I wrote it on my bedroom wall. And I cry at its painful truth.

[Guest_5218]

Good on you for trying to own this disease, very brave of you. Like you, when I wake at night from nightmares and cant sleep I too tend to write. Often its meaningless drivel, but I have found it quite therapeutic to actually get it all out there. My thoughts, feelings, fears, wishes for the future - everything gets a guernsey. But if your first post is any indication I suspect your writing is much more structured than what mine is.

I found Exposure Therapy quite brutal, to say the least. I simply could not speak of it, and so the first few sessions resulted in no headway at all. So I did a lot of the work at home where I wrote it all down. Then I finally progressed to being able to 'blubber' about it in a somewhat incomprehensible manner. But as part of the ET, my clinical psychologist incorporated a lot of CBT work, which I think was of more benefit than the ET.

I am finding EMDR helpful though. You dont actually have to speak of things that happened, as the therapist doesnt need to know a lot in order for the therapy to be effective. Although I do acknowledge what Cornstarch says, that I believe EMDR is much more effective for a single traumatic event than for someone with multiple trauma's or Complex PTSD. For me though, I have only suffered a single traumatic event (a sexual assault), and I have found the therapy helpful in desensitizing the emotional aspect of the traumatic memories.

Triggers are horrible. I thought I knew all mine, but new ones just seem to spring up from time to time. Often they seem so remote and unrelated, and yet they're there. I am constantly learning. Yes it is totally demoralising, making you feel defeated and hopeless. When does it end? I dont know the answer to that.

I am currently on a fairly low dose of an anti-anxiety medication, which is meant to help with PTSD-related sleep disturbances and nightmares as well as to lower a too-high heart rate. It seems quite effective.

I battled alone for 19 years before finally seeking help and being diagnosed with PTSD last year. I would be okay for months sometimes, then a trigger and .. gone. And it was getting worse, rather than better over the years.

I'm glad you have an effective medical team behind you, it makes a big difference.

Thanks for joining the BB Forums Reluctant, I know you can help many others with your experience and ability with words. I think you will find that healing for you also. Our ability to live with PTSD is to accept it.

Sherie xx

[R3dr0s3]

Hi Reluctantly PTSD,

I know you. I see you I the mirror. I feel you under my skin as I try and tear.you.out.

Your words are so true. The silent agony of being alone and afraid without and 'good' reason. It's like going on a merry-go-round, each symptom pushing the last, revisiting the same old ground over and over again.

You are not only your trauma. You are so much more. You are someone who could put together these words and reach out to other people suffering like you.

We live in hope that the triggers get further apart. That the days get brighter and the smiles become real.

Stay strong, you are more than your disorder.

[Cornstarch]

Fantastic you're receiving help with EMDR and it is providing some relief and the other treatments are as well.

If only we all had identical response systems that would be perfect. But no-one has identical experiences, identical families, identical biology, identical temperament or equality of access to care. Hence why these conditions are so confounding and why medical research is yet to shine much light on them. That's why the system is in such desperate need of 'personalised care'. The variables between any two people are so great, that the current system is like trying to shove a square peg in a round hole for a lot of people.

I've observed that there are some lucky people that can get great results with pharmaceuticals and that it works for them enormously. But a lot of doctors say that it should only ever be viewed as an adjunct therapy for trauma. That the current process of blindly writing scripts for people and sending them on their merry way is insufficient and perpetuating harm. Australia's current suicide rate is very upsetting to say the least. Even though comparatively to other countries we have a good health care system, I certainly don't believe it is above scrutiny and I think we need to start becoming a little bit more creative with how we treat trauma.

That's not to say that all the help can be found in 'talking therapy' alone, that too has its limits. People probably need to be implementing 20 things and making 20 changes to reduce their arousal. Central to which I believe should be social support and ultimately community. Face-to-face community because we lived in tribes for thousands of years and helped each other daily. Now we live in fenced off boxes and intimate partners are expected to fulfil the role of an entire tribe. I personally am not convinced that is healthy. We have all watched friends who's whole world comes crashing down when their relationship ends. Does it have to be so awful?

Don't we all long for community.

Good luck