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Originally Posted by Troy
You are right on the same path that I am, Open Eyes. Extremely loud, sudden noises SHATTER my nerves, and I'm almost out of control at that point. The one time I've seen shrinks say it has to do with my body's recollection of the combat explosions (just typing this about the noise makes m want to cry).
And those crowded restaurants with the clanking and banging, wow; it makes me want to leave also. If I'm alone and find that situation, I do just leave. If with a group, I have to put on that mask and try to make it through. Before it's over, people wonder why I've gone into a bad mood or why my answers are sharp. But, really, that kind of dinner just ruins the rest of the day or evening for me.
Today we have some children at our house, and they were loud and noisy. I was in good mood and the noise wasn't bothering me. Then one of the boys made this extremely loud, screaming sound and it just shattered my nerves. I asked him not to do that any more and buried the emotions. Seconds later he did it again, right next to me. I grabbed him by the shoulders and yelled right into his face to not do that again. You can imagine what an ogre I am now with all of those who saw it. It took about two hours to get my emotions and nerves back in place. I thought of grabbing a beer or a drink, knowing that it would tone things down, but I avoided it, knowing that I would settle down in a while. I went outside with the same kids and let them run and yell and play.
I might open up around a campfire. At least I'd tell a lot of combat stories. None of them would be the stories that caused my ptsd because I wouldn't be able to say the words. During the evaluation interview for ptsd, the shrink asked me a simple question about what incident caused my ptsd. I opened my mouth to answer and just started sobbing. (tears now). ... if you want to know the answer, pm me and I'll reply. I don't mind texting it, but saying it aloud to the shrink just wrecked me.
Another time she asked why I had chosen this time to get help, and i opened my mouth to answer ... again, sobbing and choking out the answer. Both incidents were a surprise to me. I know I'm pretty tightly wired, but that spring trigger surprised even me.
You mentioned the family gathering and the misunderstandings. I've found a couple things in all of this (neither helps, except to understand myself). One thing is that when people around me are happy, I go into a funk. I can be feeling good and very happy myself, but as soon as I realize what a good time everyone is having, zooooom. Down. And the longer I stay, the deeper I get. Within minutes, I have to get out of the room, out of the situation, and I often wind up alone and crying about it, not understanding why I am acting this way. It is at these times that suicide seems an option.
The second thing I learned is that I cannot tell my family the symptoms or explain my actions or what is causing it. I've tried a couple times, but both times the responses I got were so ridiculous I could see that I'm not equipped to tell them. i just put the mask back on and continued. Soon after combat and continuing for years, I've distanced myself from every family member (parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins). It's that thing we've mentioned, they think I'm such high caliber person and I know that I'm fooling them with my mask. It feels terrible to do that, so it is easier to stretch thin the relationships and stay away.
I have no friends for the same reason. Plenty of people would say i have lots of friends. Many people would consider that they are my friend. But I have to tell you, there is not one person I'd call a friend. I keep all of these people at arms length because I know that being close to someone ends in pain as something happens to them.
LOL ... you say it might take awhile to write that article. i'd say you're right. it took me 2 hours to answer about 10 questions on the intake form for the ptsd evaluation thing. Luckily they gave me a separate room to do the form because every few seconds I was sobbing and crying and unable to write any more.
I've said a lot in these forums, a little at a time, trying to hold onto sanity. Maybe I could go back an pull together something that would make sense.
Good luck with those issues, Open Eyes. We know it ain't easy and that people around us would call us wimps and incompetent for not being able to handle things after all these years. I'm glad to find out from my shrink visit that this is a physical change in our body chemistry or something rather than just an attitude.
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Thank you for replying,
I don't think that it is bad to cry about certain things that come to you from the past. Sometimes I wonder if it is our brains way of allowing something to come forward that needs to be mourned. I am really trying to sort of ask my brain what it needs in a kind way. I do that here at PC as when I am posting to someone and I am kind and caring, it also reminds me to do that with myself. It reminds me that I am taking time out to not only be kind to another person, but to also learn how to be kind again to myself. Not that I am hard on myself, but I do get very frustrated with the different triggers and how I can't seem to keep them from happening at times.
Because my most recent therapist made a mistake in the way he presented grounding methods, it brought so much out as I realized how I had done it already all my life. I wish I didn't know that, or didn't realize that as I have been frozen, I can't do alot of the things I used to do and I am trying to explain it to my husband and he just doenst get it. My brain seems to, I don't know to how to really describe it, it is like it blocks out the act, and shuts down. And I don't like it at all, and I can't seem to understand it.
I know that much of who I was and how I did so many creative and productive things were some compulsive reactions to the constant tramatic things that I had to face and try to deal with. I can see that for every situation that was bad, not normal, I made up for it by doing something that was something that would offset the bad situation that I was really in. Now, it may sound healthy as I did try to be positive and I did try to work into a positive person inspite of the constant negetive.
I think that in many ways I was always saying in my actions, ''Well this is what I want, I will get it in spite of your actions or the way you hurt me". I know it was in a way healthy and it really helped me keep going.
But, the problem now is that the awareness of it, well, it reminds me or is attached to an injury in my brain. Now when I try to be me or do it, I can't seem to do it, there is a big block that happens in my brain and I have an emotional and physical feeling of being overwhelmed. But I can actually feel it in my brain. Now some may say that it is depression and I disagree, it is more of a no, if I do this than I may flashback to something or if I do this, it is old behavior that revolves around abuse.
When you describe your reactions to some of the situations that disturb you it is very similar to what happens in me. And I do understand exactly what you are saying that when that child didn't listen you broke into anger. You didn't have time to really stop and say, well it's just a child, nothing more. It wasn't that, it was that it kept coming even though you already tried to say something to stop it. So what is happening is that in your past, or my past, something didn't stop, it just kept coming and as it did it hurt more and more. Our brains were injured within this process and so when it happens, we react even though it is not the same trama or event that injured our brains.
Because others can't seem to understand this, we get angry, we don't just get angry at them, we get angry at ourselves and feel as though we cant seem to tone down or control, in fact somehow we have lost control over ourselves. And as far as Im concerned, there is no magic pill that is going to change this. Oh yeah, we can take something to address the excess adrenyline, we can have a drink or take a pill of some kind, but it doesn't address the injury itself, it just addresses the physical process of a reaction to the damage.
I would have to say that I would compare it to a broken leg or some sort of bodily injury. Oh, yeah we can take a pain killer, even morphine, but,
if that is all we do, well, that leg is not going to heal right or that injury is still going to hurt if we don't address the injury.
With our brain injuries, we can't just go back and keep looking at it either, that is not healing it. Can we just look at a broken leg constantly and think it is going to heal? NOOOOOO, and that is what some of the therapists do, lets go look at that leg, oh yeah it is broken, lets talk about it, lets concentrate on it. We say we are afraid to go and see the T. Why? BECAUSE WE DON'T WANT TO KEEP LOOKING AT THE BROKEN LEG.
WE WANT SOMEONE TO FIX IT, STRAIGHTEN IT OUT OR SOMETHING MORE THAN JUST LOOKING AT IT. AND NO, PAIN KILLERS ARE ONLY GOING TO TAKE AWAY THE PAIN THAT TELLS US SOMETHING IS WRONG, IT ISN'T GOING TO FIX IT.
Just my thought this morning. It was nice to share and I wonder how many will say, yeah, me too.
Open Eyes