Open Eyes; I think it is awful JD that the attorneys you deal with make it so hard on you, that is so incredibly cruel to someone who struggles with PTSD. And that is what I don't like about my own case. This is a good example of what PTSD does... it makes it all about us, a personal attack. Lawyers don't care what anyone suffers "with" lawyers have a job to do and the way they do it irks most people. It isn't about us, nor the PTSD, it is JUST THE WAY THINGS ARE. It is the PTSD (and other elements) that make us feel they are "cruel." No! We need to reframe that... they are just being lawyers doing a job.

It can really be exhausting and I know had I not known what this PTSD is or even you to talk to me JD and say, ok that is the PTSD and try this etc. I would probably want to give up and you know what that feels like.
I would have also, and actually did give up many times. It was my own pain/stress management psychologist that ingrained the proper responses into my brain you have to keep saying the right things over and over and over and over.

One thing I know is that I have to be very careful that I do not say or do things in the anger and frustration and emotional turmoil of PTSD that will cause further harm to me.

The effect of stress is internal as well, you need extra supplements of nutrients to combat the effects of the constant fight or flight syndrome: cortisol is killing us, literally.

And that is why I haven't written the letter yet too, although as I said I did have a new deposition date that was postponed to today that is again cancelled and I don't have a new date. I am trying to make sure that I don't get caught up in that mind set as you mentioned JD where I feel this is some kind of personal attack. But I have been learning about how really crappy the system is which has really caught me off guard. I knew that it wasn't going to be easy but I had not anticipated my own attorneys issues. It is a crappy system, but still really good considering what other countries have. Ok, it's a crappy system. When you find yourself butting heads, step back and say OH! that's the system, it isn't about me.

And one of my constants in my life is that my path has been that percentile where something bad happens, out of the norm. For example, my colonoscopy was not easy at all, I suffered a spleen injury and wound up in ICU and in a situation where no one would tell me the truth because no one wanted to be sued, oh how awful that was. This is indicative of the cognitive distortion of "mind reading." By assuming no one would tell you the "truth" and that it was because they didn't want to be sued, you are saying you can read their mind. Not a good thing. You have no idea how and why each person acted the way they did etc. Really. Someone may have had a personal crisis, another may just be incompetent in decision making...etc.

There's a bit of the cognitive distortion of "castastrophizing" in there too.

I get to see more and more how people don't want to be honest anymore and they go to great lengths to cover up lies and mistakes and in so doing leave the patient or in this case the client in such confusion. And as I try to approach different situations it is almost as if I don't assume the worst, the worst happens. Hmm black and white thinking? What other cognitive distortion can you find here?

And PTSD or no, things actually do happen that really surprise me and completely catch me off guard. And it really has nothing to do with catrophizing because it is really bad. But as bad as things could have been, or were even, PTSD does make it into a catastrophy! PTSD makes you believe that it "really" was "bad". I think most people don't realize that when the average person says "bad" it is far less than when someone with PTSD rates something as "bad". ???

And it isn't just that I am a person that has that mark that says abuse me, it is real mistakes and its not that I stick out as a good candidate for abuse. So I can't just assume that it is my fault or I am the victim type, I have to look beyond that, and I do try to do that. However at this point, I realize that this situation has served to truely aggrivate the PTSD. And that is what has really troubled me. But the fact that I can come here and be grounded with responses that keep me in check with reality, that has kept me sane. And to read a reply that says to me, yes that lawyer is a jerk and this happens and your right he is covering up or whatever, has helped me understand that I am actually experiencing something is not right and I am not being swept away by the PTSD etc. Because I do see it, and as I said others don't catch it and when that happens it really makes me worse. Yes you are really beginning to see.. .however the goal is to make your body believe that you don't need to overreact like the PTSD has been making you.
PTSD rips the real truth right out of your head at times.

I definitely have some thinking to do.
I'd advise a revisit to the 10 Common Cognitive Distortions and what to do about them ...sticky posted in the top of the Psychotherapy Forum as well.

Now, breathe!