((dm166)),

You have a good start with finding a therapist that knows about PTSD. You can also come here and vent or ask or talk about the things that trigger you. It sounds like you are doing your best to "avoid" people and interacting, not because you necessarily dislike people, but you don't want to be "triggered" because, lets face it, it can get painful and exhausting when a trigger takes place.

Doing your art work is good because it gives you something you can "control" and keeps your mind busy but slow which is what people with PTSD often need, something slow and methodical that doesn't trip the brain to create too much emotion or slip into hyper vigilance where it gets hard to think and as you know is exhausting.

Healing with PTSD is very much like healing from any disabling injury, first keeping whatever is hurt at rest so the injury has time to repair "slowly" without reinjuring, and then "slowly" rehabilitating by "gradually" using that part of the body again.

Your avoiding other people or anything that may overstimulate you is because you strongly feel that is important because you get triggered and struggle. What "helps" with PTSD is seeing where you "are" hurt depending on your trauma history and "slowly learning" as well as being around others that can "validate your psychological injury" so you feel free to talk about it and in effect, "show someone how you were hurt" without fearing that the other person will be dismissive and unhelpful.

What helps a lot of people is DBT and CBT because these therapies are "learning therapies" that help a person feel they have responded correctly to others and have a better way of managing interactions that gives them "damage control".

Talking and "learning" and getting "validated" will help you gain more resolve so the nightmares and unrest you experience feels more and more resolved and settled in your brain. With the brain, what needs to take place is "learning that gets more and more established" in the brain where you feel you have gained new ways of reasoning where you feel less and less vulnerable because of how your old ways did not prevent you from getting hurt. What you will be doing is "slow" and that means that until you get to a point where you have "gained enough skills to cover the triggers and challenges" you will still experience some challenging days because something hit your injury that conjures up responses that are hard to control and can be exhausting.

We tend to get "hardwired" throughout our lives in ways we are not really consciously aware of. So, when PTSD happens we have to slowly realize whatever ways we didn't quite know "how to" resolve or interact in ways that are "more efficient". It is just like learning any true "skill", it takes "practicing it" before it becomes a true "skill" when it comes to the brain. What is challenging as well are the "emotions" that are attached to the hardwiring that we have accumulated during our lives that are "just there" that are part of how we are "just human". So it isn't "just" about learning new skills, but also "slowly" redirecting the emotions from "old emotional responses" to "new emotional responses".

The problem with PTSD is that because there has been an injury, the brain now "magnifies" the emotional responses. Everyone develops "emotional responses" during their lives, however they are not always consciously "aware' of these tied in emotional responses. With PTSD, one cannot help but notice the emotional responses because they can become "crippling" and "confusing" and therefore brings on a sense of "inadequacy" and is consistently hard to explain to others who will often offer up many "just" solutions that do not work for someone who struggles with PTSD. This is yet another reason "why" someone begins to avoid and distance too.

When it comes to working with a therapist, it is "crucial" that you feel "safe" with this new therapist. The therapist should be someone who remains "calm" while you express the many emotional challenges that you have with the PTSD that is challenging you. If your therapist can remain calm while you express "anger, frustration, deep hurts that can mean a crying session", then you are in good hands because someone who has PTSD needs that kind of presence so they can just "let whatever challenging emotions they have out". So it not just that a therapist "knows" about PTSD that is important, it is also important that the therapist understands the significance of "not reacting to their patients" in ways that only make these challenges worse. LISTENING, is very, very important because what you really need is "someone who listens and can validate whatever you are struggling with" and not in anyway put you on the defensive.

You, must also come to understand that the therapist isn't going to "fix" you, but will be that much needed presence to help "you" fix "you". A therapist is often that "calm" presence that was "always needed" but for some reason "just was not there" for the patient.

There is a good book you can read called "Trauma and Recovery" by Judith Herman that describes the "healing stages of PTSD". It is helpful when someone struggling gets to learn that they are not alone and will go through some challenging stages while they try to gain more control over the PTSD. It also is very helpful when you find out you are not alone and others "can" relate to how you are challenged too.

Welcome to PC and the PTSD forums. None of us are therapists here, we are all working through PTSD and we "support" each other as we relate our challenges and that does bring some relief.

(((Welcoming Hugs)))
OE