Quote:
Originally Posted by sunnyfan
I've just started therapy for PTSD that was diagnosed in November. I'm really struggling with some of the symptoms associated with PTSD, namely disassociation and severe depression. It breaks my heart. It's Father's Day and I feel like I don't know my husband or two kid's or myself. I feel like I'm speaking from an empty shell. I don't feel like I know me. I'm so depressed about it, I'm avoiding my family today. I know this is part of PTSD, and I have a wonderful counselor, yet it's a special day, I'm only about 6 weeks into therapy and was wondering if someone out there could give me some coping tools for making it through the day.
I feel like there is a sense of "time lost" and it feels intolerable. I want to feel normal again. I know the more I resist the present, the more my symptoms persist. I'm rambling.
Advise?
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Hello Sunnyfan:
I'm afraid I don't have any great suggestions for you. But I wanted to acknowledge your post.
I'm certainly familiar with the feeling of emptiness that I imagine you are experiencing. I am sort-of a follower of the techniques taught by the Buddhist nun Pema Chodron. And so, what I try to do is to allow those feelings to arise, acknowledge them gently, & then simply allow them to fade away in their own time.
Of course, there's more to the practice than that. But this is the "nub" of it. The essential point here is to accept the feelings you have & treat them with loving-kindness rather than to push them away, bury them, stuff them back down, or try to substitute something else you think is more positive.
I do hope that you can find a way to be more at peace today as well as for all of the days to come.
