((Jane)),

You are not alone with wondering just that tbh. It is actually a very "common" challenge that a lot of people have, be it with PTSD or depression or anxiety disorder or some kind of learning disablity/challenge. I wrote a lot in this thread because I have definitely been very challenged myself too. I came across this question in another place and was going to post to it and realized that I had so much to say about it that I had better start a thread AND do my best to "try" to stick with it and not delete it.

I also have been very challenged IRL too, and this past weekend alone was such a huge challenge for me presenting me with a tremendous amount of DRAMA. Someone I love so much, so very much experienced a big betrayl and was deeply hurt. And, as this person sobbed, what came out was, "I AM ALONE" and "I JUST WANT TO GO TO SLEEP AND NOT WAKE UP". Now, while I could tell this person I loved them and list others who cared too, that is not what this person's "ALONE" meant.

I had so little time before yet another big DRAMA took place and I got another phone call from my sister who was at my parents waiting for someone else to get there to be with my mother so she could go to the hospital where my father had been taken because he had been out doing something in the yard and a neighbor saw him fall over and called 911. So I had to get dressed and go to my parents house and that can be a challenge for me and trigger the PTSD unexpectedly. Not to mention the drive and the fact that I was also going to deal with all the holiday traffic trying to just get there. I also had taken a Klonopin because I have had so much going on lately that I have been in a tremendous amount of physical pain. Just this past month and a half alone has been exhausting for me tbh.

Anyway, I got to my parents and my sister had left and my Neice was there with her daughter. And my Neice was busy cleaning and her daughter was in another room sitting with my mother. I just talked to my Niece and my Niece really just needed to "vent" and be allowed to "feel", so I just let her and listened. And quite honestly, the one thing my Neice and I have in common is my older sister who basically, "I have one rule, it's easy, just do what I say". My Niece has so much on her plate, too much on her plate. My Niece has a son with Aspergers/Autism and her husband is very unsupportive and can be abusive and she has Lupus and her son is at the age now where he is bigger and when he has a rage she has to be careful, he has already given her two concusions. And the system that is "supposed to be there" to help her is NOT THERE AND USELESS. My Niece is extremely smart and had been trying to go to nursing school and had to stop because of how bad the system is "the school" that she had to stop her own education and home school her son. Anyway, all she needed to be able to "do" is just vent and I "listened" and I didn't try to "fix or stop her or say I think" because it seems like that is what everyone does that with her, and what she really just needed with to "vent".

Then my older sister came in the door with all "her" emotions and needs, and I did not see that my father had come home too. And he had his "own" story about what happened. Then my mother appeared and everyone ended up in the kitchen. I sat and just "observed", and you know what, "I" am the one with PTSD and I am the one that actually "stayed calm" in all the drama. Of course today I am exhausted and my body feels like it has been beaten up badly. But, I did stay calm in spite of the tornado that had taken place around me. What I noticed though, is even though I do have PTSD, I have not forgotten how to be "inside the tornado". And how I feel today? I am very tired and my body is aching all over so I took a Klonopin and while I don't like to take that drug, my body is just too sore and beaten up by all the Cortizol that had been attacking all my muscles, even in places I did not even know I had muscles.

What I did observe though is how the people around me "feel" and "need to just feel" and yet how when they "just need to feel, they tend to be met with "I think" from others instead of just being allowed to JUST FEEL. And yet there is this idea that "feeling and needing to just feel is WRONG too. It is no wonder people FEEL ALONE. It is no wonder people have that "void". And sadly, it is no wonder that void gets so strong that people feel the only relief is to just opt out of life. That is how "I" felt, and I felt that strongly, dangerously strongly, not in a way I had ever expected to feel either.

How I really realized what I needed and didn't know I needed is when I got to actually just FEEL and VENT OUT ALL MY EMOTIONS with my T who stayed calm and never once returned with a comment of "I think or making it about him". I do need that today, but he is on vacation, and honestly, I am too tired to "feel" right now anyway.

I also realized that when something takes place where a lot of emotions have to come out, that needs to happen "first" before a person can gain that needed carthartic level, and finally get to the next level where all the emotions are out and now the brain can sort through and work on whatever is there with the problem solving part of the brain. I would have to say that what I am discribing is very much a part of what takes place when someone is triggered and a PTSD cycle takes place. And this is what a person who struggles with PTSD needs to understand, to learn that when the waves come forward, they always come in, crest and then slowly receed and to be "patient" when that happens and one can get to a point where their "conscious/escutive/ problem solving part of their brain is ready to work on what it all meant and process it.

With that, I am going to stop here, because right now, I am very tired and I just took a Klonopin so I can lay down and try to rest my mind and body. I listened to a tremendous amount of "catastrophizing and drama" and I am tired because I can see I have actually done this for as long as I can remember.

OE