vonmoxie, I especially like the end where the difference in brain activity was shown. I had tried so many times to explain how what happened to me overwhelmed me so much that I could not function. At first all the PTS symptoms were only about the loss of what I had, and my witnessing it as well as my neighbor continuing to intrude.

I really believe that had I had the right treatment right away that I would not have suffered full blow PTSD as I developed and still suffer from now. I have suffered greatly from losing time, and disassociating more and more, as well as experiencing more and more negative reactions when trying to interact with my horses and ponies again. I could not understand "why" I grew more and more debilitated by just being around them, even when I did not want that to happen.

I wanted to "tell my story of occurance" and the fact that I also struggled with a lawyer who was mentally declining and failing to do his job, really aggrivated the PTSD and I could feel the affect it was having on my brain, at times I suffered headaches that I had never experienced before in the frontal part of my brain. However, at times it felt like my entire brain was being squeezed like a sponge too. It has been seven years now and I have not been able to tell my story and now my brain seems to shut down whenever I go near all my files that are a mess on the floor. There is no such thing as going back to revisit the trauma with me because I have never been able to be "away" from it. My "only" time away from it was the psych ward that only traumatized me even more.

When I saw the pictures of how the brain of PTSD is affected YES I have been trying to discribe that for "years" now. When they talked about being in the "now" and how that can help, I have not been able to do that, because I cannot get the past to actually "be" in the past. For "years" I have to remember, remember for when the time comes of being questioned about it. I DON'T WANT TO REMEMBER IT ALL, anymore, and what is sad is that my case is purposely prolonged in hopes I will grow weary and give up or settle for so little, IT IS WORKING, however this has "hurt my brain". When it showed how the brain of someone with PTSD functions, "yes" that is how I respond now to my ponies/horses and farm now. I never imagined how something I used to love so much, enjoy so much would become such a source of pain the way it is now for me.

OE