When I was experiencing PTSD at it's worst, I began having episodes much like you are discribing in your post. The chills you are talking about, I know exactly what you are discribing and yes, it is different from being cold or not having enough covers or the room being too cold.

Then, I began to experience episodes where I not only experienced much of what you are discribing, but I felt like a "child" and I could not stop crying and my stomach hurt so bad, I really could not articulate how bad adequately either, all I knew is that it was incredibly painful. The flashbacks I had told me I was in a crib too, but I did not see what was happening to me. I thought, if only I could see that then maybe I could at least talk about it and work on it so these episodes were not so crippling. It got so bad I was afraid to go to sleep, yes, I can relate to the night slipping past me and me not know how to feel safe enough to just sleep, it was awful.

I talked about this with my therapist, and one day it came over me and it scared me so much that somehow I managed to call my therapist while I was experiencing it. My therapist was so amazing about helping me with it, just amazing. He was so calm and talked me slowly through it, assured me that it was not going to last and slowly helped me stay calm while it was happening. Unfortunately, my husband came home in the middle of that and got mad at me and my therapist could hear him. My husband was angry and told me "stop acting like a baby". My therapist insisted on me giving my husband the phone and honestly I don't know "how" I was able to follow my T because of how bad that episode was. My therapist explained to my husband what was happening and how it was not my fault and what it meant and how to help me with it instead of yelling at me and making it worse. That really made a difference, because I definitely was frightened just as you experience it, so you know what that means in a very intimate way.

I could not understand "why" it was happening and it was always the same, incredibly painful too and the chills where my soul felt so cold, it was so much more than just being cold. I talked to my T about it wishing I could somehow know what was happening and my T told me that often a patient wont see it all because of how the brain self protects or because sometimes if a patient was really young the brain doesn't have enough language there to understand it too.

Then one session my T told me that often what it could be saying is that I was a baby and I woke up hungry and wet and that when babies are hungry their stomachs hurt so they cry for food so the mother will know to feed. Babies wet themselves so that could present that chill too. Well, after thinking about it, I remembered that my mother was often overwhelmed with two other children and she probably often could not get to me right away. Once I thought about it in that way, it was not so strong, and when it happened it did not leave me wondering if I was being hurt somehow too.

I still experience it sometimes, and I keep a hairdyer by the bed and I also have a heating pad and I just wake up and grab the hair dryer and blow it on my legs, feet, arms and carefully on my face and slowly those chills go away. I sleep with the TV on so if I wake up with it on some level, I don't feel alone and it is easier to get grounded.

I will probably always have that child in me that can experience that challenge and there are times when I get triggered that I do experience that. I have learned to understand it better and self sooth in a self caring way, and I remind myself that it never means I am a bad person or was ever unworthy in any way.

My therapist keeps blankets around in his room, he explained to me that many of his "trauma" patients use these blankets because they too get these chills. A lot of patients that have PTSD talk about needing a comforting presence and most of them don't seem to get that need met too. This isn't "just" in the PTSD patients that have a history going back to their childhood's either, this is also experienced in "war vets" too.

While I know you have some challenges in your history, I think it is important to understand this challenge is a "common symptom" that presents with PTSD so you don't just go right to feeling that it is only reminding you of something bad that just happened to you or because of something in particular. It's not necessarily a bad thing either as the body gets these chills as a way of processing "trauma" in an effort to self regulate again. So, in that when my therapist is working through traumas with his patients, it is normal for him to see his patients experience these "chills" that are not the same as just being "cold".

A big part of the challenge with PTSD is learning what things mean so one doesn't make the mistake of feeding into it just thinking that they are somehow "bad" in any way or even just somehow "crazy" when the body is psychologically and physiologically trying to process and heal.

Sleep can be a challenge during trauma work too because the brain is only trying to figure out how to process whatever it is a patient is trying to work through. PTSD can be so confusing and a person can even get so they begin practicing "flight" by waking up very early and going out running or engaging in some kind of physical activity.

One time in a therapy session I was so overwhelmed trying to tell my T all that I was dealing with and in that process so many things came into my thoughts, all things that connected to the main challenge that it was probably hard to follow. My T stopped me and said, "see what you are doing right now?", then he said, this is what happens with PTSD but is often misdiagnosed as bipolar. Over his years of practicing in working with trauma patients, he has seen so many patients doing the same thing I was doing with him that day.

The average person doesn't understand how much work it is to "work through trauma".
Pretty much everyone that comes and shares here struggles with that and tries very hard to find a way to "put on a pretend self" when around others. The bottom line though is that it never means a person is "unworthy" of healing or being helped in the process of this healing challenge.

Each challenged individual will tend to repeat something over and over again. Often there is a theme to it too. Often a person will say that "intellectually" they can see it and understand it on some level, but they continue to experience the "hurt" somehow. What that means is that what a person needs to do is say it as much as needed and get validation for whatever it is over and over until that person finally rebuilds that "hurt" part which means finally developing a new deep subconscious connection that not only knows it "intellectually" but finally "feels it" too.

Understanding that human beings are actually designed to want that because it really has always been a key to our very survival is important. In all my time meeting different individuals that struggle with PTSD, not one of these individuals ever deserved to feel or was/is ever "unworthy".

I am sorry that someone hurt you (((dps))), it was never your fault, you never deserved it and it certainly doesn't mean you are unworthy because it hurt you so deeply to where you struggle, expressing how you struggle is something so many can hear you in a way that they too can relate to exactly what you are discribing.

When a poster comes along and articulates it so well like you do ((dps)), it gives everyone who is challenged a chance to reflect on how they too struggle in very similar ways, but might struggle to articulate it so well. Often it is a relief when someone can say, "yes" that is how I feel too, but could not quite explain it. I have tried to share how my T has helped me understand it better, he is such a good T, so why not share as these T's are often hard to come by.

((Caring and Comforting Hugs))
OE