VERY VERY LONG post, sorry:

Snake Charmer, I have to say this, I haven't read that many posts of yours, but the majority of the ones I've read seem to come from a place that has a been-there-done-that quality to it, a kind of wisdom and heart that has lived through great suffering but has come out of it wiser and bigger than the obstacles it has faced. You're an old soul, a rarity. So needless to say, I really appreciate you sharing about your own struggles and putting in the great time to make a such a wonderful post in response to my post. Your post spoke to me in an unusually personal way.

While reading this post, I felt much sadness and anger also at unfairness and unpredictability of life, especially, "Then something hugely awful and traumatic and beyond comprehension happened..." As if you had not suffered enough! I can't say my reaction was necessarily pure sympathy: I have my own reasons. Part of me is mad at the universe/God for not guaranteeing that once something really awful happens, you've "paid your dues" then the future is gonna be not necessarily smooth but at least bearable. One of the things about PTSD is this feeling of having been overwhelmed, given more than could have digested emotionally. And after that, you start to see danger all over the place; you are, as you noted, always on alert. I'm always physically very tense. Part of reason I can't sleep. Once in a rare while, when a part of my body relaxes a bit and old feelings resurface, it actually freaks me out - it's that rare!

In any event, I also felt strong connection and identification with your story. This line could have been written by me, just exactly this line: "Everything triggered me. Everything. A look. A line at the grocery. The tone in which someone said hello. Never mind things directly related." Yes to all. PTSD makes you think you not gonna live long. I used to plan for future, and live life as if safety was the norm and bad things were the exception and that even when they did happen, I could handle them somehow. But now I just live in the now cause I see no future. I act as if danger is the norm. My T would say just go out of the apartment, but first somatic reaction I would get and I freak out as I was getting the flu or some weird illness or dying and would come home, hoping I'll be fine.

Your explanation of false attribution really helped. Really. I think that explains a lot about how I feel and behave these days. In fact, as soon as I read it, I felt a sense of lightness, as if maybe, just maybe, things are not as horrible as I imagine them to be. Maybe the world is not a minefield. Maybe I was not deluded, ten years ago, to think I could go out, go to college, go shopping, go to a restaurant with a few friends, and not worrying about dying or getting severely sick, getting hurt on the bus, get food poisoning in restaurant, getting some rare virus....My sense of self used to be solid.That's why it all used to be so much easier.

Now even going to the local store, just three blocks away, makes me so anxious. This PTSD thing has made my usually mild OCD type symptoms get out of control as well, as you can imagine. But the worst thing is that me staying home all day has not made things better. I just get less somatic symptoms because less new triggers. There's less unpredictability. But bad things could happen to me at home still. And time won't stop, I will get older, I will get diseases...I can't stop time or reality of life...and most importantly, this way of living already feels like death anyways. What am I doing everyday, my home my cage, danger everywhere, just waiting for sweet death and escape?

I also appreciate your sensible suggestions about how to try to organize my day and get going, trying to stick to a schedule and have discipline. And you're absolutely right, shower seems exhausting, and I hate having to look for clean clothes. I actually had a pretty stressful day last week, after delaying doing my laundry several days, I had to do it but laundry machines were occupied and I had to make three trips to the basement of the building to wash my clothes. And that's literally all I did that day. Literally. Which was still better than the day before, because I had done nothing, just watch TV, eat canned food and sleep. But anyhow, to read that things can get better and did get better for you (despite you having dealt with a terrible trauma) certainly gives me hope. Like you're not just saying it, you've been through it, you're been in the war zone, you have the scars to prove it...

Lastly, as I mentioned in few other threads before, my major trauma happened when my sister, over a period of several years, was very suicidal and my family had no diagnosis on her and nobody knew what was going on with her (there was various unexplainable symptoms too, they thought maybe she had a tumor, she was suffering greatly). She was hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital several times, once nearly a year. She hated herself, she hated the whole family and wanted everybody dead, and I got traumatized being witness to all this because I saw helpless in me, in doctors, and in my parents. I also saw my parents were much less helpful or loving than I had assumed they were. The trauma made me have frightening flashbacks of times from my childhood when I was abused or felt helpless outside or in other circumstances. Like my childhood fears resurfaced.

Anyhow, when my sister was in hospital, my dad kept disappearing in guise of necessary business trips, my mom cycled between being very loving and actively sabotaging my sister's treatment in various ways (mom has a long history of being abused as a young girl, and she has been abusive towards us many times but I was absolutely shocked that she could not control that part of her from coming out just when my sister needed her the most, as a result I suddenly started to feel real frightened of my mom, even wondering if she would do the same if I was seriously sick and in need of help).

Though my sister did survive all this, she lives almost as a shadow of her old self, on many medications, and barely recalls those years; me on the other hand, I seem stuck in the past. Every time I go over to mom and dad and sister is there, everything triggers me BIG TIME (compared to thousand other unrelated things that trigger me daily). If sister looks slightly upset, trigger. If dad says he is thinking of potential business trip in a year, trigger. If mom lies about something just to get a reaction from my sister, again trigger. My T had told me I can't change my parents, nor my sister...just me. So hard to accept.

Those traumatic things happened years ago (last 5 years no major crisis with my sister) but I'm almost still in the same mindset, like as if it's still those years, when I would be home and suddenly hearing the phone ring and feeling anxious and me inside telling myself with rage, "don't let it be her, don't let it be her acting crazy again, I can't take it..." and hearing mom telling me, "She disappeared again," or "She's suicidal again," or "she refuses to answer the phone and threatened your dad,"...and I knew it would be at least several more months of this unbearable stress. Then hospital..new meds...okay...till next episode. Again, thank God last five years, no major crisis. Yet I live my life as if it's still the same situation or even if she never goes back, somebody else will have some major crisis. It feels safe at home, the world is dangerous, and I don't want to face another possible trauma. I'm gonna die if another big one hits me. But I read your post and I say, Come on...don't give up...it's in your head...though there are no guarantees, it's very unlikely I'll face another huge trauma...here's a way out of this miserable suffering state I'm in...I'm strong...resilient...I can do this!

thank you