Hi ((Trace14)), what you are discribing is definitely a symptom of PTSD. It "is" scarey because you did lose track of time. What that means is that your conscious mind was very distracted while sorting through your personal challenges. Our conscious mind is not used to doing that, instead what it does is it focuses more on what we are doing in the now, while tapping off of whatever we have learned how to "automatically" do in our subconscious mind.

You posted in another thread a lot of your history, you have been challenged a great deal in your history. Yes, you managed to take these experiences and put them aside while you continued to function, you did that for a long time too. Well, something traumatized you so much that it basically stopped you in your tracks. This is called PTSD, and now you are looking back on a lot of things that you managed to live through, but they were also challenging you too. Well, there is a lot there for you to review, it would totally make sense that you would lose track of what is taking place in the "now". Also, when you use the conscious mind this way, it is very tiring too.

What many who struggle talk about doing is that when they begin to talk about one event, what often happens is they end up skipping around to several events and this has been misdiagnosed by psychiatrists/therapists when they do not know what they are actually witnessing.

What my therapist (who has treated many with PTSD) has observed is that when he first works with these patients, they are typically "desperate and overwhelmed" at first and yes, often express racing thoughts. To an untrained eye, this can look like "bipolar" or having some kind of "manic" episode, and yes it must be because often what follows is a tired depressed period too. Often people will include "bipolar" in their list of diagnoses, and even include "depression, Gerd, social anxiety" to name a few, when in reality, it is infact all "PTSD" and the symptoms that are expressed with a person who struggles with PTSD.

What my therapist said is that as his patients are allowed to talk out their history, in whatever way it comes out, they gradually begin to "improve" and the desperation slowly weakens and they are more able to focus.

You say, "oh, I must have always had PTSD" right? Well, no not really because you were able to function with your "conscious" executive part of your brain staying in the "now" and keeping track of "the now" too. You most likely experienced/learned to function "with" some hyper vigilance, possibly more awareness too, but that was a skill you had that was included in your "subconscious skill building". So you tended to function on a level where you "could" even though there was more awareness and stressors taking place at the same time.

Well, when a person experiences a trauma that has too much impact, this can affect how that person percieves everything in their history. It would only be "normal" for that person to then ask, "did I make a mistake all along somehow?".

This is where "most" get very confused about being told "you were a survivor". The individual can even get very "angry" too because they will often say, "well if I was a survivor then why am I struggling so badly now?".

What is really taking place is that you are at a point where you faced something that stopped you in your tracks. You are now reviewing your history and you are doing so with this injury that is called PTSD. What is happening "now" is that because you experienced a trauma that did stop you in your tracks, you are looking back on everything else that you survived that was also "scarier" than you had consciously realized at the time. So, what you are doing now is you are stopped in your tracks and actually reviewing your past in a very different way. However, you are doing this as a person who has developed PTSD, which means that you have been "hurt" and are now are much more "sensitive" as with any kind of injury.

This is "why" PATIENCE is very important. You have been hurt and it's going to take you time to sit and review and slowly learn that "yes" you were a survivor in spite of, and yes, something you experienced really impacted you so much that you are now actually "stunned and confused and very sensitive". Yes, when this takes place a person is very confused and very sensitive and "yes" it is also tiring too. What you do need to do and sort through your past, understand that you are a survivor, that yes there were things you did not know, not like you know now, now that you have more "life experience". You need time to slowly settle all that is "unsettled" in you and as you gain a better understanding of all of these experiences, you will slowly make gains to where your final step in your healing is to find your way to moving forward again, but just in a different way.

It is actually "normal" to want to find some kind of peaceful place where you can feel less stress and life demands so you can sort through things and make peace with whatever is there that you are now seeing in a different light.

When you have these experiences with "losing track of time" all that means is that you have been very distracted with "reviewing" and that does take away from being "in the now and keeping track in the now". Don't "self punish" for that or feed into how you will be punished for that either. It does take time to "sort through" and slowly make gains on understanding not only "how to do that", but to understand "why" you do that and yes, at times you will lose track of the "now", or you can also experience a cycle, but as time progresses you will realize that cycles are "questions" and that as you work on slowly resolving these questions, they will decrease in intensity and your ability to be more "in the now" will slowly "increase" too.