Quote:
Originally Posted by ejayy78
Does anyone else have really bad nightmares from PTSD?
I was abused for a long time (15 years) an I got away from my abuser a couple years ago when I moved away for college. I feel like I never sleep. Sometimes my nightmares last for a more than a week and it's usually the same thing repeatedly. There are also nights when I know I'm starting to fall asleep and I hear or even smell my abuser and I wake up. It's so scary and a lot of nights it takes a lot out of me to even close my eyes. I have exercises that my T gave me to do when I'm having bad dreams. They help a little, but obviously they're not like, magic or anything to take the dreams completely away. I know that I don't sleep enough and that causes me to struggle daily as I tend to be more on edge and anxious if I'm tired. So it's kind of a vicious cycle--I don't sleep because of the dreams then I think about them all the next day then that night I can't sleep again because I'm anxious and scared of the things I've been thinking about all day.
If you have nightmares related to your PTSD (or even just in general), how do you manage the anxiety/fear that comes from them?
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I was molested as a child for 7 years by a doctor.
3 years later I started having Holocaust nightmares.
They have lasted for 30 years.
By 2010, I would be delivering a lecture
to my students in class & would look
up to see them flickering back and forth
from concentration camp victim to student...
my PTSD would go off like a bomb in class.
O...Only to be chased by 4-5 different
Holocaust nightmares each eve.
I am a Professor of Art, so my biggest
coping technique is my creativity.
Also, people innocently trigger my PTSD
attacks...so I am not really into socializing
with large crowds.
It helps a lot to also talk to my T about
my nightmares. I always feel like I am
the only person who has these attacks--
when I am actually having them.