((dawnindark)),

I am glad that you feel more grounded after having others that can hear you and relate. You have this site now where you can connect with others when you need support so you don't feel so all alone with this challenge.

You can find friends here, and to be honest if you had friends around you they would not understand how you are challenged, most people don't understand it, not unless a person really makes it a point to learn about it. You are better with individuals that understand what it means to struggle with PTSD, who have experienced the same symptoms you are discribing and have gained on their understanding of it and have gained on managing it better.

Yes, there can be this feeling or emotional flashback of feeling vulnerable and not having that parent that comforted you there for you. Having the chills is also something that some struggle with, I struggle with them myself, it's part of the anxiety that comes with PTSD. The body does this in an attempt to calm/relax even though it doesn't feel that way. What I do for it is I have a heating pad that I sleep with if I am struggling, I use my hair dryer and blow warm air on my legs and over my body and into the covers to warm things up so I can really experience the calming affect that happens when a body is warmed up and slowly cools again. You know, this is something that really does create a soothing and calming affect in the body which is one of the reasons human beings began having these warm bath houses. Some people combat this by taking nice hot showers. I have even come across individuals posting that even when they wake up stressed in the middle of the night, or struggle to sleep they take hot showers. So, what people are doing, it they are using the body's own way of experiencing a physical/physilogical calm from warming up and gradually cooling down.

The guilt/shame is also a part of PTSD, I had experienced that myself and most who struggle with PTSD do struggle with it. So, lets talk a little about that so you can understand it better and when you have that feeling, instead of feeding into it, you know what it is and you can recognize it and do some self talk that acknowledges it and remind yourself it is normal and you really are "not" guilty of anything, it just feels like you are. I gave you that story about the abused horse right? Well, when you begin to feel guilt, I want you to remember that horse who began to get confused and felt he was going to be punished somehow and he became afraid to do a lot of things. He had no reason to feel guilt, he ended up with an owner who was not patient, did not really know how to train a horse and be patient, so whenever he did not understand he was punished somehow, NOT HIS FAULT.

A big part of your learning to manage these PTSD symptoms and gaining on your personal healing is understanding what these symptoms do mean, and IT IS NOTHING YOU DID WRONG. A person who was abuse/neglected in their childhood did nothing wrong, sometimes you will experience memories be it emotional or visual or even auditory and you experience what is called a PTSD cycle. These cycles come over a person like a wave and if you were to stand by an ocean near a shore but into the water a bit, what happens when a wave comes at you, can you stop it? No, it comes in, crests, hits you, pulls you back a bit, but then it pulls back and receeds again. So, a big part of understanding PTSD is learning not to be afraid when you experience a trigger or a PTSD cycle. Eventually, you will figure out what the cycle is connected to, then you can acknowledge whatever it was that challenged you, that whatever it is really is not happening to you right now and it is something that you need to finally work through and understand better and even learn how to deal with better "in the now". You have to gradually learn to be your own "rescuer" and that is important for you right now because you don't have a therapist "yet" to help you learn how to do this for yourself, that you should not be blaming yourself or feeling guilty when you struggle.

Now, I am going to put something here for you to watch. I have to go copy it so I can post it here. This will be a video of a horse I rescued and while he was such a nice little Mustang, someone abused him. He was hit in the face so badly that it broke his jaw and now part of he upper jaw is missing, a few of his teeth were knocked out and he had some loose that needed to be removed. He would try to take care of these loose teeth by soaking his mouth in the water bucket so I was constantly changing the water in his water bucket. I saved up so I could have a special vet come out to work on his mouth and remove these teeth where finally he would heal. He was very sensitive/afraid and I and my daughter had to help him overcome many fears, fear of the saddle blanket, of a saddle, of anyone approaching him with something in their hand because he had been hit/hurt by someone badly. He had to learn how to "trust" and relax whenever we groomed him, touched him and slowly began training him. I have never shared this before, but when you feel guilt, I want you to picture him and think "should he have felt guilt"? NO When I got him he was very thin, had projectile diareah, and needed a lot of TLC. So you are going to see him going through changes where he gets healthier. He sometimes looks a different color because when we worked with him in the winter he had to be shaved so he would not sweat and get a chill when his winter coat got wet. He would better be able to cool down and we would blanket him to keep him warm when not being worked and trained. That is just so you understand why his color changes.

I want to mention that this is a Mustang, caught in the wild in Wyoming. He has a white freeze brand on his neck that tells where he was caught. He was bought by someone who did not know how to train/work with a young horse so he was hit/abused/neglected. Notice we do not hit. He had to learn how to be ok with a bit in his mouth because we took time to fix his mouth. When you see his mouth foaming a little, that is a good thing. I had to do things with him to get him to relax his jaw and mouth with the bit. There are shots of my daugther and one of my students working with him, teaching him how to move off the leg. How to jump, how to be at horse shows. Lots of how too's with no punishmental hitting.