Hi (((mythrider))), I am sorry that you are struggling so much and "yes" what you are describing is something others who struggle with ptsd can relate with struggling the same way. I have experienced the symptoms you are describing myself and I know how challenging and even exhausting it can get and that you don't want to experience these episodes where you get so overwhelmed like this.

What they have been learning about ptsd is what causes this challenge to take place. Well, what they have learned is that when someone is traumatized it affects their hypo campus. The hypo campus is the part of the brain that acts like a filter so that when a person experiences things, this part of the brain reduces how situations impact the part of the brain that responds with "emotions" and that part of the brain is the amygdala. When someone experiences a trauma the hypo campus can shut down so that a person doesn't get overwhelmed. This can be part of why a person doesn't remember all the details of a traumatic event. However, the hypo campus can actually get damaged and shrink in size and when that happens the normal filter this part of the brain provides is not as effective and that can cause the amygdala to be more sensitive and the person will experience "more" emotions than normal. This is "why" so many individuals ask "why can't I just like I used to?" and how one's own magnified emotional reactions and sensitivities can become harder to control. Because of this the frontal cortex which is our executive functioning part of our brains has to actually work harder than normal and because of that a person, not realizing this can actually feel more challenged and feel overwhelmed simply because this part of their brain has to literally work harder than normal. So with this added challenge a person can "feel" disorganized and can "react" to things that affect their sense of "feeling" organized because it is this "feeling of being organized" that contributes to one's sense of personal "safety".

Talk therapy is helpful in that it allows a person to talk about things that traumatized them and when a therapist provides this person with feeling "safe" and "listens attentively and compassionately" the result is a person will "feel" like they finally have a witness which is often one important thing "missing" for them when they were traumatized. This also provides a patient a way to slowly use their executive part of their brain to slowly work through whatever it was that traumatized them and put the event or events into a dialogue which is an important part of "organizing" where the individual can work through what the trauma meant to them and how they can learn from this even where they can gain a sense of control again and also feeling "heard and understood and comforted". A patient needs to work through their traumas so they can better organize, learn, and gradually make gains on their personal sense of control again. The brain likes to understand and organize, this is how we are designed to be so that we can learn how to understand our world and learn about dangers so we can create ways of being "safer" in our world. The other thing that happens when we experience trauma is we do store these traumas because we designed to remember anything that poses a threat to us, by remembering these "threats" we are able to navigate in a safer way where when in certain situations that can pose a threat, we can remember, "this was not good so I need to be more careful" and "how can I fix this so it's safer".

Also, one of the things a person gets to have "relieved" when working with a therapist is the deep desire to "sound an alarm" too. We are designed to have a deep desire to talk about whatever we experienced that was a threat to our sense of safety as this is important to our survival as a species.

One of the reason's DBT can become helpful is that this therapy can contribute to ones ability to detect areas where certain words or sentences others use can be triggering, when we learn what these are, we can also learn how to respond to each of these challenged areas where we build actual skills that helps to strengthen ones' ability to increase their own sense of logic and ways to respond to others that sets better boundaries and creates a better sense of "control" for a person which always aides in reducing "stress". It can take time to understand this kind of therapy and often an individual will need to go slowly with this and even do this kind of therapy a few times until one begins to slowly master it more effectively.

Right now, you tend to reach for a Clonopin when you get overwhelmed. Clonopin does help in that it's a sedative and helps to calm down the overactive amygdala. However, you have to be careful with the Clonopin because you don't want to become too dependent on it which is something that can most definitely happen and this doesn't really help you learn how to manage your episodes on your own, which while a challenge you can actually gain on. The other thing about Clonopin to know is that this drug is a depressant and can increase one's depression level. Clonopin is also addictive so it's important to limit your use of it. I had been prescribed this drug and was told it was safe and non addictive and that there was no withdrawal if I stopped using it. WRONG!

I do have Clonopin on hand, however, I will only use it if I have too many bad days where I end up in pain and need a break. I had a hell of a time when it came to not using it everyday, and I used it mostly at night so I could sleep. I did not know I was getting addicted to it and dependent on it. I have to say I am very angry that I was encouraged to think it was safe and not addictive. I also had to learn that it's not safe to just stop it cold turkey, but one has to gradually reduce the dosage.

When you get upset, it's more important to recognize this is happening and distance from whatever it is and give yourself some "quiet" time, I learned to go someplace and be quiet, even would go up to my room and lay down and by doing that this overwhelming stress eases up and I can go back to doing my day. For me it would take anywhere from 20 minutes to a half hour to 45 minutes and I would feel better. This is because my body would finally realize "no danger so no need to pump cortisol to get ready for fight/flight". Half the battle is understanding what is behind these feelings you are experiencing so you don't end up getting frightened by them and getting all worked up but instead learn ways to control it instead.