Yes. I've had that. I'm still having a lot of it in fact. I'm gradually getting better like... it used to be literally painful to get dressed. I just kept doing it though, allowing myself some time to dress up gradually. I can dress up fast without a real problem now. (It can still feel like discomfort but nothing too bad.) I used to have to lie in bed for 3-4 hours before I could get up. Not just in the morning, during the day too, I would lie down then it would be hard to get up. I only need 30 minutes now before I can get up. Actually I maybe reduced that to 15 minutes yesterday. Well, 15 minutes getting to sit up at the side of the bed, and 15 minutes standing up then (reading some cr*p on the phone until then or thinking about the bad past etc).

It's just slow progress for me because I was stuck in it for very long before I started seeing the way to get out.
And I think that that is the one best advice I can give you. Do not allow yourself to stay stuck in it for long. The neural connections in your brain will start atrophying and it's painful to have to rebuild all of it. This isn't a joke. I am living it right now.

Also be prepared for how it'll be fluctuating... two steps forward, one back and the like...

Good luck!





Yes, yes. It feels like you've run out of gas and can't find that fuel again. That is why it's a gradual process. Try and catch a moment when you don't feel so bad/low/fatigued and then try and make a little step then. Until it tires you out then rest and try again. That's what I've been doing. Both mentally and physically.



PS: Weirdly enough I relate to you also in that I do not emotionally feel depressed usually. I'm just shut down, and low energy and rut and all that. Maybe that is the consequence of the issues causing this problem eventually. I got very drained in my life and then I had a sudden emotional impact (trauma experience, having to lose a relationship being traumatic) and then I got to this point.

PS2: Oh I again found something where I relate to you strongly... That world in your head that you are stuck in. YES. SAME. (Even before cPTSD trauma it was like that.) I am gradually leaving it and I've worked on that a lot but I'm not totally out of the woods. I'm finding out what bad mental (and sometimes physical) habits I have that keep me stuck there. Even though I also found that being in my mind like that allowed me to process the past where I really needed to learn from it. It was just overdone and not regulated because I had no way to learn more easily for a while. Maybe that part is just me though. So my suggestion is, find the mental and physical habits that contribute to keeping you stuck in your head in that little world. And gradually get rid of them, train yourself out of them and find better habits.

One mental habit would be finding positive thoughts. Especially positivity about why you want to be back to your normal life. Yeah, I know, hard, very hard initially.

Physical habits of course are important otherwise too, for retraining your energy level - and through that, your mood - and getting out of the whole rut. A really typical example of such a physical habit is: don't allow yourself to go lie down in bed after you got up. I worked on that too and I got really good at that one by now.