[eveshifter]

Apparently my PTSD symptoms are coming back. I've been molested twice and raped once. I always thought that the rape I experienced was nothing, but I had a flashback, for the first time in my life, of it. The flashback occurred after several weeks of irritability and mental instability. Anyway this came out of nowhere. I don't understand why this is happening to me, I really felt like it was nothing. I just... can anyone shine a light onto why this is happening now? Can anyone give me advice on dealing with the flashbacks, irritability, and other symptoms. Also I am on meds. I take:
Trileptal, Invega, Lexapro, and Adderall.
My panic disorder seems to have returned as well.
Thanks for listening, I really needed to get this out there.
-Alexandra

[PTSDlovemycats]

Try to focus on grounding yourself. Take care and keep posting if you need to.

[Gilead]

Originally Posted by eveshifter

Apparently my PTSD symptoms are coming back. I've been molested twice and raped once. I always thought that the rape I experienced was nothing, but I had a flashback, for the first time in my life, of it. The flashback occurred after several weeks of irritability and mental instability. Anyway this came out of nowhere. I don't understand why this is happening to me, I really felt like it was nothing. I just... can anyone shine a light onto why this is happening now? Can anyone give me advice on dealing with the flashbacks, irritability, and other symptoms. Also I am on meds. I take:
Trileptal, Invega, Lexapro, and Adderall.
My panic disorder seems to have returned as well.
Thanks for listening, I really needed to get this out there.
-Alexandra

The meds I know nothing about. The panic and the flashbacks are related. When I get into those states I try to distract myself with literally anything to stop thinking. Sometimes I lose and sometimes I win.

Can you identify what is making you irritable? Have your meds changed at all recently? I wish there was something concrete I could say to make it go away for you but it's different with everyone. Are you in therapy?

Keep posting - if nothing else you may gain some insights from your own words.

I'm really sorry and you are in my thoughts...wish I could be more helpful...

[Open Eyes]

Originally Posted by eveshifter

Apparently my PTSD symptoms are coming back. I've been molested twice and raped once. I always thought that the rape I experienced was nothing, but I had a flashback, for the first time in my life, of it. The flashback occurred after several weeks of irritability and mental instability. Anyway this came out of nowhere. I don't understand why this is happening to me, I really felt like it was nothing. I just... can anyone shine a light onto why this is happening now? Can anyone give me advice on dealing with the flashbacks, irritability, and other symptoms. Also I am on meds. I take:
Trileptal, Invega, Lexapro, and Adderall.
My panic disorder seems to have returned as well.
Thanks for listening, I really needed to get this out there.
-Alexandra

Hi eyeshifter,

Isn't this a crappy disorder? When I think of the last word in this diagnosis, disorder, it says so much to me. To me it means that there is no real order in our brain, and we are trying to straighten it out. I think that we may have periods where we can go along thinking we have indeed gained, organized our past. We ground ourselves and try to remember that things happened in the past and it is the past. I can relate to not understanding that, if I knew what happened in my past, how come I keep flashing back or even trigger?

I don't take a lot of medication, I really try hard to do as much as possible on my own. I have taken clonazapam for the extreme anxiety and to sleep, but I am trying to cut back due to the side effect of short term memory loss. I have already lost enough from my past.

I have lived thru a lot and survived and somehow thrived. But I had an event that really took alot out of me. And that is when my cup runnith over. I had a hard time trying to wrap my brain around this terrible event and I just couldn't seem to do it. I somehow felt like I was being punished and I truely tried so hard all my life, and I thought, I have nothing left, someone took it all.

I do see that with PTSD, we can go along not really realizing how much damage is storred in this brain of ours. And then something happens, and it doesn't have to be a big event, but it is something that reaches back into our mind and reminds us that someone else took something from us and we couldnt do much about it. Or, somehow we thought we were doing something right and later we see that it was wrong. So, we blame ourselves, even punish ourselves and there are many ways of doing that, as you can see in the different forums.

I think for the most part, we really have to think about our behavior and how we really did handle the abusive situation. We have to be willing to assess ourselves and say, how did I react and where did I go wrong?

This is NOT an easy task. Because we are thinking back on different situations and we are seeing something we did wrong and we are angry and don't really realize that hind sight is 20/20.

I have been working on that for several months and I have to say that it really takes time and we have to be able to understand that we are human and we can make mistakes and we can also, many times push it away unknowingly. I think that when we have stress and go up and down and struggle, it means that we need to work on it more and think about how to stop hiding or punishing ourselves and give into the repair process.

I am doing that one day at a time.

[shezbut]

(((eveshifter)))

I recommend doing what you can to keep yourself grounded. Different techniques work for different people (and different symptoms).

Personally, exercise and cleaning have always been my favorite ways of letting out my excessive energy. The anxiety always brought up a whole lot of energy in me. It just has to be let out to bring me some relief. When the physical isn't a real option, I try hard to write out my thoughts and emotions. Sometimes, just writing about the events can relieve a lot of stress ~ as long as you go in depth about your emotions, pre-conceptions (beliefs), etc. Seeing the beliefs written down, and challenging the likelihood of my expectations does bring relief. There are many other likelier (sp?) outcomes than our greatest fears, really. And that is what we need to look at and accept.

Why these memories have popped back into your head, I have no idea. My triggers have always been times when a tiny chip of memory was slamming against my memory door. Perhaps you overheard parts of an intimate discussion? Part of me was anxious to understand why I was scared (for no apparent reason) & a bigger part simply wanted the feelings to disappear. Thankfully, this last time, I wouldn't allow myself to continue repressing the memories. The honest feelings need to be dealt with.

Since you've minimized the rape, I assume that you haven't dealt with the core emotions running deeply inside of you. Fear and anger are two big emotions that are needing to be recognized inside of you. You deserve to have those emotions. You have not had it easy. Rape is a big deal. You don't deserve to suffer years of pain and panic ~ you have suffered enough. You need to deal with your memories though. That takes time & perserverance...You CAN do it though!

Very best wishes and gentle hugs to you, eveshifter.