[canuck1971]

All of this is so scary to me and so out of ordinary. I like things to be logical and in control and right now am feeling so out of control. Like not knowing what I am telling T is session is very frustrating to me, because how am I supposed to get better if I dont even remember what is being said to me. I hate all this. Plus what happened is in the past and I should be over it by now. Why I cant move on is a mystery to me. There are people who have gone through much worse and are doing well, why am I being so weak about trauma. Yeah, so ex hurt me, so what, its over, should be able to move on. Why do I have to feel the feelings and go through it all again? Over and over in nightmares

[(JD)]

Whoa! PTSD is caused when trauma isn't properly handled in the brain when a traumatic event occurs, the brain chemicals dump and prevent the event from being filed away like most memories.... thus it sticks around consciously and the habits we build in trying to work around it reinforces it's strength.

Telling yourself you should get over it is one of those myths that help keep PTSD in place. No, it's not something you decide to have or not. If that were so, you wouldn't have chosen to have PTSD or to keep it once gotten.

The good news is that once you begin to retrain the brain in how to file the trauma memories away, it will begin to do all similar memories left unfiled and you won't have to go through each and every event that hurt you.

[Irine]

- When you stop pushing yourself - you start moving forwards. Development comes out of freedom not out of sabotage. And this is what you are doing to yourself in this post.

Let go and be the way you are. You have the right to be the way you are right now. Its ok to be ****ed up. Those who are better now have been like you before. There is not other way here. The only way out is through.

[Open Eyes]

((((((((canuck1971)))))))

I have felt that way as well, I had thought I had coped through many things and then one really bad thing happened and I really tumbeled and was presented with PTSD. And it is a very troubling issue to address and I cannot blame you for being angry about it, I completely understand the frustration, as I address that too.

But JD is right, you were presented with situations that caused trauma to you and you suppressed emotions and you were on edge and in wait in the situation you are describing in your post.

Your therapy is all about finding out all the things in those events that trigger you emotionally and pinpointing things like certain body language, sounds, wordage, that surround those events that warned you of danger, made you uneasy, challenged you, and kept you in a hypervigillant state. And until you walk through all those triggers and work at consciously overcoming them, it can be troubling. Each time you were triggered and felt unsafe it sent a message to your brain and your body filled with chemicals that are produced by the brain for a heightened response that says defend or run.

That is what you are dealing with, that is what has been unconsciously engrained in you and I am sure that if you were in an abusive relationship there were many messages that devalued you and made you feel incompetent.

It takes a conscious effort to work through it, but it is very important to identify all the triggers and give them less power.

Open Eyes

[ProudMama]

Like JD said, no one chooses to have PTSD. It's just as real a disease as anything else, just because it's psychological doesn't mean it doesn't have physical impact on you.

It helps to remember to breathe and have patience with yourself. Maybe try to take notes with your T if you can't remember what was said. That helped my son work on his memory issues, too, since when he wrote something done, the moment of actually writing the words helped him retain it better.

Hope things are going a little better now, and know you're not alone in this.

[laceylu]

T and I talked about structural dissociation theory by Onno van der hart last time. He discusses in detail how one develops PTSD over time. PTSD is on a contiunum from simple PTSD to DID. DID is the last step on the scale. One trauma not processed right can cause PTSD. Many traumas not processed right leads to complex PTSD or DID. It is all about the memory being stored correctly. You will not get over it until the trauma work is done. I just ordered his book shattered memories on Amazon. I did find some of his research work online and washttp://www.onnovdhart.nl/articles/phaseoriented.pdf able to print it for free. Since I am struggling with do I have DID or just complex PTSD- I found his work satisfying and T was able to explain what I did not understand. Here is the link
http://www.onnovdhart.nl/articles/phaseoriented.pdf
This is the first stuff I read on PTSD that actually made sense. I ask my T to tell me what we talked about and what I need to do at the very end of my session. T always makes sure I remember. I feel panicked when I do not remember. I also journal to remember and open up my other parts that were fragmented in my life. ANP and EP are split with traumas- the article will explain. PEACE to you-Hope this helps. and yes I had to read the article 3x and have T explain but it is worth the effort to understand about how trauma, memories and personalities work.

[laststrawsue]

canuck1971 -
your post struck me so much I'm posting for the 1st time here.

For many years, my most HATED thing to hear from someone is, "Get over it". Or when I'm upset, when someone says I should "move on" or "get past" something.

I've come to realize that there are reasons people say those things that have nothing to do with the person they're saying them to, and everything to do with the person saying it. Sometimes people say it because that's what they say to themselves, and they really think it's helpful. Sometimes people say it because they're too afraid to speak the truth, or maybe don't know how - and what they really should be saying is, "You know what, I'm not emotionally capable of being a moral support for you going through this, so right now I need you to not talk to me about it."

I believe when I've said to myself, "get over it"... I've fallen into those 2 categories too. But of course, being myself, it's not really an option to not be of moral support to myself!
So with that in mind, I've taken the stance that I simply will not say that to myself.

I hate having ptsd too.

I too feel like I should be a fairly normal average person, because I am most of the time, I think... And then whenever I get into a situation that's stressful in a particular way, I turn into this emotionally troubled (and yeah it feels like weakness) person who has problems coping. And is living in the past - or repeating the past... unwillingly but unable to not.

But though I'm in a time of trouble right now... I think I can give some hope - that I have had years at a stretch, where I've done quite well, and my ptsd has not significantly impeded me living my life and enjoying it.
My mistake has been falling away from doing what I should be doing when things are going well, and then being not quite as strong as I could have been when things go wrong.
I recommend not making that mistake, when things are going well for you. And eventually, things will be going better for you.

[Joanna_says]

I have somehow believed all my life that several years of abuse have done (almost) nothing to me. Every now and then some problems popped up and somehow most of the relationships I ended up in were not good for me to put it in nice words. Sometimes I would think that this might have to do with what happened in my childhood. But then my dad would tell me to "finally get over it" and that "this is so long ago and I should stop blaming my past for the problems I have". And I believed this... for so long.

Until so many things came down on me and I struggled and tried to be strong... so hard. That was when I was diagnosed with complex PTSD... about 1 year ago now...

And in this year I finally realized why my dad wanted me to believe that my past has nothing to do with my current live... and why I myself wanted to believe it so desperately, too.
See, my parents looked away when all those things where happening to me. So if my past is influencing my life it means it is their fault because they did not protect me as they should have. And they can't live with that as much as I did not want to see my parents part in this because I love them so much. But trying to act as if nothing had happened was not really helpful...

I have learned a lot in the past year because we have a great health system here which provided me with groups as well as individual therapy.
One thing I learned is to be gentle with myself. Just like you I hated feeling confused. I hated feeling ashamed when I ended up standing with my cup in the bathroom instead in front of the dishwasher once more at work and people look funny at me. Or when I forget things, even if they just happened a minute ago.
I used to beat myself up over all those things. But this never helps. It just made me feel worse. Instead of feeling frustrated with myself I try to be compassionate. I realized that things progress slowly. That sometimes it just takes longer for me to figure things out and that sometimes I am not able to do the things I would like or should do.
I started being more open to what is going with me to the closest people around me (friends and co-workers) and it has helped me not only accepting things better for myself but also feeling more accepted and understood by others.
And I allow myself all the time it needs to heal... even if I wish I could heal in an instant

I am sure your T can help you find solutions for some of the problems that are troubling you the most right now. For the rest... just trust that it will get better with time... that it is normal to feel all scared and irritated with all these strange things happening to you.
And don't forget to get support and reassurance whenever you need to

[canuck1971]

my doctor mentioned complex ptsd and ddnos....but am confused on what she means by it, will read article when can actually read more than one paragraph

[Open Eyes]

Originally Posted by canuck1971

All of this is so scary to me and so out of ordinary. I like things to be logical and in control and right now am feeling so out of control. Like not knowing what I am telling T is session is very frustrating to me, because how am I supposed to get better if I dont even remember what is being said to me. I hate all this. Plus what happened is in the past and I should be over it by now. Why I cant move on is a mystery to me. There are people who have gone through much worse and are doing well, why am I being so weak about trauma. Yeah, so ex hurt me, so what, its over, should be able to move on. Why do I have to feel the feelings and go through it all again? Over and over in nightmares

canuck1971,

I can see what your saying here in efforts to ask why you cant get over the ex experiences. But I am wondering if there may be something before that, a way that you learned to deal with controlling people or abusive behaviors towards you that your not aware of.

I am struggling too and also wondering why I can't just seem to shake this condition and be my old self. And people around me want me to be my old self. But what I am realizing is that people around me thought I was much stronger, smarter, even manipulative than I really was.

In my life, I grew up in a disfunctional family with abusive siblings, I was the youngest and I had developed coping methods of hiding my fears and confusion, I had developed methods that I really was not aware of. I thought that it was important to try to see the issues of others and work around them, that I had to learn how to function in disfunction, for example these people are this and that, so I have to just accept it and try to be me somehow.

But as I have been becoming more and more aware of PTSD and the crippling effects of it, I am also becoming more and more aware of the fact that while I did my best to work around the issues of others, it was, infact damaging me.

My therapist proposed a question in our last session about how I could change. And I really have been struggling with that question. Because, I have been doing a lot of talking in our sessions up until this point. And I have been coming to PC and trying to figure out what I do that causes me to be misunderstood, as well as seeing different reactions that trigger me, triggers I was not really aware of, even knowing that triggers exist.

Well, I have a lot of triggers that have accumulated over the years. And even though I did my best to be strong, I was actually being psychologically injured and though I thought I coped and perservered, I really didn't, I just absorbed the various abuses into some kind of secret stash in my brain. And now I am truely seeing the damage for the first time in my life. I am also seeing how it accumulated into this thing called PTSD that has actually been growing inside my brain over many years. I had no idea this was taking place.

When I think of the word catastrophizing and how it connects with PTSD, one of the things that I find is not that I was assuming experiences were worse than they were, it was that I often held back in disbelief, keeping myself in check and only finally recognizing it was actually not only as bad as I had thought or suspected, but worse.

Even the damage that occured with my horses/ponies from my neighbor's dog.
It just kept coming and all that time I didn't allow myself to see how bad it really was, but somehow it was in my subconscious I guess. And I had to wait until I could get to a point where I could actually sit and look at all the damage and see the time line and what it all ment. It was much worse than I thought, and yet I knew enough to sit and allow myself to see the truth. And as it all came together, I have to say, it was very, very hard to see and allow myself to see how it all started and that I had caught glimpses of something that was much worse than I could have imagined. And even then I just sat with it and tryed to understand why things happened on certain nights. And as I saw it clearly on paper and damages showing up, I just couldn't figure out why those nights. Well, my neighbor approached me in anger and without realizing it, he explained it. And what it meant is that they were fiddling with the fence and those nights they saw it wasn't working. And it was really hard for me to know that they knew what their dog was doing before it became obvious to me.

What I have recognized about my past and me is that because I experienced abuse and I actually had to learn how to recognize signs of oncoming situations of danger and abuse, I have actually developed a sense that is more intune than the average person. I subconsciously and even a bit consciously am aware of conditions where people or situations are becoming a threat, or someone is actually hiding something damaging, that I am somewhat hypersensitive, almost like a extra sensory perception. And it has nothing to do with being delusional or imagining the worst or even expecting the worst. I actually consciously keep myself in check almost saying to myself, don't over react, go easy wait and see, let more come forward, don't just assume, even if your feeling something is wrong. And to be honest, I am extremely surprised to find out how correct I was in sensing. I was way ahead of other people around me that just didn't see it coming. And if I did speak up too soon, other people would constantly tell me I was over reacting or too suspicious or dramatizing something insignificant. So there was a constant reaction of disbelief from others.

And what I have found constantly in my life, over and over, is that my suspicions were always correct and basically I had to see things get to that obvious point where the damage was done and very apparent for others around me to see it too. And even then, people around me in my life would continue to see that I was right but still continued to not believe me. There is an old tale called the curse of Casandra, in which a woman was given the gift of seeing the future, but the curse was that no one would believe her and she would have to see over and over the consequences even though she tried to help others see or give warning. And I would have to say, that is a very real fact in my life. And I have never figured out how to fend off these situations that come to present a bad outcome. Occasionally I have been able to prevent abuse or a bad thing from happening, by calling it out, but not always. Most of the time I am not believed even though I am speaking a reality. Even when I was very ill and actually dieing I was not believed, and many other times when I was really ill, and denied until I could prove it.

Even with this lawyer situation, I knew something wasn't right, no one believed me, until now where it is very obvious. And to be honest, I don't even want to believe it, how can it be good for me to have these senses and yet not truely know how to always fend off the bad results. And to be honest, as they present themselves, I have difficulty believing it myself and constantly say, oh, it can't be that bad, must be me. It is an awful thing to have and it has somehow become so sensitive that now, I am not just having a subconscious thought or bewareness, I am having horrific anxiety and full body awareness. And I think it was always there, only I somehow managed it and now the cat is out of the bag somehow, or it is just too strong or my conscious self is more aware than ever before. I am not really sure.

I know this sounds like I am crazy, or hypervigillant or catastrophizing or whatever delusional way things appear. And, I have been cautious of that as well, but what I experience is real. And here is an example, I talked about a neighborhood party that I didn't go to and it was unusual to me that it took place because I don't live in that kind of neighborhood where one would expect this to take place. That night I was worried about my horses and ponies and perhaps something happening, but I stopped myself and said to myself, look, your just being hypervigilant, just check and make sure they are all secure and locked in their paddocks and stay up if you want to but try to relax, don't think something bad is going to happen. Fight that feeling, don't give in, its just your imagination, don't give in. And the next morning someone let a pony loose and there was no way he could have gotten loose. He never did it before and his paddock was secured. So seeing that blew my mind. I am fighting my own sense of telling me something bad was coming. I have a disorder that has a sense of hypervigilance to it, I am trying to work my way through it yet I am also kind of fighting my sense that is real, a real warning. And this happens to me a lot. As soon as I let myself let go, I see my sense was right. I actually find it pretty mind boggling.

It took me a while to get to a point where I could go and visit my mom without getting overwhelmed with emotion because I am struggling and I don't want her to see it especially since my sister is telling everyone I am crazy, she has no clue, and she is the know it all. And I had really worked on building strength. And the back of my mind was telling me that if I went to see her I could get some back lash from it somehow. But I wanted to change that and just say to myself that I had to just be strong and just do it. And unfortunately as much as we enjoyed out visit, my sister came out of the woodwork with nasty condescending messages and lectures on my answering machine and then I happened to pick up the phone because I was waiting for a customer to call me back and there was my sisters voice setting me up, saying there was a big change, me thinking my mother had a worse health situation, only to hear my sister tell me that she was controlling my mother's finances etc. Ok, so I know my sister has taken steps to make sure she has control. But I also know that my mother reacts poorly to this control and retreats and even pretends she is worse than she is. My mother is herself around me, because I am no threat to her, don't want to control her, and I see how she is with my sister, shuts down to avoid the control. She even admitted to me that my sister exhausts her.

And then I had to process that, yes I had worried about something bad coming from my visit with my mother, but it was going to be worse than I thought. And then my daughter started in trying to control the insurance on her horse and I could see how she is trying to get him completely in her name because he is a big part of the lawsuit money wise. I don't want to see the reality my antena is seeing, but, it got ugly and because she didn't get her way around me, I never got a call from her on my birthday, and I can see the holidays coming and how I will be punished and shunned. And my husband finally sees it too. And to be honest, I don't want to see it anymore, that is not the daughter I raised and I know that my sister has poisened my daughter and how she views me. And I don't have the strength to fight back, because I am suffering from PTSD and my sister really triggers me and that goes all the way back.

I think it is awful, people in my life think I am some kind of power house, or much smarter than I am, yes they saw me deal with a lot of bad things and I tried very hard to hide how much I was frightened and hurting. So they think I am much stronger than I am and they cannot see the real damage, this PTSD that really cripples me. No, I cannot be who I was, because that person held too much in, and I didn't realize how much damage it was causing. Change? Yes I have to change something, how I react, I am not sure what to change. I can't change what I see ahead of what others see. I already know that I am not imagining it. I wish I was imagining it, I could change that I think. And I also see how my old me gave in to the issues of others and just worked around them, has now given some a sense of more control over me and they are demanding I give in, only they are going too far. They are hoping my kindness will make me weak allowing them to control. Yes, I am kind, but I am not stupid.

I see how far back it all goes and how it formed and how it damaged me and how it dripped over the edges of my trying to deal the best I could. But I have also had therapists tell me that I have a very good understanding of the way people are and that I should be a therapist. So, it isn't just me or my imagination, I do see a lot, perhaps more than others can somehow see, I don't know, I did pay attention and tryed to see beyond the people who were abusive or disfunctional. I may not have had the names or disorders given here, but I was very accurate at how I described the inabilities of others. And to be honest, unexpectedly, as I was working on addressing myself, I have been so surprised at finding the name of disorders that I had described in family members. I had described their symptoms or inabilites so well, but here I see named disorders for what I had described years ago, I would say at least 20 years ago. I was told by a husband wife psychiatrist and therapist I should be a therapist. So I did see patterns and they were amazed that I had defined the reasons, as they said, most people don't see that.

I think PTSD is a very difficut disorder, I think that some people do catastrophize and have to learn how to find ways to calm down. However some may have just formed a very sensitive way of seeing realities that others don't see too. I don't think it is just about addressing the bad things that have happened, I think that maybe it is really looking at where it really comes from and something very sensitive is created. It may be called hypervigillance, but that hypervigillance may have created an extra sense that is real, something where the brain becomes more capable of picking up on real dangers that may have gone unnoticed by others and even ourselves in the past.

I have memories of abuse and struggles that frightened me in my past, they are memories that are not only in my subconscious or where ever it is stored in my brain, but these memories are also in my body too. I don't just suspect or think something, I feel it too. But what I do know is I am not imagining anything, if that were the case I could work on controlling that as I mentioned. I sure would like to know what has changed or developed in my brain over the years where I have developed this extreme sensitivity, not to things that are imaginary, but things that are real.

I don't know if I am making any sense and I am not saying I am gifted or smarter or special or above or beyond. I am actually struggling and I would like to shut it off somehow. I just see too much now, and I don't like what I see. And it is not delusional, I actually could not have imagined the reality that is presenting itself. I would like to see some kind of image of my brain and how it might different from and average brain, what did happen, how do I seem to pick up on so much?

Yes, I do know that once someone has been abused, they are very sensitive and can even feel very unsafe, I am way beyond that, that was my childhood. And I can see how it can create a hypervigiance in someone too, yes I had that too, when I was real young. But somehow I learned how to sense things and it isnt imagined, not delusional, not intended, it is just there and I often try to fight it too. And I know that abuse does cause people to become more nervous and more aware of triggers, triggers that may not be consciously known. I feel things so far in advance, I am just wondering if that is just from having to be so aware at such a young age. I honestly wonder how that effects the brain, if the brain developes that extra sense that I seem to have.

My husband told me today that I AM different. He told me that where other people don't see the abuser for what they are or they don't know how to walk away, instead they just keep going back and allowing to be controlled. He actually pointed that out about some of the people that just went to that neighborhood party. He said they go back, where I wont go back. And they come to me and tell me things they see that bother them, because they know I will stand up and give voice so they can have their problems with seeing abuse resolved and they didn't have to be the ones to speak up so they can as he put it, "have their cake and eat it too".

Even my attorney, who knows he has made mistakes, he will appologize to my husband but not me, he knows I know his errors. Even my own daughter does that, she knows she can't fool me, so she trys to go to my husband, only I have wised up my husband and he doesn't give in either.

I guess I am just more aware than the average person, somehow I have a radar that I have developed over the years unknowingly. But now it is more than just an antena, it is or has formed very strong PTSD.
Yes I sense it, but it never ceases to amaze me how some people can be or use others or play mind games. I see it, but it is not the way I think, maybe that is why it hurts so much. I don't want to see it anymore, it is so disappointing and it hurts, and yes, people lie and don't care.

Open Eyes

[Open Eyes]

I wrote this post after a very bad week. And I can see my own struggle here as I try to go over my past, people around me and how I look at things and react to things. But what I did here, is a part of PTSD, which is trying very hard to look at the past and even the present and how that has presented the PTSD that is so hard to understand.

It seems when I am triggered enough, I come back to the same drawing board so to speak to try to understand how it manifested in me. It sure is a consuming disorder. And JD is right, I am looking to file things from my past the right way, I have a lot to file.

Open Eyes

[likewater]

Open eyes, i wish i could take all this away and give you your ponies back. You do have a lot to file.