Afraid

I don't know how to explain this, I am not sure what tools I can use for this.

I know I now have a deposition scheduled, and I am uncomfotable with my attorney. I know that I am going to be asked questions and probably now it will be the hard ones.

I am worried I will not do well, I havent been able to look at my records and I know why, its so connected to so much pain and my brain gets very exhausted at even the thought of it. I have been trying to work on this for so long but with all the complications, it really has made it harder.
And I tried to tell my therapist and he just wants to talk about my past, and I keep trying to tell him how much I need to just get through this process and I don't think he understands that I am trying to look for some psychological strength to do this.

Last depositon was hard because I don't know what will happen as far as how my brain will react to being pushed in a place it doesn't seem to want to go anymore. And at the end, just as the hard questions came, I started flashbacking. I can't get out of a flashback and its so embarrassing, and I cant garuntee it wont happen either.

I am supposed to be on my way to a job, but I couldn't do it, luckily my husband was here and he angrily took over and is on his way to do it.
I hate how this happens, I wanted to just push everything away and just do my job, but my brain was not good this morning and I became dizzy and nauseous and very tired, and this time, I could not go.

I tried so hard to explain to my husband what is happening with me and then I told him that the deposition coming is not setting well with my brain. And then he got mad and said that it is two weeks away and I tried to tell him how much I have been trying to talk to myself, get myself through this. And if I am not careful I turn on that rage, because I am fighting myself and so angry about not being able to control this. And this morning I was starting to get these half flashbacks and I didn't know where to put them. Oh I hate when this happens and I really try to work through it.

I am not afraid of the truth or revealing it. I am afraid that if she asks these questions I will fall apart and flashback and god knows what. I hate this, why can't I control this? I am so afraid I will look crazy somehow and I don't want that to happen. But this brain of mine just doesn't want to look at it and I dont know how to do it and not have something happen that I can't control. And I know when I sit in that room with them, and my attorney, there will be no presense there I can trust. That alone touches on bad memories that are all intertwined somehow.

I don't know how to prepare for this, I am very afraid of what my brain may do that I cannot control somehow. And as soon as I try to think about it, my brain gets very tired somehow and very dizzy. What do I do about this? And I feel like I am failing at doing this, I am failing at being strong. And everything I try to think about, it doesn't seem to stop my brain from falling into such a exhausted state that says, please don't do this anymore. How can I work through this? I don't even understand what it means or why it happens. Part of me realizes that I get badly triggered by my attorney now, his fault not mine. And I am losing time all the time, there is a part of me that is asking for some kind of break, some kind of rest and everything just keeps coming and its exhausting me.

What if my brain tries to shut off during the process like it is trying to do right now, I am writing this but it is like my brain is some how enebriated and doesn't want to function. How awful is this? Why can't I control this, what is this? Why cant I seem to stop this? I am struggling to even finish this question. Why?

Open Eyes

Hello, Open Eyes. You are in my thoughts.

I understand, if there are no answers, this morning was so different, not just anxiety,
but weird kind of flashbacks and I just wanted to get through my day. Its scary and extremely embarrassing, and I dont know who to talk to. I can't seem to explain it to my husband, its hard to understand myself. I think too many triggers set me off this week, just hearing my lawyers voice really triggers me and it takes me time to get over it, how am I going to sit in a room with him I am supposed to call him and meet with him this week, and I don't know how that will effect me. I don't like how this effects me and I can't seem to push it away and be me, who I am, I find this very frustrating. I am so afraid I will flashback around him, I can't seem to control that and I don't want him to look at me like Im not going to be a good witness or something. And this is just not me at all, I am always so strong met up with other creepy people and stood my ground. I just don't see why I can't stop this effect I get now. And yet I am defending everything that was important to me that was just taken in the night so carelessly. I keep trying to tell myself this is the last stretch in the road but my brain doesn't want to go there with me and fights me on it somehow. I just don't get this at all. And then I get really angry about it and I seem to lash out for no reason and yet there is a reason, I have every right to be angry, this whole thing should never have happened, could have been easily avoided.

Open Eyes

Have you tried practicing how you want to present yourself while with your attorney and answering questions. Over-preparation reduced stress for me. Answering aloud helped too since sometimes it is a shock to hear your own voice and how it changes while stressed.

Not familiar with your law suit, but it sounds like it's related to your flashbacks....know it isn't a good thing for the mind to take over, but it would definitely be more proof on your side of your condition. I remember going through the depositions on my workman's comp case. It was horrible for me because everytime it would be scheduled I would end up getting so stressed & just want to end my life & not go through it......so I would end up in the psych hospital.....again & again & again. I finally got through the depositions & lived through it.....didn't win the case, but ended up getting a settlement from them.

I know how stressful it is & I don't know a good way to really get through it. Court issues still stress me out even when I only had to show up without saying anything last week for a charge I have made against the guy who took money for my horse fencing without doing anything 4 years ago....& even got the small claims judgment against him last year. I was a complete mess in my DBT group that morning before having to go to court.

The most important thing is to always tell it like it is/was. Usually the lawyer ran through questions before the deposition also, it helped some, but my mind couldn't focus well during the depositions & I would take valium to calm down the anxiety which just made my brain even worse at concentrating.....& yes, all the feelings that I had gone through that was the cause of my mental illness just snowballed.....thus my reactions & why I would end up in the psych hospital every time.

Wish I had some wonderful insight that would help, but some things we just have to get through the best we can. My best wishes are with you through this along with my understanding of how you are feeling.

Thanks eskielover, Its nice to know I am not alone, someone understands what I mean by this. I just feel like I should be stronger than this and it is hard to understand why I am not.
Open Eyes

Thank you Byz. I try to keep thinking that the questions about the horses are just questions, present facts. I do try to think black and white, stay black and white.

And I try not to get emotional, but its very hard to describe and recall when so much shock and emotionality is also with the answers. My brain is so artistic and likes to picture everything, its just the way it is, so the pictures that are there are too harsh and too much emotion.

Like perhaps the pictures that come to a man who has seen real combat, hard to talk about without seeing the terrible pictures and events within the brain and all the emotions that come and yet are somewhat trapped there too as there was not enough time to process all at once.

I think it is something the brain does when there is too much all at once and it cant handle it, like when the body is so badly injured and the brain somehow knows to go into a coma like state until the body is capable of accepting a certain amount of pain.

And that is what is so hard about what I have this PTSD because in my case somehow this occurance was such a shock I couldn't process it all at once, it just kept coming so many images all bad, all sad, too much.

But what that also did is bring in all the other bad things that I never really was able to process, I just thought I did but I didn't, they never got resolved for me. So
there is an intertwining that is going on in my brain and it is imagages that have frightened me in my past and along with that are many voices of denial.

So what happens is that somehow my brain shuts down because it doesn't want to feel that pain altogether, or if it is presented with a question that takes it by surprise, which basically what a depositon does, my brain can either start just trapping with the pictures or emotions in a flashback, or it can fill with the anxiety of many events that are a warning that says too much all at once, or it already seems to have this way of shutting down and I can't think in steps like normally.

And the problem is that I cannot control it for some reason and it frightens me.
It frightens me because others that see the different parts dont understand what is taking place and consider me incapable which is really not fair, the truth is I am somehow injured and my brain somehow is trying to protect me and I don't know how or which reaction will present itself.

I have been trying to work on that all this time. There are many ways my brain can get from one step to another like I do in PC solving questions and my brain says, yes I can do that. And I think in the beginning I was trying to do that alot to get my brain to somehow slowly learn how to do that with the trauma, but the way this lawsuit and all the damage is still there and unpredictable in some unexpected ways, my brain has trouble with that. It is like a continuation of the trama that is in many ways still occuring.

I dont know if that makes sense but that is what is so difficult about how this lawsuit and the Lawyer making mistakes and not being sure about him and all the bills and I cant keep up and still injured animals, nothing has been allowed to be normal at all.
So, I think my brain is tired and very sensitive. And I dont know how to fix that.
I have been trying. Usually in trauma healing the events are in the past, and I can't really say that so I am asking a lot of my brain I guess.

That is what I have been trying to do on PC, build strength in the me that was strong and could think normally and only presenting the trauma a little here and there and see how that can be thought out. But so much is still happening that I fall short and my brain today showed me that. It was very upsetting, because I have been working so hard at this.

My brain was literally shutting off and refusing to function, I could not work or do anything, I went up to bed and crashed. All my efforts to try to get through and grab hold failed, my brain just would not do it. Thats scarey to me. And it just happened, I didn't know it was going to happen. I have been doing so much better until all these issues with my attorney came up and the thought of trying to look at all the file to refresh my memory, oh, my brain will not let me do that, its like it just shuts down.

And I think that is what eskielover was experiencing too. It wasn't that the she didn't want to get the task done, it was that her brain would not allow her to go there and the battle put her in a very bad place.

And I want so badly to get through this, but I honestly don't know what my brain will do if it is pushed around. I wish I could open my head and say here, see what happened see it? Because there are so many images that are real and it really happened, but I can't do that, I have to allow myself to be in a situation where the purpose is to sneak up on me, you know that is how they opperate a depositon.
And I cant just say, hey look this or that might happen because all this that your asking hurt my brain and it is very sensitive and by the way they have a name for it, its called PTSD.

And dont forget my neighbor had intruded on me even with the lawsuite taking place. So there is an awful lot there, even in that reaches back to some troubling places in my past. And I had no idea that is a very sensitive area in my brain that I have to be careful with, I didn't realize that was there until this all created so much loss.

Open Eyes

I did have a meeting with my therapist today, and he does agree about how the system doesn't really allow for victims with PTSD to really have the proper treatment and understanding.

We have decided that the best I can do is take my husband with me, who went with me today. This way if my husband sees me struggle he can protect me, and in turn I will know he is there which will help me feel protected maybe providing more strength to endure the process.

We shall see.

Open Eyes

You likely already know what is in this article. I found it useful. Maybe you will too.

http://www.outofthefog.net/CommonNon...ors/CPTSD.html

{{{{{ Open Eyes~! }}}}} you are in my thoughts,, best wishes,, Gus

Oh, Thank you Gus, the white arab in this picture looks exactly like my arab, but my arab is a gelding male.
Open Eyes

TheByzantine,

Thank you for the information, I haven't read this one. And the odd thing I see in the characteristics is the fact that before I was diagnosed with complex PTSD,
I was aware of how certain interactions with others and experiences could be distorted. And one of my pet peeves so to speak was to put things in check to make every effort that I was NOT distorting the experiences of abuse and inflictions caused to me. And I actually was made worse by often saying, oh, this cannot be, only to find out that it truely was real, leaving me very perplexed and even frightened.

So while I do see the worst case scenario now, I make every effort to not fall into a state of mind that goes along with that worst case scenario. And, I was extremely disturbed when the worst case scenario did present itself after all. In fact often I didn't even go to the point of seeing or thinking the worst case scenario, instead the reality of how bad things were just came out and shocked me and truely effected me in a very bad way psychologically.

As far as Blaming goes, I try very hard to stand back and make every effort to not go to a place where I begin to think that I am being personally attacked somehow. And I have constantly made efforts to identify and deal with the problem. And if anyone were to follow my trail and read my posts to others, who actually do complain and fall short of identifying the problems and ways of dealing with the problems, anyone can see that I am very capable of breaking things down and finding a resolve.

And this is where I am often sooo Misunderstood. Even by therapists who have read the material about victims of PTSD and get confused because they think I must be distorting, when I am not. And this is the maze that I am constantly pushing through that makes my condition worse. I am broken down to a person who stores messages on my answering machine, and I often want to record interactions with people somehow because I do hear the reality, its not a distortion. And I have gone and collected my medical history so that I can have it proving how wrong people are when they go the route of accusing me of distorting the truth.

BUT, I can see how, if a victim of Complex PTSD is constantly denied and only accused of distortion, it can cause an insanity situation in the brain.

So many situations in my past have nothing to do with distortion, they are REAL and are situations where people that harmed me want to make it seem like I AM CRAZY SOMEHOW. And the reality is that I actually don't see how bad it really is and then when I do finally see it, that is when the real TRAUMA occurs in my brain. The feeling of being TRAPPED becomes overwhelming and extremely disturbing. AND, I can PROVE the realities verses any possible distortion that could have come from me.

Time after time I have been told that I should be a therapist, and that I have the capacity to look back to a root that others cannot seem to see. And my brain is exhausted NOT FROM DISTORTION but by STANDING UP AND TRYING TO REVEAL THE TRUTH. Yes, I have been told that I am extremely intelligent and very capable in so many ways, but I often hit so many walls as so many simply will not see a reality that is truely there. I am frightened by the FACTS and the REALITY that TAKE SO MUCH EFFORT TO EXPOSE.

I can see how a person with my condition can fall by the wayside in dispair and finally give into seeing everything distorted because of the many different situations that came at them that truely were so unexpected. And I can understand that fear of revealing an injury in the past by the fact that it may not be VALIDATED, leaving the victim so much worse off and rendered imcompetant even by THEMSELVES.

Someone who has PTSD that is complex does isolate because they are often sent messages of, "I don't believe you, you must be crazy". What is considered a blaming mode and a lack of identifying ways to deal with problems is not the reality a person with PTSD has. The reality is the victim of PTSD does actually many times try to make efforts to deal but the efforts are met with so much denial and even more abuse, that the victim then retreats fearing that the brain will simply shut down or present modes of steps that tell the victim, anxiety:waring something is bad, More Deeper Anxiety:warning it is getting closer to a bad situation: and finally A SHUT DOWN: the brain saying that the situation is so bad I am not capable of the reality I am to face and I will stop trying to protect from futher damage.

Someone who has Complex PTSD has a heightened awareness that is not a distortion, but it in fact REAL and because the brain now recognizes the signs,
it shuts down for protection.

There is a fine line in PTSD and this is something that is very misunderstood not only by professionals but by those the have the disorder. And the brain becomes more and more damaged or sensitive and fine tuned in areas where a normal brain cannot understand.

Now, I will use my Lawsuite as an example:
When I had the damage happen I was not prepared for the amount of damage that was presented to me as the result of my neighbors negligence. I kept seeing more and more and more damage that was beyond anything I could have ever imagined. As that situation presented itself I didn't even have time to truely process it, because I had to keep addressing more damage, much like being in a mindset where all the emotionalities of the reality had to be put on hold until the situation settled to a point where a real evaluation including an emotional response could occur.

When that began to happen with me, it was too much and I went into a shock because the emotions were too extreme and I truely did not want to address the reality, it was beyond my comprehension. And my answer after so many days, day after day that turned into a few months, I could not get up, could not function and felt that I truely could not even live through the reality. So, I said some words that put me in a psychward that made my psychological condition even worse. I tried very hard to utter what I really needed but no one listened and I was further tramatized by being put in a room with no heat and surrounded by people that were very ill and I truely could not get any rest, I was constantly disturbed every 15 minutes and each time I was disturbed I was shocked out of my efforts to rest my brain and find some way of finding some peace and quiet. I have to say IT WAS SO BAD, SO TERRIBLE, SO INCREDIBLY INHUMANE.

I was held in this place way too long and became a prisoner of a strange insanity on top of my already troubled exhausted mental condition. And no one came to visit me but my sister who sat across from me BLAMING ME AND TELLING ME TO TAKE THE PILLS, FOLLOW THE ORDERS, AND I BETTER GET WITH THE PROGRAM OR I WOULD NEVER GET OUT AND I WOULD LOSE EVERYTHING, MY MARRIAGE, MY FARM, EVEN MY DAUGHTER. How incredibly awful is that? And I could not have dreamed that up, not in my wildest dreams.

After I finally got out of that place I tried to get counceling on the outside and the statement I heard was, YOU SHOULD HAVE NEVER GONE TO THAT PLACE IT WAS WRONG FOR YOU TO BE PUT THERE. But the problem was that I DID GO THERE, I DID EXPERIENCE IT AND IT REALLY HURT ME. And just sitting across from a therapist or psychiatrist that stated these facts DID NOT HELP ME AT ALL.

But there was no rest, no time to grieve given to me. I had to come home to the farm and do chores and see the damage DAY, AFTER DAY AFTER DAY, and I am still doing that now. It was a four year aniversity on July 8th this year. FOUR YEARS OF HELL!

It took all my strength to continue to sort through the damage and slowly figure out the timeline of damage and what it all meant, I HONESTLY DONT KNOW HOW I DID IT. And I came up with a time line and how it all happened and when it all started and it was so hard to see. I could see the pattern every Sunday and Monday night while I slept my animals were being crippled, frightened and ruined. And I could not understand why those specific days. I watched the neighbors schedule and tryed to figure it out somehow. My original attorney I had obtained just put down a possible date as I was at that point still in the midst of just trying to address the damages, this was before the psychward. I wasn't till after when I struggled to sort through the possible way this all occured by tracking the veterinary visits.

Then while I was out feeding trying to understand it all, my neighbor appeared and he was angry. He said, "WHAT IS THIS ABOUT ALL THIS HAPPINING SOMETIME IN MARCH?" "I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT FENCE WAS DOWN AND NOT WORKING THE BEGINNING OF MAY". Oh, God, if I only had a tape recorder with me, but I never expected him to just pop up like that. All that I had done, all that effort I made to figure out the time line and what is real, can be traced the very beginning "IT ALL STARTED THE BEGINNING OF MAY".

So when we talk about distorting the truth? I was not distorting anything I was, even though in such a difficult state of mind, making every effort to see the reality and find ways to put my emotions aside. And on that day all the work that I had done was VALIDATED BY THE MAN THAT WAS INDEED NEGLIGENT AND KNEW EXACTLY WHEN HIS ELECTRIC UNDERGROUND ELECTRIC FENCE WENT DOWN AND WAS NOT WORKING. And I could not wrap my brain around the fact that all that time they KNEW that that dog was free and they saw it and they saw that every time they tried to fix the breach every weekend, they failed and they knew that because they saw the dog getting into my horses area. And so they kept it in until the next weekend fiddled with the fence and watched it happen again. THIS WENT ON FOR ALMOST THREE MONTHS UNTIL MY HUSBAND AND I CAME HOME AND WITNESSED THE WHOLE PROCESS TAKE PLACE THAT FINISHED WHATEVER WAS LEFT OF MY HORSES AND PONIES.

Now, how am I supposed to overcome that? There is absolutely nothing distorted about that. I methodically tried to see a reality, nothing more, and the reality was way more than anything I could have imagined.

All the times I tied to call the police and dog warden and the dog warden was out and the police knew it and no one came out. If they had come out when I asked they would have herd the man admit the dog was loose. It wasn't until the man talked to his insurance company when he suddenly denied EVERYTHING. He quickly installed a new fence and denied he did that too claiming his fence was working and had an alarm system, the old fence was replaced with a new one that has an alarm system. The police failed me, the dog warden failed me and I AM NOT DISTORING ANYTHING AT ALL.

And I havent even begun to talk here about my own attorney and his issues, issues that I COULD HAVE NEVER IMAGINED EITHER. A man that is battling age and memory loss and this is more, everything is more than any distortion I could possibly muster in my brain.

Catastrophizing? A habit of automatically assuming a "worst case scenario"? ASSUMING?
In my wildest dreams I could never just assume this whole scenario. Everything I have experienced and am experiencing now, has nothing to do with ASSUMING, I could not have imagined any of this in my wildest dreams. And as I read this information I cringe at the thought that anyone who would read this could actually use this against WHAT I KNOW IS REAL, AND IS THE TRUTH.

And all along, this is how others address me, UNTIL THEY FINALLY REALIZE I AM NOT JUST ASSUMING......IT IS REAL. I am truely crippled by this disorder, but not by assuming anything, and I can't even use this disorder to defend how crippled my brain has become. Trapped? Oh everywhere I look I do see it, but it is not asumption at all, and thats the reality, and it is truely hurting me even more. Can I see the areas of assumption that can be presented with PTSD? Yes I can, but that is NOT what I deal with. But my deep fear is that is WHAT I WILL BECOME.
AND I KNOW MY BRAIN IS TRYING SO HARD TO NOT LET THAT HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!!!

Clouded perceptions? Oh there is nothing clouded in my perceptions. Oh, God, no, but I am very fearful that if I cannot be taken from this constant reality that is truely trapping me in ways I could have never assumed of imagined, my brain may eventually become a cloud by realities I am facing, its REAL and it is causing damage that I fear I may never be able to repair.

Learned Helplessness? Ok, how can a reality, something beyond any assumption be an imagined helplessness? But yes, I can see how that would present itself after looking in every direction to not see the end result be helplessness. But I can definitely see how, if I cannot be helped, believed and get beyond the reality, I will eventually become helpless, and I am trying very hard for that not to happen, with everything I have. I am at a line, I can see it, and I AM VERY AFRAID. AND THERE IS NOTHING IMAGINED, ASSUMED OR DISTOREDED ABOUT IT.

Open Eyes

Byz, you may be feeling that you should not have posted this information. But I am glad you did, I have read a lot about PTSD and the newer diagnosis of Complex PTSD.
But this information is very misleading and can really cause harm to a victim of PTSD who is not at all assuming anything. I can see that it may be possible to progress to a point with Complex PTSD where a victim can end up clouded and confused. And somehow because I am very familiar of how it really feels and how confusing it is, I can see how confusing it looks to those that are dealing with a person who has PTSD. These victims are in great fear that if they expose their realities they will not be validated, any therapy process that threatens validation would really cause harm to these victims and they do know it. So, many just suffer and wont talk about the truth. I am sure that there are some cases where the truth is too violent to express and a smaller distortion is what is often chosen to have a capacity to get from one day to the next.

Personally, I want to believe that this situation is not as bad as it is, if only that were true.
I would have to say that I have looked for other options, something I don't see, a way to deny a reality that I have not had time to really process because I am still trapped within it in may ways. I am frightened because I can actually feel how tired my brain is getting and I am experiencing things now that I cannot seem to control. I saw that Sunday when I simply could not push forward and go do my job. My brain would not push forward, it was very dizzy and not thinking straight. And I know that for some reason my brain doesn't want to keep looking at the trama, and all the details not very pleasant and the Realities that I see every day. Afraid? Yes, I am because I just want to let my brain rest, grieve and somehow recover. And I wonder how much damage this is doing that really worries me. I am sure trying very hard to not let that happen, I really am with all my heart.
Open Eyes

Hi! Why are you so afraid of your brain??? I have been in similar situations with my bipolar condition. The biggest question I would always ask myself was, "What if ...", and that was a demeaning question. However, it was indicative of my lack of self esteem, and the fear of walking under the proverbal dark cloud that always showered down problems of all kinds upon me. I am getting the sensation that may be where you are at.

Try and concentrate, or set up some specific, realistic goals for yourself, then think about that ... and only that. Sometimes, when we try and concentrate onthe whole picture, we overloook the tiny pieces that can offer us hope ... sort of looking at the whole forest, and not at the one sturdy oak tree standing before our eyes.

I kind of know what PSTD is like ... my father had it, and I have a touch it from all the abuse I have suffered ..., but I am determined to win the "marathon" of it all. I will admit that it is not easy, but it is "do-able". My faith has helped me a great deal. Living a life of forgiveness is greater than a single act of forgiving someone for something they have done to us. I cannot tell you, or anyone else how to do that. It is a path that we must discover for ourselves, otherwise nothing is gained. (No pain, no gain).

You have a wonderful brain, Open Eyes! Don't abuse it by putting the wrong kind of "gas" into it. Keep it simple. Don't clutter it. You are the one in control. You do not need to know your whole record even tho' you might want to. Separate what you absolutely need from what you want. Might help you see things in a different light.

Yes, you have to deal with the past before you can deal with the future. I think this is where your T is coming from. Try and look at things from his perspective. I did not learn how to do this until I lost my T and was thrown into an "ocean" of insecurity and had to learn how to swim ... without a lifegaurd on duty.

Hope this helps!

Oh wackywidow, I didn't see your response here. At least I don't remember if I did, oh isn't that awful. No, I would have responded.

Afraid of my brain? Oh thats is so hard to describe what the means to me. Maybe because of how it stores too many bad images, images I will never forget? And this PTSD is awful, and I think that depending on how much is there, the worse the symptoms can get. And the other problem is that I have been literally trapped with all this damage in ways I just can't even wrap my brain around.

I almost lost my life, had life saving surgery and it was a long road back to being me again and I actually had two surgeries within 10 days and I can't even remember how many hours I was on that table while they cleaned out my body cavity. And the pain was unreal once they stopped the morphine. I am actually really lucky to be here.

But that didn't effect me like this trama with losing so much of my hard work and so many animals. I cant figure that one out. No this snaped something in my brain. It just blew open some strange doorway to shock and despair and now as I look back I can see the stages that lead me up to where I am now. Only then after breaking, I am sure now I was in shock, I just could not absorb it all. And I just could not afford to get therapy when I really needed it. There was way too much damage and way too much expense, I had to be so careful and even depend on credit cards to help me get by. I was never prepared for anything like this to take place. And all this time the PTSD was getting worse. I really didn't have any idea how bad PTSD can be, I just thought it was a stress that I would just get over. No, this is actually pretty creepy and so hard to explain to others and hard to understand myself. I am not me at all and I cannot seem to control the shifts that take place and because I have been hanging in limbo with the damages and expenses and no real break and I could not afford therapy, my brain is so much worse. I am trying really hard to overcome this but now I can see how this long process of this lawsuit and a resolve hanging beyond my grasp has really taken such a toll.

And I want to find a way to somehow turn it off or outthink it or run from it or pretend it isn't there, but I can't because I am so trapped in this unresolve it is like a strange kind of torture to my brain. Oh I am trying very hard to work around this condition but when my brain just dives and shuts down and I honestly cant think clearly, that IS very scarey. And I get sooo angry and frustrated because I can't seem to bypass some of these days that I am bearly functioning. And I wake up feeling awful some days and sometimes the tears just run down my face and I cant stop it. And it is not even a conscious shifting that takes place its really is hard.

I should have had a resolve to all of this somehow, and it just kepts hanging over me, and I can see how it just is so hard on my brain somehow and yet I can't seem to consciously control it. It is sooo hard to describe what happens, it is just not anything I ever could imagine. And this past Sunday, I could not go and do a job, I honestly could not get my brain to shift into a forward motion at all. And I can't not work, I have to be able to function and work when I need to and when my brain gets that bad, I just cant get out and push through it. I honestly don't understand it. And somehow I know it has to do with the upcoming depositon and I wasn't expecting my brain to react like this.

I am thinking, and thinking and trying really hard to work my way through this, I am trying really hard. And I have to work that whole weekend before the depositon and I never thought about that when it got rescheduled. And I never thought that my brain would just shut down like this, it has nothing to do with a conscious awareness that this would happen or even could happen. I truely understand why people who have PTSD and are trapped like this somehow can lose it without knowing why or what to do about it. It is just not as simple as a mind over matter thing, it is very different, so hard to put into words. And the last two days have been terrible and sleeping at night not good either even with medication.

I have to find a way to deal with this, I was not expecting this reaction. My brain really doesn't want to do this, and I don't understand it.

I don't know, I have to find something to over come this, this is something new, and it just shuts down. I don't know what this means to be honest.

Open Eyes

"I almost lost my life, had life saving surgery and it was a long road back to being me again and I actually had two surgeries within 10 days and I can't even remember how many hours I was on that table while they cleaned out my body cavity. And the pain was unreal once they stopped the morphine. I am actually really lucky to be here."

So did I!! I was operated on as an abdominal exploratory. They removed a partially ruptured appendix and found out I has Crohnes Disease. Ten days later that disease perforated my bowel. I bled internally from early morning until late evening. Emergency surgery was needed at midnight to save me. I needed 2 pints of ice cold blood pumped into me before they could start the surgery. It was estimated that I was approximately 10 minutes from certain death. They removed 16 inches of gut and sewed me up. Morphine was needed like a glass off water. I spent the entire month of March in the hospital. I could not even roll over in bed by myself for the first week. The nurses/aides changed my position in bed every two hours ... even at night ... to prevent bed sores. I lost almost 50 pounds during the ordeal and looked like a refugee from some strange land.

"And I want to find a way to somehow turn it off or outthink it or run from it or pretend it isn't there, but I can't because I am so trapped in this unresolve it is like a strange kind of torture to my brain."

You cannot run from this. You have to somehow find a way to stand firm and face it, what ever it is, or it will chase you the rest of your life. My PSTD comes from clergy sexual abuse as well as childhood verbal/emotional abuse. I know what it is like when a specific face/event/word literally haunts you or blows up in your face. As hard as I try I will never forget these events because they are a part of me, but I have made a conscious decision that they will not control me. At times I will fail, but the important part is, I get right back up with the boxing gloves on. Beccause of the length of your posts I know you are really trying. Give yourself a pat on the back for that effort. You deserve it.

"should have"

Bad word to use! I know because I used to say the same thing. A T helped me by see how self-defeating those words can be. "have to", "got to", "ought to", "should have" are examples of the naughty words. Get rid of them these words are too hard on you. Use more positive word like "I'd like to", "it would be nice", "maybe I could do", etc.

"And I wake up feeling awful some days and sometimes the tears just run down my face and I cant stop it. And it is not even a conscious shifting that takes place its really is hard."

Open eyes have you ever been checked for rapid cycling bipolar disease (RCBP)? Your accounts of what you are feeling actually parallel my Dx of RCBP. I have both Dx's along with acute stress disorder. I am wondering if you need another evaluation. I can read the pain you are in and I am concerned for YOU! If you have another Dx maybe a change in meds would help keep your brain from crashing like it has been. All I know is that something is wrong somewhere and it is not all you.

Do you have a T? If so be brutally honest in your sessions. Do not hold back anything because of fear. I did and it came close to me ending the imperfect life I now cherish. Holler back either her or PM me. Take care.

(((((wackywidow)))))
Thank you for your answer. When all this damage happened I was truely overwhelmed and the damages just kept coming and there was so much caregiving to the different injured animals. And I had soooo much anger, and then sadness and just way too much handwalking and handwalking and taking them back and forth to the veterinary hospital that was such a drive. And I wasn't sleeping and every single day was caretaking and making efforts to determine the damage that occured in each animal. I learned things that I didn't even know, for example several of them choked and they wouldnt eat and they were coughing. I thought it was the grain or the suppliments I put in the food, it just didn't register to me. And my favorite one little pony wasnt eating and had a fever and I had put her on antibiotics but not knowing how bad her throat inside was damaged, I just didn't understand the process of what she was going through. And I finally took her to the vet hospital and they scoped her throat and told me what was going on. And at that point I still didn't really think about the other ones that were not eating. And they told me that it was going to be a difficult road and they loved her too and they gave me a price of how much it would cost to hospitalize her, $14,000 maybe more. By that time I had already spent so much and there was no way we had that kind of money to hospitalize her, oh how hard that was because I am the kind of person that will fight the fight down to the last second for myself and my family and all my animals. So,
the veterinarian and the staff rallied around us and let us set up a hospital situation at home. And it was a long journey every day tending to her, and it wasn't just her, it was all of them needing this and that. And, I was also trying to work and fulfill obligations for events, I don't even know how I did it. But I didn't see the end, I was just in it trying. And then even though my husband and I tried with my little pony that I loved so much wackywidow, I loved her so much, we lost that battle and we we were up until the wee hours some nights with the IV's and hooking up the bags and waiting for them to get in her system and giving her the pain medication too.

And everywhere I looked it was just bad, my daughter crying, my husband, after we lost that pony, oh how he tried to be a hero, I found in the woods crying like a baby, he loved her too and he was so disappointed that he could not be the hero because he knew how much I loved that pony and he had to bury her. And his pony was crippled too, and he loved his beautiful white pony and they went so many places together and were such buddies, and my daughter was sooo devastated about her horse. It was all of us in pain.

I just snapped and looking back, I was in shock and it was just way too much for me to process. And I couldn't drag myself out of bed one more day and I was SI. And thats when I went to another scarey place where I was put in such a cold room and I kept crying for someone to help me grieve and I kept saying how exhausted I was, and they just didn't listen, they didn't let me rest, they didn't fix the heat in the room and they didn't send someone in to help me grieve. Instead I was surrounded by people that that had all kinds of issues and my room was so cold and the blanket they gave me was not warm. And I must have looked awful too because there was no shower time at home and I had no energy to shower or even brush my hair. And I finally got one shower in and they had to hover over me and watch me and I felt so violated, how just that process was so hard. And I only took one shower there because going into my cold room wet gave me such a chill.

I finally got out of there, after the holidays, oh those holidays were so lonely in there. And I came right back into a tornado of anger and sadness and soooo much work. And then I slowly had to get control of what had happened for a lawsuite and it took even more time to address how bad the damage was and no money. And it was still so hard. And in some ways it was good that the lawsuite was moving so slow because I honestly could not see it all for what it was and it took me time before I could even look at my pony and truely realize what all that meant and why and even the others still coughing. And looking back, I was soooo lucky I only lost one. Because it was worse than I thought, more damage than I imagined or was truely prepared for.

I did get some help in outpatient after the psychward. And I did really need it, a lot of it, but I came home and there was so much debt already and my husband too was so fragile trying so hard to keep going so I honestly knew I couldn't put one more bill of burden on a table that was covered with bills. That long table is still covered today, and it is still coming in. And we were addressing one of the horses and we taking him back and forth to the hospital every two weeks and tending to him too.
And he was lame and the hospital was trying to figure out what got damaged, it took a lot of time and eventually an MRI revealed it.

It was constant and such a battle and I did have a diagnosis of PTSD, but I really didn't understand what that really meant, I just thought I would slowly overcome it.
But I didn't, I got worse, but I didn't understand how much it was going to get even worse. And my husband slipped into depression and he wouldnt get out of bed and my daughter was like an angry driven presence constantly searching the net looking for a horse out there that was just like hers, and she somehow just needed to see it, and I did too. And I was also looking for my pony to be there too. We were just so overwhelmed and somehow trying to see a light a way to regain what we had lost.

I had managed to sell the lame horse, it took several months having him in a stable with an indoor over the winter and visits to the vet hospital every two weeks to monitor his progress. It was a kind of scheduled therapy that we had to keep up with. And he was my investment horse and thankfully we did sell him, but not for what he was suppose to fetch before he got hurt. And when I got that money I knew to not just take it all and pay down the debt for what it cost to get him better.
I just seemed to know to hold onto some of that money. And I was glad I did because my husband could not fuction for about 2 months and I had to use that money to keep us a float and hope my husband would get better. And so I had to again put my own pain and personal struggle aside and somehow be strong while my husband just slept and muddled around. But I have to say, I was very frightened, very frightened inside. And all that time, this PTSD was getting worse, only I didn't know it. I honestly didn't understand what it was and how bad it could get.

And last year was so hard because there was never enough money and every year we were losing more customers and so much that I had built up and I didn't have the animals I needed to fill the business requirements. I watched my business slipping away and accounts that I worked into it disappear. And always, that table of bills, covered, literally covered in bills and my computer room filled with paper work revolving around the lawsuite and all the damage. And I did so much paperwork last year getting together records and veterinary records dating back for the opposing attorney's discovery.

And all that time the PTSD was building and I didn't know what was happening and I was falling into depression and not realizing what I was really dealing with. And still, no money to get therapy for me. All that time I was pushing hard and I guess even being fueled by anger and trying to get back what had been taken. And it was as if my husband and daughter left the fight up to me because they were trying to push everything away and function too.

And it got so bad that one day, things were so bad financially and my daughter wasn't getting the message that we needed her help, we weren't making it, she was too trapped in her own denial, but I couldn't see that. And then that morning came when a rage came into me and completely took over and I was like a wild animal inside and yelled at her and I was mean. And she ended up moving out and not tellin us where she was. And I could not understand what happened to me, it was like I was possesed and I honestly didn't understand why that happened. That was not me at all and whatever it was, it consumed me.

It isn't until finally breaking so bad and getting help and even coming here that I was to learn about PTSD and what it was really doing to me and how much it has manifested in me. And I finally learned what happened that day that I hurt my daughter, my little girl that I loved more than life itself. And I hurt her, and I am often so riddled with guilt about that that if I even let myself go there, I get SI really bad. And I am glad she isn't here to see how bad I am because she is not going to understand the dimensions of what I am facing and dealing with psychologically. I can bearly understand it.

I am now at the point where my brain will not let me get near the files and my attorney has failed me for his memory loss and aging and I am in another battle and my brain is saying ENOUGH. And with everything I am, all that I have, I am trying to say back to my brain PLEASE HOLD ON.

Open Eyes

Coming to PC for me was my only way of dealing. I learned so much here and I have not been able to do many things outside PC because my brain is so very tired. I have been slowly learning the Reality of what I have. And for some reason when I come here, it is my only way of touching the person I was before my whole world was so badly damaged.

PC somehow allows me to access a part me that I cannot seem to be outside PC.
And outside PC, its everyday battling still so very much. And some days I come here and pound away and try to think productively. And I began to realize that when I do that, use the frontal part of my brain and think about other people other things other problems away from me, it helps to allow my brain to think in a step by step motion.
And it has taken time to find a therapist and finally fill his room with so much pain, as he says, I just fill his room and he is often very overwhelmed by so much that comes from me. And he thinks that I need more therapy, almost everyday I really need help, because I never got to grieve and I am still being challenged by the situation with my attorney and trapped in the process of this Lawsuit and bills and still damage and my brain is really struggling. I seem to gain ground and the situation with the Lawsuit an my attorney being old and losing his memory just pushed me back into a hole. I just have not been able to ever really grieve, and my therapist can see that and he doesn't charge me very much because he knows I simply cannot afford even what I give him. And all I can do it one day at a time and even sometimes only one moment at a time. And I can't even begin to describe what all the people here help me do, one day at a time. Everyone, the quotes from the Byz and Madisgram and her posts and you and all of you everyone of you keep my brain from falling apart.
I AM SCARED, because winter is coming and theres not enough money and the bills keep coming and in less than two weeks I am going to be in a deposition that is designed to send questions to me in a sudden manner and my brain doesn't want to do anything like that anymore. I simply cannot take anything popping up and sudden and my brain just shuts down because it can only do so much.

Some days all I can do is be here and try to let my brain think about something else. And yet I am trying to find a way to also think about how to get through this outside PC. I often loose track of time and when it gets bad I come here and try to settle down in my mind. And sometimes I suddenly wonder what day it is because I am so busy just trying to hold on one day at a time, one moment at a time. I was doing so much better and then this struggle with my lawyer just is too much. I am trying sooooooo hard to get through this, just to hang on so I can do that depositon and get that done, I can't even think about what comes after. And in many ways I am fighting my own brain, trying to help it find strength enough to get through this because it so unbeliveably tired. I pray all the time, all the time, to please help me find whatever it is I need to get to the next step of many steps that have all been so very hard on me.

And yet at the same time I am being asked to think back, details remember, answer questions, and my brain really doesn't want to keep reliving it, remembering it, and even now keep seeing the remaining damage of it. And I can't see any end in sight, just more hanging on more remembering, no real letting go, grieving and finally walking away to recovering somehow.

I just got another request for a job next weekend, I really need the money too, and with that deposition on the Monday after, I honestly don't have any idea how I am going to work that weekend and I already have so much on the books to do and so much driving, oh I hope I can do it. And tomarrow, what will my brain be like? I have to work, I want to work and I am praying I wont be bad and have what happened last Sunday happen again. I cannot drive when I am that bad. And this whole thing caused by a negligent person is crippling me so badly, it just wont let go, WHY? And I have to think about today, now this moment what can I do this moment?
I have someone coming here today, I have to be me in those moments and all I really want to do is go back to bed and let my brain take a break somehow. Its a beautiful day, why can't I seem to just soak it up? I am praying for that now.

I am trying with everything I have to just hold on somehow, just hold on somehow.

Open Eyes

When I said yes to this deposition I wasn't thinking right. I didn't see that it was going to take place right after a weekend when I honestly need to focus on work.
And it isn't a light weekend either, how odd is that, its seems like everyone is planning their events that weekend and I honestly need every single penny of it.

And then thats only if the weather allows for it all to happen too. And I have no way of knowing that until close to that weekend when the forecast is foretold.

There is a big part of me that wants to call my attorney and ask him to make it on Wednesday, but I also know that he is not going to get it. And I could risk more bad messages to the opposing side. And it could end up raining or something all that weekend and I could have done the deposition. Oh this is so hard. I just want to get it over with so bad and I see everything clumping together, everyone is trying to book events next weekend and the pressure is a lot to ask of my brain in it's condition of the PTSD that is worse than before.

And just hearing my attorney's voice is such an enormous trigger because of all his issues and the instablilty he represents. How come I didn't see this possiblility of so much all at once. And I can't even figure out what to do. So much known and yet unknown about how I will hold under all this pressure too much all together.

Ugh, sorry, I am just trying to think out loud here. I guess I am trying to figure out how to remove some pressure as I can see there is too much all at once, my brain is just not going to fair well. And I can see it being all about what is convenient for everyone under the sun and not what is good for me. And I have to get into the shower because I have someone coming and I have put on that face and hide my dilemma and exhaustion and I have to get through that, wish I could just lay down and let go. There has to be something I can do here, I am just not seeing my way to it. And that is because I have too much going on all at once, and I can't seem to get a break from it. I only have such little time left to try to get money for the winter, I have no idea how that is going to happen. I have to concentrate on that.

Open Eyes

open eyes, i just saw your posts. i am so sorry you feel so incredibly sapped of mental energy.
i was fortunate to see a T for awhile who used emdr therapy for my complex ptsd. it has been found to be beneficial in some patients with this diagnosis. there are many layers of the onion that have yet to be revealed and understood with this diagnosis. i do wish you had access to a university psychology dept. sometimes they treat outside patients. they're usually more up on things, imo.
i won't minimize your feelings. they are yours. your suffering is real. i'm so glad you found pc. we are listening to you and care about you. sometimes that may be all we can do but i am validating how you feel too. it's not "all in your head" as they say.

Thank you Madisgram, it is so hard and is being agrivated by my attorney and his issues and the up coming deposition and a busy weekend, so much all at once.

It is so unimaginable to me how hard this can be. It seems like I turn a corner and start to feel better and then so much hits me and I just tumble and then I can't seem to do anything. I feel like I am screaming for a break and no one listens and all I keep hearing is how this is life and push your way through and it just doesn't work like that with Complex PTSD. And I get very angry because I can't seem to make it happen. I have been trying very hard to coax my brain to handle this, look at the paperwork, the depositions from my daughter and me and the attorney wants to meet this week, I never feel good after meeting with him, I have to be functionable for this weekend when I need to work.

It is actually so embarrassing for me and I just want to hide and cry because I get so frustrated. I feel like a big baby as I get angry that my own brain just shuts down.
I don't understand WHY I cant get from step to step sometimes. And I know I haven't had any time to grieve or anything, always having to relive it constantly, this is so cruel in so many ways. And I don't know if anyone can relate but I end up getting jumpy at any sound or disturbance and cant even talk to customers at times. And I need that because winter is coming and I have to feed these animals and try to have enough to pay on all this debt created by my negligent neighbor that I honestly never deserved in any way.

I could have never imagined that something like this could exist. I feel like I am losing myself and it is so embarrassing when my husband looks at me so helpless and confused and then he gives me a list of how to do this and that and he doesn't realize I have already been doing that over and over. And as much as I try to explain what happens if I push too hard or too much comes at me, my brain just seems to shut down and then I can't do anything, it is so hard to make others understand, or even understand myself. Why does it do this? Well over four years is an awful long time to ask a brain to keep remembering something it so does not want to remember.

Thanks for your imput, at least when others can relate I don't feel so alone with this awful battle.

As I look at my own posts here, look at the ANDS. That is must be how the brain registers or displays this PTSD. I just noticed this about me and yet the brain just adds it all together somehow, why? It is almost as if I have a built in adding machine that sees a sum that says, woops too much. I have not even noticed this until last night. How peculiar that I never noticed that before. Something to ponder.
Open Eyes

((((Open Eyes))))

When you talk about how there won't be a presence in the room who you can trust, I really feel for you. I was once in a legal jam and I had an attorney who cared about me like I was his daughter. Oh, the comfort of that was wonderful.

Later in life, I had interactions with lawyers, where I found that they had agendas that were not all about my welfare. Once, I decided to do the OPPOSITE of what a lawyer advised me to do, and the outcome made me darn glad I did.

I am really sorry you can not feel secure in your relationship with your attorney. I wish you could have an attorney like the one I described in the first paragraph above.

If you display emotional distress at the deposition, might that not be seen as evidence of how adversely affected you were by the negligence of the other party? Maybe, you might even say at the deposition that it is difficult for you to recount things that were traumatic for you to witness? I've never been to a deposition. I'm no expert. I just think that you would have a right to make a statement about the stress that was inflicted on you.

When I think about therapy, I compare it to medical treatment for the body. I say there are chronic problems and there are ACUTE problems. For you, Open Eyes, the Complex PTSD is a chronic problem. The issue with the legal proceedings causes acute distress. I have found that therapists tend to want to focus on what is chronic, at the expense of what is acute. In a medical setting we tend to see the ACUTE issue as taking precedence over the chronic issues. I think it might be good if therapists took that view more often.

I am hoping for you, Open Eyes. You have a very wonderfully wired brain. You have such capacity for perception and reflection and . . . . well, you have a very good mind. Yes, the brain can have some scar tissue here and there, and some lesions, but I think the mind and soul can override those deficits. I think you are already doing that everyday in your daily life. You are a very capable thinker. That remains true even when you are in pain, emotionally. You must tell yourself that. From Rose

Thank you Rose, you have such a comforting way about you, kind and gentle as well as understanding.

I could not add my psychological stress to this lawsuit because that would have allowed my neighbor to have the information about my childhood and other issues that he truely has no business having. He can also do whatever he wants with that infomation, tell anyone, and even say I am crazy or something to that effect. And my business revolves around children, some people have strange ideas about childhood sexual abuse and where that may lead someone.

I did try to talk to my attorney about how bad I was getting, even told him I have very dangerous thoughts because I am pretty much now battling whatever depression comes with what I have. I told him how important it was for him to get the process moving and inform me of the scheduled depositions in advance. He never heard me because he just kept forgetting the scheduled depositions until the last one and called me the last minute which was not good for me at all. So he obviously didn't get my message, isn't the first time that happened in my life.

For a whole year now all I can remember is that last question I could not answer. Who was damaged the most and how I looked down at my diagram and just went into a terrible flashback and cried. I didn't expect that kind of question at all. And I have so many ways I want to address that question, so many ways to answer that question. And I keep thinking that she will want to begin with that question because it never got answered.

I had never been in a deposition in my life before and so I looked it up on line to understand what it meant. I read through a description where the opposition does everything to appear friendly and disarm you and to not let that fool you. The whole purpose is to relax you and then trick you with certain questions. The advice also talked about how much I will have to hold back wanting to just talk and say everything and be over emotional. I have to answer in just yes or no and keep it very simple. And you would be surprised at how the opposing side sets up those yes and no questions so that they can build any possible doubt. The opposing attorney was very successful at getting me to like her as she is an animal person and has relatives that are into horses. However her own knowledge of horses is only limited to what she can read or ask those relatives. She never rode a horse or loved a horse so she doesn't understand the strong connection that can take place, for me, stronger than the human connections in my life.

There is such a big part of me that wants her to know how unbelievably damaging this has been to my psychological well being. But I have to be so careful about that as I sure don't want to open a possiblity for her to gain any access to that little girl locked deep inside me that suffered way too much. One would think that she could see the pain and understand that amount of damage, however, in the system it only makes someone a bad witness somehow. Oh yes my own attorney sees me as a liability and it troubles him so I have to be careful. I was a liablity too many times in my life and it was never fair, how strange this all seems to have to keep just holding it all in, how far that goes back, how deep that is.

In so many ways this touches on so many painful memories of a similar scenario where a little girl had to hide her fears and feelings. It also touches on a teenger that again had to hide her fears and feel so lost about an event that just wasn't fair and sent her to a place of screaming in pain and feeling like a horrible human being. A young teenager that had to deal with all those hormal changes the revolved around that sudden interference of her body preparing to creat a life. A mother that was overwhelmed by her husbands issue of alcoholism who had to try very hard to hide all that pain, dissapointment, fear, anger and tears from her child, that was hard too and that had to be done over many years. I talk about all the ANDs I put into my efforts to convey a message and there are so many ANDs I havent talked about in this post here.

The design of a deposition is not good for someone like me because I don't like suprises and tricks. I would think by now I would be much stronger at holding things in, but I am not, and all that I have held in has given my brain something terrible that I never really deserved. I built a world to overcome so much and watched it fall apart in front of me and I can't wrap my brain around it even now. When I go into that room and answer questions, again I have to hold it in. The problem is I am holding too much in. The way it is set up is creepy because it is sitting around people who are either trying to deny a reality I will never forget or my attorney if he remembers, defend a reality that he can pocket and maybe take a nice vacation.
And I will not know until that morning if my creepy neighbor will be sitting there also.
Yes he has every right to be there so I have to find a way to handle that if that happens and I don't know what or how I will manage if that happens. Someone talked about gut feelings, well I never had good feelings about him, he is creepy looking and I tried really hard to look past that.
My gut was right all along, even though I tried to look real hard for the positive.

I would have liked my attorney to take care of me, respect me and understand how hard this is. But I got jipped on that privilage. I am only hoping that his so called brilliance is there to settle this mess. And no matter how much I get out of this, its never going to bring everything that was lost back. No money can change what I had or cover the amount of pain that I feel inside, everywhere inside. Nothing they can offer can change the images in my brain that will be there forever now.

When I go to see my therapist it is a hard jouney. I often pass my neighbor on the way there which is really creepy so I get triggered by that. Then I have to fight the traffic and then pass that hospital where I suffered in that psychward and I can look up and see the window I stared out of in such disbelief and fear and exhaustion and my room was so cold because that was the room everyone knew the heat didn't work, how awful that was. So by the time I get to my therapists I am pretty exhausted and I sit back in that chair and he says, you look relaxed today. Oh he doesn't understand, I am not relaxed, I am just exhausted. I sit there wishing there was a better way to get to his office where I would not have to endure all those triggers.
Oddly it just seems like I have to jump through so many hoops to just get to helping that little girl, teenager, young mother and now a worn out middle aged woman.

Open Eyes

Open Eyes,

That was very wise to look up info on depositions. Just from reading what you learned, I feel like I would know better what to do, if I had to go to one.

Your past, truly, is not the business of anyone in that room. But I must ask you something very sincerely. Even if you had been the product of an ideal childhood, would you not still have been traumatized to discover the aftermath of what happened? I don't even want to specify anything, because it is so sad to suggest the images. A simple statement of the facts, as I've come to know them from your posts, conveys a tragic scene. Those facts don't need to be embellished with emotionalism. Just a bare bones statement of the harm that was done should be very powerful. A deposition is about FACTS, not emotions, as you correctly explain above. Hard as it is to revisit that tragic scene, keep in mind that the FACTS testify to the truth of what you experience. Those facts that are the saddest to describe are what must be recorded in that deposition.

Use every opportunity that is given to you to get the facts about the harm done expressed accurately and vividly. Your attorney should be really leading you to do this most effectively. Just in case he has his head up his butt, it may be on you to be the best witness to the TRUTH that you know how to be. YOU CAN DO IT. And you can do it well. Always remember that we are given the Grace to get through an ordeal when we are there and not ahead of time. You might just surprise the heck out of yourself. It has happened to me times that I would never, never have expected it. Sometimes, you just haul your body to a place where you are supposed to be and think "Oh, well, if I get my body there, maybe there is a slim chance that my mind will follow." Often that chance ends up being not so slim after all. Maybe it's best to think: "My main job is to show up at the room where I'm supposed to go and sit where they direct me to sit. I will be respectful. I will speak truthfully. If I become upset, I will state that I am having some difficulty, but want to continue as best I can." May sleep give you rest from your cares.