Overwhelmed

I don't even know where to start. I had a bad flashback a week ago and I've really been struggling ever since. I'm beginning to become aware of how unsafe I feel all the time and I don't know how I'm ever going to feel safe. It doesn't seem possible. My t told me to focus on this moment and that I'm safe right now but then I'm constantly worrying about the next moment where I might not be safe. If I'm only safe in this moment then it feels like there's no chance to relax because I might not be so safe in the next one. I know the chances of anything bad happening are slim but there's still a chance. I don't know how to feel safe when something bad could happen at any moment. I have a t session in 3 hours and I'm scared to leave the house to go. I nearly called to cancel but I know it won't help in the long run to hide away. It just feels so overwhelming to think of going out of the house. Which is something I struggle with at the best of times. I'm tired of living like this and I don't feel very hopeful about it getting better.

(((((Splintered))))) ... there's not much i can say as i'm exactly like you ... constantly on edge just waiting for it, expecting it ... i just hope there's a way you can make your T appointment and

((Splintered)) I wish I had something amazingly helpful to say, but I don't. Good Luck and I really hope you're able to make your t appointment.

((Splintered))

sorry you're going through that..but yeah I can kind relate I had a recent flashback that sent me into a weird panic attack sort of thing and I've been feeling a bit more on edge since....but yeah I was thinking about getting seasonal/part time job but now i am concerned about freaking out on the job because of how hard it was to control my actions after the flashback due to what felt like massive amounts of energy flowing through me needing release.

As for being afraid of going out of your house I can kinda understand, I mean there are times I really don't want to go out.......because I know being around people in public is going to be quite uncomfortable and anxiety provoking. Also you're right hiding does not help in the long run..I learned that the hard way yet it's still hard not to.

I to am actually quite overwhelmed in life as well and don't feel very hopeful about it getting better........sorry I don't really have much advice as I'm not doing to well myself, but what I am trying to do is approach my PTSD as something that might not go away and just learn to cope with it rather then fight against it. But if you're going to therapy I'd keep doing that.

((((Splintered)))),
As well as others here that are struggling and don't know what to say. What you are feeling is normal for those that are suffering with PTSD. Right now your brains are confused and yes, there are flashbacks and confusing thoughts and emotional confusion taking place. But what does the mean? Well, I have had the same challenges and I spent a lot of time reading about and researching PTSD myself. I also found information on what is taking place in the brain as well. I made many efforts to also explain PTSD in my own words here many times. It IS very hard to find the right words that can explain to others who do not have any experience with it so they can relate and understand how very difficult it is to experience PTSD. And somehow I always fell short and even thought that had someone tried to explain it to me, I also would struggle to understand how much of a challenge it really is.

Wanting to isolate and being afraid of something bad happening tomarrow etc, is normal to the disorder. The reason this is happening is that the brain is trying to protect itself from experiencing any further upset. The reason the brain is protecting itself is because of the chemicals that are presenting with the processing of these emotionally upsetting memories that were surpressed in order to survive and continue to thrive. Our brains are designed to shut down in certain ways when too many chemicals are present for it to function properly. Many to the doubts and fears we have are all part of our brain's way of alerting us to slow down or question if there is a danger present. Our brain's job is to help us survive and learn from whatever we experience as some kind of threat to our ability to survive.

So what our brains are designed to do is to first do whatever is necessary to focus on surviving which can mean blocking the extreme fears or emotional distress so that we can logically escape any kind of harm that may endanger our lives. Actually our brains are pretty amazing and it is important to remember how wonderful our brains really are. I think it is important to try to establish a part of you that remains optimistic and will to learn above all the emotions and confusion taking place. It can be a certain calm part of you that is will to say, ok, this is very upsetting and confusing, but there is a reason for this and I must take a part of me to be willing to quietly be patient and be willing to learn that inspite of how uncomfortable this is, there is a way to learn beyond it, comprehend it and truely work through it, no matter how upsetting and confusing it is.

When I first started experiencing flashbacks and what seemed to be days where I couldn't seem to control the anxiety and uncomfortable feelings/confusion that was taking place, I admit I was very puzzled. And when they just came forward I never imagined the brain could do this and that it could be so profound and seem to just take me over. That alone made me want to retreat as I had no words to discribe it to others and no way of knowing when it was going to take place. I would not ask this to happen, it would just happen out of nowhere somehow. I was frightened by it and as I mentioned, I didn't even truely know how to explain it. And it wasn't really explained to me the way I would explain it if I was a therapist and wanted a patient to be more at ease with it and understand that they CAN learn to work through it better even though it is confusing.

I know it is very difficult, but after struggling with it badly for the last year especially, I have come to realize that whatever does come forward has to run it's course and what it really is, is a big question that my brain never really found a resolve for somehow. That if I allowed it to come forward and do my best to try to stay calm knowing that it may last a whole day but that it would have a beginning and an end I would not have been so frightened and feed into it as much by feeling fear and alarm on top of the flashback, body memory or just emotional memories coming forward. Instead, for a long time I was afraid of it and I got angry about it and felt like I was somehow a failure in some way and that I was losing my mind or somehow I was being punished or that I was never really as strong as I thought either. And it took me a while to realize that all those thoughts were only a part of what the brain does to learn, to find a resolve, to figure out how to once again thrive as well. Depending upon what was concealed somehow, all that was concealed would have to come forward and be processed, the purpose of this is the brains efforts to finally resolve this event or events that were some kind of threat that at the time could not be fully processed along with all the emotional duress that was presenting in the brain.

What can be so confusing is that the brain has a way of trying to protect itself when too many chemicals are coming forward, we often call this disassociation. All that means is the brain is simply slowing down in order to prevent a chemical overload, as the brain is aware/or designed to somehow know that too many chemicals can cause damage to the sensitive wiring that is there to allow us to tap onto a remarkable way of interpreting our environments so we can learn and thrive.

Whenever something happens to us we are designed to process it in certain ways, we have to learn what the danger was and if we are responsible for the danger taking place, did we encourage it to take place by how we acted or if we chose to put ourselves at risk somehow. After all, we are designed to be intuitive and adverturous and manipulate our environment to achieve and attain a better, safter way of surviving and thriving. If one really looks at how much we have manipulated our world in so many ways, we are pretty amazing at what we can achieve with our amazing brains. And we have also learned that our brains are capable of rewiring when damaged so that we can tap onto other areas within our brains to learn how to talk again, move our body parts again and readapt in amazing ways. But know this, this rehabilitation of the brain is A SLOW PROCESS THAT CAN BE EXHAUSTING AND FRUSTRATING. And there is often a feeling of being a failure as well as a constant question of, can we repair and thrive ok.

On my own journey through trying to understand and recover from PTSD, I had come to understand that I was going to be presented with so many things from my past, and it spaned all the way back to my early childhood. I now know myself as the little girl that was never truely safe all of my childhood, a little girl that didn't understand so many things, but kept trying just the same to somehow survive. And the one feeling that I always had, feeling as though I was somehow always behind, something was missing, some basic learning I didn't get and had to somehow fake my way even, there was a definite reason. The reason was something I truely never thought of either, I always thought I was just supposed to grow and adjust somehow, something everyone seems to insist on being a must do. So the message is that inspite of our problems and lacks growing up, we are just supposed to get beyond it and learn how to deal and grow up and get control of our lives and futures. But the reality is, we are designed to imprint and learn from our parents for many years. Our parents are supposed to present us with safey, love, encouragement and show us how to interact and deal with others and our environments. We are designed to learn how to do life by receiving messages that encourage us and tell us we are loved, worthy, important and deserving and belong in this thing called life. Or parents are supposed to sooth us when we are frightened and we are supposed to feel them watching over us so we can gradually explore our world and what it means.

It is important, when going through the recovery from the presentation of PTSD in the brain, you are not being punished, you are not a failure and you are going to now need to slowly come to terms with whatever threatened you in your past as well as what you somehow designed to compensate for something that was not provided to you. I have come to know "myself" in a very different light. Questions I had are being answered in a way I could have never imagined. I had adapted to many troubling things growing up, I had no way of understanding these things and did the best I could to try to thrive. The parents I had did not understand many things and their nurturing was faulty and how that effected my own personal developement was never my fault. I have had to look at the ways I compensated and I have realized that some of what I had learned was actually pretty sad. I can feel that child in me, how she struggled in a very different light now. And I have deeply morned the child in me that just didn't understand so many things.

PTSD is not about punishment or unworthiness. I do know that it presents those feelings though, and I have come to recognize the whole of me, the child in me as well as the adult in me that didn't understand certain things, but continued to survive on the thought I had managed to get through some uncomfortable confusing things in my past. I had come across other human beings that presented me with challenges that I was not truely prepared for, but it was never my fault that I was not always prepared. I managed to survive, but it did effect me in ways I did not know, my brain had sealed off the troubling emotions within different events so that I could focus on thriving somehow. I never realized that my brain did this until this PTSD came forward.

You are not a failure, you are not unworthy, you CAN work through whatever is there. It will come forward in pieces, to protect you from being totally overwhelmed. Many others will not understand this experience either and yes, it is nearly impossible to discribe in a way that others can truely relate. Well, don't be too discouraged by that because we are designed to relate by experience, so relate to others that can say me too and also present support and comforting words that say, you CAN work through this but KNOW IT TAKES TIME FOR YOUR BRAIN TO HEAL from this.

It is ok if you are confused, frustrated, tired, depressed at times, overwhelmed at times, angry often, make mistakes, want to retreat, need a break, need to hear you are not alone, need to vent and talk constantly, write long posts, resight messages that promote healing methods, give your advice on what you do know to others, experience a trigger that you have to stop and think about, have days where you need to lay low, have days where you feel like that child that was upset and confused, get annoyed by someone's nasty selfish comments at work, feel like a day at work is just too challenging today, feel hurt by the remark of anyone telling you to "just deal", "just snap out of it", "just ignore it", "dont be a baby", need to just come to PC to vent of have someone listen or ask a question, don't know what to say to the T, feel very confused, wonder where YOU went, wonder if things are YOUR fault, somehow feel lost or unworthy but cant get past it at least not now, feel guilty that your family doesn't hear you, wonder if you can have a life again, feel very lost and unmotivated, feel like you should still be punished, feel like you should disappear, feel like the world would be better off without you, hate how you are tired a lot, don't feel like you can make friends, and the list goes on as well as anger just beneath it all that can come out out of sheer frustration.

What you have to do is STOP BEATING YOURSELF UP and NO MATTER WHAT realize that HOW EVER LONG IT TAKES, you now have PTSD and that means that you are going to have to finally address some troubling emotions that you may not have realized you had locked inside your brain.
You have to commit yourself to reaching out to others that CAN support you, tell you that you will be ok, you can make mistakes and YOU WILL SLOWLY LEARN HOW TO ONCE AGAIN THRIVE. But above all, it will take time for this to happen and yes, OTHER PEOPLE DON'T GET IT, but that doesn't mean you are bad or a failure at all. You are now a person in slow repair and you must now step in and NURTURE YOURSELF NO MATTER WHAT YOU EXPERIENCED IN YOUR PAST. No, it is not fair that the average person has no idea what PTSD means and often in their ignorance will make comments that you need to "just" do this or that. And if there are toxic people in your environment, you have every right to break away from them no matter what. Your new goal is to finally learn how to take care of you, no matter what others say or think in their ignorance.

I am here doing the same, I still struggle, I still have strange days where something comes forward and can cripple me the whole day. And for a couple of days after I am exhausted, feel beat up and sore and have come to know that what that means is I have something more to work on and understand, something I didn't realize troubled me long ago. The environment I grew up in was not something I could have ever possibly understood, I was just a child who, like any child depended on my parents to help me understand how to feel safe and develope strong senses and ways of interacting so I could become a strong independant adult.

If you got this far, then you are patient and I hope you will now understand that you are truely not a failure and you CAN slowly work through this and learn how to once again thrive.

Open Eyes

I can relate. I had an incident happen that triggered me. As a result, I didn't leave my home for almost 8 months.

I was fearful all the time but by that point, I had so much piled up, I couldn't take one more thing. My coping mechanisms didn't work anymore.

(I could not go outside of my home unless I was "ready" but the more I stayed in, the more the outside scared me)

Since starting T, my T reminded me that a "flashback" is a memory, and I am safe now. It can't hurt me.

At first it was hard to grasp ... but over time, I just keep reminding myself "it's just a memory. it cannot hurt me".

Also, I had a serious flashback just last week that threw me into a complete panic. I called my T.

Unfortunately, she was in the middle of appointments so only had a very brief amount of time to talk...

BUT...fortunately, she was in the middle of appointments, and after talking around it, I just blurted out my deepest fear to her (trying to hurry it up I actually told her my biggest fear!).

And all of the sudden, I felt a weight lift off me. Truly.

No matter how hard it is for me, I make myself go to T. Especially when I don't want to.

You can do this! You are not alone. You can heal and you CAN start to feel safe again. If I can do it, you can do it It's still one baby inch at a time, but I'm getting through. It's not easy. But it's worth it.

Please keep posting and let us know how you are doing.

Splintered, I relate so much to what you are going through! I had a huge reaction to a scary trigger recently and it has thrown me into a tailspin. T and I put a lot on hold just to sort of stabilize me because, as you say, I may be safe in this moment but I am terrified abut the next moment.

The more scared I get, the more I narrow my life-- and the more scared I get. So I am trying to take little steps into the fear to try to break its hold on my life, things like "I am going to go grocery shopping even though it feels like something awful will happen, because I don't want my life to be ruled by fear" or "I am going to go to bed even though it is terrifying because I don't want my fear to control everything." I'm making an enemy of the fear because I don't kow what else to do.

I'm sorry we are going through this, because it is horrible.