[Alishia88]

In my last session I talked about a very stressfull time in my life and just remembering the stress and anxiety brought me almost to tears. It´s that much a stressfull topic for me.

It was when i was still in University 2 years ago that a few other life events added to my already pretty full head and heart and I started to get a lot of difficulties with physical anxiety.

I would sit in class and out of nowhere my heart started beating fast and I had a hard time breathing.

It got worse over time.

And towards the end of the semester I was a wreck. I was literally going CRAZY.

I didn´t sleep for a week or so because I just couldn´t get myself to sleep. I was going crazy lying awake and watching it go light outside again and not having have slept.
I couldn´t concentrate in class and even though I worried I might fail the end exams, I couldn´t study because that got me heart pounding etc. aswell and I could hardly concentrate or sometimes even "see" the paper because the letters would be so hard to see for my eyes.

It got to a point where I felt like I would burst with anxiety, I screamed and ranted and kicked my bed at night, yes that crazy, because I felt so awfully stressed and anxious and tired and nothing I did could change it.

I became so afraid of not being able to sleep. And basically.. anything.
Especially appointments. Even when it was a Saturday and I had like a hair dresser appointment at 12 that would stress me out and made me so crazy I couldn´t sleep because I felt that I HAD TO sleep and if I couldn´t then what.

The last resort I saw back then was to send me to a psychiatrist hospital
that, I thought, would give me drugs to send me to sleep.

It was the most horrible time of my life, I think and I have lived through quite a things before and after.

The worst thing was, that I felt so trapped in this awfull situation.

I couldn´t run away or something like that because I had to study and I had to do my exams. But I couldn´t do that either because me body kept me from sleeping and sanely studying, thinking and living.

I really felt like I was going crazy and I was heading down hill, but could do nothing about it and had nobody that could help me. It was really horrible, though I think it´s hard to understand just from reading this, because it doesn´t sound so bad, but it really was.

I took a semester off after that because I learned that summer break did not help to make me "sane" and "calm" again and when that didn´t help I went to a psychosomatic clinique and afterwards I got a therapist.

So it´s been very much up hill since then.

What keeps around until now is that I am to the day not very stress resistant.
I used to be able to manage so much stuff not just studying but dancing and working and so on and so on.
I always had a full schedule from morning to night.

No, having only 2 appointments per day can be quite stressfull for me.
And I need days in between to calm me down.

It´s really bothering me, because I like being active but I get so stressed and anxious so easily. And things get "too much" for me very quickly.

I talked to my therapist about it and she said something about another trauma
and I didn´t ask again in detail.

I also told her that I avoided very much going near the area of the University nowadays because it gives me anxiety and that I have a new physical therapist that is near the University and it took me some effort to go there the first few times. And also taking my bike because that is how I always got there when I was still studying.

My T said it was a good thing I went there though so that I understood that this was then and this is now and I am only going to my physical therapist and the time from back then is not coming back because of that.
I think she was right.

I was wondering if this whole phase of my life could be like a secondary trauma. I never thought so because, externally, there was nothing threatening me.

But maybe it would explain my difficulty with appointments and every day life etc I´m having now.

Maybe it´s something else.

What do you think?

[tinyrabbit]

If you feel like it's traumatic, then it is.

[Alishia88]

Hm, well, yes my therapist once said that there is no "list" of events that are traumatic and of things that are not because its due to the individual, what they experience.

But I am confused about if it felt, feels traumatic to me.

Also, I once read that there are a few disorders one may develop, following a trauma.

An anxiety disorder, PTSD and an adjustment disorder. The adjustment disorder, it said, would often be diagnosed in the case of events that wouldn´t usually be classified as "trauma", like the death of a family member, saying that there ARE things that usually are said to be traumatic, and some that aren´t..