[Sam2]

I've never posted in this section before, so i probably don't know many of you.
I was wondering if anyone else has experienced long term PTSD as in decades after the event.

My older brother, who is a year older than me started to become violent when he turned 13. My bedroom was next to his and he would scream and bang on the wall between us at night. It got worse as time went on. He developed OCD, and I'd hear him come home at night, closing and opening his car door in excess of a dozen times. By then he was verbally threatening, and late at night, he would slowly open my bedroom door and stare at me through the crack. Sometimes for hours. I slept with a knife tied to the side of my bed. We both had problems and so were still at home at 19 and 20. Sometimes I would leave and drive all night to avoid being watched or hearing the banging and screaming.

Anyway, I'm fifty now and have to sleep in clothes and shoes in case I have to get out of the house quickly. If I hear a sudden loud noise, it evokes a feeling of rage at what ever or who ever made the sound. I never act on it, but its hard not to. My brother is now on meds, and I only see him once a year at my folks house which is three states away. He is always civil. There is no reason to fear him anymore, but sometimes I worry that he will show up.

I was diagnosed with PTSD in my early twenties. It bothers me that the same symptoms I had then are still with me. I guess I just wondered if anyone else had lingering symptoms after so long.

Sam2

[HealingNSuffering]

Yes I have to, from what I understand it never really goes away, it just gets less severe as you work on it through therapy but never 100% gone. Just gets to the point where you can live your life and "function" again. I'm the same way about the slight noises, even the guy mowing his lawnmower next door makes me want to scream. If somebody makes noise while I'm trying to sleep it makes me want to hurt them. Even crickets chirping bothers me when I'm trying to sleep. Chronic PTSD never really goes away, since the trauma cannot be undone.

Source:
Can PTSD be cured? – The Chart - CNN.com Blogs

[JaneC]

I have almost finished reading an interesting book about PSTD and EMDR and it talks about symptoms that just seem to follow you through your entire life, despite getting therapy......and the amazing results that people have had after doing EMDR therapy.

I think it would be worth a read for anyone, because there are self help techniques in there...but my T tells me to not try any of the re experiencing or memory retreival myself.....I know I would not manage my symptoms alone at this stage. So just a wee warnign about that. I am becoming more and more convinced that I will try to begin EMDR soon with my T...I want to find wellness.

Here is a link to a review Getting Past Your Past: Take Control of Your Life with Self-Help Techniques from EMDR Therapy | Psych Central
I got it from Kobo for my tablet and it was a lot cheaper.

All the best sam2, I hope you fnd your way to a wellbeing you are content with.

[MotownJohnny]

Sam2, I'm afraid it is probably something that never goes away, just with luck and work becomes manageable. At least I hope it can be managed. Like HNS said.

Jane, thanks for the link, it looks good, I'm going to get it. And I agree with your T, I wouldn't try some of this stuff alone, I tried desensitizing myself last month to circumstances from a year ago and mostly just ramped up my anxiety level and made myself miserable.

[HealingNSuffering]

Yes that's what desensitization will do, make you miserable short-term for the long term benefit of not having as many flashbacks and nightmares anymore. I think its a fair-trade, but as Dr. Gupta said PTSD is a physiological as well as psychological illness and some of the symptoms never go away. Next time you are traumatized your PTSD will come back again with a vengeance. The less you avoid triggering stimuli the less severe your reactions will become. With desensitization, things (anxiety, stress, flashbacks, avoidance, hyper-arousal) will always get worse before they get better. But the more you run from your fears, the faster they will chase you. I do think its best to wait for the desensitization until you are not experiencing the worst of the symptoms and are on some form of medication. This will at least keep you from getting too depressed.

[Fuzzybear]

(((((((((( Sam2 ))))))))))

[Open Eyes]

Perhaps what needs to take place is finally thinking about these triggers differently.
When a human being is "threatened" and they go into "auto react" or even "freeze", that does get registered in the brain in areas that are much deeper then the frontal cognitive part of the brain. Like "all" mammals we are designed that way so that we become aware of possible dangers and develop a deep sense of "knowing to stay away or something is a potential threat".

However, we also have to ability to "consciously" address these "deep response " messages and "learn to manage them better through "learned knowledge" too.

For example Sam, you now "believe" you have to sleep "dressed and ready" to escape at a moment's notice. You began to make a "conscious" decision to "follow" the instructions that come from these "deep signals of a possible danger". What you have decided is that you "have to be on high alert" instead of consciously working on being "ok" with wearing just night closes that mean "bed and rest and comfort".

When I developed PTSD, what began to confuse me more and more was how I often "over reacted" to things that triggered me that would "happen" before I chose to be upset in a "conscious" way. I went through a fairly lengthy time, about a year, where I would react with "anger" that just shot out of me without my consciously deciding to be "angry". I was very "taken back and confused" with that too. The situations that encouraged that to take place "were" situations where "someone was doing something wrong or addressing me in a confrontational or controlling way", so it wasn't like I was reacting "wrong", however, the reaction I had was "stronger" and more "automatic" then the way I typically handle these kinds of situations.

Well, for a while I decided to "not just decide to feed into these triggers" but to pay attention "after" they came out. I began to work them out on a "conscious" level verses just decide that "I was just going to "react" and had "no control" over it.

I have been considering how the brain "can" get injured just like any other part of the body. When we have an injury and it needs time to heal, we "are" more sensitive to that injury and try to "avoid" anything that may "interrupt or further compromise that injury". If someone were to accidently "brush up against that injury" it is "normal" to react and "react quickly" even with "anger" in order to "protect and send a message", hey you hit my injured leg, be careful, don't do that, can't you see I have a bad injury?

We are never going to "forget that injury or how we got it", however, we can be patient, allow it to heal and get to a point where we don't "defend and guard it so much".

It is a little different with our brain because we can't "see the injury" however we "do" have the same reactions "to defend and protect" and "want to heal". But we do not have to keep telling our brain to "keep holding onto the injury". We can, on a conscious level slowly realize that we "no longer have to sleep in our clothes or that we have to be alarmed by crickets, or over react when another person does something that may trigger us.

I will always probably be "more aware" if someone taps me on the back or surprises me in some way. But I do not have to "feed into it" and decide to develop a more elaborate way to get even "more" defensive.

The therapies like CBT and DBT help someone develop "skills" to help with these troubled areas and these therapies "do" help. I imagine that EMDR also does this because it encourages a patient to retrieve these triggers and "face them" and "process them better" until the patient slowly learns they don't have to keep reinforcing the "cause of injury".

OE

[Sam2]

Thank you all for your replies. Its not nice to know that it can last forever, but at least I know that I'm not alone in this.

In addition to PTSD, I suffer from chronic, intractable migraines on a daily basis. 80% of my days are spent in the dark. Although there are multiple triggers, and several tests have been run, I believe that my PTSD may also play into it.

I've considered going back to therapy, but can't get myself to do it. I saw several in my twenties, and all were bad experiences. Betrayal of trust, misdiagnosis followed by medications that were inappropriate, threats of being committed if I did not continue taking meds that were making me haullicinate among others.

These days, I spend several hours a day working with biofeedback and meditation. There was a time when I couldn't sleep unless it was under a mattress leaning against a wall with the back against another wall so I only had one opening to protect. That i've gotten past, but not the need to be in a small area. With the migraines, I have to sleep in a recliner because lying flat makes them worse, so its good that I'm not longer under a mattress tent. I try not to relive the years of living in a dangerous place. Under the right circumstances, that can trigger suicidal thoughts. Sometimes I feel guilty reacting to an old situation when there are soldiers who were in much greater danger and subjected to sights no person should ever have to see.

Sam2