[JaneC]

I found a couple of weeks ago that I was really struggling and just could not put my finger on exactly why. I explained it as feeling like having this big rock sitting on my chest and eventhough I spoke about some things that I 'knew' were bothering me, my T foolishly put it down to the fact he was going on holiday! No!

So what I have realised is that an anniversary of something that really upset me(I know I ought to use the word traumatised, but find it hard sometimes)......and I had completely forgotten. It took nights and nights of dreams of the time, and daytime finding myself 'remembering' really difficult parts of that and being extremely emotional, tearful, and fearful/anxious for me to know I needed to actually figure out what was happening for me.

Bingo!!......a bloody anniversary of something ikky crept up and I just hadn't put two and two together. It has taken another week for this to begin to calm down. Oh the joys of this blimmin c-ptsd....not!

Don't you just hate that? Does anyone else experience this? And why didn't my bloody T figure it????

(I know, if I didn't know how on earth would he right, but gosh, can't T's read minds and do magic? )

[Patagonia]

In the spring these tiny frogs come out. Their only about the size of a quarter. Their spring peepers. If you get too close to them they trill, but at night they peep to find a mate & I always found it to be a beautiful sound. It meant spring was coming!
Past couple of yrs I've been cringing at hearing them. I couldn't understand how I could hate a sound I grew up with.
Few days ago I heard my first one...a bit early for them, but I realized my abuser would comment about them & we'd stand outside & listen. This new memory flooded me, but explained why I had this bad feeling & couldn't explain it.

I hate when stuff sneaks up on me like that. I just bought myself a pair of really good boots to do yard work in. Crocks aren't cutting it. So my H says "gee, aren't those triggering for you bec they look like horseback riding boots."

Yup. Put the boots in the goodwill pile.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[(JD)]

My T has always hoped I would stop recognizing the "anniversary" of my injury... I don't know if he was just planting a seed to learn to forget it or if he truly didn't realize it seems to be imprinted in the brain.

[Open Eyes]

((Jane)), yes, I am sorry you just experienced an anniversary and it took you time to figure it out. That is what so many people don't understand about PTSD, it is almost as if the person grows a separate brain that they just wish would go away because it just causes too many challenges and gums everything up.

The only thing I can say Jane is that when this happens, just consider it another thing that hurt you that you are being reminded of so you can finally address it and process it in healthier ways.

ANY event that has a profound effect on a person will forever change them and will never be forgotten. It is just how we are designed, it had to be that way for us to survive and thrive. In fact the whole reason we even have a written/recorded history is because of the need to discuss events that have had profound affects be it on a personal level or that of a society. If you really think about it, there are all kinds of anniversaries that we actually make it a point and set that day aside to talk about it and even mourn it. Kennedy's assassination, the day Pearl Harbor was attacked, 9/11, the day the market crashed and began the great depression, oh, the list is endless really. So it isn't just "you" and if "you" have these reminders, that is pretty human and they do come up with a need to discuss them in hopes to process them better, learn from them, and yet keep moving forward.

I think it is important to realize that human beings in general all have some PTSD in a way. The difference between someone who has it to the degree you struggle is only a magnification of what many people at times deal with but are much better at disassociating from the emotional turmoil and anxiety. Everyone has off days for "some" reason, everyone has those moments where anger can be hard to control, most people experience at least some depression in their lives. But most people have figured out how to "just" and "ignore" which is, as you know, much more of a challenge with PTSD.

[Open Eyes]

((Jane)),

What I find so good about you is that you have decided you "want" something and you have made a choice to pursue it. I think that is awesome, and important. While I understand you have triggers and can have some PTSD cycles, as you keep moving forward sorting it all out, you will actually "gain" on it.

[JaneC]

Originally Posted by (JD)

My T has always hoped I would stop recognizing the "anniversary" of my injury... I don't know if he was just planting a seed to learn to forget it

Wouldn't it be great if all of the seeds that our T's plant could miraculously effect change in us. Sadly, I believe it is up to us to effect that change.........although a seed is the beginning, maybe it is up to us to nurture and feed it to grow huh?

[JaneC]

Originally Posted by Open Eyes

((Jane)),

What I find so good about you is that you have decided you "want" something and you have made a choice to pursue it. I think that is awesome, and important. While I understand you have triggers and can have some PTSD cycles, as you keep moving forward sorting it all out, you will actually "gain" on it.

I can definitely see that I am making gains on things, thanks for pointing it out though OE. I do know also that the flight and fight response is still incredibly strong within me, and I think will remain until I can actually process the historical stuff that still knocks me around. (The list appears huge though!)

I notice now I am able to tolerate the terror I feel sometimes.......and in fact just a couple of weeks ago I was able to verbalise it to my classmates. I was triggered beyond belief, was crying had difficulty breathing etc...in class.....but because of the nature of that particular class it was ok for them(not me), and this time I tolerated the extreme anxiety enough to not actually run from class this time. Progress!

I then explained to them, so they might begin to understand me and perhaps others, that I felt like a huge tiger was running at me and I was terrified and my entire body & mind was screaming RUN RUN RUN......but I am trying to manage it and stay in the moment. (Even now thinking about that moment I begin to feel the panic rise). I saw nods of understanding, and compassion amongst my classmates and lecturer. I hope it helped others. It certainly helped me to feel a tiny bit more in control. It was a friend in class who even said to me, wow that's progress Jane, you didn't run! LOL.

That particular time took me over a week to feel better physically....this is hard on our bodies as well as our minds huh?

[Open Eyes]

Yes Jane, it is physically exhausting at times, feels like your body ran a marathon. That is because of the cortisol or adrenaline not only flooding the mind but also all your muscles preparing you to fight or flight. I think it is great that the class was supportive it would be nice if society understood it better and was more supportive, that way IMHO it would become easier to control and much less embarrassing.

I think it is great that you are working through it and still going to class and engaging in moving forward with your education for a better career. While you can have these setbacks, you work through them every time you have them, you are getting support and you are recognizing that you have been gaining.

It sounds like you have a good therapist that is right there with you and encouraging you knowing that you genuinely struggle at times and validates you and is right with you as you continue to work through it. If you think about the mind and human beings, we all have life challenges and have our insecure moments, ideally we have a mentor or nurturer that we turn to that reassures us, then we do something where even though we are unsure we make progress and recognize we have overcome and gained, you see this with your son all the time. Well, as these challenges come up we experience chemicals in our brains too that encourage us to seek reassurance and then we have chemicals that take place when we make a gain where we feel much better and more encouraged to go forward. The more we go through this and realize we are making progress as we attempt to engage, the more our self esteem and desire to continue engaging takes place.

When PTSD is discussed it is mentioned that the sufferer looks for a rescuer. The reason that takes place is because our brain already is designed to recognize different chemical reactions and try to get a supply of the chemicals that are presented that create a gain and therefore a balance takes place and a desire to keep engaging. As I mentioned, you are seeing that taking place in your son all the time as he is growing and going to school and learning and building his skills in all different ways. You have talked about the fact that your son is a good, well behaved, positive little boy. Well, that means his needs are being met and he is getting all the right messages to help him continue to build self esteem and want to engage.

A big part of complex ptsd is because of how a person somehow did not get that need met. Triggers are reminders of when that was needed and not present for us. It doesn't mean you were not smart enough, it doesn't mean you didn't deserve it, it doesn't mean it was your fault or even that it is unattainable. There are a lot of people that do have these moments take place in their lives, their brains try to find some way of forming that chemical to proceed however. We have to be this way because it ensures our survival Jane and it encourages us to do a lot of things that not only help us, but help human beings as a species, to survive and keep looking for better ways to survive. This takes place partly on a conscious level, but also on a subconscious level too. That is how we can learn a skill and eventually do the skill without having to think about every step in the skill. We have many of these skills we have developed by learning and practicing which creates these deep abilities to be able to drive for example yet at the same time be able to do other things without all our focus on every little detail of driving. We can learn to write and practice that until we get so we write things down quickly without having to think about how to form every letter and where that letter goes in a word.

What we do not realize is that what also happens is how when needs do not get met and we struggle in some way emotionally or frustrated and that happens a lot, that negative message can also become something we automatically do without much thought too. We don't even realize that we have that and many people develop ways to suppress it or disassociate from it. Well, we have to have that too Jane because again, we still need to be able to survive and thrive "in spite of".

Jane, often people gain a sense of worthiness with "if you have this you are worthy and ok". That is also important to our survival, however what happens is that often gets skewed. Unfortunately, what can happen is that a parent or parents can send the wrong messages to a child "unknowingly" and the child begins to think they have to achieve or do only to "please" a parent. It is not unusual for a parent to pass the wrong messages to their child in teaching their child that the child needs to have the same tastes, opinions, and priorities as the parent. That is not the right way to raise a healthy child. Unfortunately, this takes place too often and it has amazed me how even well educated and successful parents make this mistake constantly not even realizing how wrong it is. Also, unfortunately this "mistake" often gets handed down from one generation to the next too. It is so common that a lot of people develop this deep message that to gain approval they need to make sure they have the same tastes and priorities and possessions as everyone else does.

Jane, when you talked about your mother and how she stresses both you and your sister that is not your fault or your sister's fault. When your mother needed to critique your dishes and tell you that you are wrong and should have dishes that "she" considers are better, that is expressing that your mother never gave you permission to decide what "you" like and what makes "you" happy.

People tell me all the time that I am brave, I stand my ground, I have my own standards. The reason "why" I am like that is because even though I was traumatized and struggled when I was little, my mother always sent me messages that told me it was "ok" to be me and like what I like and she also paid attention to what "I" like and rewarded me by trying to give me the things "I" like. My mother's mother was not like that, she was more like your mother where god forbid the house not be clean and certain things be in place. Every time my grandmother came to visit we all had to run around and clean the house and my entire family was stressed. So, when you talk about how your mother stresses you in different ways, I know what that is. Unfortunately, when that happens, it plants seeds deep in the subconscious mind that become automatic responses of "doubt and worry" about needing to be a certain way to "please and be worthy".

When someone struggles with complex PTSD all of these troubling messages come forward. A trauma can take place, be a major threat, and present a chemical surge in the brain that actually "hurts" the brain. That is when we become "hyper aware" because we actually do need that to survive. Our subconscious mind kicks in to figure out how to resolve it. Unfortunately, what many people experience is that when that happens our subconscious also remembers whatever else was bad that hurt us in an effort to see if there are some kind of skills we can use. As you have noticed, that is very confusing and scary and because we don't understand it, didn't experience it before, we mistakenly allow ourselves to feed into it and we begin to experience these troubling cycles of confusion. That is when our brain develops an extreme desire for that rescuer that we genuinely need to help us so we can regain the right chemical balance to be ok again.

That is why it is so important that we find the right therapist. A good therapist will know that the most important thing they need to establish with a patient is TRUST AND SAFETY. The goal of a therapist is to get the patient comfortable so that they can "talk" and slowly get more comfortable telling their story, no matter whatever is in that story. A therapist needs to understand that it is "crucial" that they do not try to "control or instruct or send judgmental messages" to the patient because by doing that it disrupts their sense of safety and can trigger them and push them into feeding into the bad messages they got from a parent or abuser that hurt them or challenged their sense of "self worth or self esteem or sense of ability to thrive".

A person struggling with PTSD, especially complex PTSD, needs to have a therapist where they can "cry uncontrollably, express anger and outrage, or talk about how they feel so unworthy and threatened". A patient needs to feel safe enough so they can do what they may consider as "being a little crying child that needs that parent to help them and sooth them and make them feel ok again". That needs to be let out and expressed, validated and comforted and grieved and it needs to happen without a patient being "embarrassed or punished".

Jane, I have some very negative deep subconscious messages myself. I have experienced a lot of bad things in my life and when I cried out, unfortunately, I was reprimanded and punished. And when something really bad took place the only person that could be my rescuer and validate me was instructed to stay away from me. And my older sister who sent me a lot of negative messages my entire childhood was there when I broke down and treated me horribly. My older sister has sent me many negative messages over the years where "I was not quite good enough and didn't meet up to the right standards or that when I struggled it was inconvenient and that I need to find a way to hold it in and suppress it".

If you notice, I dumped in Alisha's thread about "therapy questions". I have been very overwhelmed IRL, and she asked questions that somehow hit me and I dumped. That is something that can happen with PTSD. The sign that someone is being repressed, or has been repressed in some way is "the need to apologize" and from my angle, that means that something very deep is sending me a message that I did something wrong and put myself at risk. The "sad" part in that is that if you read what I dumped, I actually was punished many times, even when I had a serious need with severe health issues. If a person is laying in a bed literally dying and they are "yelled at" for moaning, that is pretty bad. If someone is experiencing a crisis from a traumatic event and reaching out for help, is it fair to sit across from them and tell them to stop it, get their act together or else they will lose EVERYTHING, their marriage, their farm EVERYTHING?

Well, my message to you, or anyone who struggles, is that when you experience messages that come from your subconscious that upset you, IT NEVER MEANS YOU ARE WRONG OR BAD OR UNWORTHY. The "healing" comes when you take the time you deserve to take, and finally address the negative messages you received, finally express whatever emotions you have stored up, and be "validated" and finally have someone help you see that whatever is there is not your fault, never was your fault, and that you can finally learn to see it all in a much healthier way.

Jane, you have shared different moments where you struggle and shed some tears. I do try to point out to you that you "are' actually a good mother and how your "little man" is actually showing you that. You are actually doing with him, what is "right" because you are allowing him to learn how to be "what he wants" and not what "you or anyone else thinks he should be". He can't make up for whatever you need, because a child doesn't know how to do that and it is never good to do a role reversal which actually also takes place way too often when a parent needs love and approval and permission and isn't getting it the way it should be provided for them. You will have these little challenging moments, but always talk about them because these are also things you can grieve and work through too, and you definitely deserve that to happen too. As you learn and grow through all of this, you will be able to have more "good skills" that you can use to help your son the right way too.

PTSD is such a challenge, however, it can also open doors to gaining important knowledge that others might miss and may not ever have these deeply learned skills that they gain from, but can also help others gain from too. Always remember that.

OE

[JaneC]

Thanks ((OE)) for all of that, wow you really took a lot of time over that response, it is very kind! I am also sorry to hear that you have been struggling so of late. I hope that you have been able to work through it.

I can completely understand how awful you must have felt when people treated you so poorly when you were reaching out or needed support, especially when you were so ill, that is so dreadful! OE I really do understand this, after I almost died one time at my own hands, my sister picked me up from the hospital(begrudgingly, and would not come and see me, just pick me up) and proceeded to berate me all the way home and yell at me for not knowing how bad it had made her feel. Similar to you.......this sort of treatment at the hands of someone who ought to care is almost unforgiveable, and does make things far worse for us.

I am working on trying to find forgiveness for many things that happened to me in my life in therapy. I told my T that I want to forgive my Ex for the treatment I received from him, and my T asked why I want to forgive him? Was it for my ex so it would be easier? NO. I want to find forgiveness so that I can let it go and be free from that. I hope this happens soon. Forgiveness doesn't mean that I am saying its ok, I just hope that it relieves me from the mental anguish and memories that still affect me today.

This really is a journey isn't it OE, and the longer I am in therapy and the more I allow myself to be vulnerable and actually 'look' at the past, and see how it affects me today the better I understand myself and can begin to make changes. The sooner I will be able to move further forwards towards living the meaningful life I deserve.

And yes, you are right, I do have plans for a better future with new career and hope that I can use my own learning to empower others to improve theirs also. At 43 I am a work in progress and content with that.

Thanks again for your support. I'm sending kind and caring thoughts and a cyber your way. Do take care of yourself OE.

[Open Eyes]

Yes Jane, it really is an unexpected journey. I had always thought that things happen even bad things happen, you find your way through them and it's over. I never imagined that while we "survive" things and we get through them and they are over, our brains really do not handle it that way. And because we can see that when we develop PTSD, we don't feel like we were survivors, we see we really were hurt, and that is why the anger and sadness is challenging. What is hard is that when we see and feel so much we realize so much more than other people, we see the incredible ignorance too.

PTSD stops a person in their tracks and begins to show them things they did not realize. People around us are hustling around in their lives and they have their coping methods, little structures that work for them, are often very self important and opinionated and there is so much they just don't see. At one point a person with PTSD wishes they could go back to being that way too and yet as hard as they try, they have seen something different, deeper, more meaningful, and they are forever changed.

However, what is really happening is that someone with PTSD, yes being very sensitive, is really sitting still and they are seeing so many things that the average person just isn't paying attention to. Did you ever watch Life that documentary, we sit there and we get to see all these captured moments of different ways animals and insects and all kinds of nature mates, how they are born, what they do to survive, and as we sit there we think about how all these things happen while we are so busy hustling around with work and dealing with other people in our own little worlds and just do not realize how much is going on around us. People that filmed all that spent a tremendous amount of time out there finding all these things and waiting and watching to capture these moments that we sit and watch. We sit there and watch it, take time out to do that, but we do not realize the tremendous amount of effort it took to capture all that we are watching. We appreciate what we see, but the only way we can really appreciate it is if we spent "real time" with the people who work very hard to capture on film all that we are seeing as the final product. The reality is, that human beings do not really appreciate or see things unless they experience it first hand or do whatever it takes to achieve whatever is achieved. The reality is that most people are really in their own little worlds in their own heads and they get so busy with that, that they don't see or appreciate or even recognize the gravity of a lot of important things. Most human beings have an idea of different things, but they genuinely don't see the gravity or depth. The constant advice that people offer is "just" and what they are really saying is "just make your mind up to be blind and choose not to see the gravity or depth or real value".

When vets come home from active duty and have spent a great deal of time seeing some horrible things that human beings do, how tragic it really is, they are forever changed. The have a horrible time adjusting back into what we call "civilian life". What I am talking about above is their reality and they quickly recognize how "the average civilian" worries about, gets angry about, things that are not very significant in the scheme of "true reality". Their reality is "no" they cannot not "just" like so many average "civilians" do and when a person sees them and says "thank you for your service" or when the average person says to them, "welcome home soldier", often that is a trigger and can make them angry. Because when people do that, it is "just" an empty statement.

When I joined PC, the first year I met a Vet and he was struggling with PTSD and was really challenged. He did get easily triggered and he often chose to distance from people completely. It didn't take much for him to get angry and disgusted when he interacted with people that began their "just" comments. He kept saying "people don't get it, they just don't get it, and I hate it when they say welcome home". What I said to him is that I understand what he is saying, I did understand on a closer level because I was really struggling with PTSD myself and while I didn't go off to war, I definitely experienced something that profoundly affected me that no one was validating or seeing the real gravity of. I told him that I was sorry and that while he is struggling so much and people trigger him, they genuinely don't know what he would like them to say. I told him to think about writing down what it means to him and what he would prefer people say to him. He liked that idea and decided to try it. After a while he came back and said, "you know, what you told me to do is really, really hard". I did say, "I know", and even though it is hard, at least try to make an attempt to "improve the ignorance" on some level if you can, because the reality is, people actually do want to know "what to say that means something to you and others who come home".

Jane, when I saw my neighbor's dog do all that damage to so many of the ponies/horses I spent so much time training and loving and getting together to do what I do with them. It was devastating and what was even more devastating was that in spite of all my efforts to get these people to contain their dogs, explain to them what I was doing, the value of my animals and how challenging it was, they still didn't respect it, were negligent and it resulted in wiping me out and devastating me in ways I could have never imagined in my wildest dreams. And what made it even worse is when it just broke me and I reached out for help, the professionals I sought out failed to see the gravity and depth and misdiagnosed me and treated me like I didn't have a right to be so upset. Even my own sister came into the psych ward and sat across from me with her angry face and told me "you better get with it or you will lose your family and your farm". I was in shock and crisis Jane, I really was and I was even shivering in shock, and I was basically "yelled at and blamed". At the time I didn't know about post traumatic stress, or what emotional and psychological crisis was, all I knew is I could not seem to function at all.

Jane, I believe you about how hard it was for you after you almost died and your sister reacted so badly, I AM INCREDIBLY SORRY FOR THAT, BECAUSE THAT WAS WRONG. You really needed others to see the "gravity and depth" of what you were experiencing, yet all these people thought of is "it was not fair to them", I get that loud and clear, because that is exactly what I went through too.

But ((Jane)), you are really not "alone" with that experience. It is very hard to process that and build up the will to get to a point where you choose to rise above it and choose to embrace an entirely different way of seeing life "in depth" that "yes" many others choose "not to see, or can't see". It definitely takes time to "gain enough" so you can finally accept it and embrace it realizing how much you can learn on a very different level. Forgiveness isn't about deciding to say that someone who did something bad is somehow "ok" or that this person had any right to do whatever it was that was bad or hurtful. All it means is that you have gotten to the point where you can see that this person didn't recognize the "depth and gravity" of their actions. It never meant that you were unworthy, or undeserving in any way either because you somehow didn't predict it either. We often say and mull over, "I should have seen it and known better somehow". But, when you actually "embrace" your own healing and slowly begin to deal with "the depth and gravity of it yourself", you will also forgive yourself and you actually "can" get on a much higher level than many people who choose to "just" and never really do see the true depth and gravity.

There actually have been a lot of people that have done this and they have left the lot of humanity some significant messages to ponder and learn from that brings them "more depth" and has made a difference.

Something to ponder, I know you have not reached that level, but you actually "can" get to it and as you do that, the symptoms of PTSD will weaken. Often the symptoms of PTSD are there to make us pay attention and learn. We are often so taken by it that we don't realize that however. When different people through our human history have recognized "depth and gravity", they were compelled to talk about it, so much so that we created the written word so we could have a way of recording whatever we are enlightened with so others may gain from the "depth and gravity we have learned to see".

OE