[roadless]

I was content and secure in my life.
Competent, loving trusting.
In the moment kinda gal.

Then it all changed, in a moment.

Now I am restless, angry, distrusting.
I don't seem to fit anywhere.
Not wanting to engage.
It all seems so meaningless and painful.

I miss the woman I was, and can't seem to find my way back to her.

[Open Eyes]

I am so sorry roadless, I know what you mean too. I was just thinking tonight tearfully really how much I used to wake up and love going outside with my ponies etc, but now I get triggered out there when I don't want to.

Are you working with a therapist?

Welcome to PC and the PTSD forum.

(((Hugs))
OE

[roadless]

Yes I am.
She is a wonderful, gentle woman.
I am learning about the effects of my trauma, and how it tapped into much earlier trauma that I believed I had dealt with.

[Open Eyes]

Yes, that can happen, I am not sure "why" a trauma can not only develop into PTSD, but bring back other things that had never been a problem before. I think it has to do with the post traumatic stress breakdown that attaches to anything else in our personal history that was stressful. There typically is a theme of not being heard or an intrusion of boundaries or being stressed and not knowing how to get away from the stress, even being alone with no help during the stress in a history too.

[JaneC]

Originally Posted by roadless

I miss the woman I was, and can't seem to find my way back to her.

I can relate to this, and regularly wish I could get back to certain moments in past when I really felt like 'me'.

I hope that with therapy and time I will rediscover 'me' again. I do hope you find yourself again in your therapy too.

Kind thoughts to you

[IrisBloom]

I have felt the same way. But you have to remember, you change throughout your life. Maybe you will come through and become a whole new better person!

[phoenix7]

you are you just a different you....

I tend to say the old me died that day and a new me was born - in the beginning she was angry, frustrated, anxious, depressed, triggery.....
emotions either over running me and over whelming me - or no emotions whatso ever - so numb nothing touched me ....

Since then over the last nine years - I have worked hard .....and not worked at all lol on the aspects of me i wanted back, depending what part of that PTSD cycle i was on .

patience , kindness, happy go lucky...these words i had to relearn and am still getting to learn......
wow i sound like a pain and i prob was and prob still am when triggered - i feel like a land mine - one wrong step and BOOM! but wiht time and work it has become less... i hope.

So for me - wiht memories of my past that came back and destroyed the past i had made up for myself as a child - I cannot be that same person

we are changed by what happens to us - good or bad things.... we grow we evolve - just as we did to get where we were before PTSD came to play -

You are still you - new and improved in the end maybe who knows

[2011]

Originally Posted by roadless

I was content and secure in my life.
Competent, loving trusting.
In the moment kinda gal.

Then it all changed, in a moment.

Now I am restless, angry, distrusting.
I don't seem to fit anywhere.
Not wanting to engage.
It all seems so meaningless and painful.

I miss the woman I was, and can't seem to find my way back to her.

I think I understand what you mean. Immediately after my triggering event, I felt like I was in a different world and like something that was an integral part of me was broken. I have been dealing with this for 3 years now, and I wonder, too, whether I can return to being the me that I was.

[SkyWhite]

I wish I had a "normal" self to look back on and miss. My life was always plagued with depression, physical and emotional abuse from various partners, alcohol and drug abuse, and a myriad of other dysfunctions. The -c-ptsd and the additional ***** and abuse revealed by it seems like just another kick in the face.