[darkpurplesecrets]

This is a really hard time of year, the deeper I seem to walk the more that hits me and knocks me off my feet, and the more alone I feel I am. Sleep seems to be something for others but not for me. Nights turn to morning, it's light out and still I lie awake afraid and unable to even connect to time that just passed as it seems it vanishes with the daylight, but yet, what weighs and preys on me is ever present around me, through me, silently torturing and won't let go.

Knowing that I drifted off at times, awakening terrified and feeling lost to where I am, knowing that I somehow have to get back and be okay. Funny how time goes on, I don't even think it knows I am not there, in today, maybe it doesn't care, for now I need to function and push through, hiding it all as if I am okay and strong. That is what the world expects, and whether I can or can't doesn't matter, I have to.

Finding my way to smile, pull on that mask again, pretending I am present in an ever forward world, part of me is terrified and afraid of failing, part of me doing all it can to just be there. But we are good at pretending, meeting what is expected, being strong whether we are or not. Coming across as strong, having it all together, we've set a presence we must maintain.

But silently, unknowingly to the world around us, we are tortured in what no one else sees or can understand. At times silence, at times forgotten, but always strong, whether we really are not; we are. We have to be. And the world around me either cannot see or refuses to see the struggle and that I cannot always be what they want, expect, or need me to be; but I do it anyways. Whether me or us, it gets done, it has to.

I don't know what I am trying to say, what I am asking for, but somewhere just for someone to know we are not as strong as we appear. Sometimes painting on a mask of knowing something we really do not know or understand, sometimes painting on that mask a smile to make it easier for the world to accept us and not walk away.

Today I am trying to be okay, to be in the present, to be human and to be someone accepted and okay-----I have to be or I am no one and this darkness that seems ready to swallow me, will. God help me to stay, to be okay, and to not disappear into the darkness.

Please just don't judge me, I do that enough already. It may seem easy to just be present, strong, and okay but it really takes all I have to do that each day. I have had to, always had to, so I come across as someone who can be what is expected and needs to be what is expected for myself; and whether expected or not, it is in our mind, a mind that has always known to be.

Inside I am crying, falling to pieces, and so afraid. It doesn't match my outer self. I'm afraid; afraid to be alone, but have learned to be anyways, even when I need someone the most. Today I am trying to be okay, and I will be, because I have to, but inside I am failing because I am anything but okay. But the world around me doesn't need to know, I will be what the world needs me to be-----just please don't judge me......I'll be what I have to be at least until darkness once again comes, and the world disappears once again behind closed doors and I once again remove the mask that is not me.........

and once again am taken away.......

I'm trying.....the world does not seem to be what it is.....but then again, how do I know.......I am lost between worlds......but I am trying. Please don't leave me, I'm trying. I wish for a hug, for a word of understanding......that is all. That is all..............

[Open Eyes]

It's ok to be "here" today, none of us here will be judging you, because we do know how it feels, the challenge in our own way. I think that everyone will appreciate what you posted in their own private way too.

Thank you for sharing, that was good of you to do "today".

((Caring Appreciative Hugs))

OE

[HowDoYouFeelMeow?]

The support at P.C. will not leave you. We care about you. We support you. And we embrace you.

Sending you warm thoughts and prayers of peace...

[sabby]

((((((((((((( dps )))))))))))))

It will be okay.....

[darkpurplesecrets]

It's after 7:00 AM, and I have not slept all night. My nerves are going and I could not seem to find sleep. My thoughts feel they are being pulled far away from me, and I feel scared. I can hear screams deep within that I cannot turn off, that no one else can hear. I felt a touch last night across my back, I could not cover up well enough to stop that feeling. I was scared to move, scared to look, and my scream was within that would not ever come out.

Shadows on the wall seemed to stare at me, wanting to pull the covers over my face but too afraid to not see what may be there lurking within the darken shadows. I couldn't see my door, it was as if it was gone, and I felt trapped. Nothing was on the walls around me, they were white, except the shadows, somewhere so known, yet unknown to myself as me.

I turned on my TV, it was enough light to see and get to my computer, it was 3:30 AM, and I didn't move again until it started to get light out. I've felt so cold that I could not find warmth but a different kind of cold; a cold I cannot put into words. I felt myself shiver and tears falling down my face. But what was I crying about? What am I still crying about?

But I know somewhere, I can feel it as though I should. The feeling of them is there but it is day now. They should be gone but they still linger somewhere close yet distant. The night is gone, I have opened my curtains, but still something is lingering and pulling at me deep, and I want to run.

I could see things in the shadows that terrified me yet I felt as though I was trying to run away but not getting anywhere. It felt as if everywhere I ran it beat me there. Laughing at me and my fear. How can one run when they are sitting? A strange feeling, yet known; as if I ran somewhere, in my mind, anywhere to get away. But I really never got away. Some part of me was there, some part of me knows.

I felt as though I was reaching down, somewhere above trying to type. But the writing is gone, as if I never wrote anything. My angel, my friends picture, my safe pillow case, surrounding me. I should feel safe, but though they are surrounding me, I don't feel or find safety. It feels it left me, they left me. They couldn't be there, they never were.

And Raggedy, we hid her under the covers, that feeling that she would be taken, ripped to pieces; our doll was ripped to pieces, ripped to pieces just like a part of me was. And it hurts. My mind hurts. I don't want to remember, I want to run...just run. It's foggy but seems I see shadowy figures in my mind. A little girl, but I don't want her to be me. I just don't. PLEASE.

I got dressed at the light of day, but I don't remember doing it. Wanting to leave, afraid to go. Where would I go anyways? I know I did things this morning, but I cannot remember, but some part of me does. Some part of me can do what needs to be done, do it better than me, yet it is me somewhere. I'm drinking coffee, but I don't remember making it, but I had to have, it cannot make itself. Cigarettes, smoked, I don't remember, but I had to have smoked them.

Now sitting here trying to type, still I feel I am in a fog, spinning and leaning to the side, but I am sitting up straight. My arms feel backwards again, and I feel as though I have been beaten and I hurt. I know I am typing, I can see it, black on white going across the screen. This fear should be gone, it's light now, the night is gone. But still it lingers, it still pulls at my mind, it still feels too close.

I'm afraid to read what is typed above, I can't. Time, it is not my friend. I need to go with it, I need to go forward, for it has felt I was going counter clock wise at a speed I could not stop. I feel too far away to find now. But yet time keeps moving forward, I just cannot catch up. I'm trying. It won't leave me; this feeling, this pain, this fear. It is there, and I am still screaming somewhere within this fog.

I'm trying to be strong. I am trying to tell myself to turn back, almost feel myself screaming it. It feels strange. I feel as though I am typing but there has been times where I am just staring at this screen. I am trying to pull thoughts from my mind, but they feel too scared to be known. But yet they have filled this screen, I just don't remember.

I feel afraid someone is laughing, or will laugh, that someone is going to be mad and angry, that no one is going to care. My head hurts. My fear lingers. And I feel exhausted, just exhausted. It's almost 9:00 AM, the phone rang almost an hour ago. My t is not going to be there today. Two weeks now he has been gone, and I am trying to be strong, brave, and keep it together. It's been really hard.

I feel this sense of dizzy, my head hurts. I need to be okay, to pull myself together and be strong. I will. I have to. I need to close this. I don't know why, but a feeling of fear of getting in trouble. In trouble with who? I am not sure, the feeling is just there. I need to not cry anymore. I need to push this all away, just push it all away. I don't want to know anymore. It hurts enough just the feelings and senses I have.

That little girl is back there, within the shadows, in the fog, in the terror and cold. Some part of me can still sense her and that closeness I was at just hours ago. I don't want to see her, I don't want to reach her, I just want it to go away. PLEASE.

My angel stone, my picture of my friend, my safe pillow case, I see them now. I need them, I'm so glad they did not leave, at least not the things. My room is back, the door is there, the things on the wall, the TV still on. Day is finally catching up to the light it brings; the light that was there hours before but seemed too far away from where i was.

The feelings still linger close, I can feel it, those within the shadows and fog still linger within the lingering feelings. I can still sense them, too close I fear. The day noises I hear them now, the trash truck outside, the bang of the trash bin and trash being put into the truck, the music playing on the TV, the tap of these keys. I feel myself breathing for the first time, but my head, it still hurts. And the memories are still within the lingering feelings, though farther away, but still close enough to know they are not gone.

The feeling of running is starting to go away too. I just want it all to go away. All of it. But I know they will be there again in the darkness of another night. Waiting for me, pulling me away and revealing themselves within the shadows and fog that I am terrified of. The terror and memories held somewhere, by those within. And somewhere in it all, I know they are me, but until night, I will be as strong as I can, and try.

I keep trying, and trying. I am still very afraid, but trying to pull it all back within, within myself away from this day. That is all I can do, but I am doing it the best I can. I just want it all to go away. Just go away. It's now after 9:00 AM, soon everyone will be awake and life goes on. I must move on too. I have too. I have to somehow.

I feel I want a hug, but I am afraid to be touched, to ask for one, or to reach for one. Maybe here, May I ask for a hug, maybe??? Maybe that is asking too much. Much more than I deserve or warrant. I just don't know.

I don't know if this makes any sense, I am afraid of even part of these words. But I'm really trying, I will keep really trying. I have to. Or it will swallow me. Swallow me within the shadows, within the darkness, within the terror, within the evil. And I just want it to go away. Just go away...please...

dps

[sabby]

You absolutely are deserving of a ((((((((((((((( dps )))))))))))))))

I'm sorry that things are so difficult for you right now dps. You are trying hard to stay present and I know it's not an easy thing for you to do at times. I have to say though, you do a much better job of it now than you used to do. You have managed to learn how to help yourself and to ground yourself which is very important.

I'm sorry that your T cancelled again today. Can you call and leave a message on his voice mail so that he knows you are struggling really bad? Maybe he can schedule you in this week for an appt.

Just know that I am here for you and I support you and I love you, my friend.

[JaneC]

We are all here for you, and would never judge I am sure. I can see how hard you are struggling, and how present you are keeping yourself. Keep a hold of your angel stone and the other things that keep you present.

I do hope you can see your therapist soon.

We all care about each other, I think because we may all have an understanding of just how much we each also need care.

[Open Eyes]

When I was experiencing PTSD at it's worst, I began having episodes much like you are discribing in your post. The chills you are talking about, I know exactly what you are discribing and yes, it is different from being cold or not having enough covers or the room being too cold.

Then, I began to experience episodes where I not only experienced much of what you are discribing, but I felt like a "child" and I could not stop crying and my stomach hurt so bad, I really could not articulate how bad adequately either, all I knew is that it was incredibly painful. The flashbacks I had told me I was in a crib too, but I did not see what was happening to me. I thought, if only I could see that then maybe I could at least talk about it and work on it so these episodes were not so crippling. It got so bad I was afraid to go to sleep, yes, I can relate to the night slipping past me and me not know how to feel safe enough to just sleep, it was awful.

I talked about this with my therapist, and one day it came over me and it scared me so much that somehow I managed to call my therapist while I was experiencing it. My therapist was so amazing about helping me with it, just amazing. He was so calm and talked me slowly through it, assured me that it was not going to last and slowly helped me stay calm while it was happening. Unfortunately, my husband came home in the middle of that and got mad at me and my therapist could hear him. My husband was angry and told me "stop acting like a baby". My therapist insisted on me giving my husband the phone and honestly I don't know "how" I was able to follow my T because of how bad that episode was. My therapist explained to my husband what was happening and how it was not my fault and what it meant and how to help me with it instead of yelling at me and making it worse. That really made a difference, because I definitely was frightened just as you experience it, so you know what that means in a very intimate way.

I could not understand "why" it was happening and it was always the same, incredibly painful too and the chills where my soul felt so cold, it was so much more than just being cold. I talked to my T about it wishing I could somehow know what was happening and my T told me that often a patient wont see it all because of how the brain self protects or because sometimes if a patient was really young the brain doesn't have enough language there to understand it too.

Then one session my T told me that often what it could be saying is that I was a baby and I woke up hungry and wet and that when babies are hungry their stomachs hurt so they cry for food so the mother will know to feed. Babies wet themselves so that could present that chill too. Well, after thinking about it, I remembered that my mother was often overwhelmed with two other children and she probably often could not get to me right away. Once I thought about it in that way, it was not so strong, and when it happened it did not leave me wondering if I was being hurt somehow too.

I still experience it sometimes, and I keep a hairdyer by the bed and I also have a heating pad and I just wake up and grab the hair dryer and blow it on my legs, feet, arms and carefully on my face and slowly those chills go away. I sleep with the TV on so if I wake up with it on some level, I don't feel alone and it is easier to get grounded.

I will probably always have that child in me that can experience that challenge and there are times when I get triggered that I do experience that. I have learned to understand it better and self sooth in a self caring way, and I remind myself that it never means I am a bad person or was ever unworthy in any way.

My therapist keeps blankets around in his room, he explained to me that many of his "trauma" patients use these blankets because they too get these chills. A lot of patients that have PTSD talk about needing a comforting presence and most of them don't seem to get that need met too. This isn't "just" in the PTSD patients that have a history going back to their childhood's either, this is also experienced in "war vets" too.

While I know you have some challenges in your history, I think it is important to understand this challenge is a "common symptom" that presents with PTSD so you don't just go right to feeling that it is only reminding you of something bad that just happened to you or because of something in particular. It's not necessarily a bad thing either as the body gets these chills as a way of processing "trauma" in an effort to self regulate again. So, in that when my therapist is working through traumas with his patients, it is normal for him to see his patients experience these "chills" that are not the same as just being "cold".

A big part of the challenge with PTSD is learning what things mean so one doesn't make the mistake of feeding into it just thinking that they are somehow "bad" in any way or even just somehow "crazy" when the body is psychologically and physiologically trying to process and heal.

Sleep can be a challenge during trauma work too because the brain is only trying to figure out how to process whatever it is a patient is trying to work through. PTSD can be so confusing and a person can even get so they begin practicing "flight" by waking up very early and going out running or engaging in some kind of physical activity.

One time in a therapy session I was so overwhelmed trying to tell my T all that I was dealing with and in that process so many things came into my thoughts, all things that connected to the main challenge that it was probably hard to follow. My T stopped me and said, "see what you are doing right now?", then he said, this is what happens with PTSD but is often misdiagnosed as bipolar. Over his years of practicing in working with trauma patients, he has seen so many patients doing the same thing I was doing with him that day.

The average person doesn't understand how much work it is to "work through trauma".
Pretty much everyone that comes and shares here struggles with that and tries very hard to find a way to "put on a pretend self" when around others. The bottom line though is that it never means a person is "unworthy" of healing or being helped in the process of this healing challenge.

Each challenged individual will tend to repeat something over and over again. Often there is a theme to it too. Often a person will say that "intellectually" they can see it and understand it on some level, but they continue to experience the "hurt" somehow. What that means is that what a person needs to do is say it as much as needed and get validation for whatever it is over and over until that person finally rebuilds that "hurt" part which means finally developing a new deep subconscious connection that not only knows it "intellectually" but finally "feels it" too.

Understanding that human beings are actually designed to want that because it really has always been a key to our very survival is important. In all my time meeting different individuals that struggle with PTSD, not one of these individuals ever deserved to feel or was/is ever "unworthy".

I am sorry that someone hurt you (((dps))), it was never your fault, you never deserved it and it certainly doesn't mean you are unworthy because it hurt you so deeply to where you struggle, expressing how you struggle is something so many can hear you in a way that they too can relate to exactly what you are discribing.

When a poster comes along and articulates it so well like you do ((dps)), it gives everyone who is challenged a chance to reflect on how they too struggle in very similar ways, but might struggle to articulate it so well. Often it is a relief when someone can say, "yes" that is how I feel too, but could not quite explain it. I have tried to share how my T has helped me understand it better, he is such a good T, so why not share as these T's are often hard to come by.

((Caring and Comforting Hugs))
OE

[darkpurplesecrets]

I understand that what I have said many can relate to and can understand too, but this is what I am experiencing now and have for a long time. It is not something about being hungry or being wet, this goes much deeper into what happened to me, and not a child's needs. I was being hurt, that is what this is about. And while I get what was said, I just know for me it is connected to what I went through, what I have blocked out, and what another part or parts of me carries that I left myself as I could not go through it as myself.

I cannot explain what I am trying to say. Maybe it doesn't matter, maybe I just needed to be understood for what I am going through, not what everyone else goes through. Maybe I am not understanding what is being said. I feel lost to words and cannot seem to take them in other than understanding and knowing that I am not the only one that goes through PTSD or feelings as we described. I get that. But right now to just try to make it hour by hour is all I can do, and minute by minute if that is all I can step through.

And feeling maybe I don't belong here.

[Fuzzybear]

((((((((( dps ))))))))))

[Open Eyes]

It's ok, (((dps)), you don't have to see anything other than whatever "you" need to see, feel, say right now.

We all want you to feel safe, that is more important.

[JadeAmethyst]

[darkpurplesecrets]

Another night of images and shadows, no sleep as fear froze me not even able to make it to the computer. I'm afraid to write, just wish especially this week would be over.

I feel exhausted, small, and very alone and lost. Thoughts creeping in pushing at me that I would be better off not here. And even though I try to counter those thoughts, sometimes I almost feel maybe they are right.......

[Open Eyes]

((dps)), oh hun, I am sorry you are having a bad ptsd episode like this. It's hard when these get so challenging and present these feelings. It's ok to acknowledge them, it's ok to be"patient" and self care until it finally passes. I try to get rest during the day if I have these bad nights, sometimes I don't actually sleep the way I want to sleep, but, I snuggle in my bed, often put the TV on with something that is light, even an old movie and curl up with my heating pad. I know that what I am suggesting doesn't take it away, I have just learned to try to be patient until it slowly passes and self comfort and lay low.

No need to feel you have to have a way to put words to it right now, whatever you need and want to say is fine. We are here to listen in what ever way you need right now.

[JaneC]

Oh dps I am sorry things are so tough. I just wanted to offer you a kind, gentle, supportive if you would like one.

For some reason the hug button doesn't show up on my phone.

Also, please stay with us. I can imagine how hard this is, please keep on ignoring those dark thoughts. You are so brave to be getting through this.



sent from mobile via tapatalk

[darkpurplesecrets]

I wish today was not. I know that for many Halloween is just a day to trick or treat, but it means so much more to us. I was so scared and found myself just rocking last night, lost time, and wanting to run, hide, get away....but there is nothing now to get away from but it doesn't feel that way. My dream, another nightmare, not even worth words as there are none to explain nor is there any reason, no one will understand. I feel so alone, trying hard to function like normal, but I feel small, afraid, and not sure it is worth it.

Only here do these words come, I feel silent otherwise. And feel my words mean nothing, my feelings mean nothing, and I mean nothing. I know feelings change, but right now this is how I feel. They say silence is golden, here silence is anything but golden. It is black, full of terror, and memories, memories even this adult feels powerless and terrified to speak or show any sign of weakness to anyone. I feel I am watching out and a wondering today is anyone really safe or who they say they are? That is how lost I feel today. And maybe me being alone is best for everyone, even me............................

[Bluegrey]

I don't know what it's like with your dream and feeling that can't be expressed in words, dps, but I do know that I have times when I have a flashback without words, just raw emotion. I feel small, afraid and needing someone to help me but there is no one. It's horrible. I don't yet have much in the way of memory to go with it though.

(((dps))) I hope you find the light, the sound of happiness, the still point of the turning world.


Bluegrey

[Parley]

I hope you find sleep tonight~ without the nightmares or silent screams.