[catlover1]

I know I have minor flashbacks, like walking into a room, and for a few seconds, I can see things from the time. However, I was told today that I'm having more flashbacks than I thought. I can see, in my mind's eye, kind of like an old black and white home movie playing. It's as if I'm watching it from a distance. It's not the I feel like it's happening now feeling, hard to explain, more like I'm watching something extremely upsetting from the past, and almost like it's not even me who experienced it, but watching someone else's life. Does that make sense? Anyway, Therapist told me today that those ARE flashbacks. It's very upsetting and panic attack and anxiety provoking, but I don't have the deep fear and the freeze in your place feelings I get when I have the more obvious flashbacks. Have you experienced this at all? Are these truly flashbacks as the therapist has stated?

The therapist is strongly suggesting guided imagery as a part of treatment for the panic and anxiety. She says there's too much I can't talk about, too much I'm not remembering. Too many blanks in the memory. She believes guided imagery may help some of these issues, especially the paralyzing panic and the worst depression symptoms. Any experience with this? Has it helped anyone here? Is it worth trying?

I've just started therapy. The one leading the group said therapy and meds can't wait, so she pulled some strings, networked, and got me into it much, much sooner than expected. I was originally told it would be a couple months before any appts would become available. She also set me up, not only with her as my therapist and someone she knows as my psychiatrist, but also someone else as a phone contact who can be contacted by phone if I'm having an especially bad day. She said I'm looking at 2 sessions/week for therapy, one with her, one with the other person I've talked to on the phone but have yet to meet, plus bi-weekly appts with the psychiatrist until meds are found to be working, then can back that off to once/month. The problem, I'm scared to death of all this. I do want to feel better. I hate my life. I hate the way I feel day in and day out. I have no desire to do anything other than sit here. Dragging myself to work is of unspoken difficulty. I haven't felt fear like this, other than in frequent panic attacks or in some flashbacks for a long time now, like 2 years. However, right now, I'm scared out of my mind of doing all this. I've never been in therapy before. Sharing feelings is uncomfortable enough for me as I was always taught negative feelings of any kind need to be tucked away and forgotten. My dad used to tell me, "no fear" when he'd take me rock climbing. He'd tell me, "no fear" when I was set to do something uncomfortable. As he was dying, he told me, "no fear, no tears. Strong girls don't cry." It was drilled into my head my entire life. 40 years later, here I am, trying to deal with this fear. Now I have this extremely strong fear of therapy. Do any of you deal with this feeling? It's not just discomfort. It's true, shaking, freezing, panicking FEAR.

[CANDC]

Catlover, I was growing up in the NO CRY generation and it took quite a bit of therapy for me to get in touch with my emotions. I think you have a wonderful treatment program that handles therapy and meds. The fact they found a place for you means they care and you have a need.

I am not trying to talk you out of feelings, but here is a way that I can not be a victim of feelings like fear and anxiety.

One thing I try is a breathing exercise to focus on breath instead of fighting with the thoughts.
Quote:
Breathing exercise with natural breathing do not force.
If you are feeling very anxious or angry or just want to calm down, you can try a breathing exercise that takes the attention away from the trigger of anxiety to a simple tool of counting breaths.

Find a comfortable position seated or laying down. Begin to relax your breathing. Silently count 1 on the inhale, and two on the exhale. Then silently count 3 on the inhale and 4 on the exhale. Continue up to 10 or until you lose the count then return to one. No judgement. I sometimes end up at 18 then smile and return to 1. The idea is to focus on the breath and the counting and not get sucked into the anxiety or anger trigger. Also works to quiet the mind.

I have to watch what I eat because foods I eat can stabilize my moods or exaggerate them. A high protein low carb diet with snacks or meals every 3-4 hours will over time reduce my swings. I also avoid alcohol and recreational drugs because those can really increase depression.

Other lifestyle changes that help me are doing yoga, exercises, mindfulness, calm music, and being active on Psych Central.

Glad you are joining us here. There are lots of compassionate people here that can make the load lighter by sharing and caring. Feel free to participate actively at Psych Central.

Some people find the forums give them the compassion and empathy they seek. http://forums.psychcentral.com

Please feel free to private message me or any of the Community Liaisons by left clicking on the name in blue to the left of their post) for questions or just to share.

[catlover1]

Thank you for the warm response, suggestions and ideas. I do appreciate it!

I've tried several of the different breathing exercises, but none have worked yet. Yours might be easier for me because it doesn't include deep breathing which is hard for me due to lung disease caused by a lung infected I almost died from a few years ago. It left me with marked lung damage, causing COPD. Deep breathing is simply not an option as it leaves me more short of breath afterward. I'll try yours, see if that helps at all.

I'm not able to watch what I eat much due to finances being so tight that food pantries and dollar store junk is all I can afford. I'll try watching it a little closer, if I can.

I don't use alcohol or illegal drugs. I won't say the temptation isn't there. I won't say the desire to try for some sort of relief from the feelings I had so often isn't there. However, part of my PTSD is due to events caused by other who were too high or too drunk, and I have a strong desire to be sure I avoid all that. It IS tempting to say to hell with it and see if it helps AT ALL, but I've been able to avoid giving in, so far.

I try to exercise, etc, but I have no energy anymore. The pull to just sit here is so strong, it overpowers anything else. How do you get yourself up and active? Therapist said it will come in time, but I'm getting impatient and frustrated. The only thing I do is go to work, and very occasionally to the store. I'll wait until my cats run out of food or litter, then I go for/because of them. I do nothing else. It's not that I don't want to. I miss my life before all this. I feel as though life, as I knew it, is gone, it's dead. I have a real hard time...no, impossible time, feeling as though getting any of it back will ever happen. I try and try to push myself, I'll get up and get dressed, but then go sit back down. I've read things before where people say just get up and out, just do it. But just doing it has a lot of components for me, it's not as simple as just do it.

I sleep very, very little. The nightmares have my sleep down to, if I'm lucky, 3 hours at a time, once/day. I work nights. I'm not on meds yet, waiting for the psychiatrist appt, and therapist says she thinks some of this will improve with improved sleep. I haven't slept more than 5 hours/day in a year and a half, and not more than 3 hours in the past six months. My norm is around 2 hours.

My anxiety is at a level where I can't sit still. I don't get up and do anything, I just move a lot while I'm sitting. I move so much that I accidentally kneed and kicked the underside of the table countless times in group. I'm very uncomfortable with group, so it has me even more anxious. But I'm uncomfortable with any/everything anymore anyway. The talking about the traumas, well, frankly, I'm having a hard time with that, harder time than I thought I would. Just thinking about talking about it throws me into full blown back to back panic attacks. I had a panic attack at the first group a few weeks ago, in front of the therapist. That was so embarrassing!! I also had a panic attack during the main assessment. The nervousness built and built. I tried to hold it back, and did for a while, but the assessment was 4 hours, and I just couldn't hold it back that long. It was cut back to 2 hours because they felt I couldn't tolerate 4. I'm afraid I'll say the wrong thing. I'm not sure what the wrong thing would be because saying anything feels wrong to me, so I'm sure that's most of the problem. I know the therapist is trying to gain my trust, I see that, and I do appreciate it, so I really tried hard yesterday and a few days ago to answer her questions, but my mind kept going blank, or I'd start to answer something in more detail and end up spacing off and getting very quiet. She says it's to be expected right now. She's not pressuring me to talk more, in fact, quite the opposite. She's encouraging me to allow myself to be cautious for now until I'm more comfortable with it all. She has warned me that therapy is uncomfortable for most people, so she does try to push me a little out of my comfort zone each time. I do understand it, but I feel bad for not being able to answer many of her questions. I pay very little for this care, $5/week is all I pay, and I have no insurance at all. The state and city pay it as do federal grant funding. I am over the allowable amount for medicaid by $10/month, so I lost my medicaid back in February. I have no other means to pay for care at this time. She's putting her time and effort into it, and I'm uptight because I feel like my not being able to answer her questions in more detail is uncaring of me. I feel awkward even being there. She says it'll come in time, and that it's OK and she expects that at first. She says she is seeing effort, and would tell me if she didn't. But I can't help but wonder if she's just saying that to make me feel better about it? She does really nothing to make me feel the level of discomfort that I feel, and the discomfort isn't necessarily toward her, it's the entire concept of this. My parents drilled it into my head throughout my childhood, you don't talk to "shrinks" they'll change and morph what you say, everything you say. You don't air your dirty laundry to anyone for that matter. Feelings are personal, and you are to keep them that way. That pops into my head, and I close up. The therapist assures me that it'll come in time, and likely quicker than I think, but I'm doubtful. She's been typing out extra handouts for me. She said maybe it'll be easier to write it than to say it, so she's been typing up a lot of questions that I'm supposed to work on outside of her office. One yesterday was things like, what makes me happy, upset, disgusted, angry, etc, etc. She said I may need to start that way, by writing it instead of saying it, and handing that to her at the beginning of a session. She'll then share it with the other therapist and the psychiatrist so I don't have to say as much at those appointments either. She said that gives them the opportunity to see what needs to be worked on the most without my mind going blank in the office when those questions are asked. She says it's also a practice in sharing, and will help me in near future to start feeling more comfortable with it all. She also wants me to start working on writing one sentence stating simply what each trauma I've experienced, but past and present, is. Like, I was chased by, and have scars on the backs of my legs from a pack of wild dogs while out hiking as a kid. She said she needs to know what the traumas are in more detail than I have been able to tell her. Some things, I only remember bits and pieces of, and some things I remember in great detail. When it happened doesn't seem to make a difference with the memory either. It's weird. Like a few things, I can remember in great detail from 35 years ago, yet the more recent trauma, the one that appears to be the cause of the current PSTD, I can't remember a full 3 months of that. I can remember certain things that happened, but I can't remember when it happened if it was within that few months I've lost. She says that's OK, that we need to work on first being more comfortable with sharing the parts that I do remember, then go further into it from there. She's very patient with it all, but I am not. I feel as though I'm wasting her time and my own if I can't remember or can't bring myself to share what I do remember.

My diagnosis now is, PTSD with mild dissociation (memory loss of the events, feeling like it happened to someone else and not actually to me, unexplainable feelings of confusion, suddenly spacing out, with or without a thought process while spacing out things like that, she said, are strong indicators of dissociation), major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder and panic disorder.