[Runs with the eagle]

Hi, I have a major issue, every time I go to sleep, I have nightmares about my traumatic past, I have memories or images of my brothers who were taken from my family about a year ago in a traumatic way.

My nightmares cause me to wake up having panic attacks, but this morning scared me. I woke up with my heart beating so fast and I started having suicidal thoughts I could not stop. It was like my mind was telling me to kill myself, I had images of me hurting myself. I had to call my mom just to calm down.

Does this happen to anyone else? Any suggestions to help relieve this?
Thank You

[Open Eyes]

Hi Runs with the eagle, welcome to PC and the PTSD forum. I am so sorry that you are experiencing this challenge, I have experienced it myself so I understand how very much it is frightening and confusing you.

A lot of people who struggle with PTSD can have a hard time sleeping and can wake up as you have discribed here. I have experienced this myself and I know how it's scary/confusing and debilitating at times.

Well, you did experience something traumatic and overwhelming and this is why you have developed PTSD. I realized myself that often sleeping can be difficult because that is when our brain is trying to figure out how to process whatever we experience in our lives and when it comes to a major trauma, the brain really does struggle to figure out what to do with it and that is actually day or night.

The thoughts of suicide come because of how an individual is so confused about how to process whatever trauma they experienced and they begin to feel hopeless. However, they are not truely hopeless, but they do need to talk about it and get care and support so they can slowly get to a point where they can gain more understanding and control over this intense challenge that is taking place in this stage of PTSD.

What I had to learn is that when I experienced this challenge that it came in waves and like a wave it comes in, crests, and then receeds. It was so important to me to recognize that because then I realized that it was not constant and that I could understand that it came and went and while it was very hard, I did slowly make gains on it and I also had help at the time and the right kind of validation and that helped me a great deal.

It's so important that you learn to "self sooth" when you experience this and this will slowly ease up with time. That is important for you to know because I am sure right now it doesn't feel that way at all. I have next to my avatar "One day at a time" right?
Well, that is really how I learned to live and make sure I was very patient with myself, especially when I experienced what you are discribing. I had to really learn how to continue to consciously tell myself "yes, that did happen, but it is not happening now". When I did that my conscious mind was directing my subconscious mind that "yes, I do see this and it did happen but it is not happening now" and every time I did do that my brain/injury that was so challenged this way was learning how to understand it is in the past and not now and that does actually make a difference. It "is" very gradual though.

You see (((Rwte))) this is actually a normal response to anyone who experiences a trauma that they could not control that really was traumatic for them. However, that doesn't mean what you are experiencing now will never go away, our memories don't go away, but, we have a way of slowly overcoming this part of a reaction to a trauma and slowly getting to a level where we can move forward and often what helps is talking about it and finding our way to turn a major trauma into becoming our slowly learned lesson to help others and share the trauma that causes others to identify how something this traumatic can happen and look for ways to prevent it and also reach out to others and rebuild/recover in spite of. You are not at that point right now though, but, you can slowly and gradually get past this very difficult stage and I do know it's very, very challenging because I definitely lived through it myself.

This is also what I want you to think about too. When our bodies experience a severe physical injury it really is VERY sensitive for a while. Even with a body injury it's hard to get a good nights sleep. Our body is designed to feel pain and be very sensitive to whatever an injury happens to be so it can slowly heal, well the brain is the same way, it's very sensitive to an injury and the hurt or pain our brains experience is very emotional and it really takes time for the brain to slowly figure out how to slowly gain on not being so sensitive and like the body, that really does take time. It can be scarey when it is our mind though, but our minds really "can" heal and slowly learn how to better manage a big hurt/trauma, it is different and while this stage is so very sensitive, remember what I have told you, it comes in, crests, and receeds and that is also what happens with a physical injury. You really need to do your best to be very patient with yourself and self sooth and do what you can to help yourself have a safe place to go when you just need to settle down as that does help these waves receed faster. ((Gentle Caring Hugs))

Do you have a therapist right now?