[AHeartOfRuby]

I don't want to go into lengthy explanations about the cause of my PTSD but to be simple with you... I had major orthopedic surgeries at the beginning of January which left me A) ill for two weeks and B) bed ridden for 3 months. I also had 2 emergency surgeries the most recent in June. During this time I spent three weeks inpatient and dumped my abusive boyfriend. Today I was actually triggered when I had to go into a hospital to interview a pathologist for a class of mine and I stumbled into the rehab center there. Everything came flooding back to me: the feeling of helplessness fear loneliness hatred for my father like I was being suffocated I've cried about it for the last four nights now it kind of hits me in waves.. I'm really tired of being triggered by the simplest of things and it's not proactive of me to "fear" hospitals if I wish to work in the medical field. Please I need your help i have no where else to go. I just want the pain to stop.

[Skeezyks]

One way to look at this might be that the feelings of helplessness, fear, loneliness, & hatred you are experiencing are messages coming from non-conscious areas of your brain telling you that you have unresolved feelings you need to deal with. Jon Kabat-Zinn goes into some detail discussing what he refers to as "feedback loops", in his book Full Catastrophe Living.

Of course, the mainstream way that people deal with these sorts of struggles is via therapy of one sort or another... individual, CBT, DBT, etc. I'm not a fan of therapy personally. But I've read posts, here on PC, written by members who said their therapists saved their lives. So I presume there are great therapists out there. It's just a matter of finding the right one for you. If you have designs on working in the medical field at some point, I would think it would be particularly important to heed the messages those non-conscious areas of your brain are sending to your conscious mind. My best wishes to you...

Originally Posted by AHeartOfRuby

I had major orthopedic surgeries at the beginning of January which left me A) ill for two weeks and B) bed ridden for 3 months. I also had 2 emergency surgeries the most recent in June. During this time I spent three weeks inpatient and dumped my abusive boyfriend. Today I was actually triggered when I had to go into a hospital to interview a pathologist for a class of mine and I stumbled into the rehab center there. Everything came flooding back to me: the feeling of helplessness fear loneliness hatred for my father like I was being suffocated I've cried about it for the last four nights now it kind of hits me in waves.. I'm really tired of being triggered by the simplest of things and it's not proactive of me to "fear" hospitals if I wish to work in the medical field. Please I need your help i have no where else to go. I just want the pain to stop.

IMO when we go through traumatic challenges, in order to get through them, our mind sometimes puts some of the emotions on the backburner and we end up processing it later. For example,

Possible trigger:

when I attempted I chose a traumatic (violent) method,

I felt no pain or fear immediately after and I didn't feel any of the fear that must have been there until about 6 months after the event. I dealt with panic attacks and flashbacks for about 1 and a half years but now (it has been about 2 and a half years since the attempt) I think they are over. I am sure everyone is different and my event was of shorter duration than yours are. I am sorry you are going through this. I remember that it was a very helpless feeling because they would come out of the blue and you cannot stop them. Anxiety medications lesson their intensity but do not stop them. It felt like I had to let them play out and the emotions aren't going away until you recognize and honor them. Hugs.