[mythrider]

I have these moments where I get hysterical. Like everything around me seems so complicated or frustrating that I just scream. My husband and family describe it as a situation happens but it gets out of control in my head so bad that the situation doesn’t make sense anymore. Either that or it’s over exaggerating to an extreme that it’s not healthy for me.

Eventually I calm down but it’s really scary for me. I think it’s triggered by stress or an event that happened because of ptsd. Clonopin is the only thing that instantly calms me during those situations.

I had an episode this morning and still feel on edge. It’s hard to describe the feeling but it’s like a thousand rushing thoughts. It’s just even scary to me because it’s like a blackout moment.

I have complex ptsd. I was wondering if anyone understands this feeling, or has advice?

[Wild Coyote]

I am sorry you go through this.
It sounds like you feel overwhelmed during these times?

I do, at times, feel very overwhelmed. We might all experience and express this differently.

As for these episodes and for "exaggerating beyond what is healthy" for yourself, you may find DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) helpful?

Do you have a therapist?

My Best,

WC

[mythrider]

Originally Posted by Wild Coyote

I am sorry you go through this.
It sounds like you feel overwhelmed during these times?

I do, at times, feel very overwhelmed. We might all experience and express this differently.

As for these episodes and for "exaggerating beyond what is healthy" for yourself, you may find DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) helpful?

Do you have a therapist?

My Best,

WC

I do have a therapist and a psychiatrist but I am actually looking for one for mindfulness or dbt. My current therapist is cbt/talk therapy. She’s great but I feel that I need twice a week for the complexities of my trauma and anxiety. I’m just having difficulty finding the perfect one. I found one but she isn’t taking new clients ugh... I did emdr a long time ago but feel that dbt would be beneficial. It’s a little more than frustration, more like a black out as I don’t always remember what’s happening in those moments.

It’s nice to know I’m not alone.

[Open Eyes]

Hi (((mythrider))), I am sorry that you are struggling so much and "yes" what you are describing is something others who struggle with ptsd can relate with struggling the same way. I have experienced the symptoms you are describing myself and I know how challenging and even exhausting it can get and that you don't want to experience these episodes where you get so overwhelmed like this.

What they have been learning about ptsd is what causes this challenge to take place. Well, what they have learned is that when someone is traumatized it affects their hypo campus. The hypo campus is the part of the brain that acts like a filter so that when a person experiences things, this part of the brain reduces how situations impact the part of the brain that responds with "emotions" and that part of the brain is the amygdala. When someone experiences a trauma the hypo campus can shut down so that a person doesn't get overwhelmed. This can be part of why a person doesn't remember all the details of a traumatic event. However, the hypo campus can actually get damaged and shrink in size and when that happens the normal filter this part of the brain provides is not as effective and that can cause the amygdala to be more sensitive and the person will experience "more" emotions than normal. This is "why" so many individuals ask "why can't I just like I used to?" and how one's own magnified emotional reactions and sensitivities can become harder to control. Because of this the frontal cortex which is our executive functioning part of our brains has to actually work harder than normal and because of that a person, not realizing this can actually feel more challenged and feel overwhelmed simply because this part of their brain has to literally work harder than normal. So with this added challenge a person can "feel" disorganized and can "react" to things that affect their sense of "feeling" organized because it is this "feeling of being organized" that contributes to one's sense of personal "safety".

Talk therapy is helpful in that it allows a person to talk about things that traumatized them and when a therapist provides this person with feeling "safe" and "listens attentively and compassionately" the result is a person will "feel" like they finally have a witness which is often one important thing "missing" for them when they were traumatized. This also provides a patient a way to slowly use their executive part of their brain to slowly work through whatever it was that traumatized them and put the event or events into a dialogue which is an important part of "organizing" where the individual can work through what the trauma meant to them and how they can learn from this even where they can gain a sense of control again and also feeling "heard and understood and comforted". A patient needs to work through their traumas so they can better organize, learn, and gradually make gains on their personal sense of control again. The brain likes to understand and organize, this is how we are designed to be so that we can learn how to understand our world and learn about dangers so we can create ways of being "safer" in our world. The other thing that happens when we experience trauma is we do store these traumas because we designed to remember anything that poses a threat to us, by remembering these "threats" we are able to navigate in a safer way where when in certain situations that can pose a threat, we can remember, "this was not good so I need to be more careful" and "how can I fix this so it's safer".

Also, one of the things a person gets to have "relieved" when working with a therapist is the deep desire to "sound an alarm" too. We are designed to have a deep desire to talk about whatever we experienced that was a threat to our sense of safety as this is important to our survival as a species.

One of the reason's DBT can become helpful is that this therapy can contribute to ones ability to detect areas where certain words or sentences others use can be triggering, when we learn what these are, we can also learn how to respond to each of these challenged areas where we build actual skills that helps to strengthen ones' ability to increase their own sense of logic and ways to respond to others that sets better boundaries and creates a better sense of "control" for a person which always aides in reducing "stress". It can take time to understand this kind of therapy and often an individual will need to go slowly with this and even do this kind of therapy a few times until one begins to slowly master it more effectively.

Right now, you tend to reach for a Clonopin when you get overwhelmed. Clonopin does help in that it's a sedative and helps to calm down the overactive amygdala. However, you have to be careful with the Clonopin because you don't want to become too dependent on it which is something that can most definitely happen and this doesn't really help you learn how to manage your episodes on your own, which while a challenge you can actually gain on. The other thing about Clonopin to know is that this drug is a depressant and can increase one's depression level. Clonopin is also addictive so it's important to limit your use of it. I had been prescribed this drug and was told it was safe and non addictive and that there was no withdrawal if I stopped using it. WRONG!

I do have Clonopin on hand, however, I will only use it if I have too many bad days where I end up in pain and need a break. I had a hell of a time when it came to not using it everyday, and I used it mostly at night so I could sleep. I did not know I was getting addicted to it and dependent on it. I have to say I am very angry that I was encouraged to think it was safe and not addictive. I also had to learn that it's not safe to just stop it cold turkey, but one has to gradually reduce the dosage.

When you get upset, it's more important to recognize this is happening and distance from whatever it is and give yourself some "quiet" time, I learned to go someplace and be quiet, even would go up to my room and lay down and by doing that this overwhelming stress eases up and I can go back to doing my day. For me it would take anywhere from 20 minutes to a half hour to 45 minutes and I would feel better. This is because my body would finally realize "no danger so no need to pump cortisol to get ready for fight/flight". Half the battle is understanding what is behind these feelings you are experiencing so you don't end up getting frightened by them and getting all worked up but instead learn ways to control it instead.

[mythrider]

I don’t reach for clonopin that often. I should, but I don’t. I know it’s addictive so I try not to take it often. I just use it when I KNOW I need it - not nearly once every few months.. I’m on cymbalta which does help anxiety. I’ll be looking for a dbt therapist for awhile, they’re hard to find around here. I’m sorry you suffer too.

[Unrigged64072835]

Have you seen the DBT Self-Help web site? You can look that over while you're finding a therapist.

DBT Self-Help

[Rythm]

I can relate to thaI sometimes get all crazy when everything seems to be too complicated

[HD7970GHZ]

I certainly get hysterical. I have gone from laughing to crying to screaming all in a matter of seconds. The overwhelming nature of trauma and it's effects can send us in all kinds of directions. For me, I want to get out of my body. The pain is too much. The emotional and physiological symptoms are through the roof and I and desperately trying to find calm and comfort in the storm. In this state I definitely get hysterical. I think part of the reason is that I realize the extent of what has been done and I feel helpless; I am damned if I do and damned if I don't. It doesn't matter what I do - other people hurt me in the worst possible way and they don't even care. When I realize how helpless I am, I have all kinds of emotions going through my mind and sometimes my body just cannot process the intense emotions so it breaks into all kinds of emotions. It is not fun.

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

[RubyRae]

I call them 'meltdowns'.

They happen when I am overwhelmed and over stressed or have sensory overload.I feel like an idiot afterwards for not being in control of my emotions.

[NUBIFER]

You are definitely not alone. I also feel like it's a blackout. My vision gets narrow, like tunnel vision. I have almost had to pull over a time or two if I was driving & panic bubbles up for some reason (not always the same thing triggers me!) Healing vibes to all!

[MtnTime2896]

Yes, I have episodes of similar to this nature. My mom has them real bad. I resort to music. There's this one song in particular, if you want to check it out.

[The Ghost]

If get to that point sometimes. I feel like I'm just going to explode or just start jumping around punching and kicking things until I eventually hurt myself somehow.

I have a similar thing where I rage for a bit (yelling, throwing things) and then cry. This has gotten a lot better lately since being on sedating antipsychotics. You could try looking up some deep breathing techniques to try when you feel it coming on.

[satsuma]

I have sometimes jumped up and down while crying. It was the intensity of the emotion. I barely noticed what I was doing at the time but then my friends told me afterwards.

[Fuzzybear]

Reading/listening