I know I have PTSD, but I did't know it if that makes sense.

Yesterday there was an incident at my shop where I work, nothing major but the effect it had on me was hard!

Thankfully I had T yesterday and I walked in very anxious, very agitated, very afraid. I demanded T listen to me! Not that she doesn't but I needed someone to hear my story. I needed someone to understand how awful it was unyet how long ago it was.

She said we need to talk some more about it then and I did, but I wasn't hopeful that talking about it then would solve my situation I was in at that moment.

So I talked and I cried and I got even more confused between real and not real.

T asked how I dealt with the fear back then? I said I acted tough, I was about 10. I remembered in a flashback the emotions that went with that acting tough, the arms folded tight, the thinking that If I stopped for a second, the earth would consume me.

When I arrived home I did feel some sense coming back to me, I kept/keep flashing between then and now. like to pieces of paper coming unstuck, slowly.

I have to keep on my toes though, I have to keep saying to myself "its not real, its not happening, it did happen once upon a time and the fear you feel now, belongs to that time!"

I keep having nightmares that I'm falling, that no matter where or what I have to do, it involves a terrifying drop first. I wake up with fear tingling through my veins, so relieved it was a dream, but was that how the fear would have felt back then if I had been able to feel it?

I feel so bruised and battered, so vunrable today. I feel the difference between the strenght of a 10yr old and the strenght that an adult has.

I;ve been operating from the false bravado fear of that 10yr old and its left me unable to really take good care of myself. Its having to let go of what I think is me and just let me that I don't know properbly yet, reveal what my true inner strenghts are today.

My false strenght that got me through those terrifying times is no good.

I felt the abandoment also of not having had good enought parents to take care of me properly then only because I compared T's taking care of me yesterday to how it was back then, the aloneness I felt inside during those times is beyond belief almost.

This is a really wierd time for me right now. I'm having to do all the things you read about when reading about PTSD and I'm experiencing it on a consious level too and its just so real..

I think the falling in the dreams is showing me that I am gradually emotionally and consiously being taken back to times that were to much to bare back then.

I believe today that I have PTSD, I've never believed it before. I know it now, I feel it, I see the way my body and thinking is connected by the past.

As I talked yesterday to T, I heard her take a breath in and let it out. That struck me. It made me see me. See that this stuff is real.

A prisoner of our pasts, no more awful sentence! I don't know how much we eventually do recover, how well we do manage life today without being effected to much? I guess its a day at a time right now. As the wave of fear rises, I greet it. There is nothing else i can do.

[SecretGarden]

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mouse_ said:

When I arrived home I did feel some sense coming back to me, I kept/keep flashing between then and now. like to pieces of paper coming unstuck, slowly.

I have to keep on my toes though, I have to keep saying to myself "its not real, its not happening, it did happen once upon a time and the fear you feel now, belongs to that time!"

A prisoner of our pasts, no more awful sentence! I don't know how much we eventually do recover, how well we do manage life today without being effected to much? I guess its a day at a time right now. As the wave of fear rises, I greet it. There is nothing else i can do.

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Mouse... I am so glad you posted today. ;-) and so glad that you shared this. You are making great progress and I know it is painful. I really can relate in my own way to what you are saying. Thanks for sharing.... bit by bit Mouse... bit by bit.

[withit]

I don't know that we recover fully, but with time and support the memories recede, we do function better.

I used to have lotsa dreams about falling, like falling from a 30-story high building, etc. Haven't had them dreams in over a year, I guess it's a good sign. You will see, with time these dreams will cease to haunt you.

I found it helpful to read about ptsd and treatment for it, helped normalize my experience.

You're going through a rough time; it is not easy. Be kind to yourself and take gentle care,

[SecretGarden]

My pdoc said the last time I was in that at the age of 80 I will still see some of this but by that time I will maybe even be able to laugh at it. Well.... I hope I will be laughing...