Living with PTSD (Potentially Triggering Material)

@Former-Member Hi, I'm guessing you've had a big day with hubby being moved back locally. Eventually I hope this will,lift the pressure for you so you can have a bit of you time. How often do you see you psych??? My counsellor is on four weeks hols atm, even though I know she needs the break, I do miss her, three more and back she comes, just in time for Christmas and a mobile party!!!!

How is your mum doing?? I can see where she's coming from, but it makes it hard for you. I'm hoping you dad and brother are doing as good as can be expected. It's so much for one family to have to go through, all at the same time. I hope you do some small things to help you get through this stressful,time.mremember we are here for you. You are not alone . Warm thoughts.💞💞

Hi @Former-Member and thanks so much for relating your personal experience about your very tough time some 6 years ago. It does sound as though your experience with ADs is one of the good news stories. Its very reassuring to hear that actually. I do need to see my GP soon, in fact I'm already a month later than he wanted. He had wanted to review me in September, but I just havent had the time nor inclination to even consider making an appointment. And I also know I need to see my clinical psychologist. I last saw her in early October, and was to see her again 2 weeks after, but with all hubbys recent appointments, hospitalisation and my necessary traveling, I had to cancel that one and havent been able to make another. She asked me to email her each week though, just to update her on how I am. I've been a little neglectful in that too.

Leisure activities? I like to read, do sudoku, walk Holly, do some art, that sort of thing. Unfortunately with my back injury I am limited as far as most sport is concerned. I used to play a lot of sports, and was good at many. Really missed the exercise, competitiveness and social aspects of regular sport when I had to give it up. These days I am limited to a gym class consisting of elements of Tai Chi, Yoga and Pilates. I try to go once a week, but again with hubbys appointments and hospitalisation of late, thats not been happening. And the days I could have gone, and have been home for, I simply havent been physically up to going anyway. Otherwise its a gentle walk whenever I can muster up the motivation to go.

No I dont go out regularly at all. I really dont have any friends that I could go anywhere with anyway. My husband has always been an extremely jealous man, and any friends I ever had were soon lost after I married. And new friends were not encouraged. In the end it just became way too difficult to maintain any friendships. Hubby has lots of friends though, most of them ex-serviceman from his navy days. Most of them are single (divorced or widowed) and so they dont have wives I can connect with. I do have ex-workmates, but again it has been difficult over the years to continue any friendships there. Hubby is narcissistic you see. So its been pretty difficult.

You are right, it was a major blow to lose the little support I did have. The description of having the carpet pulled out from under my feet is very apt. I spent many years doing things all on my own, but I know now that I cant continue to do that. I need support, as I cant do it all alone any more.

So I too am glad that I mustered the courage to start posting here again. I had actually asked the managers here to close my account a couple of months ago. I'd decided that I didnt want the hastle of having to think about it all the time, that it was too one-sided. I wasnt in a good place and felt I was of no use to anybody else as I had too much happening in my own life. But the managers asked me to reconsider and left my account open. I'm glad I retained the option to return, thanks to @NikNik.

As far as local support groups, I dont think there are any mental health support groups around here. I live in a rural/regional area and there arent a lot of facilities around here really. I am not sure about any Carers support groups, I havent ever looked into that. But with hubby's recent cancer diagnosis, I do have the option of joining a cancer support group, so I may look into that as time goes on. I've never used the Sane team help line, in fact I didnt even know they had one. Nice to know its there I guess, just in case.

Thanks for being there for me, thanks for caring, and thanks for understanding.

Sherry xx

@Faith-and-Hope yes I thought the picture looked very much your style. And I expect you could very easily have painted it. Thanks for the advice by the way, I'd never have thought of all that stuff like copyright etc. A trap for the uninitiated obviously. I will have a browse through the internet and pick up some pics I really like the look of and see if I can duplicate it.

How are you by the way?

Sherry

Hi @Former-Member .... I have been a little emotionally awash today, but improving now I think .... doesn’t help that I have a cold .... 😔

I picked up some art supplies this afternoon, and I am planning to do my own elephant sketch for @Former-Member this evening sometime. Figured I need to get my tooshie up and motivated to do something rather than just hanging about in limbo ......

I really want to train myself up into that sort of watercolour work, and I can sure use the distraction, so I am trying to give myself no excuses and a push .....

Will post on the art thread, no matter what it looks like ..... lol ..... not every artwork works out well .... 😏

Hi @outlander and thanks for your post. With regards your melanoma, I'm sure that you'll be fine and you have no reason to be concerned. At least you have been advised to have 6 monthly checks, which is standard for any cancers I believe. Certainly it was for hubby when he had kidney cancer and a kidney removed 6 years ago. 6 monthly checks for 2 years and then annually after that. But that was never advised after he had his melanoma and lymph glands removed last year. I really dont know why. As it turns out, the cancer in his lungs was only discovered as a result of his annual kidney cancer screanings which were done in August this year. So please stick to those check ups!

Yes CBT is a talk therapy its true. I never found it boring however, much too uncomfortable to be considered boring. Although as I mentioned to you, I did have mine in conjunction with exposure therapy. Exposure therapy for me was to actually go through the trauma, to talk about it, to discuss how it made me feel. Over and over, and over again. But because I could not talk about it, she had me write it down at home and take it back to her. The idea was then to read out loud what had happened. But I still couldnt, so she read out loud what I'd written and recorded it. I had to take the recording home and listen to it time after time, and she had me keep notes on my distress levels each time I'd listen to the tape. Eventually I was able to speak myself of what happened and she recorded that. And once again I had to play it over and over, and continue to note down my levels of distress. Over time, many hours and many weeks, the distress level reduced. And I slowly was able to listen to my own story without quite the same physical or psychological distress symptoms that I'd had initially. Its all to do with desensitising your mind and your body to the trauma. Its pretty rugged stuff.

Thats what happened for me, but my trauma is not something you can safely duplicate in a real sense. For you and the dog incident, it may be possible to take you to a situation where a real dog is involved, that would be the ideal. Your therapist would not put you in any physical danger however. Nor would they ever do exposure therapy with you without first preparing you for it by ensuring they have given you appropriate tools to cope with it. That would include relaxed breathing techniques to help ward off panic and establishing a 'safe place' for you to mentally go to at times that you cant cope. My clinical psych phoned me every day during my therapy, and asked me to text her every time I listened to the tapes at home, and to give her my distress scores. She kept a very close eye on me throughout.

I hope that helps. Its not designed to scare you off doing exposure therapy if thats what your therapist recommends, it is just my personal experience with it. I'm sure others would be different.

Sherry

Hi @Former-Member and thanks for posting, even though you arent feeling too good yourself.

You dont need to use a heap of words to express empathy for another or to show you care. Your few words do exactly that, and I very much appreciate them. Thankyou.

I am thinking of you too, and hope you're okay. Good night to you and sleep well.

Sherry