Complex PTSD and support

Hi @Former-Member Nice to meet you.

I just wanted to let you know that you're not alone. I also struggle with PTSD and have done so since I was a teenager. I didn't start having counselling until I was in my 30's. It has been a very long, slow journey and I am still looking for answers for healing.

I am wondering who has told you that you aren't strong enough to look at your past? Do you think that you are strong enough to face your past? Do you have a good counsellor/psychologist that you feel comfortable talking to?

It can be very lonely having PTSD, as not many people understand unless they struggle with it themselves.

Do you live alone?

I am married and have a daughter.

Hi @Former-Member

I dont know the answers, but i have been/was drowning in a similar situation. also have cptsd. my psychologist was hoping that EMDR might help where everything else hasnt.. but not ready to try that.

In the past i have only got through memories by focussing on whats around me, looking at what i can see, and hear right where i am. Once the replay has lessened enough to come back to where i am. when its at its worse i just want to stay away from everything and everyone. I dont know if its ever going to go away, people on my treatment team keep telling me that it does get better.. but i wonder if their idea of better is just that i will learn to live with it better somehow.

lj

In the 1980s I was encouraged to delve into things too quickly, which may have traumatised me even more. Since then, the goal of therapy has changed a bit and isnt just to bring up the past but to enable us in our current life.

i guess there is a sensitivity in the people who you know who have experienced PTSD.

Mostly people do prefer to keep things brief, I guess.

Take care @Former-Member

I am right in that bumpy boat with you!

CPTSD too, and also dealing with the endless rollercoaster of trying to find meds and treatment.

It can be so hard when we know all the things we 'should' do, but none of them feel possible in the present moment. I know sometimes I feel so overwhelmed by memories and intrusive emotions that the concept of 'staying present' is a bit like climbing up from the bottom of a well without a ladder. Today I literally went my entire journey home crying my eyes out, despite my absolute best efforts to stop, so maybe I'm not the person to advise you!

But weirdly, the thing that works for me is to do the opposite. Kind of say, stuff what I 'should' do, and just ride the wave of the pain, trusting that sooner or later, the wave will pass, and I'll still be alive. Trust is the hardest thing, I know. Trusting myself, perhaps hardest of all.

On relationships: they're always going to be hard, I think, and that's okay. I can't speak for you, but I find I don't need to tell every detail of my history to be understood to develop something meaningful with another person. Dribs and drabs, a sentence here and there, it's more than enough. Expressing pieces as they're relevant, just like I do all the other pieces of myself. After all, that trauma is a part of me, not all of me. And people have to earn it like they do everything else.

Does this seem Familiar?

I feel as if I was dropped into the middle of an ocean by myself as a child, surrounded by the deep, dark water, the unknown dangers that lie beneath and no land in sight. I have been treading water, occasionally floating, going under and pulling myself back up, struggling to breath, struggling to swim, searching for land, searching for life. The water constantly laps around my face – high enough to have to fight to stay afloat, low enough to not take me under forever. The waves push me in directions I don’t want to go, take me further from the stability of land under my feet, closer to exhaustion, closer to drowning. With every mouth full of water I take in the harder it becomes to want to fight. With every new wave that tosses me around, the more fatigued I become. Occasionally a boat can be seen in the distance and I think I can be rescued but just as quickly as it is sighted it disappears on the horizon. Hope is thwarted yet again. The larger the boat, the more the disappointment, the greater the waves that it leaves behind, the harder it becomes to swim. Just waiting for the water to be still and being able to float!

I have just discovered the concept of "trauma mind". It is interesting for me to try and distinguish when I am experiencing that or when I am within my "window of tolerance".

Lucky I believe learning is a life long endeavour .. lol

@Former-Member Take it easy as we cant really process or integrate when we are retraumatised.

People always say they understand, but in truth they can never understand our unique experiences. I believe, we can only sympathise and support said experiences.

i feel for those people that don't have a support mechanism, or just someone to talk too about life's struggles.

Mind you, it can be hard to open up to loved ones.