Previous PTSD ,recovered well but now stress and anxiety building up.

[woeisme48]

Hello all.
I had a nasty bout of PTSD 3/4 yrs ago and recovered quite well. Now I am in a very high -level stress job and I am feeling the stress building up ...I really feel I need a break and during my most stressful days am feeling high stress and close to pain in the chest, and other worries start to come back.
I don't want to give up work but maybe I need more regular leave and breaks to de -stress? Any suggestions welcome, atm I feel I don't want to go in tomorrow.

I started to have it but when the counsellor started the questions he said he couldn't really do it as I answered no to a couple of the things...something to do with negative cognition of the event ...counsellor was not that great and made me worse

Bad things do happen - it has been a big question for me to. It' a natural question to ask and it has taken me a lot of time and energy to resolve it in a way that mostly gives me peace.

Try to break the downward spiral by doing something positive, however small. And keep taking.

The dip won't last - I had a bad night on MN and started a thread on MN chat as I felt like I was floating in nothing, totally detached (old feeling) and today i much better.

I feel I have tried a million zillion trillion times to make sense of it and resolve the distress and I can't do it, it always comes back
Everyday I wake up and its there and every day I go to sleep and its there

Can you deal with the triggers and not the actual event? I know avoidance is not a great way to deal with things but if triggers can be minimised it gives you some relief.

this is a good site

Without knowing what happened to you - there was no sense in it - if there was it would not have given you PTSD xx

There was no sense in the severe abuse I suffered as a child and a teenager - and no sense in it coming back during a horrendous labour, no sense in ds being born brain damaged on the same day. There is no rhyme and no reason. it just sucks. And accepting that helped me move forward x.

it just sucks x

i will try, for my ds, thanks

acceptance is key..its what i can't do, I'm still fighting it all the way

what are you fighting exactly?

I'm fighting the memories of what happened in the past, the confusing response of other people at the time and the memory of my own feelings and responses and confusion. The desperate asking for help and not getting any and thinking I had asked the wrong people or was over reacting and then trying to come to terms with the thoughts of not having received the right help and that that must be my fault as I was the one there
That in all this uncertainty and confusion I couldn't make a decision and choose the right course of action so unwittingly my ds suffered.

It sounds like you are putting far too much blame at your own door! It sounds you were not in the position to make the best decision for you and ds.

And it is possible to forgive yourself for that.

Like I forgave myself eventually for not being able to be with ds in NICU for his first day there as I was so distressed I had to be removed from the unit as they could not treat my son with me screaming in the place.

For you..I can understand and easily forgive.
For me I will never forgive myself, I've tried but I can't.

I suppose I didn't do it on purpose, I just wasn't sure what to do and listened to the wrong person instead of my instincts

you make me nosy now what is so bad that you can't forgive yourself for. Typically something that you would forgive another for.

Forgiveness is a choice, you can choose to start the journey of forgiveness and decide that you will try to forgive yourself over time.

I must admit it sounds like you may benefit from some more counselling. Good counselling. With my counsellor or something, do you live anywhere near me?

I cant forgive myself because I made an error of judgement which I don't think I should have made, for whatever reason.
And now any consequences are my fault.
So in short I feel I've ruined everything..my ds' life and my own peace of mind.

I doubt very much that you have ruined everything

sorry I suppose it's more accurate to say I believed/ trusted someone else's judgement over mine in the panic and confusion, then when it turned out in the end I was correct I can't forgive myself.
I am not making the choice to forgive myself because I've thought about it and I think I should have acted differently and I have let ds down.

I have forgiven my abuser - that doesn't mean that I will ever think what he has done is anything less than totally wrong. I never want to see him again, I still fully totally blame him for the scars on my soul and my body but I have let go.

In order to forgive yourself and move forward you don't have to change the past or re-colour what happened.

You can accept full responsibility for what happened and know that you made the wrong decision at the time and still decide to stop hitting yourself over the head with it and start to move on from it.

If I take full responsibility I don't even want to try to forgive myself and never will. I become overwhelmed to the point I can't see a way forward.
The only way I can think of to try is if 1/in the longer term there are no negative consequences or 2/by remembering that the person I put my faith in I thought, at the time, knew better than me, was better qualified than me to make the decision ,so I went with their judgement.

Points 1/ and 2/ don't seem too bad a start - stick with them for now

thanks madmouse
i don't know if the accident triggered an OCD type reaction or PTSD.. an overwhelming need to make it all right and perfect.
I can't discuss it at least not in public so maybe I could PM you if I don't settle down in a couple of days.

you can always PM me whenever you like!

PTSD is complex and has many different aspects. The core of it is that what has happened is so bad that it takes away some of your faith in life being safe and fair - it is therefore quite natural to become slightly obsessed with restoring order.