anyone managed to get well again after complex ptsd?

[mosp]

I would love to talk to you. Please?

Just wanted to say that Judith Herman and R Rothschild are good authors to look up. Herman is particularly good on the issues surrounding complex PTSD and the way it can often be misdiagnosed as a personality disorder. Rothschild is good at looking at how to work with PTSD in order to achieve positive outcomes. It is a quite specialised way of working and many counsellors are not aware of it, but has been shown to have good results.

I hope you manage to access the help that you want/need.

Thank you for the responses.

I am feeling incredibly overwhelmed by the enormity of how I'm feeling and thinking. I have no idea ofmy own reality. I can see how this is/looks like a personality disorder. In fact, my psychiatrist mentioned that to me a while back and it scared the wits out of me.

Actually, the more time goes on, the more incurable this seems. If even the mental health team I am under can't do anything. Where does that leave me?

I could look up those authors skiinggardener, but if the people helping me are not aware of them, it'll only make me more helpless.

I feel so suicidal and desperate.

I am so scared of people knowing, that's another paralysing element that makes me want a proper cure. I keep seeing it on a screen, and then I want to scream because other people might look at that screen. They will know how disgusting it all is. But I can't scream because that would draw attention.

Oh, this is too much.

mosp

Everything you have mentioned is perfectly understandable. It is not incurable. You have complex ptsd and that requires specialist knowledge to treat.

I have no idea what your mental health team are like, however I have heard some horror stories about teams who have no clue about complex ptsd and how sufferers should be treated and that includes psychologists and psychiatrists. Please find someone experienced in this field. Where in the country are you?

I went from therapist to therapist (with some making me worse( until I found someone experienced in trauma and what a difference it made. They understood the shame, the guilt, the disgust, the embarrassment and I grew to trust that I could tell them. Thats when things started getting better.

I completely and utterly understand the desperation you feel, but you are worth it, you deserve to be well and happy and none of this is your fault, and you CAN get better.

It's a hard road to travel but worth it. PM me if you need to.

You say, "please find someone experienced in this field". But where do I go to find them? I am in Nottinghamshire. I would pay if there was no other option, but then I'd lose my nhs support (incl. the medication advice) so would have to be sure.

Sorry - I realised I sounded rude. I don't mean to be. I appreciate you getting back to me, and I just feel so desperate for help :(

No worries. I didn;t think it sounded rude at all.

Why would you lose your medication support and NHS support?

I think I am talking about asking someone what their experience is with treating people with trauma issues.

There are some people who do a fantastic job as counsellors/therapists with counselling courses under their belt, but I really do believe trauma is a whoole different specialism. Others will disagree I'm sure. Just my thoughts.

I used to live in Nottingham and the support I received was poor. I eventually paid for a few sessions with a brilliant lady but then we moved down south. I have her name if you want to PM me, but it's 9 years ago so no saying she is still there.

mosp theskiinggardener is right about the books she recommended. I think Trauma and Recovery by Judith Hermann would be a good book for you to read, based on what we have been talking about. It will help you on an intellectual level. Nothing to do with whether your team is aware of it at all, it's not a treatment book.

I too agree with the Judith Herman book. I found it very helpful. As madhouse said it's not a treatment book but explains very well about the history of trauma and it's impact on the mind and body.

Mops, I think you are mistaken that your NHS support will stop if you pay for a therapist. This was not my experience and I've actually never heard of it happening. The important thing is that all involved communicate with each other. Please keep going with this, it does get better.

Queen - your autocorrect playing up again??

I have been told by a psychiatrist (not mine) that I would lose nhs support if I go private. But I'll ask my psychiatrist when I next see her.

I think I will get that book by J Herman.

Do (did) any of you also suffer from severe nervous twitches? Mine are so bad and add to my feeling of helplessness. My twitch is in my head, and I won't be surprised if I am damaging my own brain.

I have suffered all sorts of twitches, muscle aches etc.

A book recommended to me was healing trauma by Peter Levine and a book on mindfulness by Jon kabat zinn and a couple of others.

I bought these books early on but didn't really take them seriously but I wish I had.

Find time for yourself each day. Even only 20mins to listen to cd or relax.

It really is worth it.

I had a lot of muscle spasms actively related to what happened to me, so in my stomach and down below.

If your spasms are in your face, in particular in your jaw, they can actually be a side effect of citalopram.

Yes, bloody autocorrect! As to the twitches, well I know all about them. It's called somatisation and it's where you express psychological distress as physical manisfestations. That means the twitches are real but the underlying cause is psychological, it's not imagined and you're not a hypochondriac.

It can develop into a conversion order (good information about all this on Wikipedia). I had a very severe form due to the trauma of being with my abusive ex and ended up in hospital for a month- don't worry, this is very, very unusual! Part of the reason mine was so severe was that I was also repressing all the memories of my old childhood abuse and the abuse my ex meted out was similar and really triggering me.

This is one of the reasons talking does help. You are expressing the psychological distress in another, more appropriate way. It's not always a lot of fun and you don't always feel immediately better but it does get it out of your system. If you like, the twitches are you're body trying to get rid of the distress in any way it can, a bit like an overfilled pan that boils over IYSWIM. I still get them now and quite enjoy it in a strange way as it means the crap is coming out of my system.

Hmm, not really sure that 'twitches' is the right term. I think there are two kinds. One type, I get sometimes in my eye, where it flickers in a tickly involuntary way. I can feel it doing it, and look at it in the mirror. It doesn't bother me - just a bit weird.

What I'm describing here is different. I kind of jerk my head, really hard so I can feel my brain crashing against the edges of my skull. It is involuntary in the sense that I can't help it, but I do feel the urge to do it and can't choose not to.

I've been prone to that kind of thing since a young age (I used to drive my siblings mad because I'd make funny noises, or squint all the time) but definitely find them worse when I'm stressed.

This head one upsets me because it is so obvious and also I think I'm damaging my brain. Sometimes I wonder if I have some kind of brain damage from my ex. Who knows.

mosp you need to stop worrying that you are damaging your brain. There is nothing you can do with your body movement alone that can damage your brain. It's far too well protected for that. It needs the added factors of vehical speed, drop from a height or brute force to achieve brain damage.