Just wondered if anyone with PTSD/Complex PTSD fancied a chat?

[pepsiandshirley]

I've accepted I'min this for the longish haul, have a great therapist, get out and do plenty of exercise, spend time in green spaces, stay positive etc etc.

But I'd just love to speak to someone/anyone else who understands what a bitch trauma is (any kind, whatever the cause - trauma is trauma!)

I was recommended the HeadSpace App

The best thing I have found to calm me by far is Crochet well making amigurumi animals, started two months ago and it has really helped at times, but it's not for everyone! I find dinner dash or Tetris helps too, but meditation i try every now and then but I've had little success.

I find anything repetitive helps

I get awful emotional flashbacks, they cripple me - it's what happened yesterday evening.

I shall have a read of this thank you

Please excuse me if I get confused, my poor little brain is struggling to keep up with all the new posts.

wood I got palpitations, chest pains and shortness of breath with my PTSD the Mirtazapine definately helped with this. It also helps me sleep.

Funky the therapist I saw believed that PTSD can be completely cured, he used something called Eye Movement Integration ( EMI ) similar to EMDR I think. He explained that when you are in an extreme fight or flight response the cortisol prevents the parts of the brain that deal with memory from working properly so the brain isn't able to store and process the memory in the normal way. This means that whenever you encounter a trigger your brain pulls up the experience again (hence the flashbacks) to try to process it. EMI and EDMR focus on allowing the brain to process the memories properly (we use eye movements to help us process memories, think REM sleep)

I no longer consider myself to have PTSD, I would say I'm recovering from it. I suppose I see it like if I'd had major surgery, the problems been corrected now but its taking time for my brain to recover from it. I do think though with complex PTSD it will probably take much more unpicking than my single incident PTSD did.

complex/meow the threrapist I saw does NLP ( neurolinguistic programming ) which is a process that uses various techneques to modify your memory. These techneques can reduce or remove negative emotions from the memory and there are even techneques to access positive emotions at will. I've done some training in using it through work (which is how I know the thrapist I saw) and for me it was a lifechanging experience learning how to use the various techneques.

wood my therapist gave me a brilliant guided meditation called the golden core as follow up following my treatment. Its available at www.nlpinthenorthwest.co.uk if anyone is interested.

I also used to get emotional flashbacks rather than visual flashbacks, it took me a while to work out thats what was going on.

meow I found the headspace app helpful, I also find knitting very thereputic.

Wow, nolonger to hear you consider yourself cured just gives me this massive sense of hope, I just want some peace from it; to be able to wake up one day and have some peace from this would just be amazing for me,

Today has been so difficult, emotional flashbacks are just awful, I feel it all but all at once and it's like my grief and fear is everywhere and everything and I cannot escape it - the sleep spray I've made (very strong smell) that I squirt myself with does help bring me back and I also have really sour sweets on hand, with emotional the distraction needs to be another sense like smell or taste to bring you out of it apparently and this has worked well for me, most of the time:

the link you sent wood for the book has also already helped me, I can't thank you enough. Those 13 tips are very useful, they are at the bottom of this page in case someone doesn't want to buy the kindle book :) www.pete-walker.com/flashbackManagement.htm

nolonger also interesting to hear that knitting helps you, I find the click, click, click type noise helps with knitting, with Crochet when I do it in the round, I find the motion of it feels like waves and find it very calming indeed, being near the water keeps my feelings at a bay, I should go and move into a boat :)

Bonus with the crochet is that I have very happy small humans in my life who are being throughly spoilt with stuffed animals

....very happy small humans who like animals? Are you Snow White Meow?

Just lost a big post. Again. Sulking now. Will rest, re-group and come back

I'm so grateful to see this thread, there is some really great points on here. Thank you everyone for sharing.

My psychologist (NHS) has said I clearly have C-PTSD but she is unable to formally diagnose it as it's not official in the DSM-V. I had a very abusive childhood and have just left my DV XDH in the last 6 months. Only after leaving him did I realise how abusive he was/is.

I've tried to read the body keeps the score and found it very upsetting so have put it down for now.

My major problem seems to be self hatred, I can sail along day to day and everything looks like im doing ok and pretty normal but my anxiety becomes crippling in relationships or in any non menial job, despite spending years at uni and having degrees. My psych told me that self hatred is something I just have to put up with, she can't do anything for it

I really struggle with knitting and crochet, does anyone have any other tips for repetitive activities that let you relax?

Hi Rosie. How did you get to see an NHS psychologist? My GP said it was a 2 year wait and not to bother. Sounds like you are just at the beginning of a new life, congratulations! Now we have to unpick all the crap and work out how we survive and go forward

I too, would like to know about RELAXING repetitive activities. I should be resting but my mind wants me to get up and do stuff. I want to do useful stuff, not 'hobbies' Think I need lessons on how to relax properly.

I don't believe you have to put up with self-hatred. For example, Pete Walker's Book I recommended up there, has exercises that help you to love and accept yourself and grieve for that inner child that did not get the love it needed. I haven't started them yet keep putting it off. I bet others will have other suggestions for improving this too.

for you

There is definately hope meow the first week in January was my lowest point when I was absolutely desperate although my symptoms were worst November time. By Jan I had been off work 12 weeks and just couldn't see a way forwards. That was when I decided I couldn't afford not to see someone privately and got the credit card out! What a difference another 12 weeks has made. I'm back at work reduced hours and I'm finally starting to feel good! Hang on in there you will get there too.

Everyone had knitwear for Christmas lol, currently I'm knitting toys for charity so win win have you seen the octopusses for prem babies? Our local hospital is asking people to knit them for their SCBU. I think theres a crochet version too.

I'm glad you are finding strategies to ease your emotional flashbacks. I found mindfulness, focusing on the other senses helpful. I also realised I had the events playing on a loop in my head non stop. I managed to ease these using some nlp techneques to dull the senses so imagining the colours fading, the sounds being turned down etc, which did help.

That's brilliant news Nolonger! You must feel amazing in comparison. Where did you look and who did you see in the end?

I've been offered low cost EMDR or Trauma Therapy (bit like EFT) and I'm not sure which to choose. I think both will be physically/mentally/emotionally exhausting and I'm sort of postponing it in case it triggers a massive crash again. I'm not sure I'll survive another one

I am, every morning I open my curtains sing and birds come and do all my laundry for me and all my housework :)

Wouldn't that be lovely :) now that's a dream I could be happy with!

The small humans are 8 and my "step" children, my partner is the RP. I always called my cats the fury humans (because they think they own the place, ok they do) and therefore it was natural that DC became little humans, now not so little humans apparently you don't become a middle sized human until santa doesn't visit you anymore and that happens when your 12. Me and DP are big humans - habit talking about them like that :) but I've been crocheting the Edwards animal collection for them.

Hi rosie I suffer with terrible self doubt and hate myself at times, i have guilt and mostly shame about so much, my therapist helps me get through this, I have to believe one day I won't feel like this. It's only very recently you have come out of an abusive relationship, I'm still learning what I suffered at the hands of someone I trusted and it has been over 8 years since he left, I think your still in the very early stages, be kind to yourself as you can improve and develop im sure of it, I never thought I would I have grown so much as a person, I will not deal with this forever I am going to beat it.

Other repetitive stuff, I can think off is things like Tetris or anything like candy crush because your brain can't do that and stress at the same time, when I get really bad my partner says numbers at me and makes me repeat them or says 20+1, 29+1 and things like that my brain then focuses on that and I calm down.

Find something you like, Pinterest and sorting buttons into colour groups calms me down too

I'm sorry it's so hard for you x

Hi. I only realised that I had trauma linked to an experience of health issues that weren't picked up for a while aged 20. It was an invisible illness and I was dismissed fir a while by gps and indeed myself - it was my fault; I wasn't working hard enough, being fit etc, giving into laziness.

I still deny how hard that time was to myself as I don't feel I do qualify to say I had ptsd but I do - I'm getting flash backs as I type. One was that I didn't deserve to live as I was failing but that suicide was an ultimate failure. I was caught in a no-mama land.

I've had to fight for 20 years to fully get the right info and treatment (mainly understanding it enough to be able to work with the gp to make sure I'm on top form) - which has opened fresh wounds each time.

In fact some of what has been describe here I've only just worked out applies to me too - re-experiencing / avoidant stuff.

I had CAT therapy (can't remember what it stands for) amazingly on the NHS. It was all triggered during my pregnancy as once again I had to be my own dr and the post natal anxiety was nothing to do with pregnancy- it was trauma. At a taking therapy I went from reasoned calm talking to crying / near hysterical and back again as thoughts / threats entered my head.

Being dismissed is a huge trigger for me. Interestingly my therapist linked it to specific incidents in my childhood also, again an unusual illness where I wasn't believed (mesonteric peritonitis - I think) and had to put up with the pain and told myself I was weak.

My biggest breakthrough was when I read about trauma - a normal reaction to an abnormal event - that it made sense. And that a natural reaction is to want to help others in the same boat.

And I developed a visualisation method to help me distract in moments of high emotion / flash backs (colour spotting, visualise a garden on the top deck of a boat) and also recognise that it's not hypochondria (dismissive) to be assertive about your chronic health conditions (the hold of the boat, with holes to patch, engine to look after, fuel to add.

Hi woodknot, I've a long and varied history with psychotherapy, mindfulness, inner child therapy, counselling, cbt etc. I ended up at the psychologist on the NHS after a lovely CPN helped me untie all the nonsense of my abusive marriage. I saw her for over 6 months from referral to getting an appt with the psychologist.

I feel a bit like I've tried everything by this point, things get a bit better for a short time and then different issues raise themselves and I need a different therapy for each issue (or trauma, I suppose).

I will take a look at the exercises in your recommended book, thanks.

I think it's worth getting the referral made, even if it's a 2 year wait, the time will pass anyway. Even if you end up pursuing private therapies, there may still be things needing unpicked in 2 years.

Interestingly, reading more of the thread, my main illness is autoimmune in origin. I know precisely when it's not chemically ok and it triggers hypervigillance.

My therapist led me to believe that there's a lot of understanding now that the brain can affect the wellness of the body - this was her view - though I am mostly the other way round. I'm so in tune with symptoms. But I have to work at using the symptoms to trigger proactive self help rather than fear.

I believe this is where mindfulness is beloved to be extremely helpful. I also believe that exercise works too as it's anti inflammatory. There was a programme I caught the trailer for on radio 4 about how the mind/ body senses illness / issues before we have actual symptoms.

I feel a fraud saying I have emotional flashbacks after reading the link above about cptsd, but that is exactly what they are for me.

I possibly experienced them at an age where actually I was in part still young - I know the brain isn't fully adult till 25; I was 20 and quite a naive and young 20 too.

Thank you for the link it's a helpful strategy.

you can't avoid the trigger if it's your own body, it feels so unfair and cruel.

This is my nutshell.

Hi - bit late to the party but can I join?

I have cPTSD from rape and sexual and domestic abuse, sort of made worse by a very traumatic crown court trial...he walked free from all 8 charges of rape against me.I'm on mirtazapine to make me sleep and waiting to start trauma-focussed therapy next week. I know it's gonna get worse before it gets better once I start therapy. It's bad enough at the moment.

I'm not in the right headspace to read everything just now, but will come back! :)

I'm another one with C-PTSD. I've had it all my life and it doesn't really go away. At times it is better so that I can function as normal, but not now. I'm having to sleep due the day as well. At the moment I can't really leave the house, it's so bad. I'm off work which is just as well.
Just checking in to say hello and to say that C-PTSD shares many symptoms with BPD; it still might be included in the new Criteria for mental illnesses which comes out in 2018. Hope so. It's not totally like PTSD.

So many of us in this position, I have sat and cried this evening from pure relief in that all of a sudden I just don't feel so alone.

You must never feel a fraud, I used too and it's quite common from what I have seen it's part of the distancing according to my therapist. I read some of these stories and I feel a fraud, I wasn't rapped, I wasn't abused or blown up (although I was on the train behind one that did on 7/7 and then a street away from the bus bomb - I attract trauma it seems) I don't feel like it is ok for me to have this, I can't have this at times but I do and avoidance is something I've done all my life, I've been great at pretending, I'm not bothered

Accepting it is happening that I do have C-PTSD and that so many traumatic things have happened to me that have then layered on top of each other has been much better for me, harder but better if that makes sense I am actually capable of saying I was attacked now, I can admit I have had this trauma and others, three months ago I could not say that, even on an Internet forum like this, can't say that out loud but I'm making progress.

I am dreading next Thursday, but when I am feeling up to it I will share what has happened, I just want to feel at peace, so so badly.

doodle it's awful isn't it, I never get to escape. :( varying levels of how much it affects me but it's always there. I'm so exhausted but can't sleep, I hate the dark so much, I just want some peace from it.

Reading & waving Meow. Keep going!

Thank you Op for starting this thread & thank you to everyone who has posted..... even though it's triggering

Will bring my brain back here over the weekend

Hello, everyone
I was diagnosed with PTSD 7 years ago by NHS psychologist after a traumatic event I survived (but my DH did not). I've had EMDR and it helped with the flashbacks of the actual event but I still get very strong emotion flashbacks which are exhausting and I seem to live in a semi-permanent state of high anxiety/crippling fear. I actually think of myself as brain damaged. My memory is terrible, I am unable to plan ahead, I cannot make or sustain friendships, I cannot cope with noise and people. I hide away and would be entirely reclusive if not for the things I force myself to do for my DCs. My physical health is awful too, diagnosed Fibromyalgia by GP but I'm not sure - I think it's actually that my body is just exhausted and depleted by by years of mental anguish. I really need more help/counselling but find it so, so hard to make and keep appointments.

Keeping appointments is what I find hard, I have a pattern of going then cancelling going then cancelling

I am really grateful the OP started this thread too :) thank you OP.

Hi rose sorry I missed your post before. Some people find collouring helps as a repetitive activity.

wood yes I do feel amazing in comparison. The relief was instant after the EMI, I was exhausted but all my symptoms had gone it was like someone had waved a magic wand. I already knew the therapist through work some years ago and when the psychologist work had arranged for me wasn't helping I decided to give him a try. I'm in the north of England but don't want to reveal too much. If you (or anyone else) would like his details I'll happily pm them to you. From my experience of both EFT or EMI the EMI was 100x more effective. EFT gave me short term symptom relief, EMI gave me permanent resolution of symptoms. So personally of your options I would go for EDMR. I didn't find the EMI triggering or traumatic at all and it didn't make my symptoms worse, but now some people on here have found EDMR triggering. (I've just seen that EMI is also called IEM therapy www.integraleyemovementtherapy.com )

doodle the trauma was significant enough to cause PTSD, so it was obviously signifficant. I don't think anyone heres going to play trauma top trumps. I know what you mean though about not thinking my particular trauma was that bad, until I actually wrote it down and realised how horrific the experience was. I think its a protective mechanism to tell ourselves that it really wasn't as bad as all that. DHs illness is my trigger which has been proving an interesting dynamic!