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 can TOTALLY see how being in bed could be massively triggering though that was my initial reaction to be honest, Creating I can totally understand why you won't lie in it.
There's no way I could bring myself to lay in a strange bed and talk about things, the majority of which happened in a bed. Something about the way my brain is, being totally vulnerable in a bed just sounds terrifying.

The bed thing does sound really odd.

I read something the other day about why the traditional couch is used. Its to do with not being able to see any response to what you say in the therapists face and to encorage transference. Apparently the therapist has to present themselves as a blank canvas for transference to happen effectively and not show their own personality or their own opinions to the client. Thats the Freuidian thinking behind it anyway. An actual bed seems odd though and as others have said potentially triggering.

I can understand the thinking behind the traditional couch thing to be honest, it can be hugely discouraging to see certain expressions in the therapists face. x

I never knew that about the transference thing (which I don't fully understand). Is this why my therapist never let's her opinions be known? I thought it was a boundary / personal information thing. That's super interesting.

Pepsi Can I ask how you got the sofa to your place? And did your therapist know you brought it? How do you find having something linked to therapy in your everyday life? I don't find it odd - it's just something I had never thought about, sorry for all the questions.

There are totally moments when I would love my actual therapist to be there between sessions, but not sure if I would love something from the therapy room to be there.

I paid a third party to collect the sofa (and take our old one to the tip) so there really was no crossing of boundaries as I didn't even interact with him personally. There's no way I would have turned up to get it in person, I don't like to think of him as someone who exists as a real person outside of the therapy room!

To be honest, I always sat with my back to the sofa so it's not something I ever looked at in our sessions. Maybe subconsciously I did want it because it was from there, but I don't think I felt like that..it's just a sofa, a thing. Objects don't really bother me or relate to anything. I know others have quite strong associations with those kind of things, though, so I guess it could be weird.

Oh, sorry, in terms of it being linked to my therapy...I guess I just don't link it..it has a cover on it now and it's covered in dog hair and trashed by my kids, I guess I don't think of it as the same thing..

"I don't like to think of him as someone who exists as a real person outside of the therapy room!"

That's what I was thinking!

I think it's awesome that you don't link the two :-)

Creating well I have a VERY small family. So there's only my DB who lives far away. I've not told him anything, because I know he wants to keep out of any tensions. I know, however, she has, but I don't know what. I know she's playing the victim to others and saying that I'm not allowing her any contact with her grandchildren.funnily enough, not only did I never mention them, but I must have super human powers to have actually stopped her sending them even a postcard. Anyway, DB is sort of out of it, but I know he's got it on his mind when he's with us and not saying anything.

I don't want to go into it without him specifically asking, because he's younger than me and part of my trauma is about what happened to him, by her. He has no real memories before age 11... Part of me thinks ignorance is bliss!!

Thanks creating...I'm actually going to take that as a positive as there are weird things that trigger me that I wish didn't. So it's good to observe that not everything has meaning or triggers emotions...

Speaking of triggers, I do find it fascinating hearing what other people's triggers are..someone upthread mentioned jacket potatoes I think.

I can appreciate that people might not want to discuss what sets them off, so won't ask further about these things..but it's interesting that for me it's never objects or anything that's a 'thing'...it's the change of a season, or I have a really weird thing about dusk, just as it's getting dark...

Yet physical things I can cope with

dream I suspect theres a boundries thing there too. I wonder if it depends on the type of therapist though. My councellor has shared things about herself and her opinions and so has the nlp therapist who I saw for IEMT (although I knew him already before seeing him as a therapist so already knew quite a lot about him and his personality) the psychologist I saw was definately a blank canvas. The book I've just finished gives a really good explaination of transference. I'll have a look for it.

Dream that's interesting what you say about opinions...DH had a counsellor who would never give an opinion, but mine does - if I ask - it's always given as just an opinion, but I appreciate that he gives it..

I don't think I could work with a blank screen therapist, I wouldn't be able to get the relationship right, I don't think.

I suppose I do see my therapist as a person outside of the therapy room, in that I know a little bit about his life etc that has been disclosed if relevant...But I just can't handle the idea of him walking around in the outside world..he used to live near me and I occasionally saw him out and about and would literally duck if I could to avoid saying hello.

Which is funny, as out therapeutic relationship is very good/close. I just don't want to bump into him in Tesco..

pepsi for me the only trigger I managed to identify was the supermarket. Apparently thats a very common trigger as theres so many possible triggers within it.

I can't cope with the supermarket at all. Always feel overwhelmed but I thought that was just due to my poor organising and planning abilities. DH has to do the shopping in our houses, if he sends me I have meltdowns and come home with the wrong things or buy any old thing just to get out of there.

One of my triggers is being asked to go back to a moment I felt good. If I spontaneously feel good, it's fine. If I'm asked to go back to that place I have somatic flashbacks. Also if I'm asked to be aware of my body.

Both of these make many mindfulness type activities pretty impossible.

I used to also hate supermarkets. It was a very specific reason. I don't have the problem in foreign supermarkets though, only in the U.K.

It's really interesting reading peoples triggers.

It's interesting seeing how many of us can't cope with supermarkets/crowds! It makes sense what NolongerAnxious said about it being full of possible triggers.

At the moment I have loads of triggers, some seem really silly like things on the telly, and others are things like feeling intense emotions is a trigger, the dark, loud noises, certain smells and sights and sounds.
Seeing someone that looks like him is a massive trigger.

Good Morning Everyone,

Another supermarket hater here - I was actually think this yesterday as I dragged myself around the stupid thing.

Back later (have to walk the dog).

sail I had a pannic attack triggered by a specific TV programme DH loves, never had any problems with it before the PTSD, after that even the trailers were triggering. It was of the horror genre so probably not the wisest thing for me to have been watching, but generally horror doesn't particularly bother me. I think in this case it was the intense fear the actors were portraying that resonated with me.

OK I've found that bit on transference, its from a book called "The Centre Can Not Hold; a journey through madness " by Professor Elyn R Saks

"Freud built his theory of mind and method of treatment upon the concept of the human unconscious - the idea that we all think, feel and do what we do for reasons that we are not entirely aware of. He believed that the unconscious was a "seething cauldron," filled with primative forces at war with one another, forces that literaly drove us to act. Central to Freuds thinking about psychoanalysis was the powerful relationship between the analyist and the patient, or analysand. From that relationship developed the "transference" - the name Freud gave to the intense feelings, beliefs and attitudes the patient unconsciously recalls from early life and then directs towards the analyst. It was the transference itself that was the thing to be analysed; it provided the raw material that would then be mined by the analyst and analysand for many years."

"A central tenet of both classical and Kleinian analysis is that the treater must remain fairly anonymous to her patient - she does not answer questions about herself, have pictures of her family on the wall, telk you where she went to school or where she is going on vacation. Indeed you don't even see your analyst during your sessions - how she looks as she reacts to you and what you are saying. You're on the couch. Theres a simple reason for this: If the analyst is a so called blank slate, the traits that the patient attributes to her come primarily from the patient rather than the analyst. Thats where transference develops, and the patient becomes better able to see how her mind works."

Obviously not all therapists use this method, but I found it really interesting as it did describe the 1 therapist I found difficult to work with, and having read that I wonder if the difficulty I was having was transference rather than just a poor theraputic rekationship.

Nolonger Oooo that was such an interesting read. This is my therapist. Clearly by refusal to lie on the bed / couch (by the way, she does call it a couch) is not helping this matter. She won't tell me where she is going on holiday, but I do know where she comes from. She also won't say anything about qualifications, family, area she lives in.

Does feel a little weird to open up about yourself, and the really difficult parts of yourself when you know nothing about them.

Does anyone have any good books that have helped them? I am trying to build a good resource up and create an online space for PTSD - I feel it's lacking in the UK and want to make something that's multifaceted and free to access. I've realised it can take a while to get into the right therapy and this would be somewhere people could go in the meantime or go to find information about specific trauma based therapists.

Ok. So some of my triggers are being touched. Anything medical (this is actually a huge problem), supermarkets, certain positions for sex, certain phrases, laying in a bed with satin sheets, rubbish bins, period, anything to do with anything that resembles KKK-style hooded robes (no idea where this came from)... There's a few more probably but those are the ones that are there constantly. Others come and go, and some are really embarrassing so don't feel up to sharing them here.

I also really struggle with emotional triggers. Not sure that's the correct term, but if I get anxious I tend to get memory flooding. Pain in the arse as I tend to get anxious a lot!

Hope everyone is having a nice day - we have good weather here but I am lying in bed watching Finding Nemo.

dream

That online space is a fab idea. I can't think of anything speciffic to trauma that I've read. The book I quoted from above is the autobiography of a woman with schizophrenia. I read it to help me understand my DHs psychosis better. Will have a think though.

Thank you nolonger.

The books that I've read that I have found useful are Connection Parenting (actually trying to apply this to all relationships is what i have found useful).

The Penny Park Inner Child books.

I've just ordered Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving: A GUIDE AND MAP FOR RECOVERING FROM CHILDHOOD TRAUMA by Pete Walker as well, which has come highly reccommended.

I find the Tavistock and Portman Library share useful links and articles on their Facebook page (and they seem to be helpful with helping you get resources from the library too).

Just popped onto say something cool about what I read in the body keeps the score...

My PTSD anxiety always manifests as the freeze response - so I'm not in fight or flight having panic attacks, rather just overwhelmed and frozen.

My therapist has spoken a lot about this as the last line of defence when you haven't managed to stop an attack and the body just gives us and you disocciate to protect yourself.

Anyway, Van der Kolk talks about how the heart rate drops when you go into this state...it made me recall that I had my medical notes from my traumatic birth.

They were monitoring my heart rate throughout and there is a sudden, dramatic plummet where it drops low and stays low just at the point where the hit the emergency button and came in with the recuss cart as they were preparing the forceps.

I quite clearly remember the point where I was trapped and realised what they were about to do without anaesthetic and that the baby was in danger and I 'left' my body and watched it from above.

You can see from my heart rate that my body has tipped into freeze mode. I guess I just find it quite fascinating that I knew I had done that, but that there's proof that my body was shutting down to some extent to protect myself from the trauma.

Thats intersesting pepsi since having the IEMT and being able to actually remember the trauma I've remembered feeling incredibly calm about the fact I might die, like I'd accepted it already. To me now that was the worst point. I've heard that animals get it, its like a shutting off before they are killed by a preditor. Some very cruel methods of animal training are based on that mechanism. Think of the phrase "to break in" a horse.

Yes nolonger, it's like that point of calm acceptance.

I remember going into it when I nearly drowned in a river about 10 or 11. I think that's probably the state I was put into repeatedly when attacked in childhood.

I guess I knew I did it, but it's interesting to see physical proof of the evidence in my birth notes.

I spend an awful lot of my time pretending nothing bad has ever happened to me and I've never been traumatised so it's really interesting to see some proof of it happening.