Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
Find support with others who have gone through a traumatic experience. Whether you have chronic or acute PTSD, we are here for you.
I don't remember too many of the names of the professionals who have helped me through my healing journey. My research habit is to note the source for the bibliography and save the neurons for navigating the real world. I was trained in the old engineering maxim, "Never memorize anything you can look up." I could look it up, but not really seeing the benefit. We ain't healing buddies. Strictly nothing personal.
One of my more effective VA therapists (pre PTSD dx. The PTSD paper which eventually made this forum possible was not published until 1992 and that publication was only within the VA infrastructure.) suggested I treat my triggered states like a case of emotional flu. That suggestion has served me well. It has been consistently well-received in my ACT workshops and other places, as well.
My current case of emotional flu has reached the stage where I starting to feel the physical pain underneath they emotional pain. Extra hurt, but I am still taking it as a good sign. There is a stage of healing where "Not worse" is the best you can hope for. "Not worse" means you have arrested the downward spiral.
Giving myself lots of extra self care. Finally regaining enough sense to notice the oxygen masks are there, just on the other side of my most recent cigarette carton. . . Just in front of the food I haven't been able to force down. Feeling like the Wicked Witch of the West with my envied problem of easy weight loss. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7GJcKuVGm8
I hope. I pray.
Healing hopes for all. No exceptions. Even me?
One of my more effective VA therapists (pre PTSD dx. The PTSD paper which eventually made this forum possible was not published until 1992 and that publication was only within the VA infrastructure.) suggested I treat my triggered states like a case of emotional flu. That suggestion has served me well. It has been consistently well-received in my ACT workshops and other places, as well.
My current case of emotional flu has reached the stage where I starting to feel the physical pain underneath they emotional pain. Extra hurt, but I am still taking it as a good sign. There is a stage of healing where "Not worse" is the best you can hope for. "Not worse" means you have arrested the downward spiral.
Giving myself lots of extra self care. Finally regaining enough sense to notice the oxygen masks are there, just on the other side of my most recent cigarette carton. . . Just in front of the food I haven't been able to force down. Feeling like the Wicked Witch of the West with my envied problem of easy weight loss. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7GJcKuVGm8
I hope. I pray.
Healing hopes for all. No exceptions. Even me?
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I did the dumbest thing today. I charged my earbuds, unplugged the block and put the block in my little bag instead of the earbuds. I wasn't happy about that when I got to the gym. What a dummy!
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Ever since I stopped doing therapy because of insurance, I've been feeling that old tense and irritable sense of anxiety and stress. I hate that. I was making so many strides and changes during therapy, my therapist would acknowledge all of my progress and accomplishments, and I miss that reassurance. Today I thought about it, and I made those changes! She would always tell me that I chose to...
1) Balance good. Not hitting any furniture as I move around the strange motel room.
2) Muscle tension extreme. Sure hurts to move.
3) Letting go. I was able to cry as I sang the "Puff Weave." The puff weave is my mother's song intertwined with mine. She is coming up on her 16th anniversary of adult diapers. Lots of those little electric feeling sensations I call, "Angel Kisses."
4) Memory not so hot. The puff weave was the only song I was able to carry through with and that was missing allot of verses and garbling unmercifully.
5) Good day for new beginnings. The scales and finger exercises were stretching the neck.
Repeat:
Don't go accusing me of spurting exes. Just taking my best guess and praying allot. Thanks for the sorting spot.
Fighting the stress is just as damaging as the stress or some days.
Take two DSPTSD buddies in the morning and drink lots of fluids.
Probably just me. I purposed stepped into a pile this morning, then the neighbors dropped a few more in my path, so I stepping in another by calling 911, now I can't get my shoes clean enough to be civil.
I am sorry you are going through these channels, though the Puff Weave song of angel kisses does sound good right now.
Gentle hugs, J.
Hope ya don't mind if I babble at you. . .
Clarity is not coming easily to me just now, but. . . Within the theories of my "Trauma Induced Amnesia" therapy, the most important contribution my DIL made to my current condition is to look and act so damned much like my own mother. I cannot know and am finding belief hard to come by just now, but I believe I am flashing all the way back to the toddler I might have been. The one who might have been too frightened to cry at mama's closed door. The one who might have felt safer wandering out to sleep in the corn fields than to take her dirty diaper to bed. Might have. Can a 60 year old woman be retrieving memories from being a toddler? Does I gots to? All physical proof supports the possibility that I could have had exactly those experiences as a toddler. For starters. . . Proof? You are kidding, right? I believe it would be easier to prove the existence/non-existence of God.
Expert I ain't, but I do not believe I will be able to see my daughter-in-law clearly until I stop seeing my mother's face when I look at her. This ain't 1956. My son did not marry my mother!!! Here and now. Here and now.
My mother is morbidly obese. Still. She will soon celebrate her 16th anniversary of adult diapers. (stroke, August 1st. Her birthday.) My son is as tall and skinny as my father was. When my grandson starts crying at his mother's need, the tall, skinny guy on the side does what he can. . .
Houston, we have lift off. . . The female dog is in flight mode again. . . Arfity Arf and a rap woofer too. . . Gr-r-r-r-r. . . The three mood howl is on.
For now, I am trusting the DIL to tend her own baggage car. I am tending mine.
For the inventory, no, I do not believe my son is a bi-sexual pedophile. Just tall and skinny and doing what he can. Still, in my triggered state, past truth mixes with present truth with cruel ease. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it for at least 20 minutes. . .
And so I'm suggesting to you that you tune into that terrified, traumatized toddler and if you can, comfort and reassure her as much as she will accept.
The trick for me is being able to keep some part of me in the adult self, and one way to do that is to really see the terrified toddler part of yourself as a separate being, a terrified toddler, who you can do something to comfort.
I would start by just offering her my hand, and holding her little hand, if she was okay with that. I would draw her as close as she was willing to get, hoping to hold her on my lap and let her bury her face in my shoulder.
Thanks for the image, arfie.