Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group

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Anxiety Disorders
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Emotional Rollercoaster

arfie
arfie

One of my least favorite symptoms is the emotional cycling. Whatever my mood before the trigger event, I move to whatever emotion is attached to the triggered memory, then proceed to cycle to . . . hard to predict what I will cycle to, through or around. For sure it is a terrifying ride, enhanced with sudden stops and no time to buckle my seat belt before take off.


At present, my most effective tool for surviving this freak ride is focusing on the physical end. How am I breathing? What muscles am I clenching? Which spots in my head hurt? Etc., etc. As I take this physical inventory, I am pausing to relax and regulate when and where I can while I *simply* let the sequence wash over me without fighting it.


Am I making sense? Anybody have any other tricks or tips? I say, "At present. . ." because ya never can tell when I will hit the exception. I like to have extra tools handy, just in case. . .

Cry
Cry
You completely make sense. When I notice the first symptom (typically agresssion) I back off. I picked up skateboarding recently and so when my cycle starts I go skateboard to relax. Exercise is a good combat for it. It helps release the negative energy. Or at first you need to understand your cycle so your more aware and present in it. And figure out what caused it. (My trigger is typically like rape jokes, loud voices ect) and I either tell the person to knock it off or I come to an agreement with the person. So my suggestion, figure out what caused the trigger and exercise.

L-
patti22
patti22
Music. A bath. Food. Sleep...benedryl to knock myself out if I have to.
arfie
arfie
I had to learn how to recognize my triggered state before I could begin to recognize my triggers. With the amnesia, the relative memories were buried so deep that my trigger sequence was well underway before I had a clue what had sparked the sequence.
Community Leadermujicaptsd
mujicaptsd
Focusing on the physical end as you're doing is key to me. It's what meditation taught me. Otherwise, if I chase the mental stuff I end up feeding the frenzy of what my meditation teacher called "monkey mind." Here's a Psychology Today article on it.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/meditation-modern-life/201110/quieting-the-monkey-mind-meditation
Community LeaderSunCloudJD
SunCloudJD
I haven't gone through any trauma therapy and am BP so medication takes care of a lot of it for me.... I tend to shutdown so not the healthiest and my memory is terrible however these things help with triggers
Are you on meds Arf?.... Gentle hug.....xo
arfie
arfie
I've been off meds since 2K. Sometimes, like now, I miss the pill popping simplicity, but can usually ride out my episodes quicker than the docs can fine tune a med cocktail, so I ride it out. When I was using, the docs never did find a sustainable cocktail for my case. Found a few that worked for a while but the symptoms just kept finding their way through, often with drug reactions to further complicate.
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