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 had a really disturbing dream about my trauma last night: my dad who died from cancer was back to life, horribly ill again and was dying. It was much more vivid and emotional than usual. How do you guys cope with your nightmares?
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I haven't written in my diary on my computer since May because I thought that my computer was dying. I got away from writing but my computer is hanging in there. I think that I will start writing in it again. It's so therapeutic.
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First, I hope everyone is doing well, and continuing to fight that good fight! Keep up the great work on yourselves; I'm rooting for all of you!So, I started doing therapy at the beginning of the year, when I was in my most depressed state, but with my therapist, I made big changes and steps in the right direction. But, over a month ago, she couldn't take my insurance anymore, and I had to stop...
Yea, those flashback nightmares suck double time. Journaling helps me with my nightmares. Journaling about my anxieties before sleep can help prevent them and journaling about them after I wake from them helps me calm the after effects.
Gentle support while you figure out what works for you, Nienna. Welcome aboard.
My nights were so bad a psychiatrist put me on the antipsychotic Seroquel in 2007, but it caused kidney damage in 2010, so I had to go off of it. In 2012 doctors found out that a blood pressure medication Prazosin was helping Iraq War veterans. It's processed via the liver, not the kidneys, so my psychiatrist put me on it in 2016, and it's really helped my nights even more than Seroquel ever did.
You're not alone. Given how much I recognize from my own experience what you're going through here, I really recommend Prazosin. Much support to you.
http://mhc.cpnp.org/doi/full/10.9740/mhc.n131051?code=cpnp-site
https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/prazosin-for-ptsd
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3538493/
Last summer, I went through a period where I had flashback nightmares 3-4 times a week. It was awful, but in retrospect I realized that my dreams were trying to tell me something- that my situation at the time wasn't safe, and in fact was dangerously similar to my childhood abuse. I wouldn't want to go through all those flashback dreams again, but I think it's pretty cool that my dreams had a message in that way.
If You take The Approach That dreams Are Just The Brain Spinning Its Wheels Then All that's Left To Do is To Calm And Comfort Yourself When You Wake Up. I Have A Friend Who I Can Email Whenever To think Through My Distress And The Process calms Me Down, to The Point I Don't Need To Share It With Anyone, But, Why Not If Someone Is Willing To Hear It. It's Comforting To Cope with someone and these moments of comfort add up to healing some of the relationship trauma you'v e experienced
I'm very sorry for your loss. Perhaps write down the way you'd want your dream to end... And visualise that as soon as your aware.