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'm in an odd place right now. A bizarre, different one, and it's hard to talk about it to other people because no one "should" feel this way, but I do. It makes me ashamed to come here and tell about it.
I hope it doesn't make you all angry with me for me to say what's "wrong." It's that things have been going WELL now for a while. I have gotten better at dealing with my day to day rages. I get triggered and am sure somebody at work is out to get me day by day, but I've been working it out instead of giving in to my fight or flight impulses like I used to do all the time. I'm dealing better with my rage and living better through my triggers because I come to DS PTSD regularly and the peer strength has put me on a better footing than I remember in years.
All of that has added up to my life getting a little positive forward momentum, more than I've had in years. Believe it or not, though, and I'm ashamed to say so, it has led to some anxiety in me from having things go too good. Isn't that terribly "wrong?" I know so many people suffering now, many here, and here I find that for me to have my problem is that I'm not suffering now. I feel like I'm betraying you all and like a fool, a very isolate fool because I have a problem no one would ever identify with. It's just too foolish of me.
How do I get through this kind of stage of recovery without sabotaging myself back to my old familiar misery to just start all over again? Is there a way to learn to live with good times enough to build a foundation on them for myself? What do I do now? I feel all alone because I'm not suffering like I usually have been. Isn't that nuts?
Given how many here are feeling so bad, thanks if you let me reach out about something so foolish. Thanks for letting me share this bizarre state of positive affairs feeling off balance because things are good. Forgive me if this confession of my bizarre foolishness comes off as arrogant or insensitive to those who suffer as most of us do daily.
Muji
I hope it doesn't make you all angry with me for me to say what's "wrong." It's that things have been going WELL now for a while. I have gotten better at dealing with my day to day rages. I get triggered and am sure somebody at work is out to get me day by day, but I've been working it out instead of giving in to my fight or flight impulses like I used to do all the time. I'm dealing better with my rage and living better through my triggers because I come to DS PTSD regularly and the peer strength has put me on a better footing than I remember in years.
All of that has added up to my life getting a little positive forward momentum, more than I've had in years. Believe it or not, though, and I'm ashamed to say so, it has led to some anxiety in me from having things go too good. Isn't that terribly "wrong?" I know so many people suffering now, many here, and here I find that for me to have my problem is that I'm not suffering now. I feel like I'm betraying you all and like a fool, a very isolate fool because I have a problem no one would ever identify with. It's just too foolish of me.
How do I get through this kind of stage of recovery without sabotaging myself back to my old familiar misery to just start all over again? Is there a way to learn to live with good times enough to build a foundation on them for myself? What do I do now? I feel all alone because I'm not suffering like I usually have been. Isn't that nuts?
Given how many here are feeling so bad, thanks if you let me reach out about something so foolish. Thanks for letting me share this bizarre state of positive affairs feeling off balance because things are good. Forgive me if this confession of my bizarre foolishness comes off as arrogant or insensitive to those who suffer as most of us do daily.
Muji
And we are back questioning our feeling. waiting for another shoe to drop, because it always has, before.
But your stressors are known, you have gone so far in be assertive when you need it.
The fear of actually seeing "Normal?"
Breath deeply Muji. What you do and say here is so helpful. Your progress over the summer has been great. There is nothing on the horizon, that you don't have tools for.
Hugs my friend. Leave the torch at the end of the trail to guide us.
Not to me.
Part of PTSD, and -- maybe particularly -- C-PTSD is that we are trained, and hard wired that disaster lurks around EVERY corner.
No ??
When it gets too quiet, gunfire is about to erupt, or a bomb is about to go off.
When things get too good -- in our experience -- another shoe has always dropped.
But it's a boot.
And it's steel.
And it's spiked.
And -- rather than dropping -- it GETS us ... in the gut.
Isn't that your childhood ??
Isn't that the last five years of my life ??
Isn't that what brought so many of us here ??
Sure, this "positive plateau" is a wonderful thing. Of course it is.
But does it surprise me that you're nervous as hell BECAUSE of it.
No. Not one bit.
It IS yet another thing to work on. To tell yourself that it's okay to be okay, if even for a while.
To tell yourself that it's okay to BE okay ... for a LONG while.
To TELL yourself that -- as much as I would personally miss you -- the best thing in the world would be for there to come a day where you don't need "us" anymore.
It would be more than okay, Muji. It would be profoundly, unbelievably awesome.
And you may not be there today. Who knows if you'll ever get there.
But TRY to remind yourself that these moments/days/weeks are, and were ALWAYS the goal, and -- to whatever degree possible -- try to work on accepting the achievements -- great or small -- as, when, and where you find them.
Abrazos, mi amigo.
Lilly, YES, i is the unknown, happy living is uncharted territory. Fear of the unknown. That's what it is!
David, I was talking with an Iraq vet about how both of us remember our PTSD wariness working as street smarts when were lived in combat zones. Literally, too, as you say: that perking up of one's ears precisely because things got too, too quiet. That IS in fact what I recall before bombs actually did go off in my war zone growing up.
Thanks for telling me, too, "It IS yet another thing to work on. To tell yourself that it's okay to be okay, if even for a while."
I'll work on it, day by day like we work on our flashbacks and everything else. I go to books like Trauma and Recovery and Victim to Survivor and M Scott Peck and Peter Walker's online website for tips for coping with flashbacks and such. Any idea of books for us PTSD folks on how to cope with reaching a first plateau (as someone nicely put it) of wellness? Any site for tips? They'd be very welcome and I'd pass them along to others, too.
Am just now taking a recess. This is going to take some work, and that entails protection of preventing theft. Copywriting, etc. Been here before, didn't follow up with protection, and got ripped off.
Time to take inventory, cut the losses, and put lessons to the test.
Take sound advice.
Going for it... pushing aside the negative past, moving in a forward direction... work. From the inside working outward and upward
It'll be ok
Took on a project. Before moving too fast, sleeping on it. Preparing mentally to roll through with the right steps.
So what if I'm older. I can still use what I've learned, and put it to good use. I'll just think of it as seasoned. Seasoning is good...
When it gets too calm, it's almost eerie, right?
I get it...
I understand = I've been through it too.
AS things got better for me, I was so frightened to relax into it, so frightened something terrible was about to happen. All I can say is it took time to be able to relax into it - and I still get moments of fear. They come on like a sense of 'deja vu' that I've been in this situation before, and something terrible is about to happen.
but - I've learnt to tell myself this is my mental illness.
Please don't feel ashamed, Muji, your feelings are all natural. And congratulations on making progress - you're an inspiration to others here.
Nellie, I have actually had flashbacks of deja vu of brief past good times right before another bad thing happened in the past to ruin them. The weirdest flashbacks, ever. Your term "deja vu" is exactly what it is. Creepy, too.
I'm so glad others have been in this place. Another thing to work on and learn about. I just never anticipated good times could be troubling. It just seemed like a contradiction, but you're helping me accept the paradox as something you've been through, too.
I start in with another class getting out in the worst of it! I hate tornado's, having been caught in one once. But off to school I go.
Fear yes, the ability to handle it? I have you all when I get back...so courage to face it is there.
Muj,i we are here for you too, just as you have been. Right now the only thing you have is a gnawing fear that something unknown will happen. But what if the unknown is good?
Good happens too, unexpectedly. I hope you realize we all care, but there are always going to be the unknowns. So worried thoughts can get in the way of the moment.
Grab the guitar today and play some funky music ! If you see me flying overhead lasso me and pull me back before I hit the Atlantic.
muji and everybody else, we went through this period of "Post Recovery" only there aint nothing post about it. it is part of the shell shock too. suddenly you have nothing hurting you. you are "safe" the first time we went through this learning experience yeah it did a number on us. it is TOTALLY outside of the victim comfort zone. not uncommon to do a little relooping to protect yourselfs so you can ease back into it once you know what to expect.
the best part for us was that being we had reached that stage, self awareness and inter-awareness started getting easier.
I was guest speaker at a church today. I took with me the TIME magazine cover story on PTSD from this past summer from the July 1, 2013 issue (which, coincidentally, happened to be my birthday!). Anyway, I spoke from prepared remarks for about 20 minutes, and then there was question and answer time afterwards.
Thats where it seemed like there were a few minutes of "interawareness" about PTSD and us people with it and empathy from the audience like we have for each other here at DS PTSD. Interawareness ofr a bit.
It went well. I was told by the organizers, in fact, that "I was a draw," meaning they thought more people were in attendance today at my talk than usual. It was the 5th time Ive spoken there, so they said they were basing what they said on the record of my attendance to my past speeches and whatnot.
I guess when I get past my own tendency to think of myself as nothing but a broken person with PTSD who is a screw up, the first thing is to gain self awareness beyond that. If I stop proving to myself Im nothing but a screw up and stay with awareness for what I am beyond that longer, then I can reach this new, stranger stage where "interawareness" is possible, something Ive never had much experience with.
I like it, but it is strange and new. One thing is for sure: you cant be INTER aware alone. It doesnt happen as a solo act. It cant happen unless you have people to INTER act with. For me thats DS PTSD, so I thank you all for this interawareness stage were all in here, and for your helping me feel welcome to it for what is really the first time for me staying with it.
was 'non-existent' during that memory yet; i felt so like me and so real
that is shocking. And its funny how things work; thru each of us here.
I had never experienced what you refer- talking about til this morning.
But then back to 'reality' -is 'familiar' and painful. And i do not know i
how to keep feeling happy and i cannot remember the happy ones
because they are gone within a split second. Back in my head so i
can revisit it at a later time. maybe its like in that movie; Go to your
'happy place' i think its movie, "Anger Management". -assanine.
Like, AC|DC-on the "Highway to Hell" i use to find comfort in those
words actually. Everything was sooo wacked out of balance so we
follow things differently than 'normal' people. Good for you muji!!!!
You don't realize how many people here who you've helped i know
you have helped me see your strength even though you cannot at
times. You r an inspiration muji. --ROCK ON!! my good friend.