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 have a lot of PTSD symptoms. One is that I can't adequately express emotion. I am so numb. I can't cry, yell, love. It builds up inside me and sometimes the only way I have been able to release it is through cutting. My TDoc wants me to record how I am feeling as events occur where I feel the need to cut to release emotion. My Pdoc just continues to increase my meds which is very sedating. I feel like a zombie.
Today has been a painful day. My sister's long term disability was denied. We have been fighting this for several years. She called me upset saying it was my fault the way she was feeling, trying to get her back benefits. I reminded her she was approved for current benefits just not back to childhood and that I wanted to get her as much income for her as I can. She hung up on me. She is so irrational and keeps telling me when her sick dog goes she is going to kill herself. I have been supporting her since my Mom's death. My brother then called saying my sister was acting out. I told him if she is acting suicidal to call 911. Yesterday was Mother's Day which is hard for me. My Mom died in my arms 4 years ago. I have multiple lawsuits going on in relation to one of my traumas and am constantly reminded of it. My husband feels that I am over reacting and everything is ok. My TDoc requested to talk with my husband about how to provide better support rather then yelling at me and talking down to me. Not sure how that's going to go and am afraid it will make things worse. Thank you for letting me get this out. I am just having a really hard time coping today. Journaling and recording my emotions is not really helping.
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Here is my new brother, copper :) He's so tiny! Moo and Tuck were ok with him on first meeting. Rocket due to his severe aggression will never meet Cooper.
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https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTDeA9Wxg/
My therapist realized that when I can't express my own feelings, often I could name a song that would express them instead. We would pretend this moment in my life when I was at a loss for words was a scene in a movie. He'd ask me, then, what song would be the best sound track choice for this moment, and why?
It may be pathetic, but it works. I do it on my own now all the time. I can do it right now about this. As the Pink Floyd put in in their song "Learning to Fly" put it, iam "Tongue tied and twisted just an earth bound misfit, I." Apparently, given their massive record sales, I'm not the only one, either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObaCDQj8LC8
As always, for me it's whatever works. If I have to resort to this kind of ventriloquism to express my emotions, so be it. It beats the alternative, which was having no voice at all.
Just wanted to say something about your long term question as to getting past the numbness of PTSD, since at first I just gave you support for the short term day you're having. Hope you got through the day ok, secouya.
Muji that’s a really good idea. I am more of a movie buff which is kind of weird. My husband was the lead singer for the bands Terminal Shock and Sniper. Terminal Shock use to be one of the opening bands for Metallica. I am not sure but they say opposites attract and we are a perfect example he likes hard rock and I like pop or soft rock and my favorite is native flute music. I play the flute and guitar (electric, acoustic and Hawaiian steel,) but haven’t played guitars for quite awhile. I will try your method and see if it works.
I can get how opposites attract because opposites attract within me as my own self, not just as to others. I grew up a rock n roll kid of the 70s, swearing I'd never waver. But then I discovered folk and country musicians that wrote lyrics just as hard core even if their sound was softer--John Prine in particular.
And things went on from there to Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams, and then Latin American artists from back home like Jaime Roos. I began to realize it wasn't a matter of musical genre or sound, but how the artist painted with those colors.
So now anything goes. I'm still a purist at heart like that kid I was in the 70s, but a purist about how truth comes across through the music, not about its style.
Unfortunately, in the last decade the music biz has swung toward style over content quite a bit. There are less artists in charge of their own studio work and more artists who are having to follow a corporate formula.
Things will swing back, though, and mavericks are always out there pushing the envelope--and speaking for me, thankfully. These days I'm finding those songs that work as my therapist said, as soundtracks to the movie of my feelings, in the soundtracks of movies themselves. When I'm watching a movie and a song rings true, I'll literally stop the movie, search youtube, and add that song to my iTouch for listening on my next daily walk. It's kind of like meditation and therapy all in one.
Lately my new stuff hasn't necessarily been newly released music, it's just been new to me, from totally different styles. "Buena" by the band Morphine has a fat sax sound that reverberates through my bones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1BEjGet8M8
Then "Damn These Vampires" by the band The Mountain Goats has lyrics that voices my frustration when PTSD keeps making me feel like I'm going to die bleeding to death from a thousand little paper cuts. "Crawl 'till dawn"/On my hands and knees/damn these vampires/For what they've done to me" I have "Complex" PTSD, or PTSD accumulated by repeated traumas over time, so that's why the song's chorus speaks so well for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRTqDG9Mo18
Are there any songs in particular that speak of your experience of PTSD for you?
For me ‘Stairway to heaven”by Led Zeppelin in relation to my death. ‘Imagine” by John Lennon in relation to hostile work environment. ‘Its my Life‘“ by Bon Jovi for all the traumas. ‘Kung Fu fighting” in relation to gang fight and stabbing and songs that are really hard for me Bohemian Rhapsody which was playing during on of the major accidents and in relationship to child abuse “Boom Boom, Ain’t it Grand to be Crazy” because that’s what my Dad use to sing.
I like to listen to Native American flute music, I grew up with it. I like Carlos Nakai’s music:
ANCESTRAL HOME;
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=AwrS32FG7L1egV4AkAX7w8QF;_ylu=X3oDMTBncGdyMzQ0BHNlYwNzZWFyY2gEdnRpZAM-;_ylc=X1MDOTY3ODEzMDcEX3IDMgRhY3RuA2NsawRjc3JjcHZpZANQYjlnTXpFd0xqSmkzckM2V0gxNmlBUmVOek11TWdBQUFBQi5oOGFUBGZyA2lwYWQEZnIyA3NhLWdwBGdwcmlkA2w4ZU1RYTJPUzV1Y1dLYUc3TXJzSEEEbl9yc2x0AzYwBG5fc3VnZwMwBG9yaWdpbgN2aWRlby5zZWFyY2gueWFob28uY29tBHBvcwMwBHBxc3RyAwRwcXN0cmwDBHFzdHJsAzMzBHF1ZXJ5A2FuY2VzdHJhbCUyMGhvbWUlMjBjYXJsb3MlMjBuYWthaQR0X3N0bXADMTU4OTUwNTEyOA--?p=ancestral+home+carlos+nakai&ei=UTF-8&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av%2Cm%3Asa&fr=ipad#id=1&vid=caf4c835df755e1914328e75231bce28&action=view
COYOTE WIND;
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=ipad&p=coyote+wind+by+carlos+nakai#id=2&vid=a90ab530ff5108b9b77da5451b1f34a0&action=view
RAIN (Not sure who the original artist is for this one)
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=ipad&p=native+american+flute+rain#id=2&vid=10e2bd6ed5caa9619d46fdb7175d2f06&action=click
Your mention of native american music reminded me of how I've played the album The Native Americans by Robbie Robertson over and over down through the years. You probably already know about it, it's old hat, having come out in 1994.
It has a Wikipedia page that says.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_for_The_Native_Americans
"Music for The Native Americans is a 1994 album by Robbie Robertson, compiling music written by Robertson and other colleagues (billed as the Red Road Ensemble) for the television documentary film The Native Americans.[3] The album was Robertson's first foray into writing music specifically inspired by his Mohawk heritage. Robertson brought in his son Sebastian Robertson to handle the drums on "Golden Feather", "Skinwalker", "It Is a Good Day to Die" and "Words of Fire, Deeds of Blood". His daughter Delphine Robertson sings backing vocals on "Coyote Dance".
Robert Robertson was in The Band, the group that backed up Bob Dylan on his albums in the 60s and 70s.
Thank you for the Robbie Robertson suggestion. I ordered the 50th anniversary CD just now from amazon. I have only been to one concert. It was The Rolling Stones. My husband knows one of the singers from his band days. I love The Rolling Stones, my favorite song is “Paint it black”,; Aerosmith; Phil Collins; The Talking Heads; Queen........I grew up in the 70s and 80’s . Graduated in 82. I grew up with The Beach Boys playing at my cousins home. He surfed with one of the guys. One of my favorite Bob Dylan songs which I am sure you can guess; “Like a Rolling Stone”. Lol. Thank you for this conversation it made me smile.
As for my friend's mom, in his daily call last night he said it was official: she's got COVID-19 but she's being released from ICU back to her regular nursing home room. That means she'll have a window again, and he can go to her window and wave at her for the first time in weeks. It's odd that such a small thing should seem so important, but that's indicative of the state of things in this pandemic, isn't it?
About the Rolling Stones, I'd never seen them in all of the years I went to rock concerts, so last year I went all out and finally made it to one of their shows. It was incredible, I mean BIG. I like Paint It Black a lot, too, right along with Street Fighting Man. I couldn't believe I was seeing Keith play those power chords on his guitar there right before my living eyes. It was worth it.