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.
This seems to be a common theme with my PTSD, anxiety, and depression. I don't know what causes it specifically, but like every few days I get it. I was reading my grade for a big assignment last week, getting ready to start this week's homework. I'm working on my PhD in Psychology. My heart sunk at the B-, because I feel I did A+ work. There were no comments to help me get better, just a big F U in my face. The only thing I have in my life right now is school. I'm not some asshole that lives for grades. I do a lot of work. I go above and beyond. It's the only thing on my plate thanks to PTSD. I need to know why. So, I wrote the teacher asking. But, now I'm sitting here. Zero will or energy to put towards todays homework. Defeated. Completely. Crying. Screaming inside my head. Feeling like I just want to die. Over a grade! HAHA WTF It's not just a grade, it symbolizes my power in this world. I don't know why...! It's the only thing I'm doing. If I can't do it, then what am I doing? Wasting my life. Wasting my time. Why not just die. Oh, I guess it's worth mentioning I am also Bipolar. They say that mental disorders go hand in hand with high intellect. That's a thread of information that spins around in my head when I have these episodes. I definitely have the crazy down. I wonder how many of those geniuses go crazy before they reach their full potential. 50%? 75%? I took an Ativan, hopefully that will help. I guess I just feel powerless, when I'm trying so hard all day every day to improve. To not be stagnant. PTSD loves stagnation. I'm fighting against the current, and I just got swept back two miles. I think I could get through it, if I didn't have this screaming in my head. I try to fake being fine, but the screaming snaps me back to my negative PTSD reality. I literally feel like driving to the middle of nowhere and just screaming at the top of my lungs for hours. Until I have no voice and I just crumple over and die. And, the day just started. God, I'm such a peach.
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Hey All...I hope that you have a lovely, peaceful beginning of your weekI have a bunch of chores that need doing but may put them off til tomorrow and just hang out with my landlord/roomie todayWhat about you?...Anything special going on?Have a great day and take good care of you!!..Xo
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Once again I've had a fever today. I'm not going to the hospital because that's a huge waste of time but I did schedule a dr appointment for Wednesday afternoon.
If you need to is there a school counsellor that you can talk to?
It doesn't matter, I'm still a peer, I have PTSD like everybody else here does or I wouldn't be here in the first place. As a peer PTSD gets to me sometimes, too.
So all I can do is tell you for sure today that you're not alone. I'm glad you posted as evidence that you know you're not alone, too. You reinforced my knowing I'm not alone even more in the process. Thanks.
Let's come back here and tell each other when this PTSD episode passes, for each of us, ok? In the meantime, white knuckles it seems to be for the moment. Sending you all the support I can.
When I'm in a lot of physical pain it makes me depressed and feeling suicidal. I'm quite physically disabled so it would not be easy for me. I have felt suicidal on and off my whole life. Yesterday I felt like I wanted to die. But today I'm glad I didn't. I do not cope well when things don't go well. I get an immediate rush of adrenaline anxiety and stress. My workbook on BP 2 is helpful but I need to apply it regularly the skills I've learned. I am 70% through the Kindle e-book and the exercises. Once I complete all of the exercises, I will post the journal to my journal page which I have not yet done once yet. I personally know 2 people who have committed suicide. It does affect you more than if it was a "normal death"
I'm operating now on only 4 hours of sleep, but the flashbacks every few minutes have subsided into my just being exhausted. I think following my psychiatrist's recommendation last week at my appointment with him is helping, too. He said that if I found myself in trouble down here in Mexico during the day, not just to take my night time Prazosin I take for my combat nightmares, but to take it during the day for my flashbacks, too.
When they came on strong every few minutes all day yesterday, I did just that. That, along with just being exhausted from flashback jolts every few minutes, could be why they finally passed.
How are you? Do you have a psychiatrist you see like I do? I've had one since I was diagnosed in 1995, and kept on with one through my own grad school counseling training and my clinicals and residency and ever since, too, teaching psychology classes like I do. Being chronic like I am, I'll never stop being one of those cases of knowing what my patients are going through because of being a patient forever myself.
Let us know how it's going for you day by day, OK?
Like, I'm trying to get better every day. And, I do. But, it's not easy. It's so hard in fact that it feels like I'm getting nowhere. Does that make sense? Maybe even worse than that, it feels like I'm getting worse. One step forward and two steps back. Makes me question every step.
I'm getting ready to view last week's grade, and I came here first. Feeling that anxiety from last week. But, I've put off looking at the grade long enough. I need to do this week's work, and in order to do that I have to build on last week's. I feel very exposed. Very defeated.
As for missing school and then feeling overwhelmed by it when you're back in it, oh yeah. I left teaching to be a hospital chaplain during 10 years. Believe me, there were moments at 3am in my Chicago ER when I missed the regular rhythms of the school day, the school year, and time to reflect.
Now that I'm back teaching, this time to nursing students, my poor students hear my war stories about how great all of that action was compared to this too sedate academic life. The grass is always greener on the other side for me, I've come to realize. I'm lucky I've done both.
Now the next challenge is retiring from all of it, whether it be hospital work or teaching, in two years. Knowing me, I've started work on getting myself ready, because otherwise the transition will freak me out. Glad you're here so I can talk to you about that. I've been here in Mexico this summer because it's where I can afford to retire and I wanted to start getting used to it. I know, that far in advance? Yup, that's me.
Thinking about suicide. Hmm. What helped me with my guilt about that was reading Albert Camus, the French philosopher and novelist. And Graham Greene, too. I'd hate to say it "normalized" it, but reading those authors made me feel like less of a freak for having those thoughts. I came to interpret my suicidal thoughts as re-start messages from my psyche to myself, and not just as death messages. Don't know if that helps, but it's how I've made them pull the plow for me rather than have them just work against me.
Whatever works, right? Glad you're here, and glad you're up for gaining strength here for understanding. Me, too.