What I know for sure is that shoulding myself doesn't seem to help any more than beating myself up for not being what I SHOULD be. I is what I is, whether it was my first pick at the Life Mart, or knot.

In my own healing journey, I often don't recognize how particular therapies helped me until a few years down the road. I hope you can resist the temptation to assume prior counseling didn't help. PTSD healing is a mysterious process which doesn't seem to go by set timelines.

Healing hopes, Fahnette. You are neither broken, nor crazy. Nor are you alone.

"Ignorance is bliss"

Trying to find a new normal. It's like living in a whole different world. The world you lived in before something traumatic happened to you and the world you're trying to live in now.

Hi.
I was injured badly in 2011 and it took 6 months for docs to take seriously how serious it was. (Long story.) Short version is? I'm terrified of being alone for long periods of time because what if... What if.... what if.... runs through my head so often I can be paralyzed by that. (And considering I relearned to walk properly, that's not an exaggeration.)

Stop worrying about the "should" and look at what you "can", okay? You survived, and healing occurs on its own schedule for each person.

Sometimes it took a year for a physical therapy to help me. So, as Arfie said, give time for other things to work. I've had counselors who sucked, actively sucked; others I thought were meh who month slater I found had really helped me make progress, and who knows what's next? So that's how I try to get through it all.

Gentle vibes of support.

You are not crazy or broken. We are all here taking one day a time and doing the best we can. Just try to take small little steps and step a little outside of your comfort zone. Counseling will definitely help with the right counselor. You can load up on carrot and celery sticks and peanuts, etc. That way you can still eat, but you are eating low cal. and healthy. When you go to the grocery store, you can say hello to the cashier and as them how their day is. You can take a little walk every day. The only limitations you have are the ones you place on yourself. Slow and easy but always moving forward. You can do it. WE all know you can.

Wow, coincidence. I collapsed as the school year began in August of 2011. The husband of my school's department chair rushed me to the emergency room. Talk about embarrassing....

Therapy only helped marginally until, eureka, I found one who specialized in PTSD, and then things really fell into place in that area for me for the first time. My physical ailments, though, are going to be with me just as my PTSD is--stage 4 kidney disease is incurable. But my life has actually gotten better since 2011. For me it was a "rock bottom" experience from which there's been a gradual upward recovery, mostly here at DS PTSD since then.

So hey, what's so bad about being crazy or broken? Who wouldn't be crazy or broken after living the stories we've survived? It's that we survived that counts. Here we can talk to each other without being judged even if we are crazy or we are broken. That's special to me.

Some of us are shut ins. I'm not now, but I do live alone because due to my kidney failure I can't take meds that control my PTSD startle response. But things are better than they were for me, and I truly believe if that's possible for me it may be possible for others, too. Keep coming back, OK Fahnette?

There are so many good replies here I just wanted to add, welcome. You are not crazy and healing is possible. One foot in front of the other :)

There are a lot of wonderful people here who offer great advice.

So much love here!
I do think the biggest problem I've run into when it comes to communicating is trying to find other people who are experiencing non-military PTSD. Like if we didn't serve and instead went through childhood/adult abuse or hard-core medical trauma or some sort of angels-watching-out-for-you-and-that-is-why-you-lived accident, we're just here and we don't really get it.
Except we do and we did and we need people too!
This is exactly what I needed...thank you all so much and I will be around, no question!

Fahnette,

This is a great place to discuss non-military PTSD. I got it 3 ways. 1/3 from repeated sexual assaults by an adult pedophile when I was in elementary school, 1/3 from weekly violent parents, and 1/3 because we were civilians living in an overseas war zone. We were not military, but we got PTSD the same as them, yet it's hard to find a place for us. This has turned out to be a great place for me for all 1/3s of my PTSD experience. Welcome!