Im from england. Nhs services are useless. Id speak to a doctor to come off them very slowly not just cold turky ul be very ill like ive been vomiting and stuff.

There haven’t been many meds that help me because I was first diagnosed as bipolar, and those meds seemed to make things worse. I have had a great experience with the drug Klonopin, which really helps with panic attacks and anxiety and can be taken as needed instead of daily.

I have never served my country and did not realize I had PTSD until after years of symptoms. I still feel angry sometimes. My mother’s family interrupted our vacation with news of my grandmother’s death, but I wasn’t aware that my uncle was in an extremely dangerous state of mind because he knew he was going to jail as a sex offender. I was called away from vacation to be assaulted. I just went to mourn in her room after she died and he followed me in there. It seems so senseless; I can’t imagine the senselessness of war.

Hi
I wouldn't stop taking them cold turkey. I did that one time and had bad siezures thought I was losing my mind!!! Anyway I don't take anything for my pdsd. I was beaten and shot some years ago. I self medicated pain pills sleeping pills ect. I been off all the meds for 2 yrs now. I ride my bike every morning meditate stretch and see my therapist once a week. She still wants me on meds because of the shakes and not being able to to be in crowds or even grocery shopping at bizzy times. Your a brave person your and your alive. I'm sorry ur having a tough time war is pointless the rich get richer a the poor forgotten. I'm taking classes to become a therapist I know it will help me out as much as it will help others. I hope. Take care.

Welcome to the board GL3..... I am so sorry for what you've gone through however I'm glad that you've found us....

This is a good board

I wouldn't stop your meds.... I would talk to your doctor and let him/her know what symptoms you're struggling with ….. Maybe tweaking them or a change will help

Have you ever had trauma therapy? or a trauma program?

Big hug...….xo


This is peer support for PTSD in the UK

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/veterans-peer-support/

Welcome, GL3NN. Sorry for what you went through in war and what's gone even worse coming home from it. I understand in my own way. Here's my story.

I'm a civilian combat survivor as a missionary kid. I survived six years of civil war in a small country in the developing world most people in the USA never heard of, My PTSD started when I was 9 and my family car was hit by a rebel Molotov cocktail. The civil war's rebel headquarters turned out to be hidden in a home in my neighborhood 4 blocks from my house. The rebels had a moment when they kidnapped and killed the top US adviser 8 blocks from my house. His son and I were elementary school friends; I had sleepovers there.

When the government's army counterattacked and took the upper hand in the war and went after the rebel commanders it meant combat peaked in my residential area. Soldiers took over my house and stuck their rifles out of my bedroom window. For what it's worth, all of this ended up in the French movie State of Siege by a director, Costa Gavras.

His movie made him famous enough to get to Hollywood and make more movies that made him rich and famous. Whatever. The war ended, but a 12 year military dictatorship followed that decided to cleanse the country of any future rebels. It went after young men right at the time I started high school.

My family had been evacuated to the USA, though too late, from the civil war. Now they figured it was "safe" to return under the dictatorship so we returned. Wrong. I got caught up in one of their mass arrests and got tortured in an interrogation until my US citizenship was confirmed. I was released, then, as my US citizenship made it less likely than others that I would become a rebel combatant. Now I could say I got it from both sides, a rebel bomb and a governmental army interrogation. More PTSD for me.

My missionary father went on to another small country in the developing world. There he got deported, defrocked, and fired from his missions board. Missionary service for our family finally ended. A congressman from that country joined his church and got him involved in some fraud scheme, perhaps money laundering.

It's not clear to me and my father's not talking. The country's president was tried, though. He was convicted of corruption and went to prison, so whatever my father was involved in, it was serious, and getting off just with deportation back to the USA was probably lucky for him. As for the congressman, it looks like he made a plea bargain and squealed on my dad to throw him under the bus so he could get away clean. So it goes.

I didn't serve my country as a soldier, then, but the idea was that my father and our missionary family were serving God overseas. As a missionary kid, my childhood and adolescence were sacrificed to that greater cause, However, it all went up in smoke in church fraud and deportation.

Like you I wonder who cares now. It left me with the question of where that leaves me and my PTSD. My father's church authorities felt they did their duty by defrocking my father and firing him from his missions board for what he did to get deported. But what about us now, the missionary family?

I went to help for my PTSD from one of the psychologists from world missions headquarters in the USA and got politely dismissed. Everywhere else I went respectfully to church authorities for help, doors were politely closed to me. After a while, the politeness itself began to irk me.

Finding politely that I was on my own, I searched for years at risk until I found a U.S. Veterans Administration PTSD psychologist who would see me evenings even though I was a civilian, not a military, combat veteran. He was the first person to help me who cared and spoke my language. When I got my next job after seeing him, on my employee life insurance I made him my beneficiary instead of my family. If I die he gets ten thousand dollars. It's the best I could do to say thanks to the one person who cared.

As for meds: now I'm only on one psych medication, Prazosin, and it works for my nightmares. I was on Seroquel and it was too much. We don't diagnose or give medical advice here, but speaking just as a patient, I don't recommend it. It contributed to kidney damage for me. I went off of it, but I did it gradually under monitoring by doctors because going off of psych meds or changing psych med dosages on one's own is dangerous. They are too powerful and the side effects, as my kidneys found out, can be serious.

I'm not cured from PTSD and it looks now like I never will be, though if a cure comes up I'll be the first in line to take it. The kind of PTSD I got from having it cooked into my missionary kid childhood development is called "Complex" PTSD. Separating out the PTSD from the rest of my brain's growing up memories, intellect, and so forth would be like trying to unscramble eggs now. So life's fair or unfair like that to me.

That realization did not sit well with my spouse, who finally lowered the boom with verbal abuse one day when I came home from my face to face support group. Another partner replaced me who didn't have PTSD like I did. After 13 years of marriage that led to a divorce, the second one for me. I went bankrupt in the divorce and lost everything, including my job of 8 years and my home. I ended up in the hospital.

I live alone now. I've been stable now with my PTSD and my job for 7 years now, though. I see my psychiatrist once a month for that Prazosin. In fact, I'm seeing him this afternoon, in fact. No one has ever answered my questions about what purpose my childhood's combat years served. I am getting the idea that they never will. I'm not being sarcastic when I say I'm waiting for some sign from God about it, like in that play the late, great Robin Williams was in, "Waiting for Godot." I guess Robin Williams got tired of waiting.

That's why I come here where others like me live with questions like that--others who live with the very real invisible wounds we have left on our brains. Sorry it takes so long to tell my story, I'm just not helped by the media since the country of my family's missionary service never makes the news. But it's a lot like Afghanistan, so you may relate, I don't know. I imagine in military service in Afghanistan you may have met NGO folks and you may even have met their family members, people like me. In any event, I'm glad you found us here at DS PTSD. You're not alone here, and I found not being alone is half the "homecoming" PTSD battle from combat for me.

Aloha, Glenn.....
US Marine Vet here.... our Veterans Administration is crap here so I get it. I'm so sorry for all you have gone through with the war, PTSD, and crap help afterwards and no meds that work for you. You are not alone, I have negative side effects to all anti depressants and can't take them.

Are there any veterans organizations there in England? Here in the States for example, we have Disabled American Veterans, American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, State of Hawaii Veterans Services, Wounded Warriors, and many more. I suggest finding an organization similar to these in your area and reaching out to them. They have all kinds of hook-ups for vets in need.

Here's one: http://veteransassociationuk.co.uk/

Here's another: https://www.veteranscharity.org.uk/

Best of luck to you! And I hope to read updates.....

I was able to largely do without meds but I wouldn't recommend doing it with no back up plan. I did a mindful meditation course with CBT and loving kindness components which helped me a lot. Good luck with your recovery, you have already shown you are brave so you can do this.

Glad you have come aboard this DS lifeboat Gl3nn. With all these shares, it is obvious that we each find our own path to recovery from PTSD. No magic bullets here. Lots of shares in replies to try out and build the toolbox that works for you. Comforting hugs on your journey.

I’m in the USA and I have no idea how your medical works. I have a therapist and a psychiatrist and have had them since I was diagnosed five years ago. Some of the professionals I have seen just didn’t seem to care. Didn’t have their heart in it. So I know how it is when they don’t care. BUT I have bipolar disorder too and have been in meds. I used to stop taking my meds because they “weren’t working” and boy did I feel the effects!! Your mess may not be working “well” but surely they are doing “something “ who prescribed your meds? You need to talk to them and discuss your options because there ARE options. I know for me it took damn near 4 years to find a medication combo that works for me and I know several people on the Bipolar board who said it took 10+ years to find the right cocktail. So I say, don’t give up on meds. Talk to your prescriber and get your options

Thank you for all you supportive messages i did contact many support groups in the U.K. “combat stress, help for heros the British legion and they all closed doors on me, when I was discharged I was discharged for failing to soldier if I’d of know about this condition then I’d of made them put that on my papers because now it looks like I’m a coward and a failure...i started drinking heavy I lost my my family and ended up on the streets whilst on R&R I raised my concerns I was sent to MOD Stafford then MOD Donnington for assessment but 72hrs later I was back in Afghan as they said there was nothing wrong after I’d explained about the flash backs waking up at night sweating shouting...Iv also been diagnosed with personality disorder and liver disease I was such a different person I want to be that person again fearless and achieving everything I set out to... I maybe a failure to HMAF but I’m no coward and I’ll die on the spot for any one of my brothers

Big hug for you GL3...… it's not the norm for anyone to have to see and experience what people have to during a time of war

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a normal response to a traumatic, devastating or horrific event or series of events

I put up a link for peer support so that would be other soldiers who have suffered some similar things to you so it may be worth looking for some peer support in the UK

No one thinks you're a coward...… and IMHO no one should ever have to get used to what people see in a war zone...… Gentle hug...….xo

You wrote, " I’m no coward and I’ll die on the spot for any one of my brothers" and I know you would, GL3NN. In fact, even as a civilian in a combat zone for 6 years what I learned about combat soldiers is that in the final analysis the reality is that even the most patriotic soldiers fight in combat most for the brothers in arms right next to them above all else, even their own lives.

Then coming home, it's so different. I went back from the USA to the country where I survived civil war overseas as a veteran civilian and was lucky that veteran soldiers invited me in to their face to face support groups for a year over there in South America. Their generosity saved me.

That's why back here in the USA I come to this support group online. Other members come from the UK, too, as well as from Australia. It turns out that PTSD knows no borders, but luckily PTSD recovery and healing know no such limits, either. We're here for you, my friend.

Gl3nn.... you are a soldier.... with PTSD. It angers me to hear that these groups shut their doors on you because of your troubles. I thought helping vets in crisis is what they are there for.

I miss my old self too. But all we can do is inch forward one day at a time.... and pick up the pieces a little bit here and a little bit there and piece ourselves back together again. It takes time so be patient with yourself.

There is a veterans support group here on DS. https://www.dailystrength.org/group/veterans

Please continue to ask questions and ask for help. I pray you find answers soon!