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.
TRIGGER WARNING-FEELING FRAGILE-BAD LANGUAGE
I can't put my finger on a particular stressor as the cause, but whatever the reason, I just woke up to a flashbacky day today. I have an emotional disc jockey in my brain that often plays a theme song that puts a song to how I'm feeling. Sometimes I wake up to Louie Armstrong's "Beautiful World," it's usually good stuff like that. I love my mental DJ.
TRIGGER WARNING-BAD LANGUAGE FOLLOWS
Forgive me if I offend, so if bad language is upsetting to you, please read no further. But today as soon as I woke up the earworm song that played in my head was the opening lines from the song "Bitch" by Meredith Brooks. I kid you not.
Get ready, here comes the bad language...
If you never heard it, it goes: "I hate the world today/You're so good to me/I know but I can't change..." https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/meredithbrooks/bitch.html
So I said to myself, "uh-oh. It's gonna be one of THOSE days...."
I've been riding it out the best I can, but I've been one big exposed raw nerve all day long. The symptoms are an edginess, crankiness, bitchiness, rapid heart beat over and over, repeated hyperventilating, that sort of thing. I'll admit that it's bad, but that also I have to say that I've had worse; in fact I've gotten through a work day like this before having learned to fake it until I could make it.
I'm on vacation, though, so I was wondering if, now that I have the time, I could learn that there's something else I could do. What I've done today so far has been to keep to myself and not attempt a lot of social interaction that would be grouchy to others and/or demand more of my attention than I have to spare. It's not a good day for making big decisions, either. It seems like a good day just to do routine chores on my own instead, so I went grocery shopping.
At the grocery store, though, I had a total PTSD heart attack moment. I was just pushing my cart along when a lady came around a blind corner pushing her cart, too. She wasn't going fast, she wasn't about to bump into me, she wasn't doing anything wrong. But I didn't see her coming, and in the highly symptomatic PTSD condition I'm in, she accidentally triggered my startle response but good. POW!
Poor lady, suddenly she was looking at a guy who was acting like one of those cartoon characters when they jump out of their skin. All that was lacking was the drum roll sound track and the bullet sound effect. Poor thing, again, really, I feel bad for her still. She apologized profusely, but she really hadn't done anything but be outside my peripheral vision on one of my more active PTSD days.
So I don't go around scaring people like that with my exaggerated involuntary PTSD startle responses is why I live alone. I take Prazosin at bedtime for my PTSD nightmares and it usually works. My psychiatrist said I can take it as needed during the day for days like this one, so I did that.
Any other ideas? How do you get through a day without hurting anybody else or hurting yourself when your PTSD just acts up on you all day long for no apparent reason? Thanks for your suggestions; I'm really looking forward to them. No kidding, I'm on my own down here in Mexico so I could really use the help.
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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.
I have those days too where I just feel on edge and jumpy and highly triggered. I think you did a great thing trying to find something easy going. Grocery stores are a trigger for me. When I get like that I try to find something super funny or cute to watch. It lightens my mood quite a bit and laughing enduces drugs to help us relax.
Hope your day is better tomorrow!!!
I'm not sure that this is true (almost certain that it's not), but I tell myself that my heart is getting a "free" workout. Of course it's not free....but it's still what I tell myself.
But on my psychiatrist's recommendation from my appointment with him last week, yesterday I took day time Prazosin for the first time because I was having waking nightmares, so to speak. My flashbacks were less like pictures, though, and more like electric shocks a few times every hour.
TRIGGER WARNING
The torturers I survived during Uruguay's dictatorship were trained back then in applying electric shock to humans using electric cattle prods. Hence my flashback symptom.
Nowadays I'm led to understand that "waterboarding" is the new torture method, so for survivors of that I imagine the flashback symptom has evolved, too.
I think about these things because my therapist taught me to try to process my episodes rationally with contextual information. That way I might not just fly into panics that make them worse.
That's how it used to be for me back before therapy. Since therapy and trying to do what my therapist taught me, I don't prevent flashbacks episodes, but they don't seem as long as they used to be, either.
This one was about 24 hours long. It went into the night to the point that I only got 4 hours of sleep. I'm grateful I got any, so there's that. Today, episode passed, I actually slept until noon, so I'm recovering and making up for it.
I have one little word of protest even as I accept all of this, though, if you'll allow me. People who choose to torture others, even if for legitimate reasons like extracting enemy information in war time, if such a legitimate reason really exists, ought to be held responsible for how torture creates PTSD for life.
I don't know how that would work, I know it's a fantasy, but if there is a God, maybe in an afterlife?
Meanwhile, in this life, thanks to you all again for your support through this flashback episode of mine. Your support was heavenly, no kidding.
I do NOT like talking about mine....even ones that I've mostly gotten over (is that such a thing though? IDK...stays with me in certain ways).
I isolate and go quiet, which has been the better part of three weeks now. When I jump/startle I feel it several times stronger than others see it, so if they notice I was way off balance.
I look to the dates of past to identify the reasons of now. Once named they are easier to recover from. Today is not 2011, but 2019. Breathe and breathe that in again.
You have also mentioned the peace that a shoreline brings you, so maybe a day trip?If it's not too far away.
The water rolls up over your toes in the sand. The sound is the tempo as the guitar player loosens up. Close your eyes and pick and strum along.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OXcXv0rUNI
Introspection. Estas Tonne. Shardo Studios 2016
Gentle hugs,
J.
hugs