PTSD Getting to Know My PTSD
I may have introduced myself to this group a while ago. My memory doesn't serve me well in past 2 years of returning to this state of being. I have never before been this aware of the P.T.S.D. & it's effects upon me emotionally, physically or mentally. I have remembered the attacks but only from a detached view. When it was happening last time I just sort of had some cut off point when I just became a different part of myself. Before that it just came with memories, anxiety, & immobilizing depressions. I self medicated before all of that so I only remember some real hard times throughout from the trauma up to the getting sober part. I am reliving the trauma in my sleep, I think.... I woke up today stillremembering what I was 'sort of dreaming" about. It had something to do with the giving up of my first born son for adoption. I was 16 yrs old, it was in the mid 1970's & people still looked down upon a young girl pregnant out of "wedlock." I was banished from highschool as they did not want to give the other young ladies the wrong impression, I had to be punished somehow! I don't barely remember anything visual from the sleeping but the tension, severe anxiety, terror, not fear, but terror, all the emotional state I was in during the so called dream was horrific. I even struggled to wake up from it. Do we have night terrors?The night is already bad for me. I do not want to lay down to go to sleep when it is quiet & dark, I want to stay awake till the sun rise, or at least until I know the sun rise is almost here. Psych asked me last week if I know why I don't want to sleep. The question seemed to shut down an answer before he was finished with his question. I seemed to forget the question all week until this am before this weeks appointment and then I remembered he asked me last week. The denial factor is unreal for me, to watch myself forget things I want to remember. today's appointment I felt very reserved, on edge about opening up very deeply to anything. Watching myself from this strange place this time, almost split off from self to watch self go through the stuff ..... is this progress that I am able to almost do this? It feels as if it is not safe, that I will split off like I did 15 yrs ago and have no control over what I do. I made life choices with a determination no one could break thru, not even myself. So is this my self's answer to that problem of not being able to stop, now I have a piece of self split off attempting police what's happening and trying to let my conscious self see & know some of the process I am going through? I sure do not have enough education about what all of this is. I do not know what is physically happening to me except that is is fight / flight & intense memories/flashbacks of experiences which were too much for me to handle so my brain did something with the memories, split up the emotions away from the memory of the experience as best it could and on to live life I walked. The alone, abandoned feeling is worse than any other traumas reaction I have had. I am okay with my support groups for other issues, but I will completely forget this group is even on my list, that I am a member because I was diagnosed with this and it is disabling right now. I want to go to sleep like I used to. Peaceful, tired & rest. My muscles are in knots from the tension. The neck hurts so bad it doesn't want to hold up my head during the day. I find myself trying to sleep in the fetal position tensed up like a snake ready to jump it's prey. Nothing I used to do helps. I am about to turn off the waterfall, even though I know it's suppose to sound soothing, because it is actually aggravating me right now. Only way I can sleep is with the TV on. Then it is still not sleep. Meds aren't working or I can't take them. I want the ambien the sleep doc gave me to at least try. Family is afraid I will get up in my sleep and I must admit I fear it too, but I want to sleep so badly. No wonder I did drugs and drank in order to survive. Makes sense in this light. if I wasn't sober 15 yrs & in AA for 23 yrs now I would have slept by now. I will try to get myself to get on here before I lay down to do the TV thing at night and just write, I guess. No psych next week so I will have to make it another week before I see him. Same weird stuff with that answer. I want to see him like it's a shot in the arm of some magic protection every week, yet I cannot barely make the appointments & fear stops me from letting go with all the stuff I went thru the week before. It is intense grief, terror, fear, pain, sorrow, memories, no sleep, all week with issues triggered everyday to talk with him about & I get there & it's like pulling teeth to get any of it out my mouth. It's been a real bad day with physical pain so will stop now. Tomorrow night..... Thanks for being here? I don't feel completely alone. Posted on 08/09/12, 03:31 am
Replies
Oh hon... I could have written this... every last word could be mine, except for the gender of the people you mentioned in it. Every other word could be mine. Have I told you that I\'ve been with my therapist for 25 years? Perhaps not, because in several ways I\'m ashamed of that fact, so I tend not to tell people that it\'s been so long. All those years and yet it\'s only been about the last 5 at most that it has stopped being like pulling teeth without pliers to get words out of my mouth when I\'m with her... despite all the thoughts and memories and emotions that overwhelmed me to the point of distraction all week, when I got seated in that room it would all shut down so that I\'d struggle to think of a single thing to say... and I was always on guard... always keeping the defensive wall up between her and me, yet never able to entertain the idea of being without her, even having her take a few weeks leave was agony and I would become seriously depressed and suicidal. Yet as soon as she returned we\'d be back to me being unable to get hardly a word out. Really that woman is a saint, for all I\'ve put her through over the years. I must say too that I\'ve had the luxury of having 2 or even 3 sessions a week with her for all that time, yet was unable for the most part of those years to push myself to do the work that would have made me well enough to cope on my own... see why I feel shame? She could have probably helped dozens of other people with the amount of time she\'s given to me.
I really think a lot of the reactions you describe are related to you losing your baby to adoption. The one thing I\'ve learnt from having the last 18 months with so much contact with other natural mums (I will never use the offensive b-mum word!) is that most mums are psychologically damaged in the same way and we all show symptoms of PTSD, even the women who never experienced any other trauma or abuse in their whole lives, let alone all of us who also lived through abusive/unhealthy childhoods. Even the mums who feel they freely \"chose\" to place their child for adoption were traumatised... plus a lot of them have come to realise, with a little education, that they never were really given any other choice, even though they always thought they chose of their own free will, or chose to do \"the best thing\" for their babies. In most cases the \"best thing\" for most babies is to stay with their mother... and breaking that bond does lifelong damage to a lot of adopted children. The worst part is that the social workers in the adoption industry knew right back in the 1950\'s that adoption causes irreparable trauma to the mothers who relinquished their babies, and also to the babies themselves... but they still kept on telling every pregnant unmarried mother that they could get their hands on that adoption was the \"best thing\" for their babies. When you are ready to look deeply into this issue I can send you links to some good educational reading material on this topic.
Sending lots of hugs and smiles for you hon,
take care... love you... Gaye... xxx