Complex PTSD - please help :’(

[pentagram]

You are not alone. I have huge problems with dissociation. I dissociated to save myself pain during my traumas, but this has lead me to experiencing all sorts of problems with what is a true memory and what is false.
I dissociated to survive, but now I dissociate just cos it is a habit I have got into.
Because my mind was not connected to my body things happen which make me question what is going on. I am only at my peace when I am fully connected.

[tentgirl]

You are not alone. I have huge problems with dissociation. I dissociated to save myself pain during my traumas, but this has lead me to experiencing all sorts of problems with what is a true memory and what is false.
I dissociated to survive, but now I dissociate just cos it is a habit I have got into.
Because my mind was not connected to my body things happen which make me question what is going on. I am only at my peace when I am fully connected.

Hiya

Whilst I wouldn't want anyone gjadwtm experience this, it is, in some ways, reassuring to know that it's not just me. At one appointment this week, I was sitting telling the psych that I didn't know if I was really there and it's so scary. Yes, it's like living in a trance and, yes, for me too, there have been times during the traumas that I had to move myself psychologically from the situation in order to protect myself but for it to happen unintentionally means that I am not in control.

Can I ask if you've found anything that helps? I know about grounding techniques and I find that by naming ten objects around me brings me back into the here and now but never for very long.

Thanks
Sarah x

[pentagram]

Hi Sarah, over the years I have found a few things that I am both very good at and very focused on and happy doing them. These are driving, rockclimbing/mountaineering and my work. I work in the countryside building dry stone walls, not in gardens often but out in the hills and mountains. I was always confused as to why these 3 things made me feel good, whereas being with people, in shops, on public transport, in offices, queues,hospitals, at parties and such always leaves me distracted.

Now I have found out about dissociation and had it explained to me that that is what I have been doing, I have been sort of studying my dissociations from the side looking in. I see that these 3 activities are when my mind and my body are working in unison, I can't daydream doing any of them, I am living in the NOW whenever I do them.

But shove me in any situation where I don't have to be where I am at and I am off. I learnt to do this way before my actual trauma having been brought up in an extremist religious household where to be gay had to be hidden at all times. My parents thought I was around cos my body was there, but in fact I (my mind) wasn't. When the trauma of my electric shock treatment got too much I readily dissociated to escape. That seemed a good idea at the time but unfortunately I seem to have brought back a false memory which I believed in and lived my subsequent life by

I once went on a Shamanic journeying course and amazed the tutor in my ability to readily have journeys. But if these journeys are analysed they can be seen as moments when 'I am out of body'. I quite like the idea of Shamanic studies but I had to stop as on another course I journeyed back into my trauma and scared myself and ended up sat in a roomful of people crying and shaking, without really being able to explain to them why I was like that. They were very supportive but now I am scared to do too much meditation type things for fear of returning once more.

My grounding techniques used during therapy are to give my T a list of mountains I have been up and get me to imagine walking up them, this usually brings me back to reality.

Trouble I find is getting back to 'NOW' when I am on my own in a 'stress' situation, when I am dissociating but not aware of it till later.

I am not sure whether that all makes sense, I hope it does.

[tentgirl]

My grounding techniques used during therapy are to give my T a list of mountains I have been up and get me to imagine walking up them, this usually brings me back to reality.

Trouble I find is getting back to 'NOW' when I am on my own in a 'stress' situation, when I am dissociating but not aware of it till later.

I am not sure whether that all makes sense, I hope it does.

Thank you. It does make sense and I am so sorry to hear what you've gone through. I use a similar grounding technique in that I list five objects in the room that I am in. When I go to one of my MH centres, I have to look at all the leaflets and posters on display in the waiting room and go through the alphabet to find each letter on display. I was in group therapy on Wednesday and ended tearful as I didn't know whether I was there or if I was dreaming. It was scary. I feel like I am walking in a bubble and there's a physical barrier between me and everything else. I guess that bubble has kept me mentally safe in the past when I've had to convince myself that I am not there when stuff happened :’(

Hate this feeling. Just want to connect with life again and not sure if I'll ever get there. I wonder what I would have been like personality and confidence-wise if things hadn't happened to me. Really sad :’( Xx

[Luna Looney]

Have you tried eye movement desensitisation? I was taught Emotional Freedom Technique and it is helping me. The psychologist said i could not have EMDR because i have too many traumatising events and it would overwhelm me too much, i guess you are the same?

It is a long road to recovery, but we will get there. I also have a mood disorder that i had before the trauma. It was hell, triggered my mood left right and centre. Fucking awful.

[Gajolene]

wasn't dissociated in that way but disconnected from my real emotions for quite a few years especially when it came to the traumatic memories. Unless those emotions were fear or sadness related then they seemed 100 times exagerated from normal in everyday situations. Took me many years to reconnect with emotions on a balanced level and too remember (feel the) emotions connected with incidents

[pentagram]

Have you tried eye movement desensitisation?

According to my mental health notes from 1998 when I was first diagnosed with PTSD, ( 26 years after the events that caused it) I was recommended for EMDR but nothing came of it, I don't know why, maybe it was for the reason you were given.

I know it is a long road too. I am scared that as I get over one period of deep PTSD depression and try to drag myself out of it some new flashbacks don't appear out of nowhere and shove me back in the shit.

I am at the moment trying some form of self care mixing Reiki, Healing meditation, aromatherapy and counselling and talking to people to help me out of my present situation. I feel it is working though I do keep having setbacks

[stanogden]

According to my mental health notes from 1998 when I was first diagnosed with PTSD, ( 26 years after the events that caused it) I was recommended for EMDR but nothing came of it, I don't know why, maybe it was for the reason you were given.

I start with EMDR on Thursday, I have a number of life events that the recent team I have seen seem to think are causing the over all depression.

I have said a few times on here what I've been through and if you add them up I guess there is some trauma there.

Flashing lights ain't gonna make me better! Plus the guy I saw is a right nutter, told me EMDR is a cure, ffs I know I should have an open mind I just can't see how I can get better...

I would love to "get better" but don't feel very hopeful about EMDR still will give it ago, nowt to loose.


also, can you meassure trauma? Is one person's worse than anothers? Is your pain or your rights to feel the pain any less or more than another persons because what you have suffered isn't as "bad" as someone elses.


sorry mind is a bit freacked up tonight.


stan

[Gajolene]

I don't know if you can actually measure trauma, I would measure the affects on daily functioning and health, ironic to say it but hindsight as you go through the recovery process helps. I notice that each relapse I get is further apart in time and lessens with each experience. Maybe I can just recognize it before it hits hard now and utilize my coping tools quicker as time goes on. The initial first 4 PTSD years were the worst in terms of the effects it had on me, my family, my emotional and physical health and the ability to function both in and out of home.
Journals, researching and talking on the forums online helped more than anything else.
I trully believe my mind just decided it was strong enough and it was time to let the subconscious out into the conscious. It's like opening up floodgates of an awareness of oneself you never knew existed. No doctor, therapy, meds triggered it for me it happened on it's own out of the blue. It was very debilitating in the first years mentally and physically. Be patient with yourself and have courage. Us survivors are a lot stronger than we think

[Luna Looney]

EMDR has had some incredible successes, it is very highly thought of amongst clinical psychologists and i wish mine would let me have it as she rates it so highly and she is a very experienced and smart woman, but i am not suitable. Never suitable! Perhaps you should ask for it again?

Can i ask about your dissociation? I recall many times when i feel like everyones voices are muffled and that they are far far away when they are actually right in front of me. Is this dissociation or was it just depression do you think? That is very interesting that i may have been having symptoms at that time.

Sorry to write about myself on your post.

I didn't find it scary. I found it bewildering and a little amusing i suppose, because it took my mind off of the pain. It must be awful for it to happen a lot and at times when you really do not want it to happen ie at work.