Currently from that list the worst I'm dealing with is flashbacks and intrusive memories.

After my last flashback it's like there's this constant sting in my amygdala, been there for a few days but it's going down.

Yo friends . ..

I'm so sorry you have such sad and unpleasant, well, horrible things to endure.

I got to say that right now I am crying because I am so concerned for you all and feel so bad for you. I wish I could just do something, anything to help you all. I don't care what it would be. You all don't deserve this stuff. It was done to you.

And I know how horrible it can be because I've had most all the symptoms mentioned. And they all are so darned horrible, scary and make life so hard.

Well, anyway I'm still crying but I got to say that I voted for anger, rage 'cause after I get done destroying a computer, or putting a hole in a wall, or hitting myself in the face with my fist . . . I've never hurt anyone else and and would die first before I did.

Second, was insomnia. I wanted to vote for that one too 'cause like some of you said, it makes me crazy too. I feel like I am an insane monster when I can't sleep. It makes me feel like I want to kill myself but I can't 'cause its against God, and my son wouldn't like it, and neither would my wife, and I promised my therapist I wouldn't hurt myself, and if there is one thing I'm really good at is keeping my word. Laying down and being so tired I can hardly move yet not being able to sleep. Yet even if I do sleep, I don't feel rested. Happily, I got meds now that get me good sleep.

I got to go I don't want to cry anymore.

Bye, Doug

I chose anger and depression, because that is what I am feeling most right now, but I have serious sleep deprivation problems and when I am in this cycle I have negative thinking and low self-esteem. I feel like no one likes me or wants me in their lives. I feel a lot of free floating anxiety because when I go home my house needs cleaning and I don't have the energy to get it done! I let things go and then beat myself up mentally because I am letting things go. No energy! No motivation! I just watch the tube and I am a confirmed TV hater!

Chissi

The hypervigilant issue usually leads to my anger issues.

I chose anger, which is really a tough one for me. I get angry at men so much. I get 'hit on' a lot and disrespected more than you can believe. Brings up my rage so intensely and hurts the left side of my brain. It's excruciating. So tired of being degraded.........stems right back to what "he-it" did to me.......then all the repeated victimizations. I'm trying to let go of the anger, been trying for so long. Last night did a forgiveness ritual. I really don't want to hate all men, but at this point I keep having negative experience after negative experience. Seems they are all pigs. I'm considered very attractive and no one cares about me, the me 'in here.' Makes me so lonely, isolated and angry.

If I could, I'd add another category. Many of us suffer from the physical after effects of trauma. I've had Fibromyalgia and been in complete pain and exhaustion for 16 years.........the abuse broke down my body, the stress was too much. Many of us have other physical effects. I'd definately say this is the WORSE effect of trauma for me. I used to be so strong and healthy.......now, it seems I could be chronically ill for the remainder of my life. Very hard to forgive when this is looming...........but, God knows, I'm praying and trying. I figure if I forgive in my heart all the many wickeded people who used and hurt me, perhaps my body can heal. It's my only hope.

Right now it's a tough choice between anxiety and avoidance. Bleh.

Dissociation, avoidance - everything related to that plus sometimes not being able to handle men even being too close to me. Makes me feel like an outsider and I don´t like that. I want to be one of the people inside. Sleep problems and other things I can control if I work enough.

Flashbacks/Intrusive memories for me. I can sort of hide most of the other stuff or at least keep them to myself...but that one I just can't seem to manage. Being married it is hard to live in today and be the wife I need to be for my husband when I get these horrible reactions when he wants to be close to me. It isn't fair to him, he isnt the perpetrator, but he is 'punished' for it and my brain won't let our time be OUR time.

I picked anxiety,panic attacks and agoraphobia. These set off bad flashbacks especially when I try to get out and 'overcome' them. Right now the changing colors of the fall leaves set off the memories and flashbacks of what happened at this time of year. I hate the feeling of being trapped by something totally beyond my control.

The breathlessness of panic attacks and the sudden rise in my blood pressure are scary. If I am anxious and have been fighting to keep it at bay, fool myself that I'm OK, then just going up the three steps to my front door will set these symptoms off big time. 209/119 isn't a good place to be and I am on blood pressure meds too.

I can't separate hypervigilance from anxiety. For me, they feel the same. At least now I understand why I won't go down a supermarket aisle if there is a man standing in it until he leaves. Shopping can take awhile :)

Y'know, I voted hypervigilance, but as I thought more about it, it's really something else related to hypervigilance. I don't know that it has a name. If anyone knows the name, I'd love to have it defined...

I don't think this would really be called disocciating/ depersonalization, but on the heels of hypervigilance is this sense of being frozen in time - no past, no future, and I'm always slightly blank, slightly removed/pulled back, not really engaged and "in my body". Although, I'm not hovering outside of it, either. I'm....nowhere. I don't exist.

It doesn't have the fuzziness or dreaminess of disocciation so I'm not sure what to call it. It's similar to what I've seen birds of prey do when they're sort of hovering in the air, staying in one spot. I never land (at least not without the grounding practices, and even then, I almost immediately return to my default position of....being nothing, nowhere).

It's like my body is just a place holder, but I'm not here. Probably some part of me is eternally waiting for the perceived (or even just potential) danger to pass so that I can relax and land. Only, it never does, so I never do.

-Dylan