I'm so sick of myself posting negative posts but cant help it at the moment. i cant cope with work not one little bit. Just the thought of it makes me break down in tears. Sick of not being to cope and feel that im just really pathetic. I'm so angry with myself for feeling like this. I should be able to pull my socks up and get on with it but i cant. I have always been able to do that before but it doesnt work anymore. I've always been superwoman and im not used to feeling so weak and helpless i guess. I made it into work anyway but wish i wasnt here. Too much stress. I dont know why im even posting this because im not going to get the answer i want anyway. I want someone to say "dont go to work" but i also want someone to say "shutup, pull your socks up and get on with it, stop being so pathetic". Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I dont want to let work down because they are paying for 6 sessions at the counsellors and its not fair on them. But i cant cope with the work load. I'm not making much sense. Sorry

Mightsurvive,

No one here can tell you what you need to do for yourself. We can offer suggestions, advice or a shoulder, but ultimately you need to do for you what you have to do.

Some of us can work without to much of a problem. Some do it, but it's a struggle everyday. Others can't work at all. I worked for years with no problem, then PTSD reared it's ugly head real bad and I couldn't work. Stayed home for several years then finally had to go back.

I don't know your situation financially, but if you feel that you can't work it might be the time to stop working, and start working on you.

Until then deep breathe and do what ever you can to calm yourself down...

Hang in there....

I worked in a Dr. office, he understood me since he was from nam and got most of his more elaborate training there, well there came a day i swore i had a neck and luck problem, he checked out my throat and said nothing at all was wrong, I said so its a flashback huh? he said yes.
I lasted about one more month, and gave it my all, finally i had to tell him that i was so sick of flashbacks that i could no longer care without messing up things, i.e. putting test results in the right files, (we WOULD because of as ass of a receptionist have to go thru them all to find what she misplaced, no fun, no time, and overtime when we all had plans for the night) I felt i would not be doing the best job possible for the best doctor I have ever met professionally speaking, we agreed if they go away for me to return, well then my brother got sicker from hd and I didn't need to balance the scales of life anylonger, he was sick on one scale, i could really help others on the other to balance the fact i could not help my dearest brother.
We will forever be indebted to each other, the doctor and I , and I had given him my best portrait called "external tears" a beautiful woman who held an eye dropper near her cheek, she was so beautiful that the tears were not to ruin her face, but to come out of the eye dropper. He cherisher daily and blushed at me telling him how he should train all m.d. 's because he was one in a million, made house calls, didn't have insurance pay him five dollars a month etc. I am forever indebted to know such a doctor exists on this planet.
Anyway, normal is where you are now, happy you are normal, confused and can't keep thoughts needed, normal for where you are within your ptsd
food for thought.
btw, still not working, miss the money not the people
I say the goverment pays me for not irritating people
I don't feel guilty, i worked many jobs and put into my social security, now its time for me to be the one to use it.
Donna-Lynne

Hiys She Cat

thanks for replying and sorry i havent replied earlier. I know you are so right in what you say about this being somethnig i have to decide for myself. I have now decided to stay in work but to take days off when i need them - when there's no other option. That way i wont lose pay.

I'm sorry to hear that you had to give up work becasue of this but well done to you for getting yourself well enough to be able to go back.

Hanging in there...
Take care

Hiya Donna-Lynne
And thank you for yet another reply. I'm glad you had such an understanding boos. An you are right - one in a million. My boss really has been great to me too. I'm just going to work on the days i feel i can and do my best - thats all i can do i suppose.

When i was at work today i realised why i do my job. The kids almost made me cry they were so sweet. Some told me that they loved Spanish and that it was their favourite subject. Awwwwwwww. Makes it all feel worthwhile. Worth the heart ache of not wanting to go in and going in despite it all. Some were concerned because i was ill last week and said they hoped i was better. Now isnt that sweet of them. Nice to know that they care because most pupils really dont. Nice to know they care about me as much as i do about them and their education. Well its given me a bit more courage for the time being.

I found it hard to understand what you meant about being normal. had tor ead it a few times but i get it now. Definitely food for thought so thank you.

I'm glad you dont feel guilty about not working and nor should you. I am glad you dont.

I'm trying to get pregnant so that will help with time off too lol.

Take care hun @}--,--'-----

I understand that feeling very well. I went through a similar situation for months before I lost my job job in November after requesting short-term disability bc i couldn't cope. Not to suggest at all that thats what would happen to you though, the company i worked for i evil. Turns out it was probably the best thing for me. So now I'm still not working, and i have to say I really can't imagine trying to work again right now. I feel like it's the right thing, but I'm having a terrible time bc i know everyone around me is wondering when I'm going to get back out there, like "ok, you took some time off, now you should be all rested up" or whatever. I dont know how to handle this except just keep trying to tell myself that I am taking care of myself and I should feel good about it.

btw my son and I are living with my parents right now, and it's my dad i feel this vibe from the most...more on my mom and dad to come I'm sure.

Seems to me that if something is telling you that working is really detrimental to you right now, you should listen. Maybe not quit, just take some time off, maybe a leave of absence for a few weeks or so and then see how you feel.

take care...

Wow, where to start...

I was exactly where you are, only worse, last winter. Not only was the stress overwhelming (just from the prospect of work), but I literally could not figure out which step was first, when trying to sit down and do simple work tasks. Like, I would sit there and look at the different areas of the office, and after about 15 minutes I was pretty sure I had identified all the steps? but I could not fathom where on earth to start. And since this was my own business, I had created the systems and processes myself! I seriously could do them in my sleep, before my trauma. Now... scrambled eggs. It was just a pile of scrambled eggs. *sigh* Finally, I would admit defeat, get up from the chair, and collapse in my bed in utter exhaustion. I would sleep 4+ hours, like drugged sleep, from having tried to figure that out.

Fast-forward 1 year. Two weeks ago, my doctor started me on a 2nd anti-depressant, Wellbutrin, in addition to Paxil. I thought the Paxil was doing the job... it wasn't. :-P I was depressed as hell and didn't realize it. It took a few days on the Wellbutrin, and things changed big-time. Now, when I look at a project, I feel an internal urge to go DO it! And it's with a can-do attitude. (I'm talking core attitude here -- not what I'm trying to engineer/bribe my brain into feeling.) I also don't feel so heavy, physically... like it's not as laborious to move my body through space. And I had been dizzy and lightheaded for better than a year -- all of a sudden, that's gone.

I'm not touching on what therapy did for me last spring and summer, although it did wonders. However this winter I had really backslid again, primarily into depression and anxiety. (Which as you all know, feeds on itself) It was paralyzing me again, and my work (what little I do; I work from home now) was majorly suffering. My doc spotted it and started me on the Wellbutrin. I was really reticent to start a 2nd AD, I thought I would be masking my issues rather than dealing with them? But that wasn't the case at all.

What I have learned (or at least, the way I see it) is that this isn't a matter of "resting up," or "pulling on your socks and getting with it," -- PTSD isn't mind over matter. We aren't choosing to be this way... although I understand, we do start to question whether we are, because we can't figure any other reasonable explanation for what we are experiencing. Nothing else makes sense? Well, I will tell you -- No. We aren't choosing this.

What I have come to realize through my Wellbutrin Experience™ (LOL) is that this is a matter of screwed-up brain chemistry.

(A bit of Past History: In my case, all of my docs (3 of them now) are confident that I have inherited depression, as both of my parents have it, my Dad went through PTSD due to a work incident, and my Mom's been on ADs for 15+ years? as was my maternal Grandma. My Dad takes St. John's Wort -- and it is not working very well. Please believe me, we aren't talking people who are having "a few bad days" or are situationally depressed. They were med candidates long before our society went to the "prescribe a pill for everything" medical system. I haven't gone through the expensive testing -- I can't afford it -- but I have been satisfied that based on family history and my own experiences, that I have hereditary depression.)

To repeat, this is a matter of screwed-up brain chemistry.

The reason I say that is because once the Wellbutrin corrected some of my screwed-up brain chemistry, all of a sudden, some of my old ways of doing things started just "clicking" again. Things that I had completely lost the last 19 months, that no matter how hard I tried, I just could not get them back. Click! They were back! Examples...

• Spontaneously finding random things funny, and giggling at them... parroting funny quotes or funny-sounding words, twisting them around to be funny.
• Taking out the garbage. Seriously, I could not get from Point A to Point B on this.
• Every time I go to my Mom's, I shovel her front deck without even thinking about it. It's automatic, like reaching for the shampoo bottle in the shower... just a matter of routine. Heh... it wasn't routine last winter!!! LOL
• My sense of silent self-confidence is back. Like, I can stand in a room and feel as though I am worthy to stand and occupy the space that I do, like I don't owe anyone an apology for being there.

The biggest thing for me is, my ability to "sort and file" events vs. emotions is back, and works like it was never missing. In the past, before my trauma, I perceived the things going on around me as events. I did not mix them up with my emotions. For instance, when I went on an ambulance call, I perceived it as dealing with events, not people. I would not personalize the things I saw, I would react to the events happening around me but keep the majority of my emotions separate from it. (That is not to say I was not empathetic, or thoughtful, or sensitive to my patient... I have always been very caring of my patients. But I did not invest my ego into it so much that my intimate emotions got all mixed up with the events going on around me.) As things would happen, I would mentally put them in their "box" in my mind. Then when I had an emotional reaction to it, I would deal with the emotions, and once I had sorted my emotions out, they went into their "box" in my mind. It's just how my brain processes stuff... everything's got a "box." I'm a very linear sort of person.

Well, once I went through my trauma and developed PTSD, all of a sudden events and my emotions got all mixed up into one big jumble. Events got all muddied up with emotions. And the emotions were all over the spectrum, just a messy mass of everything, and none of it was good. There wasn't even room for positive emotions, the bad ones were so prevalent and stifling, and they sucked up all the extra air. Events were so weighed down with emotions and what-not that I couldn't make heads nor tails of any of it.

And dear God I tried. I tried to make sense of it, sort it out, with all my might. It was exhausting. After 8 months of going backwards, I went through a few months of therapy, and that did wonders. My therapist really helped me sort out some core stuff (way deeper than the PTSD even, for me -- core personality and family stuff) and that got me out of the mud to maybe waist level... far enough out to breathe and talk and wave my arms, but I was still mired down in the mud so I couldn't move around.

Before Wellbutrin, I could not do the things I described above ^^^^.

After Wellbutrin, I can.

The only change there is a correction in brain chemistry. It is as if the PTSD short circuited, or detoured past, some areas that controlled normal behaviors. Now with the Wellbutrin, that's been corrected, and suddenly those parts of my brain are accessible again.



And here's the crazy thing: It's like MAGIC.

I woke up one day, and ta-da, it was there. *blink* Crazy shit!!!

I was so scared, and so sure, that those parts of my brain had been lost forever. I was 100% sure that I had become broken forever. I thought I had permanently gone on tilt, or rewired (for the bad!) and I was never going to get to feel those normal things again.

Nope. Those parts of the brain are still in there.

It's just a matter of finding a way to access them again.



IMPORTANT:

• I am not saying that medications are the magic answer. I am only reporting my experience, which is totally unique to me. I provided my history and background above to try to explain how this makes sense for my case. Obviously it is probably not the answer for someone else in a different situation.
• I am sharing this to try to offer some hope!!! I remember so well, how deep that hole feels, how eternally long that "broken forever" feeling feels. It is awful. I was there too, and I do understand. And I am sitting here today not feeling half bad. I swear to God, it was like magic, I had no idea this was possible. In my opinion, there is hope, it is possible to feel better. Even a little bit. Feeling better is possible.
• The key is to figure out what works for you. Maybe a med will work. Maybe your key is therapy. Maybe your key is a change in environment, or a gluten-free diet, or a combination of herbals, or a rebirth in faith. Everybody is different. We all walk a very hard road to deal with our issues and heal our minds & bodies.

All of this said, there is not a "magic pill," in that my life is nowhere near perfect. Good God!!! Right now I am battling a virus, and hormones, and the both have had me tied up in knots of anxiety for the last 5 days... I haven't gotten squat done. I am also going through foreclosure right now and that is chewing at me something fierce. I am battling side-effects from the Wellbutrin that have been irritating the shit out of me. Although I am not actively mired in gory PTSD flashes and what-not, I am still struggling with 20 dozen problems that surround me. Every day, every task, I approach with the mindset of "baby steps," because that is the only way I can make any progress at all, and not be perpetually paralyzed by the totality of everything. So the issues don't just magically go away. It's just a matter of getting to a point mentally where I can start to work on those issues, start to clean up the messes.

However, if it wasn't for making it to this new "ledge" (on the steep shear cliff that is PTSD), I am not sure how, or if, I would be dealing with things right now. Getting sick and hormones have always been huge triggers/battles for me... this foreclosure thing is just a cluster all the way around, and I am pretty sure I'd be locked in a closet right about now if it wasn't for the meds.

But somehow I am actually getting out of bed, getting dressed and getting on with my day today... which is something I didn't do most of 17+ months... so keep your chin up. You are not permanently broken. The good, smart, sharp, funny person is still in there. I know you can't feel or see her right now, but she's still there. :) Just take it one moment, one hour, one day at a time. Whatever works for right now. You're fighting the good fight, and you're fighting a fight that does have hope.

Hugs,

Bailey

...I've just read your long note...and it comes across like a beacon of light. I'm presently relapsing after seven relatively stable years...I am off work on a short-term medical leave and might go on permanent disability. Yikes.

Just wanted to thank you for such a thoughtful and encouraging post.

Peace -- Roo

Ditto the thanks Bailey.

I haven't really worked for quite a while, and I don't seem to be too concerned about it. Once in a while my sister will forward me something about a job opportunity and that let's me know that she thinks it might be good for me to have a job. Which it would, in some ways. I tend towards extreme isolation, so getting out to work can help counter that. I seem resigned to a state of poverty, which in itself does not seem healthy.

I have also struggled most of my life with depression. When not at clinical levels, I seldom get above what they call dysthymia. I am currently on what I consider to be an effective medication, one which allows me to move and think at normal speeds, and which has no discernible side effects and which reduces suicidal ideation to just that, something I think about when I am really hurting, not something I actually want to do. But reading of your experience, Bailey, I wonder if there is more help to be had. I remember telling someone just a week or so ago, that I seem to have little or no capacity for enjoyment, let alone actual joy.

It is so hard always to tell what is what. Depression is so insidious the way it can creep back in, or even pass itself off as normal, when one has all but forgotten what 'alive' feels like.

Anyhow, I'm not the type to go running after pills to fix things, but there is definitely something here to ponder.