I know that I have not been posting much here at this site for the most part just being here and reading all the information has been so helpful. But lately I have been having a very tough time functioning and dealing with normal day to day activities. I don't know I feel moody and I am having a very tough time keeping my emotions under control I snap at people easily and don't seem to have the patience to even hear people out. I am angry for no reason that I can think of my thoughts seem so jumbled that it has taken a long time to sort them out enough to write this. I just feel like I am in pain both physicaly and emotionally, For the first time in a long while I find myself having suicidal feelings.. They are just that as I have no intent on acting on them. I feel like I am underwater things are blurry, and sounds are muffeled. Is this a normal reaction I don't know I have never felt this before I am confused and a tad scared as for the longest time I have been able to be numb to most of this or at least keep up the good image.

First of all, I am proud of you for being able to say how you really feel. Such courage this shows on your behalf! The more energy we spend trying to hide from ourselves and trying to hide from others only depletes us and complicates feelings... makes it harder to get things done (like walk two steps beyond where you are, breathe, blink). You had to take at least one step to get to your computer, work hard to get the words out, and then click "post." Tons for good stuff!!!!!!! So far, so good kiddo!

Second, what you are experiencing is unfortunately in tune with what PTSD is and the effect it can have on our emotions, minds, thoughts, body, actions... everything. However, it doesn't mean that you will always feel this way, this low, this tired. Keep hanging in there. You are worth it.


I don't know much about your background or personal experience with trauma.... Are you receiving any structured and consistent support? What have you read on the site that resonates (or doesn't) with your struggles? Anything trigger you lately? Perhaps I am grasping at straws... but I have found it helpful when people have posed questions to me when I felt really confused and had a hard time piecing things out/together. On the other hand, it could feel irritating to see questions to things that call for thinking/effort... which sounds like it's really hard for you right now.

Don't worry about how you appear to us. Keep bringing yourself, your thoughts, your confusion, whatever it is to the forum. I am working at this too... .It's hard work. We are here for each other.

PS: also know that you are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone.

I read that last line and thought 'Whoa! That's me!'

What you said about the moodiness, the anger, the snapping, no patience, everything being 'blurry'...and the physical and emotional pain-I understand all that because that's what I live with most of the time.

When the numbing stops and the mask of the good image is taken off, all of this junk just comes out of you. I had no idea where it was coming from or why. I honestly thought I was either losing my mind or I was going to die. I felt so, so bad when the PTSD symptoms first started.

While I hate taking meds more than you can possibly believe, they've been a blessing to me because it helps me to live a semi-normal life while learning to deal with all this sh*t. I guess I hated the way I was feeling more than the damn pills. Hmmm...never thought of it like that before.

You can rant and rave and holler here (done it a few times myself LOL) and that might help you to relieve some of the pressure that builds up during the day. I know it's helped me.

Like Nov said, you're not alone. And thanks Nov for reminding me. Positive reinforcement-ain't it great! :biggrin:

Nice to see you posting again Mouse! As for your question if feeling like everything is fuzzy and muted, yes it is normal. It's just another aspect of dissassociation. I have had days where I feel like I'm walking through a dream or that everything is 1000 miles away and it's only a foot in reality!! You will find the more you are dealing with your trauma or the more you feel, the more likely you will find yourself dissassociating. This is completely normal. You are not losing your mind (lol, that sounds so funny to say on this board!).

Bec

Thank you for the support, as far as formal help goes I am seeing my Psych. Doc as well as tying to find some sort of drug cocktail to help me get by, it seems that there are drugs for everything, to make me sleep, to make me less depressed oh ya side effects, insomnia and suicidal ideations opps thats a great mix. Then there are the talk sessions that although they are designed to help you through this tough time you leave feeling worse cause now everthing is close to the surface. Sometimes I wonder if I would have been better off living in the state of denial and avoidance that I was in before I was Dx. with PTSD.
As far as beeing open with my feelings I can only say that after so many years of keeping things in it seem to come easier when I post here as I don't physically know any of you and the chance that I will meet you face to face is slim, not that Iwouldn't enjoy meeting you but I still feel so much Shame for who I am and that I wasn't stronger. Or so I feel.
Triggers everything seems to trigger me as of late but the worst is talk of families and seeing families that are still whole walking and talking and having a good time, as well as evertime my husband comes home later than expected I begin to fear the worst also 2300hrs I get aggitated and uneasy and then like clock work I have vivid flashback re-living of 1 of my traumatic events. I guess there are somethings in life you can count on. aren't I lucky.

hang in there mouse! i knew i had memory problems, but i didn't think of myself as confused til my therapist told me i was. i would get so upset with myself for not remembering what we had talked about the week before, she said it was normal for ptsd, don't sweat it. i keep my curriculum out at school now, to make sure i actually cover the info--otherwise, i forget half of it, or can't remember the next day what i did the day before. it helps a lot.
cathy

Mouse,

PTSD is something that never goes away, and regardless how much you try and suppress it, deny it and so forth, it WILL always come back through, each time getting stronger and harder to suppress. This is your mind actually telling you that you need to deal with all your past trauma, you need to come to terms with it, you need to heal from it. PTSD is seperate from your trauma itself, as the trauma caused PTSD, but PTSD is definately a unique entity that must be learnt how to manage in order to control the symptoms themselves.

What you are doing in regards to your doc and groups, is exactly correct, your bringing things to the surface to be dealt with. This is the idea. Yes, you will get worse before getting better, this is also known. You must get worse in order for your brain to learn coping mechanisms in order to beat trauma. Basically, you must go down in order to remain up in life.

PTSD is a cycle, and depending on how you have dealt with your trauma and learnt effective techniques in order to manage the sympoms, depends on how that cycle runs. For example, something who denies PTSD and suppresses it may do so with alcohol, cigarettes or drugs (legal or illegal). Either one, the PTSD will calm. It could then be months or years before PTSD comes back through, though this time it will come through worse than before. So, you may up the suppressant your using to keep it all down. This may, or may not work. If it works, you then continue on life again. Months or years again, PTSD comes back through with all this trauma, even worse again this time, making it more difficult for you to suppress or deny. It will continue this cycle to the point where your mind breaks, to either deal with the trauma or commit suicide. One or the other generally.

Now, dealing with trauma itself raises these issues anyway, so it is either a matter of waiting or a matter of self provoking the trauma to come through with some control. The latter being the better, as atleast you have some control, even though you will feel you don't, you actually do, because your self preparation is known before provoking your trauma to come through and deal with with, generally being the decision you make to actively come to terms with your past, and sticking with that decision, not just jumping off a building or such to die.

PTSD is something that must be dealt with, both PTSD and the trauma that caused it, as the trauma feeds the symptoms. It really is just a matter for a person to come out of denial, say screw it, and suffer the heavy short term pain for months / year whilst dealing with it, then getting some much needed relief and learn management to get back into life itself and live once again. It is all about choice.

I do know that things will get tough before they get better and I am not one to take the easy way out. This has got to beone of the hardest times in my life right now, sometyimes I think that the process of dealing with my PTSD is actually just as traumatic if not worse then the events that led up to it, at least for the most part thyey were spread out over a period of years.

I think that alot of my problems right now can be related to the fact that I no matter how hard I try or what drugs I take or have Rx for I can not fall asleep, I have tried breathing exercises, Hypno, reading meditating, exercise to what I thought was exhaustion, I have tried it all. The big thing is that as soon as I fall asleep it is so traumatic that I chose to stay awake therefore I have more control. But now I have little contrfol of anything and I think that I want to sleep but now I can not.

Mouse, the only way to actually stop the nightmares, is to face all your trauma by speaking about it and getting it out of you. Yes, this will often bread a person for a short period, make you very ill, depressed and lots more, but as you come out of dealing with your trauma, you then no longer fear the past traumatic events, instead they only exist for what they are, unpleasant memories of your past. Dealing with trauma is the only way your going to sleep without nightmares, medication or issues.

Yes, its a long process, but honestly, its the only one that is going to stop the nightmares and improve your sleep. So the only actual method to work, will also shut you down. Big decision... but your PTSD will force you too do it at some point, whether you want to or not... you just have to work out whether this is that time or not.

Anthony,

I read the above a number of times. I actually thought about it before I went to sleep and when I woke up I was thinking about it. Something kept niggling at the back of my brain but I couldn't figure it out. Then it was like the lightbulb went on over my head. During the last ten years or so of my life, whenever I've dealt with depression it's gotten worse each time and anxiety got thrown into the mix (hadn't had it before). And when the anxiety got worse, I got to the point where I tried meds (both dr. tried gave me bad side affets so I stopped) and smoking (which worked, but it's not the healthiest choice). I've been trying to figure out why these things had gotten worse for some time. I even asked the 'right' people (ex-therapist, primary doc) and got the same reaction both times...shrugged shoulders. Taking your words and looking back over my life for the last decade...NOW it makes sense to me. Now I understand why I was getting worse and worse until I finally broke and had to deal with what I found out was PTSD.

Big weight off of my shoulders...thanks.