I seem to be standing still in my recovery.:dont-know i haven't had a single memory come back to me in almost a month, but i haven't had any nightmares either... that's a good thing!! I have to go into the city,(where i was attacked):hit-boss: at least once a week. I don't take my tranquilizer :pills: until after i get home because i wanted to be able to drive into the city without the help of tranquilzers. That way, i force myself to deal with it and get through it without the medication. It seems to have worked somewhat, for i have been making my weekly appt. with only a minimal amount of fear.
Yet, it seems as if everything is sitting below the surface. It seems as if i'm just subconciously blocking out EVERYTHING!! I don't why, and i don't know how i'm doing it; i just am!!
I don't know where to go from here. Any guidance and/or feedback would be greatly appreciated!!
I seem to take one step forward and 1 1/2 steps back; i feel like i'm progressing, yet at the same time i feel as if i'm not. It's confusing to me.

I don't know if i'm doing the right things in order to recover from my PTSD.

God bless,
Josh

Look at the over all time you have had PTSD and compare. We get into down times but is your downtime as bad as it has been in the past or not as severe? I sometimes feel like I am going nowhere and have to look back at my recovery as a whole to see it happening. It is very slow.

You know what? You're right. Until you pointed that out, i was just looking at the last month instead of the last 4 years. My downtime is much better than it used to be. i haven't been hospitalized in the last 9 months; i haven't had a nightmare in a month; I guess it's, just like you said, a slow process. I just keep waiting for a big crash or something to happen inside of my head!! I expect to have a breakdown or a breakthrough! In actuality, it's a slower process than that, i figure from what you said.
I'm just curious though, is it like that for everyone or just some people?

Thanks,
Josh

Yes, it is pretty much the norm. Like this past week has been building on me and today I feel I am crumbling. I feel like I work so hard to feel like this? I have to stop and remember how bad I once was, and suddenly I see I am not so bad off, just a low spot, and I have come back up enough now and more often and it lasts longer than my down time I see this is healing. Again yes, this is normal.

While PTSD sufferers often think in black and white, life rarely works that way. I agree with Veiled, what you are experiencing is normal. I know it has proved true for my process.

Nov

Josh, you sound alot better than you did a couple of weeks ago. I feel about the same way. Cherish the good days.

I have to remember that when i feel like i'm not improving! Thanks, Terry.
And, thanks to everyone else, also. You have all helped me to refocus and to see the big picture!!

God bless you all,
Josh

...and you are reaching out to others and giving guidance and reassurance. Your above is my demon. Feeling bad or stuck for not being in turmoil. Sometimes I wonder if I am in love with my misery...did your heart just sink then? mine did... see that is the aweful self talking that gets me in trouble...that starts the loop. Perhaps us PTSD folk need a bit more attention than most. My therapist wrote this to me this am. (She is so great...and by the way I am in love with her too...cause she has saved my life...which I feel is great... but wrong for needing her and you and all of the attention) she wrote me ... the "huge need for gentle connection/safe relating/affirmation, lead(s) to huge defenses against that feeling" (The need for attention and being ashamed of it) "because of the shame (and it's always that word - shame, embarrassment) that arises from simply having NORMAL, HUMAN FEELING- which then leads to either a feeling of wanting to die, or a feeling of being "dead." She also wrote me that a cookie and a glass of milk between 3 and 5 am will help raise my seritonin levels...3 and 5 am are when they are the lowest. And the time passes...everyday...and we make it one more minute, hour, day.
Later

yes. i understand can you write more on this??

Here I go again.. I hope its not a ramble.. its a confession/realization, I dont know what. My dad left us when I was 11, my mom (who passed away when I was 22) was strong and independent. She, without any help, financial or otherwise from my dad, raised us to be the same. "Dont ever rely on someone else to take care of you, you have to take care of yourself in case something happens to that person." Being strong, self-sufficient, independent, no allowing myself to 'need' or 'expect' anything from anybody. Thats how I've survived my entire life and every f'd up thing in it. Suck it up, get over it.. keep going.. now I have children, and I'm teaching them the same way.. 'Do it for yourself first'. Be independent & strong, so you bring equality to the relationship, dont be a victim. This is the strong me, the one that doesnt ask for help, doesnt need it, is ashamed to need it, and ashamed of being weak.. ashamed of what my children think of me, when they see me like this.. I dont deserve my husbands understanding.. I dont deserve him.. I've always been alone , (in my own head) I refuse to be vulnerable & needy, its weak and ugly. Everyone around me is looking at me now in shock, saying god, YOU have always been the strong one.. YOU ARE the strong one.. you can handle this. Well, NOT ANYMORE. UGGH.. I'm so angry right now.. I fight with myself constantly over strength & weakness.. so it seems now, that weakness is winning. I HATE it. I cant survive if I'm weak. There, that about sums it up I guess. I said it, but somehow I dont know if I feel any better for it. ok, I'm done now. Thank you. :boxem: