I totally agree with Evie and Anthony. For me it was the EMDR that really started shifting things. Its the same thing though, working on the trauma is the only way from my experience. The problem is the time it takes! You still need to sleep during the period you are working on your trauma.

Yes, I do certainly remember a lot of years with little to no sleep.... alcohol often was used for me to sleep. Saying this though, none of that time was when I was actively facing my trauma either. When I began facing my trauma to when the nightmares ceased, was merely a few months, and it was only that someone said something that I noticed I was no longer having the nightmares. I would hope that the experience here now leads others to lessen their time off painful nightmares, instead opt direct to the source of the issue.... the trauma.

OK, I understand. I just thought that if one wasn't ready to face the trauma they could work on the nightmares because in that way the subconscious feeds you a little at a time, as the mind can only take so much.

Also, even now that the nightmares stopped, I sometimes have a really bizarre dreams. It used to bother me, but now it doesn't bother me because I understand it even if it has nothing to do with the trauma.

I suppose trying to learn dream interpretation is too time consuming. I just felt it is worth the while for peace of mind, when a dream bothers a person even though it has nothing to do with their trauma.

I won't bother with it anymore unless some one specifically asks for help.

Evie, I apologize for posting this thread. I didn't mean to discredit the hard work you put forth in healing. I was just frustrated because I felt that my work at healing was discredited.

Tammy

OK I'm a little bit confused now. You won't bother with what Tammy? Why are you apologizing? You don't have any reason to. I'm not offended at all, and you have a right to your opinion anyhow. I had just noticed so many threads on nightmares, and people struggling with their nightmares for so long and not getting any better, and I really related to that because that was me before I started really working on my trauma. I was just sharing what worked for me, my nightmares were horrendous and I found that not concentrating on them was best, but if you find concentrating on them helps you then that's cool. Honestly it's all good as long as it helps you.

Tammy, far far from that. There is no one way to achieve things. What there are though is better ways than others. For you dream interpretation worked as you where not ready to face your trauma, however; you ended up doing exactly that once you worked out a little bit of a longer way that you had to do that in order to stop the nightmares once interpreted. Valid, just more lengthy.

Again though, there are lots of ways to do things, and with all the people and experience on this forum I aspire that we find and highlight the shorter ways for those who are healing, who have the chance to learn from our experience and not do things the hard way, however; it is still noted that other methods exists when the head on approach fails. In that event Tammy, your way would be recommended without a doubt, it just means that person is not ready to face their trauma, though they are ready to discover what their nightmares are about. In learning that you learnt you must attack your trauma to help you, which means others who may not directly want too, also find out the truth, just a different way and a bit more time taken. The shorter the healing process, I believe the better for the sufferer.

I would say most of us here are lucky in that we suffered for shorter times, though plenty here who suffered a decade, two or more already. Society is more open to mental healthy nowadays, and people know and/or are learning faster to seek immediate help and information to guide them faster, not just crawl under a rock, or live with it, or get over it, as most of us would have been told. The more educated society becomes, the faster many can speed up the process of healing instead of suffering for decades.

batgirl, I read your post last night as I was cooling off from my therapist appt. I was frustrated and angry at the seemingly over-simplified idea that becoming aware of my feelings was going to help me do CPR. Truthfully, the idea is threatening. I don't want to feel those feelings. They are painfully intense and overwhelming. It's difficult for me to admit that simple emotions are causing my symptoms. Until I deal with them, I am going to continue living this nightmare.

Sharing your experience helped clarify and affirm what was becoming clear to me.

Anthony,
I do feel it is unfortunate that I didn't get a correct diagnosis for 23 years and that I figured it out on my own. My new doctor agreed I had PTSD and told me to find this forum. But by the time I seen him I already had the nightmares calmed down, but felt every avenue toward healing would benefit me.

I'm still working with dreams and the subconscious mind, as well as healing myself from other issues.

Peace
Tammy

Evie, I thought there was a possibility I offended you. I just wanted to make sure that I didn't.

batgirl, and here I thought you were going to say, "I stopped sleeping!"

I'm sorry, just a little old-fashioned humor. Hope I made you smile.

Bailey

I am what I beleive young people would refer to as a newbie on this forum/site :-)
Anyhow, I found these blogs very interesting, it is great to read actual experiences and how that has informed each individual. I have had many symptoms for years-trauma occurred in early years and I have only recently sought help. Nightmares have been one of my favourites (sarcasm) to the point where my ex-partner could not sleep in the same room as me due to my twilight exploits. And yes my nightmares increase when I have internal stress or anxiety about life. I guess I concur with one of the previous posts, that as I am working through my trauma my dreaming has become less horrid. I always understood that these dreams where just a subconscious valve, I just never realised how to overcome it.
I won't write my autobiography right now - although I feel purging would be of some use. I will wait until I find my way around this virtual place and find the right spot to reveal myself to fellow survivors.

So, hello and thank you for being here - I have a good feeling about this place :-)

Hi spiritofnow, welcome to the forum.