About 3 sessions ago, my therapist though we should try doing some "Body Work" stuff, after she explained what it was i thought "Too easy! I've always been told i'm too emotional anyway". Well first up was describing what physical symptoms i have in relation to anger. Shortness of breath and palpitations, thats all. My therapist then asked me if i felt anything else when i was angry, i just said "I dont know", totally taken aback by not knowing how i felt when i was feeling certain things. She asked me how i felt physically when i was happy, sad and calm, and i couldn't even name 2! This started off a confusing state of mind because how the hell can someone not know how they feel? Isn't the difference between us and animals than we can verbally express in great detail how we feel? Obviously, like my therapist pointed out, i'm almost totally disconnected from my emotions.

But then, about 4 days after that session, I had a flashback. It was completely different than any flashback i'd had before. Because before this day my flashbacks were either purely physical, purely emotional, or purely visual like seeing it behind my eyes. But this time it was physical, emotional, and visual all at the same time. I have never felt so bad and scared and all those things before in my life, no wonder I dissociate!

Which brings me to the whole point of this post, after this flashback happened i rang my therapist completely distraught(with good reason i think!) and i explained what was going on. She said that i have been dissociating during the previous flashbacks, but the reason why they've become so much more intense is because i'm not dissociating during them anymore.

I know flashbacks are just a way of your brain trying to process and try and file things away in the correct place, and I know i need to have all 3 of those different parts of the flashbacks together in order to heal, but it has just totally taken me by surprise, and i don't have the coping skills to deal with it in a healthy way yet. I normally used to just drink or take drugs to "cope" but i've been totally sober for 9 months now and don't want to set myself back in the healing process by going back to that. And i've been cutting myself less and less as time goes on, and i can't and don't really wanna resort to it because i've got a million doctors appointments coming up and it never makes for a comfortable conversation when they see them!

I dont really know what i'm asking, maybe just for some people to say "i've been there done that too!" or something.

Hi,

I'm not sure if this is going to be helpful at all...but I know what you're saying in terms of not being able to recognize your feelings...Every time a counsellor tried to figure out how I was feeling about somehting, they met with the "I don't know" response...It's still one of the areas where I need to do a lot of work...Dissociation...and grounding is another...I'm a little bit better witht that...but still have a loooong way to go. Just wanted to let you know that you're not alone.

Hey there!

I never know if it's encouraging to hear that this too shall pass. I've been working on PTSD and depression stuff (and other stuff, too!) for many years. It takes a long time for many of us but it does get better. Just hang in there and learn what you can at each stage of the game. Try to surround yourself with as many supportive people as you can. One of the things that i haven't done well is developing friendships that can help me through the hard times. I would definitely encourage that. It's awfully hard to do alone.

You know, there's not one absolute "normal" but it sounds to me like what you're describing is normal. Keep up the good, though hard, work!

ebby

Hi ebby -

I appreciated your thoughts on getting support. I don't think the impact and importance of support can be over-emphasized.

I muscled along, alone in this stuff, most of my life and it made it that much harder, I think. Not trusting anyone, of course, hindered my ability to seek support because of fear/disocciation around people. I hated being around people; being alone, or with animals, was the only way I felt even a little bit safe.

I am juuuust now getting to where I can admit (and believe) that I need, and want, support, closeness, intimacy, friendship, connection. There is only one PTSD support group in my town and it's only for combat PTSD. I am thinking about trying to start a group.

-Dylan

I think your experience is typical of many PTSD sufferers, myself included. When I started treatment, I could describe two feeling: "okay" and "upset." I couldn't say anything more about either of them!

By noticing my physical reactions to things, I learned to identify emotions better. And the more I tackled my trauma in therapy, the more I felt. At first, though, I mostly just felt bad. Awful. It was excruciating. The whole "you get worse before you get better" thing. But that subsided a lot and now I feel good a lot of the time, too. I think it's because I had dissociated so much during the abuse that I hadn't really felt any of the feelings about it, and so I had to actually go through them again (or for the first time).

You've been working hard and it's paying off with better coping, like less cutting (I fight that battle, too). As you work through this hard emotional stuff, you will find yourself feeling better in time, stronger and more able to tolerate your feelings.

I dont really know what i'm asking, maybe just for some people to say "i've been there done that too!" or something.[/quote]

Yep, been there! Not fun. Sending you postive thoughts and emotional strength.

reallydown- Thanks, it does help! I also tend to do the "I dont know" thing when my therapist says something that strikes a nerve i wasn't ready to work on!

ebby- Funny you should mention the surround yourself with supportive people thing, as recently i decided i'm going to cut out everyone out of my life who isn't supportive because i finally feel like i deserve more. But the main people i need to cut out are my parents, too bad I'm currently living with my dad because I don't have enough money to move out! And i'm slowly but surely learning thats it's okay and a good thing to ask for help, its scaring me half to death as it goes against all my self preservation methods i've built over the last 20 years(my entire life!) just to survive.

Dylan- "I am juuuust now getting to where I can admit (and believe) that I need, and want, support, closeness, intimacy, friendship, connection."
I've just recently gotten to this point too, trouble is I dont have the skills to cope with any of them!

kers- Honestly, up until i stopped drinking and drugs last year, i thought i only had 2 emotions being anger and depression! I always knew my trauma was bad(duh! that's why it's called trauma!), but because i was so removed from all the emotions and physical parts of it, it seemed like it wasn't real(feelings wise) or that it happened to someone else, but in reality i was feeling all those things just in a very fragmented and distorted way. Having those more intense flashbacks i was talking about, was like you said experiencing it for the first time. But now at least i know what i'm dealing with, and can see why i've been such an emotional wreck for the past decade(half my life!).

FlameTachiku- thanks for the well wishes