Battling PTSD

[stardancer]

For the last seven months, I have been fighting the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Last summer, I developed illness due to stress and everything just became amplified. I had been internalizing the problems of other people for quite some time, and the stress flared up digestive illness. I have since recovered from the illness, but my life was threatened for an extended duration and I developed semi-permanent symptoms of PTSD. I never thought that I would be an independent person again after that happened, but I have since regained much of my independence.

However, much of the low-grade anxiety and insomnia continues. Very small things tend to set me off now and seem to drastically interfere with my life. I tend to overreact to everything now, and that was never me before. I just find most days that I have a lot of trouble finding the good in life. The color in my life has slowly come back over time, but I still have a great deal of trouble staying positive. More than anything, I just want some peace right now. I am very fearful of the stress causing illness to come back, but am making changes in my life and diet as well. For as long as I have lived with this, I know that there isn't a quick and easy cure, but I am just really desperate at this point. Any healing energy would be greatly appreciated.

[ButterflyWoman]

Ah. This is an area where I have a great deal of personal experience. I suffered from PTSD for many years, stemming from growing up in a highly dysfunctional and frequently violent home.

I recommend counselling from a therapist who is specifically trained in PTSD. You don't want psychotherapy, you want someone who can teach you ways to deal with the symptoms of PTSD, simple as that. There are tricks you can use, such as setting up little phrases that trigger relaxation, that sort of thing. Someone trained in treating PTSD will be able to help with all kinds of things of that sort. I want to emphasise that it must be someone who is absolutely experienced in and who specialises in trauma therapy! You don't want lengthy psychotherapy, you want practical help.

The one thing that has helped me more than anything else has been self-hypnosis and meditation (which are, after all, extremely similar). I highly encourage you to practice meditation if you don't already, and if you do, ramp it up and do as much as you can reasonably do, striving for a genuinely empty mind. The time "away from yourself" is invaluable for reducing stress.

Now a bit of personal info, just so you know... A dozen or so years ago, I had PTSD so severely I was nearly disabled by it. I couldn't leave my own apartment by myself for a while there (which meant I had to wash my clothes in the tub, yuck). I got multiple panic attacks a day and usually at least one flashback, but frequently multiple flashbacks. It was not good, to say the least.

These days, I rarely get flashbacks, and I have few to none of the other lingering symptoms (hypervigilance, insomnia, nightmares, etc.). I can recognise a panic attack before it even happens almost all of the time, and I can almost always prevent it from happening at all.

Definitely possible to get on top of PTSD and panic/anxiety and all those related disorders.

I wish you inner peace and healing.

[stardancer]

The one thing that has helped me more than anything else has been self-hypnosis and meditation (which are, after all, extremely similar). I highly encourage you to practice meditation if you don't already, and if you do, ramp it up and do as much as you can reasonably do, striving for a genuinely empty mind. The time "away from yourself" is invaluable for reducing stress.

Now a bit of personal info, just so you know... A dozen or so years ago, I had PTSD so severely I was nearly disabled by it. I couldn't leave my own apartment by myself for a while there (which meant I had to wash my clothes in the tub, yuck). I got multiple panic attacks a day and usually at least one flashback, but frequently multiple flashbacks. It was not good, to say the least.

These days, I rarely get flashbacks, and I have few to none of the other lingering symptoms (hypervigilance, insomnia, nightmares, etc.). I can recognise a panic attack before it even happens almost all of the time, and I can almost always prevent it from happening at all.

Definitely possible to get on top of PTSD and panic/anxiety and all those related disorders.

I wish you inner peace and healing.

Thank you,

The meditation part has been very important to me as I had to learn how to hold my mind as calm as possible for months. Slowly, as I continued to stay calm every day the symptoms began to disappear one by one. But for almost 6 weeks, I felt terrible impending doom and had night sweats as well as night terrors. Being clairvoyant made it worse because I felt the presence of extremely evil beings surrounding me in the middle of the night. I was never so afraid in my life which made it worse. However, during one of the scariest nights, I actually was able to sleep because I felt an angelic presence holding me in my sleep. I think what happens during PTSD is that gaps are actually created in the human aura due to the emotional trauma. For a long time, reality was no longer 'normal' but instead it felt like I was walking around in this dark alternate dimension. The best way I can describe PTSD is that waking life feels like a lower Astral Plane. I felt as if my life had been traded for this alternate dimension that I was forced to live in for weeks.

Finally, symptom after symptom continued to leave me until I no longer felt impending doom and reality became bright, normal, and colorful. I was never so grateful to wake up in my own life when that happened. Since then I can function almost like a normal person, and the chest pressure is no longer constant. I still have not regained full lucidity due to the broken sleep, but I'm practicing the coping skills and continuing to learn about my condition. It has been 7 months now, but I realize this is something that takes time.

[ButterflyWoman]

Being clairvoyant made it worse because I felt the presence of extremely evil beings surrounding me in the middle of the night.

Ah. Yeah, I know that one.


I think what happens during PTSD is that gaps are actually created in the human aura due to the emotional trauma. For a long time, reality was no longer 'normal' but instead it felt like I was walking around in this dark alternate dimension.

Interesting take on it. Yes, I know that feeling of being in an alternate dimension. I always thought of it as putting on tinted glasses that coloured absolutely everything, but same concept.

A lot of trauma researchers believe that PTSD is related to dissociation, which, of course, is related to trance states, self-hypnosis, meditation, etc. Kind of interesting, I've always thought. It's definitely a sort of "altered state".


I'm practicing the coping skills and continuing to learn about my condition. It has been 7 months now, but I realize this is something that takes time.

Yeah. The coping skills take some time and practice to get them to really work, but once you've got them, you start to use them without even thinking about it. :)

[anaclet]

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and normal stress reaction has a lot in common. Though the only difference is that PTSD has a powerful response and it could stay and hunt someone for good. Here are some common causes of this condition car accidents, violence, sexual assault, armed robbery, natural disasters and child abuse. Sufferer or not we need to know the signs, symptoms, implications and how to spot someone who’s having this kind of condition and most importantly how to help them to be cured.

Symptoms of Post traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can be divided into three main types:
(1) symptoms of physiological hyperarousal,
(2) reexperiencing PTSD symptoms, and
(3) PTSD avoidance / dissociative symptoms.

http://www.posttraumaticstressdisorder.com.au

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[beam]

tai chi.