Our very own PTSD forum
 

I am glad to see we now have a PTSD forum.....thank you DocJohn.

Lets get this party (forum) started ;)

Here is some information about PTSD from our very own PsychCentral (DocJohns other website).......
http://psychcentral.com/disorders/sx32.htm


Here is some information on PTSD from the Mayo Clinic......
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/pos...sorder/DS00246

Wow, this is good.

I'd love not to feel scared so much. Has anyone ever had a bit of relief from that?

help me understand
 

I have never had really severe PTSD, but it did take some time to get over what I experienced.(An ex-boyfriend with a gun, on a dark night out on a lonely river, followed by a narrow escape through heavily wooded country.)

Eventually, it faded for me, but it took five or six years for the flashbacks and fear to stop.

I had a dear friend who experienced very severe flashbacks from his time in Vietnam. We were walking together through a farmers market one day and a particular type of airplane flew over. My friend, dove under one of the produce tables. This was more than twenty years after the war.

I lost touch with him. I wonder how he's doing. I'm also curious about the condition in general. My friend was a very loving person. He tried to get over the war. He tried everything he knew. Has anyone else had, or is close to someone who has PTSD? What did you or the person you're close to, do as a coping mechanism? Did it help?

I'd also like to know how it changed your relationships with the people you care about.

Katty

ConsiderThis: I guess you could say I still have fear. Mine is more in the form of anxiety/panic attacks but it's not always their.

Katty: I'm sorry about your friend, it sounds like he had/has a very difficult time with PTSD. You have also not had it easy......regardless of the degree PTSD is really horrible.

I have PTSD, triggered in Dec 2003 by a doctor. Many things have changed for me. There are some who I had been very close to who I no longer have a relationship with....my decision.

I became someone I no longer recognized. I had a "small" nervous breakdown and went to a very dark place in my mind that to be honest I wasn't sure I wanted to leave. I am a "mild" agoraphobic and something I keep working with so I don't get any worse.

I had been in therapy for 3 years and it became my life saver. Coping? Sometimes I feel as if I am still trying to cope. I am not as bad as I was but I still deal with axiety/panic attack, flashbacks are not as often but they still happen. I have found I can not watch certain things on TV.

Klonopin has been a big help in allowing me to try and be who I used to be but I will never completely be the old me......I have been working on becoming a better and reinvented me.

Thanks Snoopy,

I always divide my life by the life altering events. Some of those events are joyous and some...well, you know...

Change, I have decided, is inevitable--internal change; changes to who we are and how we think, are the most difficult to accept sometimes. Even the joyful change of moving from non-parent to parent, is a painful one. So when something huge and awful forces an internal change, such as finding out that you have an incurable disease, or learning that your child has an illness, or being physically or mentally attacked or having your life or the life of someone you love put in danger, I believe you have two options--fight the inevitable change with every resource you have, or accept that life and who you are will be different now.

If you choose option number two, then you have the option of waiting to see what comes out of it, or moving forward, arms wide to see and embrace what comes--and to try to move the change in a way that is positive.

Sorry, this is long winded. I know. I just see you moving forward to embrace and accept your new you. I admire that. There is this time frame of rediscovery that is inevitable and painful, but can lift you to a higher level--if you have courage enough to go with it.

But change is always painful. Isn't it?

Katty

Lest we think PTSD is limited to mental health
 

Go to YouTube and search for Parkinson's Disease and PTSD. I have lost the link but there is a long clip comparing the changes wrought by WW 1 and the symptoms of PD. It was a real eye opener. But a warning is in order, it is not a pleasant thing to watch as it has archival footage from the trenches of Europe that is terrible to see. It does give you a clue as to how the horror can affect people.

Katty - WOW - I'm amazed that you consider 5 or 6 years of flashbacks as not severe PTSD. that's pretty harsh on yourself... I hope you are gentle with your expectations of recovery

Thank you, Molly. Because I've seen how severe PTSD can damage a person's life, I have to say, that my experience with it was comparitively mild. I had moments of fear and infrequent flashbacks, but it never really interfered with my daily living--it more gave me a taste for what the 'real' thing could do to you.

Your face was sad on your message. I hope you're feeling better today.

Katty

ptsd
 

Hi everyone. I was abducted when I was 12 and molested for several hours. I never even confronted my feelings until I was clean and sober for 8 years. I am well into my 40's now and my life is more difficult than ever.
I have chronic depression, bouts of severe depression, and chronic fatigue. I had shingles 3 months ago and I have been a wreck ever since.

dearest Cajoy,

I feel so sad for your 12 year old self. You are very courageous to confront your experience, even so many years later. It is completely unfair that the horrible person who did that to you is hurting your life, even now.

have you talked to a professional? Are you getting any help?

a trauma like you experienced can completely reorder your brain patterns. It actually causes a physical change in the way your brain transmits data. Medicines and therapy can help to change your brain patterns back to something healthier and happier.

You deserve healthy and it's time for happy.

I'm worried about you. Please respond.

Katty

Hello Everyone!

I am sorry to hear all the sad stories. Big hugs for everyone.
I came to this site mostly for my neuro condition, but I have PTSD too so I'm glad this forum is here. For years my doctors blamed my neuro symptoms on the PTSD, so it took me a while to find out I have something called Hashimoto's Encephalopathy, which is a rare complication of autoimmune thyroiditis.

If anyone here has neuro symptoms, please investigate these carefully. You see, what happens with PTSD is that its sufferers are at increased risk of autoimmune diseases. And some autoimmune diseases come with encephalopathies that can then be mistaken for psychosomatic illness.

I hope to meet everyone here!
Best Wishes!

welcome to NeuroTalk Heperson....I don't have HE or PTSD...in fact I didn't realize that we had this particular forum and am happy to have the information. I'm not sure how active this forum is but feel welcome to jump in anyplace. I'm glad you've joined us! :)

About me...
 

I know that everyone on here has ptsd, but I was hoping sharing some info about myself might make you feel a little less different. You see, most of my life following my ninth birthday was based on feeling different from other people. You know the "normal ones."

I just want to start by saying that this type of thinking makes ptsd worse. I don't know what stage you are at, but regardless, you can't let yourself feel isolated anymore. Reach out to people you trust, and share. I mean really share what happened.

I was in a really bad car accident. And by bad, I mean there was nothing left of the car. It rolled, broke, and it died on the side of the road. Never saw the mini-van again. Unfortunately, it managed to take my mother with it. My father spent the next couple weeks in a coma, but he reclaimed his memory after years of therapy and repeated reminders of who I was. My brother was relatively uninjured, and considering he was four and riding shotgun, it's a miracle. I was hospitalized for rib fractures, and a broken arm, and plenty of random cuts. I had no close family that wasn't in the car. That was it. All the eggs in one basket.
No one wanted to talk. They had nothing to say to me, and I didn't want to trust anyone. I moved three time in six months. My great aunt finally agreed to adopt me, and then her husband died two weeks after we moved in. I pretty much focused on how to get to school without going by car, and in the afternoon, visiting my dad in the hospital. Knowing that my dad would get better kept me going for the next six months. More and more he remembered, and then the pain started. I couldn't pretend that things were good, because dad kept asking about what things used to be like. I used to blank out when he asked about mom.

I didn't talk to anyone for years, and it made everything worse in the long run. I am 25 year old woman now. Married, with two perfect adopted step kids (well perfect according to me anyway), and my coping still isn't done yet. I don't know that it ever will be, but believe me when I say that flashbacks suck.

I woke up the other morning after reliving the accident. My husband shook the bed when he was climbing back in and it put me in the car going off the road. Then my daughter said "Mommy?" through the door the same way I did after the accident, and in the flash back I was lying on the ground broken.
I swear to you all, I don't want it anymore. Any of it. I have dealt with this incident for the majority of my life now, and the fallout of it has become just me. You know, part of who I am.

I know trauma. That makes me different right? I figured that no one else could possibly understand what I was feeling because they hadn't felt it. That is partially true, not completely. It took me a long time to realize that it doesn't matter if they can feel what I did. They never should. I pray every day that they don't! Trauma makes you realize just how strong you are, how much pain you are capable of. That is awful... and amazing at the same time. I find comfort in knowing that the events I survived have given me the confidence to really live. To love myself, because I am worth saving.

Depression is an evil joke, because it undermines everything that we do to fight for ourself. Next time you feel depressed, remember that at some point you believed so strongly in living, that you survived. You are worth so much more than you know, because life happens, and you will be there for people in a way that only you could. You have experienced the bad part. It's over.
So... go get the good. :)

And don't pass up a hug. Ever. :hug:

so... I'm new..
 

I guess I have complex PTSD, delayed onset. Uhm... years and years of sexual abuse, including rape and worse... multiple perpetrators, including my father. Repressed memories until I was 16 and everything flooded back.... then I forgot it all again, and started to remember some at 19. I'm 34 now and am freaking tired of it. I've fought PTSD tooth and nail. I've been through 16 years of therapy so far. I'm trying EMDR and hypnosis now. I finally told my general practice doctor, because he's been prescribing xanax for my newest symptom, panic attacks. He said, "you know, this can't just be Emily's dirty little secret." and "You have to talk about it for your healing to begin." Yikes. Ok. I can't tell you how many times someone has said that to me, how many times I've cringed at the word "healing," but I've never ever really gotten it. And its starting to sink in. It really isn't something horrible on me? I'm really ok? He (my father) was the bad guy??

I hope someone here "gets it" because I'm just starting to get it myself.

:hug: Watershed, your okay, it's not you and you are definitely not a bad person. You have had some horrible experiences and no one is to blame but the person(s) who did them.

There are some things that are out of our control and unfortunately because of the actions of others we are left to deal with the aftermath.

Hi Watershed

Yes, very much and certainly yes, he was the bad guy, you are definitely not. You will find people grappling with similar questions at this board for children of narcissistic parents:

http://groups.msn.com/ADULTCHILDRENO.../messages.msnw

It is for adult victims of emotional and/or physical abuse. They have a lot in common, because after all, the deepest and longest-lasting scars from physical abuse are the emotional one's.

I congratulate you on having a loving husband and lovely kids. You are together enough to be part of a loving family of your own. CONGRATULATIONS! :hug:

I tried searching on YouTube but could not find it, if you happen to have the link anytime please post it

It's normal to get your PTSD symptoms years after the traumatic event took place

So welcome to everyone new here - I havnt been around much lately too triggery - I've been here for a while now and found it to be a great source of information and support - take care all P7 :grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

I am new ....and this is me today
 

I feel i am dealing with a bit of PTSD. On April 26 my entire life changed. I had unknown to me my first mini stroke, and was put in hospital for 3 days and all the stuff that goes with that. I was then told to go off and find a nuerologist. That was a joke ,as i was told i was full of anxiety, to young.( yeah right) and finally after going to #3 he took me serious and ran further test. Within 2 weeks I went back for results and was told that i had a brain anurysm, I was shocked. So I went from stroke issues, to aneurysms, which by the way at that time i had no idea what it even was. Within 2 days i was back in hospital to do an angiogram to get a better look at the little bugger, and sure enough it was a little bigger and had a top to it, so my only choice was actual brain surgery. So i did that , and recovery has been a real challange and one of the hardest to date that i have been thru. I am not the same. I miss me. While PSTD comes in all different forms and i am sorry my story is way whimpy compared to others, my need for support is the same. and I find getting back to life a challenge, and depression, well we wont go there. Some times i think the whole getting back is over rated i just need to get. But am stuck, I have also had a few more mini strokes after brain surgery, i am glad to say i am a much easier patient, i am learning, but this is just not what i ever saw in my cards. Yet trying to learn to play the cards i have been dealt................... so that is where i am to date, and look forward to meeting others.


o