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    Poll When Did the Symptoms of PTSD First Appear, After the Initial Traumatic Event?

    Difficult to say, as I, like many others, experienced multiple traumas that began in infancy. Looking back, though, there was a definite spike in what I now see as PTSD symptoms when I was about 23 -- at the time, my parents separated in a violent fashion, and I was starting psychotherapy. As...
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    Medical Marijuana And PTSD

    There is so much good information coming out here ... There is a huge yet quiet desire among lots of people for marijuana use with certain psychiatric illnesses ... Makes perfect sense to me, and I think that this whole area is just beginning to emerge as an interest of serious study. I couldn't...
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    Trust: How Much Do You Tell Your Partner About What Is Going On?

    Robin ... I started another post to you and promptly lost it! Argh ... I can't help but notice that you and your beloved have been together for seven years -- me and mine, too. Seven years is a long time ... and I'm amazed that our bond goes on. Like you, I habitually lock away and hide most...
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    Poll Do You Have New, Unexpected Phobias With PTSD?

    Certain phobias have just gone poof! These I attribute to medication, 'cause nothing else could touch them. A few others have taken a little more work ... more conscious taming (i.e., dental work) ... a few will overtake me in extreme situations (i.e., lightning -- I no longer will tear down to...
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    Medical Marijuana And PTSD

    Yell, thanks for such a great conversation starter! I'm another person who uses the herb to soften and soothe my mind without the sometimes stupefying side effects of pharmaceuticals. I consider it a medicine, a sacred medicine. I think that the pivotal aspects of how someone uses pot are in...
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    General When We Are Both In The Dumps ... And Close To Drowning

    Thank you all ... I guess it's just good to know there are other folks who share the struggle ...
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    General When We Are Both In The Dumps ... And Close To Drowning

    Hi, all ... It's been a long time since I've posted here ... I've been in serious recluse mode ... Since about April of this year, I've noticed that my husband is sinking in mood. I know that something in him has been deeply triggered by what I've been going through (Briefly: off work for 1.5...
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    Am I Hypervigilant or Just Paranoid?

    Hi, Karma ... I've been reading some of your posts ... Regarding hypervigilance and paranoia, my sense of hypervigilance is that it's related more to how we perceive (rather than think about -- perception is through the body's senses) what's going on around us ... Kind of having a scanner in the...
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    Nightmare Prevention?

    Interesting thread ... and timely, since I'm going thorugh a resurgence of nightmares and night terrors, since a sibling OD'ed on alcohol and Percocet (and survived) 2.5 weeks ago. I take Imovane for a chronic insomnia disorder ... the only time I can seem to fall asleep naturally is during the...
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    Has Anyone Been In Treatment At Homewood?

    I'm on a waitlist at Homewood now. Hopefully I will enter the PTSD program by Christmas. I checked it out thoroughly and two health-care providers I know (one being my doctor) recommended it ... Both of these folks have relatives who are presently in residence at Homewood. Two of my friends have...
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    Poll Can PTSD Be Cured?

    I have to say that my intuitive response is "No," at least as far as my own experience goes. I'm 49 years old and have had a whacked-out nervous system since infancy. There's constantly mounting evidence from various branches of neuroscience that show how the brain, central nervous system, and...
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    Has Your Opinion About God Been Affected by Your Suffering?

    God started for me as an experience of being submerged in the Caribbean sea at the age of four years, treading the turquoise, swishing around and around to see the island, and out there. I felt safe. No one had warned me about sharks (though by seven, I was well informed, thanks to a big brother...
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    What If It Was Someone Else?

    Good question, Rachel, and one that I used to agonize over. It's particularly maddening, precisely because they are our parents ... There is some inescapable tie there that just makes chaos, because it's never easy to walk away from your parents ... I have run the gamut of relations with my...
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    Why don't i feel deserving of anything food?

    Bonding... ...is such hard work for us, yes? I work like a mad thing sometimes, just to feel anything. I'm reading another mind-blowing book that I just found this weekend: Healing Invisible Wounds: Paths to Hope and Recovery in a Violent World, by Richard F. Mollica, MD. On the very first...
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    Medical Trauma in Infancy

    Void, vapor, Robbed -- thanks for writing :-) I'm looking more deeply into my first few months of life, as I'm going through a major relapse of symptoms and am examining them (partly) in this context ... I see the medical interventions as "necessary invasions" --> paradoxically, they kept me...
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    Has Anyone Been In Treatment At Homewood?

    Rachel, 2quilt, Thanks for writing :-) Today's another day, and I woke up this morning remembering some wisdom that sustains me ... Impermanence protects us. Everything changes, all the time ... so that particular storm front has moved off for now. Sweet relief. Re: Homewood -- yes...
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    Has Anyone Been In Treatment At Homewood?

    Hi all, I am considering the Homewood program in Guelph, Ontario, for inpatient treatment. Has anyone been through the PTSD program there? If so, can you say a little about your experience? I need big-time help right now... Thanks for any feedback you can give ... Roo
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    Poll At What Age Were You Diagnosed with PTSD?

    I received a diagnosis, finally, this year. I'm 49 and have lived with trauma and its various aftermaths all my life. If the terminology/understanding of PTSD had existed in, say, 1983, I'd have been diagnosed then ...
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    How to Explain PTSD to Employer/Office Staff

    I'd find out what information must be divulged (if any) -- and then that would be all I'd offer. I'm presently on LTD from a job that was a major source of this latest bout of PTSD. Of course, I cannot even hint that the job, and some of the people at my workplace, were causative agents. Other...
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    Clumsiness - Does Anyone Else Suffer?

    Oh Lord, yes. I can be such a klutz -- on the other hand, once in a while a grace passes through me that I can only marvel at. Some time ago, I came upon these words (Sorry; forget the source): "Fear makes us clumsy while love makes us dance."
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    Exhaustion After Stress / Trauma

    Thanks everyone for your thoughts. Everything you wrote makes such sense...
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    PTSD Book I Found

    Hey folks ... I just found Andrew Brandi's website; it has (among other things) a section of the book for downloading. I'm going to read it. Veterans of war ... veterans of domestic violence ... veterans of any disaster, abuse, injury, illness ... we all have a lot in common. Andrew's site...
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    Exhaustion After Stress / Trauma

    Hi, everyone, I've just had a hunch and a question came from it ... Two days ago, my next-door neighbours moved out of their apartment. They'd lived there since April 2006 -- a father and two teenage boys. Long story short: countless disturbances for my husband and I, including fights...
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    Beyond The Knowledge, A Bit Existential

    Wow, Rachel...in my experience right now, that is the $64,000 question! I have long struggled with how to activate my will beyond the minimum exertion needed for survival. In terms of the "fight, flight, or freeze" continuum, my lifetime habit has been deep freeze. The (not so) proverbial rabbit...
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    Irresponsible Behaviour on The Forum.

    For all of us I've been reading this thread and thinking about language and communication...and how our messages to each other appear to the eyes that read them. To sit in front of a screen and read the words that someone has written to you...is through a one-dimensional medium. The person...
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