• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

I'm scared of finding out what i was "remembering"

Status
Not open for further replies.

CatInTree

Confident
The day before yesterday I had one of my biggest episodes in a long time. I had a trigger and was basically reenacting my past.

The night after that I woke up with horrible back pain. As in was almost crying from that. Now, there's nothing wrong with my back. I've had it before when I had an episode, and grounding exercises almost fixed it.

I'm getting anxious even typing this.

I do have some vague memory of my back hurting somewhere where I spent Thursdays the first 9 months of what landed me on this forum.

But that doesn't tell me very much. Even if it is that and not something I've forgotten this was to generic for me to figure out what I'm "remembering".

And I'm scared. I'm still trying to stableize after it. I'm not sure I even want to know what it is. I know that Thursday meant the time I took to look after me but I was also afraid of what my off time meant.

I don't really know what I want with this post. Guess I'm just looking for some support.
 
I hate it when repressed memories come up. One of the first (most scariest ) ones was when I was driving my car and all of a sudden felt like I was being pinned down. This was before I knew what was going on with me. I have delayed onset PTSD. I feel like this makes me an “expert” at memories resurfacing. Lol. Examples of others: feeling drunk out of nowhere, pressure on my neck and a sensation that I am being punched in the ribs. When I can attach the sensation to the stored parts of the trauma, filling in the holes or out of sequence parts of the rape, the body memory becomes less scary to me.

Also, if you can make back pain go away with grounding, it is probably a huge clue that it is part of a flashback.
Otherwise, a good chiropractor might be able to help you out. ;)

Also, no need to be afraid of what comes up... it is in the past and you made it out. You are on the other side of it now. Re-living things is terrifying, I know this. Just try to ride it out when it happens. You will make it through! You survived it the first time, so you know the outcome that you end up okay!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
And I'm scared. I'm still trying to stableize after it. I'm not sure I even want to know what it is.
I can relate to this statement a lot. Phew, I’ve been there, saying that to myself, more times than I can count. I’m there at the moment - I think maybe stuff wants to come out, but I’m really quite happy with not knowing. Surely I can heal without the detail, because people pull that off all the time.

All I can say is that for me? It’s become a balancing act between finding ways to express the hurt, while paying a whole tonne of attention to self-care and self-soothing.

Pushing it down? Makes it hurt more (for me). So that’s not an option. So I take opportunities, when it’s safe, to find ways of expressing whatever it is that’s there (anything from art to writing to talking it through with my T.

But at the same time, there’s a lot of hurt, so to get through, lots and lots of self-care.
 
So my brain decided to drop enough hints yesterday for me to figure out the connection.

It was a case where I had forgotten part of the context. I have from the time written proof of it.

As for the back pain, I must've sat in a bad position or something. I know from other things that I didn't move around for hours.

What I already knew? I was the last person someone spoke to before ending his life.

The context I had forgotten? When he hadn't replied to me for over an hour I gave up. 15 minutes before the last answer I got.
 
I'm sorry for lying by omission by not telling you what I did when I first came here.

I'll step away and let your community be free from someone who is the cause instead of the survivor.
 
someone who is the cause instead of the survivor.
This is a core beleif, and you’ve been struggling this for a long time. The feeling that you don’t belong here seems to cause you a lot of distress that you don’t deserve.

You have ptsd. You’ve been diagnosed with ptsd. You belong here as much as anyone else.

You did not cause your traumatic experience. Your job was in suicide prevention, you were trying to help keep people alive during their darkest hours. Not everyone can be saved when they reach the point where they end up speaking to someone with a job like yours, but you did your best, and even though some people did not survive the mental illness that was plaguing them, you were there, right at the horrible, tragic end, telling them that they weren’t alone in the dark.

It is not your fault. You are not the cause of your trauma. There are sufferers here that will relate (a lot) to the belief you have that “it’s all my fault”. But it wasn’t your fault.

Try and be gentle with yourself. Despite how persuasive and sincere the belief is that you are responsible? You aren’t. You belong here as much as anyone else, and you are welcome here, even though you feel like you aren’t.
 
Hi @CatInTree it's prob

A body memory... They are unpleasant. And no doctor can usually tell you why... If someone hasn't suggested it already. Have a look at the body remembers... By babette rothschild....

Im so sorry you are having to deal with this... Hugs... And take care
 
Last edited by a moderator:
But he did let me. After I had given up
You tried to help him. You tried long after anyone else would have given up, and he chose not to let you. What he did after? Is completely out of your control.

You couldn’t control him, or his choices. Is it tragic? Absolutely. But is it your fault? Not even remotely.
 
@CatInTree
t he did let me. After I had given up.

This is no different between that and me losing someone who called 911 for help and killed themselves while I was on the phone with them. Do I blame myself for that? Bet your ass I do. Do YOU blame me? Of course you do

After all ..I was the last person they spoke too. I was the last sentence they heard...and I second guess myself all the same time. What could I have said or done differently. Why couldn't be stop them? And how horrible decent human beings must think of me when they realize I hung up the phone and went straight to the next call. Because I still had an entire shift to finish

YOU DID NOT MAKE SOMEONE KILL THEMSELVES.

Yea, I know - I'm yelling. but its with love! And I'm going to keep yelling at you until I get you to see this wasn't your fault. (thats my warm and squishy bedside manner right there!)

So lets try this -- I want you to print this off and put it on your fridge, or your coffee pot, or someplace where you will see it every day. This is something I do with my trainees...

  • You should have never been put in that position. You had not been given the skills, techniques and support to process other people's pain at that level. You did the best you could with what you had to work with.

Here are some of the things you should have been trained on.....
  • You are not a mind reader. You have no idea what people are going to do - so you cant change their decisions
  • You cannot say the wrong thing to a suicidal person. Talk to them once in their life or once a day for 10 years -- the decisions they make are theirs. Your job when dealing with a suicidal is to give them time. Time to talk with someone, time to calm down, time to rethink. What they ultimately do with that time is up to them
  • Sometimes they will hang up on you, or put the phone down, or just not respond. There is nothing you can do about that. Not even 911 can find people or make them answer so you don't stand a chance on a web based hotline.
  • People call for help for several reasons. The ones that are going to affect you the most are:
  • They are thinking about suicide and they need someone to talk to until the adrenaline wears off and they calm down. Pay attention: I said talk too. Not talk them out of. Big difference. You can't change their minds. Your job is to let them know it's ok to hold off...which buys them time to calm down, get to a counselor, whatever. If they hang up and kill themselves you have to be ok with knowing you did what you could.
  • Someone has decided to kill themselves and they want an audience. Sometimes it is because they don't want to be alone at the end and some times they want to make sure someone else suffers when they die. Could be a family member, or a friend, or an anonymous person on a hotline. You can't change that. What you can do is understand this is their choice. You hear them pull the trigger and it breaks your heart -- but YOU didn't make them do it.
I've been right where you are. So I will keep repeating this to you until you either hit ignore and can't see my posts or we get it through your stubborn little head.

This was not your fault.:hug:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top