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Recovery time

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TheSeeker

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I posted a few weeks ago about a very busy schedule starting to wear me thin.
i hope i can get these thoughts out. my brain is a jumbled, frightened mess.
Up front i will say i am still of course in my trauma therapy, taking my meds, planning my next art project...whatever tiny things i can allow for myself.

i was wondering when you all have times like this-when you have a somewhat extended period of not being able to self-care, or get otherwise triggered, what your recovery process is like.
bearing in mind that every person, situation, and trigger is different..?

I just feel..for lack of a better term, maybe puzzled.
What happened in the end was a week of me doing everything for everybody while slowly drowning, to doing maybe 3/4 as much for 3 more weeks, still drowning, with days of still doing everything. My head bobbing under and just above the water by this time.
This was for 4 weeks. Now my kids are home..and we are "just at home" for now, but I am alone all day with them(a 6 and a 9 year old). I don't want to keep rambling...

I feel like i am back in the huge pit. Inside the pit, are even deeper, smaller pits. Some days, or for several days, I fall into those deeper pits. After a time i claw my way out of the deeper pits, back to baseline, in the mother pit. Was it really that severe a setback? Why can't i climb back out?

I am working So hard on not blaming or bashing myself.
I have gotten to this place of utter despair, that life is passing by, time is slipping away, and this is me at my best. mIssing all of it. wondering; was it really that bad? why am i having such an impossible time recovering? what is happening? can't i make it better?
 
i was wondering when you all have times like this-when you have a somewhat extended period of not being able to self-care, or get otherwise triggered, what your recovery process is like.

Yep.
Or I do things, down to complex tasks, that I have no memory of doing afterwards, or piece out only very slowly.

Lost some months to that, in the better case.
One of the more helpful things? Not blaming myself for it, and not trying to force change. In case I'm already on autopilot like that and nobody's-home? My mind needs that shelter, my brain knows what it's doing and why and how, and it's something that is keeping me /alive/, as the alternative of feeling and being present at the time would mean uglier possibilities. So letting it slide, doing what I can, at the awareness I have.
 
I struggle with this from time to time as well. Some times when I'm triggered, it can take me days to work through it.

I find that journaling my thoughts and feelings (no matter how jumbled they are) helps me. Talking some things out loud with my boyfriend and close friends helps me too. I feel lucky they extremely understanding and very insightful. Sometimes just vocalizing it helps me to work through it. I see my trauma therapist once every other week. I do EMDR with her and it helps me a lot too.

Basically, I try to process my feelings. What triggered me? What was I thinking, feeling, believing in that moment? How old (young) did I feel? This generally gives me at least some insight into what happened and why. For me, knowing why I got triggered and what (or who) it reminded me of, usually helps me to feel better even slowly.

During that time, I find myself feeling kind of scattered. Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing too much or expecting too much from myself. I try to give myself little time outs when I feel myself getting really stressed or overwhelmed and I feel like I can't literally think. It feels like my brain has shut down in some ways and it's really hard for me to focus and concentrate on anything. I find it very frustrating.

I try to not minimize what I went through either. Yes, it really was that bad or I wouldn't be feeling the way I do.

I also try to be kind to myself and take breaks when I can. It's not easy, though. I remind myself that healing will take time. Some times I want my recovery to go faster but it doesn't always work that way and it's hard for me to accept that some days. I'm learning.
 
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