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Troubles Tonight - Coping With Trauma Hysterics

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Bec and bat I really get the out of control thing and so much the lack of memory... Hubs held me while he cried over busted walls and windows through my house and I said I don't really remember it, I wore my self out.

Bec I think we all get hysterical, I did not know we did not get that way with loss of memory!! I thought it was normal. That is how I took it and saw it as a ride it out thing, hubs has with me. I have managed to do it alone and him see the aftermath. He has not been around much for a long long time for first hand.

I have begged hubs to get on here again and he says he will when we get to Kansas... Yeah we were suposed to be there by now but here I am in Texas still. Not that I want y'all to know all my fk ups, but I really think he can help y'all know how to handle us even if it isn't fun (not like he is a saint) but I tink he can help out and with you Jim... It is a bitch of a road. ANd if you see a goofy ass name claiming to be my hubs... well, it is him!

Sadly you cannot react, you have to retrain yourself just like the guys returning to civilian life. Not easy for any, I wish you both the best of luck. Batgirl is a strong one, maybe she takes after her unc.
 
Veiled, my niece has mentioned memory loss to me on several occasions. You are certainly not alone in that. As far as her being strong, I dearly hope so. The alternative is not pleasant to think about. I look forward to reading more from you and your husband. Much appreciated.

Well. Just when Kathy and I thought it was over, and were thinking pretty highly of ourselves and our efforts, it started again. Just got through a long period of unconsolable crying. No screaming or violent behaviour of any kind, but a lot of tears. Suppose I started it really. Niece locked herself in her bedroom and would not respond when we called to her. I got the screwdriver and removed the doorknob. She was only lying down quietly, but I had a bad feeling about the door being locked. She was angry with me for breaking down the door, then cried. After talking to her for a while, she stated the shooting, the whole incident, is her fault entirely. She has a very elaborate story and reasons as to why. Really, I was quite stunned she'd given it that much thought, down to minute details. We weren't certain what to say to her, telling her no it wasn't your fault just made her cry more. So we let her say her peace and cry and eventually she fell asleep again.
 
Maybe I should have discouraged her from coming on the forum earlier today. She wanted to. Could have triggered her though.

Jim.
 
Sometimes saying nothing and just being present is all we want, actualy that is usually all we want, let her therapy work out with her why this is not her fault, it is normal to have survivors guilt... Oh, and personal space is a huge biggie. hugs to y'all.
 
Thanks for the compliment!!! I haven't posted much recently....tried to keep up on the reading of the posts....I ran into a depressive period and ended up in the hospital for 4 days including Thanksgiving....wasn't back to usual self when I came home.....usually the last day that I've been in my sense of humor not only comes back...but it's off the wall....Not this time...The Dr there left it up to me if I wanted to stay the weekend or not....I told him I was okay....that weekend there was to be no rec therapist in...so the only thing left to do would have been to color for 2 days....this time I wasn't even in the mood to start that let alone have that as my only source of entertainment.....Most every other patient went home that day....of the other 2 people left...one was not very present in reality...so it was rather impossible to carry on a conversation with...AND the other guy [I accidently overheard] had molested some one.....I was out of there!!!!! I dragged awhile just PM ing occasiionally....talked about a med adjustment with my psychodoc...so he decided to up my Remeron a bit....so after a couple of weeks now my mood has picked up considerably....in spite of the fact that 2 weeks ago I had a freak fall at home and now have lost the use of my shoulder due to major muscle and bone bruising....can't drive so my independence has been severely curtailed...I finally got processed by a healthcare agency and got an aide who first came on this past Wednesday....But I had some knowledge about what I've learned about hysterics and some ideas to deal with such a situation....I am a person of PEACE and believe that the gentlelest ways needs to be applied first in difficult situations....So I am going to start writing on my book tomorrow...at least that's my plan....I sure hate having to take the Vicodin and have tried 3 times to deal with the pain with less than the prescribed dosage...but the pain keeps coming back with a vengance!!! It's the sort of injury that one has to wait to settle in and heal....ENOUGH already!!! I endured this for 2 weeks now so NOW I want the whole area to be cured and back to normal IMMEDIATELY!!!!! Nerves!!!! DO YOU HEAR THAT!!!!.....Yes right now I am finally done with the waiting!!!! ...wildfirewildone....GIVE PEACE A CHANCE
 
gives Batgirl tight hugs

wildfireone gets hugs too.

Think it'd be bad to pike out of a big family christmas? Could always blame a migraine since PTSD is all in my head. Which, it is technically.
 
Jim, it really has nothing to do with coming on the forum for her at present. It really has nothing to do with anything that she falls apart because at the time. If you moved something of hers for instance, she notices and then immediately flys of the handle. Unsuspectingly, you could think its about you moving the object, but infact it has nothing to do with that at all, that is just the smallest insignificant little stressor that has just overflowed her stress cup.

Basically, we all have an internal mechanism to handle "x" amount of stress at any given time. We all have good stress and bad stress go in each day. Those with PTSD then have this constant portion within their stress cup, called PTSD. PTSD is made up of all the emotions, trauma, thoughts, memories and so on that occur within us. This leaves little to no room to cope with any more stressors, regardless how small.

As we deal with each stressor, it is removed from our cup. A person without PTSD has lots of room, and easily removes stressors as they arrive. A PTSD sufferer is far far different, in that PTSD itself thrives from stressors. When you add a stressor to our cup, for example something so simple and insignificant like moving an item to a new location, the sufferer walks past, notices it and has a brief thought to not worry about it, but the moment that stressor goes into their cup, that stressor is not the only thing that increases the level, because PTSD thrives of stress exponentially, which means for each minute stressor, PTSD expands x 2 for that stressor, which means the difference in a person not exploding, or exploding.

Basically, this is why she suddenly breaks down without warning, explodes without warning, etc etc. Until she deals with her PTSD, then she will be like this, and hence why a sufferer gets much worse during trauma therapy, because it creates more stress again, thus the cycle continues.

So what I am getting at, is when you do or say something and she suddenly flys of the handle, it really isn't what you did that caused it as such, it was just the catalyst on her already full emotional stressor cup. The toilet roll could be around the wrong way and make her explode, silly things like that. It has nothing to really do with the toilet roll being around the wrong way, just simply her cup is full and has no capacity to fit anything else. She has already compressed whats in there attempting to suppress the outburst, but it fails.
 
I am actually doing a learning document now primarily for spouses and family in support of PTSD sufferers, so they can have a quick snapshot at what is going on, as simply as can be put. It will give examples of why we do things when PTSD is uncontrolled, it will also explain to you actually why she ran from you all... that one you most likely really wanting to get to the bottom off. It is actually quite simple... when I finish it.
 
Anthony, much appreciated, very good explanation. Truthfully, I was starting to think we were doing something horribly wrong.

Jim.
 
I am actually doing a learning document now primarily for spouses and family in support of PTSD sufferers, so they can have a quick snapshot at what is going on, as simply as can be put. It will give examples of why we do things when PTSD is uncontrolled, it will also explain to you actually why she ran from you all... that one you most likely really wanting to get to the bottom off. It is actually quite simple... when I finish it.

Good stuff. Looking forward to it. We found the military programming / deprogramming learning document very helpful.

Jim.
 
Did you view the second one also? Being the one I released only a day or two ago!!!! During that one it contains a stress cup in relation to a soldier, and from that you can put anything you want in it, that is particular to a individual.

If you think about that model, and that a sufferers cup is generally always full, or at the brim ready to overflow, what happens if you remove the family stressors from that cup? The sufferer just found themselves a little more room in order to breathe basically. Same if you remove relationships or the like. That is what a PTSD sufferer is doing when they run or no longer contact family, friends, spouses, etc etc etc.

If you look at that model and think about the good stress component now. Good stress makes up the basic things we do in order to just function in the day, nothing more, just function, get out of bed, have a shower, brush our hair, clean our teeth, feed ourselves, etc etc... If you now think about the depression component of PTSD. If a sufferer didn't have depression before trauma, then they will now how a chemical depression as part of the PTSD itself.

So when a sufferer goes and lays down for most of the day, they don't want to get out of bed, won't move from in front of the tv, play games all day, etc etc (add any behaviour that looks depressive in here), what they are actually doing is trying to control their stressor input, being its not actually about depression most of the time, its about controlling their exposure to stressors in that if they wakeup and already feel stressed, then the obvious solution to them is not to get out of bed. If you apply this to a sufferer not wanting to go out of the house, not wanting to pickup the phone and call anyone (add all unusual behaviours here), then these behaviours are not depressive behaviours in actual fact, they are the sufferer simply attempting to remove stressors from their daily allowance because their body is already telling them that they cannot handle it, and if they do it, they will explode.

Now when family or spouses are in the equation, what do they do? They poke and push a sufferer to get moving, to get functioning, to make a phone call, go to the shop, all the social and life exposures that they are avoiding because their body is telling them it has no room to cope with them, are no being pushed upon them. Often, just the pushing alone is enough of a stressor to make the person explode, hence people perceive that the sufferer wins the arguement and sits at home. Its not really about that, that explosion simply clarifies that what the sufferer was trying to do in the first place, being they already knew they could not handle any more stressor or they where going to explode, but the spouse / family just pushed that explosion into them anyway.

You can apply this logic and model to pretty much a sufferers entire life by placing anything that requires an action into the stressor cup. With PTSD sitting in this cup, and that they don't yet know how to remove any of the PTSD component, the PTSD is a known that simply expands with any stressor. So what they do is try and remove basic functioning stressors from their cup in order to just perform the good stress functions to live day to day.

I often say here to people in regard to the healing process, in that as they heal and chip away at their trauma, they are chipping away at that PTSD stressor block within their daily cup. When they start out, it takes very little to throw them over the edge and fill their cup. As PTSD expands two fold with any stressor, it does not retract as a stressor is removed, hence when you see a sufferer taking days to calm down, it is not because they haven't dealt with that initial bad stressor, but they are waiting for PTSD itself to come back down. PTSD contains so many symptoms, and these symptoms are what takes the time in order to calm, not the stressor itself. The symptoms are the constant stressors as such.

This is why people progressively begin to have more good days, than bad, because their daily tolerance levels of stress are becoming greater once again, thus they have more good days. Once they recover from the last session, they then attack the next aspect of trauma, thus raising the level and overflowing once again, being the break down into a depressive state, cry, rage, etc etc, all because they are dealing with more trauma. As they continue the healing process, they start finding themselves able to deal with more trauma in a shorter period, because what is actually happening is that they have made more room within their stress cup in order to cope with more, so they can push harder and further as they heal, because healing is chipping away at that PTSD block. As that block gets chipped away at, it also means that the two fold expansion rate of the PTSD block is now also expanding less, because there is less of it. This means it retracts faster also, because there is less of it, which explains to people how their good days progressively become longer and longer, further apart from bad days.

When something happens in their lives that is quite stressful, a person without PTSD is at the brink of explosion but can keep it in their cup, a PTSD sufferer still has that small portion of PTSD within their cup that they will never get rid off, being the neurological imbalance that has occurred within their brain. This small portion is still enough that they will never cope with the same amount of stress as someone without PTSD. This is why I also say here, in that once a sufferer has healed their trauma, they must then learn to manage PTSD itself, because a small component of it still exists. If that component is fed enough stress, it will grow a little again. If a trauma occurs within life, that block will grow again, until once again it is dealt with.

You can apply any aspect of an individuals life into this model, then pull it apart and see the reactions that are being cause from it.
 
Batgirl and Jim Kim and I sent our love. We truly have a family here. Jim I'm going to PM you with this info as well as put it here. In the US, there is a support organization Alliance For The Mentally Ill (NAMI)> Some other places have a local group (AMI). They don't just help with psycotic patients but any type of mental/emotional disorder. Most members are family. They have alot of resources to help. Also check with the off-post police department. Quite a few depts. have a Crisis Intervention Team (I'm a trainer) with either group you'll find they can be a great help and may be able to help cut through the red tape with hospitals and such. CIT police officers arn't there to arrest but have specilized training and volunteered for the assignment so they do actually care. Jim your a great man.
 
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