Recently Diagnosed With PTSD, Now My Head's A Real Mess

[femaleveteran]

After I finally was diagnosed with PTSD, I thought the clouds would clear and the sun would shine....NOT so. Things have been getting worse to say the least. I would much rather prefer to go back to the days of ignorant bliss where I thought that nothing was wrong at all. But of course there will always be something wrong...whether I am shopping at 3am for groceries because I cannot stand to be around people without throwing up (that happened in Home Depot recently....I had a full fledged panic attack and could not make it out side fast enough so I threw up all over the place.) or if I am just generally feeling miserable, this disease will always be with me. I am only 4 months in to my diagnosis and I have to believe that things will only get better over time. I might not ever get over the symptoms and I might spend the rest of my days as a spinster without any love, but at least I will one day be able to manage this monkey on my back....at least I will be able to manage it better than I am now. Thing is that you have to want to get better.

For those who do not know me, I was a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne at Ft. Bragg, NC. I never quit at anything in my life and I certainly do not intend to do so now. I have never been one to wallow in self pity, although that can also mean that I do not ask for help all the time when I need it. DH Lawrence said it best when he said "A bird can fall frozen stiff from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself". I know I went to Iraq voluntarily (even though it was a total sham of a war and full of nothing but lies and deciet at the highest levels of government) and I did my job until the job got the best of me. I came back with a leg I was lucky not to have lost and with TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury...so forgive the typos and at times I might ramble but hey you are all survivors and I think you can handle). But this is my life now. I can either make the most of the cards I have been dealt or I can wallow in my own self pity.

I choose to make the most of whatever I have left of my wits before some other disease comes after me like alzhiemers or something. For now I just want to have an enjoyable day....not a spectacular day...just an enjoyable one without too many surprises. The sooner we all realize that the more sense our heads will be able to make of this debilitating illness.

Sorry. I am offf my soapbox now.;

 

[blueangel371115]

"A bird can fall frozen stiff from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself". I know I went to Iraq voluntarily (even though it was a total sham of a war and full of nothing but lies and deciet at the highest levels of government) and I did my job until the job got the best of me. I came back with a leg I was lucky not to have lost and with TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury...so forgive the typos and at times I might ramble but hey you are all survivors and I think you can handle). But this is my life now. I can either make the most of the cards I have been dealt or I can wallow in my own self pity.

I choose to make the most of whatever I have left of my wits before some other disease comes after me like alzhiemers or something. For now I just want to have an enjoyable day....not a spectacular day...just an enjoyable one without too many surprises. The sooner we all realize that the more sense our heads will be able to make of this debilitating illness.

Sorry. I am offf my soapbox now.;

I love that quote. It's why I'm still here.

 

[blueangel371115]

I do feel kind of freakish at times, when compared to 'normal ' society. But easily at home here. I feel safe and hope you can too.

 

[femaleveteran]

I feel safe as long as I do not leave my house. I am getting ready to start some kind of therapy where they expose you to the cause of your trauma over a graduated period of time. I would like to know how this is going to help. I guess it could help with everyday activities but I seriously doubt the VA is going to spring for a trip to Iraq to help me get comfortable with the things I have there.

One day though I will feel safe. I am in a group with a lot of Vietnam Vets. The only other three veterans from Iraq there are myself and two other people. I see how far some of the Vietnam Vets have come and that really gives me hope. And I am generally a little suspicious of hope. One cool thing is that after the Vietnam vets found out some of the things I have been through with regards to Iraq, a few of them said that they had serious prejudices against women being in combat but after meeting me they had changed there mind. This Iraq War and now the one ramping up in A'stan, is going to change alot of people's minds as to the importance of the work done by men and women alike....even if the whole Iraq war was nothing but a sham built on a pile of lies by a cowboy from Texas who spent his 'Nam years protecting the borders of texas from the impending communist invasion that was sure to hit there (I am being fecetious of course) He did not even show up for half his guard duty and I cannot see how he can talk about the brave men and women who served in Iraq when he is definitely not one of them.

Sorry, my tiny soapbox was a little bigger than I thought. If this is deemed to be too much of an infammatory post then the moderators can by all means delete it.

 

[anthony]

They will expose you to your fears, ie. you stated, you feel safe as long as you don't leave your house, which means you feel unsafe when you do. It is not reality to feel unsafe leaving your house, because being reclusive is not a life, its an existence. If you want a life again, ie. to go out and not feel unsafe, to do things, then you will commit to exposure therapy. If not, then you won't. It is a choice obviously, and sometimes people need to be more motivated before they want to change. Just part of PTSD.

 

[femaleveteran]

Hey I did not say i was not going to do the exposure therapy. I just have reservations as to how much it is going to work. Charleston, WV is not the sandbox

 

[Greg Clark]

Man, I woke up this morning having a panic attack. My step-father was acting like the world was going to end last night over a small misunderstanding with dinner and BAM - I start freaking out. So I went to the beach and went for a walk for a while. It's like I over-react to everything, and then I want to take my tent and go and live in the woods for a couple of days until I've calmed down. I was diagnosed with PTSD 5 years ago ... most days are reasonable now, but this crazy fight or flight thing still happens and it's hard to turn off. I got out of the house this morning and ate some dark chocolate ... one of my best friends since this all started!

 

[freakofnurture]

Omg, so many replies o.o Thanks for your feedback, everybody!

Ironically, being more open has helped me find more people like us, and they are relieved to be found.

Maybe I should practice to talk more about myself. I don't like to do that mostly because it means to repeat the same story over and over. And it's so much easier to listen to other people, i.e. lurk.

Is this what you want? To be left alone and not have any emotional bonded relationship with people?

I don't know if I really want this. But at the moment I want it very much because I'm scared of people. Really, really, really scared. And not in a 'Maybe they'll not like me' way. It's a 'They'll tear me to shreads and feed on my entrails as soon as they find out that I'm not one of them' kind of way.
I know where this fear comes from. It's the first thing I learned in life and a lesson repeated ad nauseam. "People will hate you and try to destroy you." Is it even possible to un-learn something that's lodged so deeply into one's brain?
I've tried to be rational and pro-active about it, to dust off my inner fighter and all that. I went to all the group therapy sessions, even after they allowed me to skip them if I felt like it. I sat through these sessions. All of them. But it didn't get easier, even though I tried tons of skills. In fact it got worse. In the end I had to hide unter a blanket! How pathetic is that? Seriously. I'm 27 years old, but I need to hide under a f*cking blanket like a toddler because I'm scared shitless of being in a room with eight other humans?

I hope that things get better for you. They will you know, but you have to put in the work. (...) All you can try to do is keep trying. As soon as you give up trying then that is it.

Yeah... To give up means to lose.
But it's so damn f*cking hard. I thought I was done with therapy, happy, healthy, back on top, and then... Hi, I'm your trauma. All this therapy you had? Worthless. Went right past me. Sucks to be you.
I'm so annoyed and fed up, it's not even funny anymore.

 

[anthony]

Hey I did not say i was not going to do the exposure therapy. I just have reservations as to how much it is going to work. Charleston, WV is not the sandbox

Hi... That makes two of us then, as I also didn't say you weren't going to do it. I think you are confused what exposure therapy is... Because it does not entail exposure to your traumas directly, it exposes you to both your psychological and physical fears that are unrealistic / unhealthy and thus not helping you. I am a veteran... Went through similar processes to heal.

Is it even possible to un-learn something that's lodged so deeply into one's brain?

You're thinking about it the wrong way I believe. You don't unlearn as such, as that's impossible... But more you change the way in which you have learnt to a more positive / productive manner inline with society views / how you want to be vs. how you are. You learn a better method which replaces the existing.

 

[femaleveteran]

Yeah I guess I just do not see how exposure therapy by going to Walmart is going to help me get over certain traumas I witnessed in Iraq. But maybe you are right. Maybe it is a fact of confronting the irrational fears. Anyway thanks for clarifying

 

[anthony]

None of us get over, as such, the things we do and see in war zones... But more it's about coming to terms with the memories and processing the negative emotion, the negative stigma, attached within our brain to specific events. Once you accept reason about one event, it opens the brain to that new logic to be applied to other events.

Yes, going to walmart achieves nothing when you view it that simply, but going to walmart without rushing through to get what you want and get out, without anger or anxiety, is an achievement you can reach via exposure therapy.

Think like this. You must first learn the theory, just like you did in your military training, then you go put it into practice by doing. Therapy is no different, in that you identify specifics in theory, you come up with some reasonable logic, then you put it into practice. Like training, the more you repeat the process, the better you get at it. It is called reinforced learning, and that reinforcement changes your brain to accept the theory, just as you were taught to fight together in combat, work as a team and the damage is likely to be minimal. Don't work as a team, and often more goes wrong / more die. As a soldier, when we deploy overseas, that is the ultimate reinforced learning, because everything our theory and practical training has taught us, is now in the ultimate confirmation environment, being live or die.

This is why combat trauma is very hard to treat... Because we the soldiers have such reinforced learning beyond what a civilian could ever experience via schooling and job employment, ie accounting theory then working with real money, it just doesn't have the same cognitive reinforcement as war... But the principle is identical.

 

[Greg Clark]

OK - had enough of the folks ... I took a drive 3 hours south of Auckland and I'm house-sitting for my cousin for a few days. I don't think I can keep living with the folks anymore ... they mean well, but they just seem to trigger me all over the place and I feel really anxious living there. I'm going to look at renting a place close to my cousin and his wife ... they're cool and closer to my own age. I just had to rant and get that stuff out of my system.