Sufferer Cptsd And Chronic Pain

[Hope4Now]

Hi. I have just found this forum. I have disabling and constant chronic pain in my low back and legs. Had xrays and mri, went to chiropractor and PT, did a trial of cymbalta and took myself off (don't ever do this without tapering), and finally landed with a bodyworker who suggested that I might see a trauma therapist. Out of desperation, I did. He's a decent guy who does IFS therapy, and he has diagnosed me with ptsd. For the past several months I've been reading compulsively about cptsd. I know a lot about it, I just can't seem to solve my problems.

I am stunned that I have this as I am 50 years old and have had a highly productive and functional life until the pain started about 2 years ago, and now it is like the floodgates have opened. I realize now that I have been dissociating for most of my life. I am working really hard to "stay" in my body and in the moment, but it seems like everything triggers me...loud noises, loud voices, too many people talking, too much to do, trying to meet other people's needs, rushing, etc. I feel like my life is falling apart. I can't concentrate at work, I'm exhausted, and I feel like I can't take care of my family much less myself. Twice this week I've ended up curled up in a fetal position, shaking and experiencing all these sort of body jolts, and just trying to get a grip. I'm sort of piecing together treatment for myself without really knowing what I'm doing. I see this therapist once a week, I see a person for massage/cranial sacral therapy once a week, and I do mindfulness meditation on my own. It all feels like it is getting worse rather than better. Sometimes I feel like I am making all this stuff up and I hate myself for being so weak. But the memories and things that happened to me are real. And I'm responsible for my mother who can trigger me just by calling. Oh help. Other than this therapist, I don't have anyone to talk to. Anyone have success stories with chronic pain or managing emotional flashbacks?

 

[Seasounds]

There are lots of great people on this site. I hope you make good connections!

now it is like the floodgates have opened.

This happened for me, too. I felt like a basket case. Things got better with time and therapy.

I know a lot about it, I just can't seem to solve my problems.

You really speak to the heart of the matter. Information and intelligence doesn't solve everything. Unraveling PTSD, for me, has taken time and developing a new set of skills, to process emotions, to decipher the causes of symptoms-when Providers can't, and to trust myself and some valued persons and Providers.

Twice this week I've ended up curled up in a fetal position, shaking and experiencing all these sort of body jolts, and just trying to get a grip. I'm sort of piecing together treatment for myself without really knowing what I'm doing

Sorry for your pain, I've done this, all right.. What helped me was self-compassion, and a commitment to myself to learn how to live, in a way, where I could give myself the safety I needed. Reaching out to someone who cared helped,.

It all feels like it is getting worse rather than better.

When this happened to me, at first, I was greatly helped by something I didn't believe in: grounding techniques. One is, for 30 seconds twice a day, for a month, imagine the earth's energy coming up into the soles of your feet.

Anyone have success stories with chronic pain or managing emotional flashbacks?

Yes, Here is one for each. (Every pain and flashback has a different remedy.) For chronic pain: I had severe menstrual cramps that started when I was at a family reunion. Providers couldn't find the cause. I worked with a therapist to learn how to safely express anger from past trauma. Within months debilitating cramps disappeared.

An example for flashbacks, is that, with a therapist, I did a modified psychodrama; I listened to the information in the flashback, I expressed my emotions-sadness and fear, then used anger to set boundaries that I wanted-in the flashback. After practicing repeated times-of responding to an attack in a new way, I could "live" the new behavior, when it got triggered. The flashback dwindled.

Thank you for joining. I look forward to getting to know you more.

 

[franciemarnie]

Somatic Therapy is another way to release trauma therapy.

Did you by chance have an alcoholic parent or were abused as a child and it was systematically denied? A couple things you said gave me that idea - the fact that sometimes you think you are making all this up tells me other people denied your experience of reality at a formative age and you learned to do it too.

Also that you are taking care of other people's needs, rushing, etc. You perhaps took on the caretaker role.

Whatever the cause, you are responding normally to an abnormal situation. In the case of my father and brother, their late onset kicked in big time in their 50's.

You must learn compassion for yourself as time goes by, and rush to meet your own needs. I would let your mother's calls go to voice mail sometimes if I were you.

It is time to take care of you now. Easy does it.

 

[intothelight]

Hi Hope4Now,

Welcome to MyPTSD forum! :)

Sometimes it takes trying a variety of things before finding what works. The suggestion to see a trauma therapist is a very good one, as many times they specialize in the treatment of PTSD. Please check out the section on therapy and some of the articles as this will give you an good overview of the types of therapies available.

I hope you find the information and support here beneficial.

Debbie

 

[DharmaGirl]

Anyone have success stories with chronic pain or managing emotional flashbacks?

I do, I do!! My story was almost the same. I was a charge nurse on a busy ER/OBS unit until the back pain, then surgery, then loss of job, then breakdown. I started in a pain program, ditched the program, kept the pain psychologist who had 25 years of trauma experience, and after 2 years of therapy my pain went away. As a matter of fact, I weaned off the last of my pain pills 3 weeks ago. It can be done!

 

[Hope4Now]

Thank you change, francimarnie, and intothelight. Somehow knowing someone is out there listening helps. I feel like I need to talk about some of this stuff but in an hour with my therapist (and IFS is somatic therapy combined with CBT) there's just not enough time and he keeps trying to slow me down because I keep going into emotional flashbacks. I'm struggling a little with him, don't trust that he is going to help me even though I really like him and part of me knows he can. He says I can call him anytime, but I can't make myself because I don't know what to say. This is one of my problems.

It is helpful to know, franciemarnie, that there are people this happens to in their 50s.

I like the grounding idea. I keep trying to do that and meditation stuff, but everytime I start to relax and focus, I get flooded with emotional stuff. The "yoga lady" I've worked with some thinks I have Kundalini syndrome because I had this totally bizarre experience during a session of cranialsacral therapy and that is when I started getting all this shakiness and body jolts and all this flashback stuff started happening. Maybe I will see if anyone else has written about this on the forum.

Everyone says I need to take care of myself but I don't know how to do that. I am in constant fear that if I let down my guard everything will just fall apart. I think it really might. I am in danger of losing my job, my son is failing his junior year of high school, my 12 year old daughter has gone the opposite and is compulsively studying and worrying about school, and my husband falls asleep most of the time when I try to talk to him about stuff...his own form of dissociation I think. Like me, he is a fixer and doesn't know how to fix me, so is overwhelmed. I feel like I am causing all these problems. Sometimes I get dizzy and feel like I'm going to faint.

Anyway, thank you for listening. I guess I should get out of the introduction part of this site and post some of my other questions somewhere else. I'm not sure yet how to manage my presence on this forum. Thank you thank you for being here.

 

[Hope4Now]

Did you by chance have an alcoholic parent or were abused as a child and it was systematically denied? A couple things you said gave me that idea - the fact that sometimes you think you are making all this up tells me other people denied your experience of reality at a formative age and you learned to do it too. Also that you are taking care of other people's needs, rushing, etc. You perhaps took on the caretaker role.

I was adopted as a 2 month old and grew up as an only child with a "functional" alcoholic father who was regularly suicidal, and narcissistic. My mother has an out-of-control anxiety disorder, and I am just beginning to understand that she too is a narcissist. Deeply controlling in really weird ways and still has massive power over me for some odd reason. My whole childhood was about denial. Part of me knew something was wrong, but everyone kept telling me things were fine. The only time I was acceptable was when I was "happy." And even then, my mother was always trying to "fix" me...way complicated to explain. Very upper-middle class family, well-educated, etc. My parents were emotionally abusive to each other. I'm beginning to think they were to me, too, but it was much more subtle than what the websites say about emotional abuse. I read something about emotional incest...it was more like that, where each of them turned to me as a partner instead of as a child, yet also treated me like a child and tried to prevent me from becoming independent. I tried over and over again to get people to help me--teachers, priests, etc. but it is really hard to explain to anyone a situation like my family's. I used to wish that my parents had beaten me up because then someone might have helped me. After my father died six years ago (sort of a passive suicide at 80--that is a whole traumatic story unto itself) I thought things would be better. Now this.

 

[Hope4Now]

I do, I do!! My story was almost the same. I was a charge nurse on a busy ER/OBS unit until the back pain, then surgery, then loss of job, then breakdown. I started in a pain program, ditched the program, kept the pain psychologist who had 25 years of trauma experience, and after 2 years of therapy my pain went away. As a matter of fact, I weaned off the last of my pain pills 3 weeks ago. It can be done!

This gives me hope. I am so very sorry for what you went through, but what a wonderful thing to hear that you are better! I keep thinking that if I can just get the right mix of things going for me that I will come out of this with more joy in my life, or at least more capacity to be connected to my emotions in present life rather than getting stuck in self-destructive flashbacks. I am going to a chronic pain group today for the first time. I'm also going to ask my doctor for a referral to a trauma psychiatrist (my therapist is an LICSW and I'm just not sure he totally understands the extent of crisis I am in).

 

[Echo]

Hi @Hope4Now - me, too. I was 52 when it started crashing out of me a year ago. Stunning how much we keep inside. We had to to survive. That means we are survivors and you will survive this too, because we are the strongest people on the planet.

The trauma energy has twisted my scoliosis further out of shape so yes, lots of physical pain here, too. The normal chiropractic cranio-sacral wonderman I see can't combat this one. But he is part of the solution, which includes sensorimotor therapy with my trauma therapist, a form of reflex healing and calming herbs which both of which bring aspects of the trauma up and out in bite-sized chunks. The biggest thing that helps with releasing the pain is setting boundaries with people, which is so hard when you've been all about them and their needs (I'm also trained to perfection by toxic parents). Each time I do my dislocating shoulder and ribs get just a bit less painful. I'm about to set the ultimate boundaries with my parents so hoping for courage and strength to come from somewhere, and that this will mean a big change. My therapists all feel this is me pushing away my abusers to an appropriate distance (or out of my life) and saying a resounding 'no! You may not treat me like that.' This is looking after, caring for and valuing myself, and, do you know, it is working miracles.

Kicking back from the sacral (hips and legs) is very important to me, too, as a rape and child abuse survivor, but I've done less of that so far because it just precipitates violent flashbacks. I think the boundary-setting has to come first. Creating a safe space and being gentle with yourself is key to trauma work. That's looking after yourself, too.

I've had people try and pin the kundalini thing on me, too. In my view, for me at least, I think they fail to understand trauma energy. Maybe it is part of it, but only a very small part, to my mind.

Wishing you all courage. Glad you've made it here.

 

[Hope4Now]

Thank you for writing Echo. I can't believe how comforting it is to hear a friendly voice of someone who has had similar experiences! I have scoliosis too...and lots of other weird pain!

Hi @Hope4Now - me, too. I was 52 when it started crashing out of me a year ago. Stunning how much we keep inside. We had to to survive. That means we are survivors and you will survive this too, because we are the strongest people on the planet.

Thank you for saying this too. I think I need to keep repeating this to myself.

Hi @Hope4Now -
Kicking back from the sacral (hips and legs) is very important to me, too, as a rape and child abuse survivor, but I've done less of that so far because it just precipitates violent flashbacks. I think the boundary-setting has to come first. Creating a safe space and being gentle with yourself is key to trauma work. That's looking after yourself, too.

What do you mean by Kicking back from the sacral? That, my hips, and my legs, are the major areas of my pain.

Good luck as you set your boundaries! So challenging for us caretaker/perfectionist types! I hope you will find in your core self the courage and strength and self-love to do what you need to do.[/quote]

 

[franciemarnie]

@Hope4Now - The Kundalini thing is interesting. I don't know much about it but I read that when you get that sort of "blessing" of energy, you are being given the strength you need to deal with what comes.

But like you I get flooded with feeling when I try to ground and meditate sometimes in which case I have to find a way to physically release that trauma energy. I might literally shake or dance or box out my arms or kick or run or...

...it's like we have to map out our own strategies after listening to what works for others. I can mindfully meditate only when I have somehow shaken loose the toxic energy or the surplus energy.

That's so cool you are doing yoga.

Though I can see I had PTSD since teen years if not before, I started with numbing anti-depressants at 30 and started getting off them completely in my 50's. then it was like - Whoa!! I thought this was gone - all the full blown symptoms. Nyet. They were just sitting there doing their nails.

Anyway - so glad you are here.

 

[Bedbug]

I just wanted to add my voice as another "similar sufferer".

My memories of the sexual abuse I suffered as a child were completely hidden from myself for 20+ years although, looking back, I can see how the experience changed me (low self esteem, social anxiety and frequent dissociation to name just a few things). The least traumatic memories began to emerge over the next 10 years and that's when my somatisation began. Migraines and rib pain mostly. My memories were of fairly minor events and I did not consider myself as having been abused. As a result I didn't realise the cause of my physical pain. Up to the age of 28, I think I had only seen a doctor once. After that, I became a regular!

Then late last year I went through two bad experiences in one weekend and BAM - floodgates opened, memories recovered, I totally fell apart. One good thing, however, was that my migraines stopped on the same weekend (I posted a thread just a couple of days ago about this). Your description of your past two years sounds very much like my past few months.

I don't think I can offer much help at this point other than to say "I hear you!"

Welcome to the forum.