It took 20 years for my madness to catch up with me. I thought it was over. After all, I jumped into 2 full time jobs and stayed quite busy for years. Worked for me until I was literally hit by a semi-truck one day on my way home from work. My neck was fractured in 3 places and my pelvis was also fractured badly. It took 2 years to recover. In the dormant recovery phase, I began to have bad dreams, then nightmares of ungodly proportion every time I slept. Then came the flashbacks and significant loss of time. I thought I was over the edge crazy.
I went from being a strong "in control of every situation" person to a quivering blob in the corner of the room. I couldn't stop it from happening. I literally would cower in the corner and relive my memories. If I was lucky it would be for minutes, if not , for hours.
My children saw their mom drastically change from being self assured to being afraid of the most innocent of noise and movement. I worked at a hospital and had a quite healthy income until I was told I could no longer be around the patients as I was a liability. Can't have the help having flashbacks on duty, can we??? I was hospitalized for PTSD and had no choice but to fight or die. It still depends on the moment as to which choice is dominant. I stayed in therapy for years and although I gained better understanding about why I was reacting like I was,I still did not have basic control of anything in my life. I made an honest suicide attempt and ended up back in the hospital.
Now it has been 10 years since the PTSD began & I am still not stable. My existence is now simply a daily succession of trying to remaining in the moment and not reacting to every movement or noise around me. I got out of the hospital last week. It was the first time I have been back in the hospital in over 5 years. Now, I'm back in therapy (intense -- group sessions on Mon, Wed & Friday for 5 hours each day AND see my therapist on one of the days in between.) Now I also obsess about the further financial strain I am putting on my family, mostly my husband as my kids are now adults(20's). I lost a substantial income PLUS now I am running up more bills. Does wonders for my self esteem. I am scared. Scared I will not make it and then scared I will make it thru another day for more of the same. I take numerous psych meds to curve the flashbacks & for sleep and anxiety. I have dropped over 50 pounds in 4 months because I can't stand the smell of food most days. I wonder what happened to me. I don't remember it all happening. I use to be so strong and self assured. What happened to that person? Now I go through each day literally moment by moment. I isolate even though I try not to and I am always hyper vigilant at night, which is really puts a damper on the 9:00am intense therapy. I cannot sleep unless I can completely see the entire room if I should wake, - which I tend to do a lot. Rules out sleeping in the dark……
I do not recognize this person have become. I feel lost much of the time and cannot be still with myself. I find myself watching real life crime documentaries and such just to see the bad guy get it in the end… I see their resolution, fair or not, as a chance at justice.
Maybe if I knew who abducted me or where I was. Was it 3 or 6 days? Why did no one miss me, was I that independent??? Did I bring this unknowingly on myself? Was I left for dead & simply survived, or was I left purposely alive? I have no answers, only questions. When I try to focus on a particular thing, my mind goes blank or a flashback or anxiety attack comes on. How do I get a handle on this? Will I ever get it to a manageable place? How much worse will it get, or can it get any worse???
My therapist tells me I blocked it all out because I learned how to do that from early childhood abuse & trauma. Now I am told I need to go back to childhood to deal with that as well as this. OMG, enough already. Everyone has some trauma as a child don’t they? Am I all that different?
I just want to be me again. Self assured and not afraid of my own shadow. I want to be able to look in the mirror and like what I see looking back. I want peace. I want to stop reacting to every movement, real or perceived, around me. I want to stop my guts from churning every time someone stops to talk to me. I want my sanity back, --- all of it!!!
I will never work in a hospital again. That’s over. I don’t want to be a patient anymore, Am I that screwed up? How do you turn off the noise and movements that only I hear and see? Where do I go from here? Will I be on all this medicine forever? Where do I go from here. Please if you know how to make this easier, tell me. Surely, it does not HAVE to be this hard.
I went from being a strong "in control of every situation" person to a quivering blob in the corner of the room. I couldn't stop it from happening. I literally would cower in the corner and relive my memories. If I was lucky it would be for minutes, if not , for hours.
My children saw their mom drastically change from being self assured to being afraid of the most innocent of noise and movement. I worked at a hospital and had a quite healthy income until I was told I could no longer be around the patients as I was a liability. Can't have the help having flashbacks on duty, can we??? I was hospitalized for PTSD and had no choice but to fight or die. It still depends on the moment as to which choice is dominant. I stayed in therapy for years and although I gained better understanding about why I was reacting like I was,I still did not have basic control of anything in my life. I made an honest suicide attempt and ended up back in the hospital.
Now it has been 10 years since the PTSD began & I am still not stable. My existence is now simply a daily succession of trying to remaining in the moment and not reacting to every movement or noise around me. I got out of the hospital last week. It was the first time I have been back in the hospital in over 5 years. Now, I'm back in therapy (intense -- group sessions on Mon, Wed & Friday for 5 hours each day AND see my therapist on one of the days in between.) Now I also obsess about the further financial strain I am putting on my family, mostly my husband as my kids are now adults(20's). I lost a substantial income PLUS now I am running up more bills. Does wonders for my self esteem. I am scared. Scared I will not make it and then scared I will make it thru another day for more of the same. I take numerous psych meds to curve the flashbacks & for sleep and anxiety. I have dropped over 50 pounds in 4 months because I can't stand the smell of food most days. I wonder what happened to me. I don't remember it all happening. I use to be so strong and self assured. What happened to that person? Now I go through each day literally moment by moment. I isolate even though I try not to and I am always hyper vigilant at night, which is really puts a damper on the 9:00am intense therapy. I cannot sleep unless I can completely see the entire room if I should wake, - which I tend to do a lot. Rules out sleeping in the dark……
I do not recognize this person have become. I feel lost much of the time and cannot be still with myself. I find myself watching real life crime documentaries and such just to see the bad guy get it in the end… I see their resolution, fair or not, as a chance at justice.
Maybe if I knew who abducted me or where I was. Was it 3 or 6 days? Why did no one miss me, was I that independent??? Did I bring this unknowingly on myself? Was I left for dead & simply survived, or was I left purposely alive? I have no answers, only questions. When I try to focus on a particular thing, my mind goes blank or a flashback or anxiety attack comes on. How do I get a handle on this? Will I ever get it to a manageable place? How much worse will it get, or can it get any worse???
My therapist tells me I blocked it all out because I learned how to do that from early childhood abuse & trauma. Now I am told I need to go back to childhood to deal with that as well as this. OMG, enough already. Everyone has some trauma as a child don’t they? Am I all that different?
I just want to be me again. Self assured and not afraid of my own shadow. I want to be able to look in the mirror and like what I see looking back. I want peace. I want to stop reacting to every movement, real or perceived, around me. I want to stop my guts from churning every time someone stops to talk to me. I want my sanity back, --- all of it!!!
I will never work in a hospital again. That’s over. I don’t want to be a patient anymore, Am I that screwed up? How do you turn off the noise and movements that only I hear and see? Where do I go from here? Will I be on all this medicine forever? Where do I go from here. Please if you know how to make this easier, tell me. Surely, it does not HAVE to be this hard.
