Undiagnosed New To Forum & Question About C-ptsd

[silkleaves]

Well, not everyone has flashbacks, its just one of the symptoms that someone can have. Sort of like, as with any illness, there are some boxes that may get checked, but not necessarily all of them. I always figured I never got flashbacks and told my dr so when I was being diagnosed, but I had enough other symptoms that it was clear I had PTSD, and on top of that also MDD, which didn't even cross my mind going in there. But then, just realized that I actually do have flashbacks...I always assumed they were like memories that you keep going back to think about, I dont get that, but I do react to a situation as if a moment in my past is happening again, if that makes any sense. I need to do my own research on this. Wish I was still in therapy to talk about it...

The important thing really is to just simply explain what you are going through. You may find anyway, that no matter how much research you do before going in,when you are sitting in front of someone telling them what you are going through, you're anyway going to pull a blank out of nervousness / fear / and yes shame, that anything you've prepared goes out the door. Personally, I changed my mind and just wanted to get out of there... But these are trained professionals...they have heard it all, they have seen this before, they are able to pick up on things and make sense of things that you aren't remotely aware of. And its not even just in what you say, but how you act, react, your behavior, tone of voice etc.

And oh man, a "minor cough" would be a great thing! I think in a way, I was hoping that I was going way overboard and would be told that I'm just under some stress and just need to chill out. Even though I knew that wasn't true, I kinda hoped... and I actually downplayed a lot of stuff because of it. But they saw through me and immediately set me up for treatment. So there you have it.

 

[RedRose]

Hey silkleaves, thank you for the reply :)

Yeah I know what you mean about not having flashbacks but reacting the same way in similar situations. I'm slowly getting better but I do find that if someone says a certain thing to me, perfectly innocently, it can really trigger off a bad reaction in me, even if I try not to show it. It used to be much much worse and certain things would really set off a panic in me. But I also found that I could ruminate a hell of a lot - as in, I thought I was just being stupid for dwelling on things, but I literally couldn't get it out of my head, and I would find I would ruminate a lot in the sense of 'playing things out a different way' that was more tolerable/preferred, I guess trying to resolve it in some way. But then I think a part of that is probably due to the GAD, but I don't think all, as there have been things that I go over and over and OVER in my mind, oftentimes 'acting' them out mentally, which of course, never really resolves anything in itself.

I do also have a minor problem of not properly remembering some chunks of the past years - which doesn't really help when trying to articulate what happened. I also find it can be very hard to explain just how bad certain parts of it felt - that is when I manage to remember them!

Whereabouts are people here based, country-wise? I'm in the UK - from what I've read I think it's possible to get a diagnosis of c-ptsd here (if that's what it is), but perhaps it's not very common? Or perhaps I'm mistaken on that altogether. Anyone know?

RedRose x

 

[silkleaves]

Yup, my therapist told me about ruminating, I didnt know that was what I was doing, or had even heard of it before she mentioned it. A lot of what you're saying sounds familiar though, even if not personally, in my group, there were some people who had chunks of their lives that they just had no memory of or had a hard time expressing (while there were others who seemed determined to detail every second, even when asked not to do so because of people (like me) who werent ready or at that level yet).

Besides very dryly stating what happened to me on a superficial level, I never actually got into any details, whether in group or privately with my therapist. And its only in the past year or so that slowly more details have come to me. I still have huge blocks of my childhood completely hidden away. So you're not alone in not being able to articulate it.

Im in the USofA :) But also, am a veteran and get my care through the veterans association and they are pretty well versed in military associated trauma, so I have no clue how or what its like for civilians to get care for PTSD.

 

[RedRose]

Ah, that's interesting, the different ways of expressing (or not) people have. When the dissociation lifts I can remember better and can better explain. And over the months memories have been coming to me.... it's like if someone reminds me of something, I can remember it - but it might be incredibly hazy and I'll forget big important chunks of it, although if someone brings them up generally I can recall them. I find myself alternating between not wanting or being able to talk about it at all, to almost not being able to shut up about it, which really isn't great. I think it can feel so important to tell someone else just to validate it, if they agree it happened, then it did - if they don't agree, then maybe it didn't - such was the mindf**k!

But a big part for me has been on the not downplaying everything. Learning that I have a right to say even the small things like 'they said some nasty things' rather than 'they said some things but I know they didn't mean it'. I think you're right about therapists being able to see thru things to an extent - there were things I was fairly confident I hadn't really expressed in the therapy and found the therapist describing them in a very accurate way somehow! But I'm also very lucky to have a great therapist, I've had not so great ones in the past!

From what I'm aware, I think 'straight' PTSD is commonly diagnosed here in the UK, but I'm less sure about Complex-PTSD.

 

[silkleaves]

The main difference between PTSD and C-PTSD is that PTSD stems from a single traumatic event, while C-PTSD is from a culmination of events / extended time frame of being in a traumatic situation.

I really do not know how or if the treatment for both is any different from one another to be honest. From my completely untrained perspective, it seems that how it affects you is very similar, and so the treatment would be similar, its just that with C-PTSD there are just more layers to go through I could be completely and totally wrong about this though!!!

I'm not sure what you mean about being able to remember things when disassociation lifts? Like, there are some things from my past I remember, some not at all, lots of fuzzy details in-between. Do you mean that after a disassociative state you start to recall things from your past?

When I disassociate, I completely unhinge from what is going on around me. I have never been able to recall anything that went on during this time but it hasnt had any affect on what I remember from my past...I havnt been able to connect the two. And it would seem that whenI disassociate, nothing at all is going on, I have completely shut down.

Like, I will tell kiddo goodbye as she heads to school, make coffee, sit on the couch and right away shes walking through the door again...in reality it is 8 or 9 hours later, and I literally have not moved, my cup of coffee is sitting there cold still full. And I just have no recollection of sitting there doing nothing all that time. To be honest, thats all kinds of creepy. Kiddo has caught me doing this and will sit next to me or softly call to me to snap me out of it.

There are also times that I disassociate while driving...the worst was when I was heading to the grocery store right quick, which is only 2 blocks away from me, and I noticed a sign saying I was approaching Key Largo, which is over an hour away drive from me. I had no memory of anything between turning on US1 and driving the the Keys. On a side note, I was in therapy a few weeks after this happened, one of my "okay, I think I have a problem" moments.

 

[RedRose]

Wow, that's some heavy dissosciation..... mine is nothing in comparison. I have had days where I felt heavily heavily drugged, things around me were sort of 'flickering', I had almost no ability to do any complex cognitions, I couldn't read or interpret anything around me, and felt entirely numbed, but with a sense of still being pretty distressed by the whole experience and totally unable to escape it. Things move in slow-motion, I can miss huge chunks of what is going on around me, but to anyone else I just look kind of slow and like I'm not paying attention I guess. My responses can be extremely slow and sluggish, although I'm only dimly aware of it at the time. At one particularly bad point I had moments where I've gone to the bathroom and found myself still there 10 minutes later not quite knowing why. And myriad other ways of experiencing dissociation - there are just so many different kinds! I'd also find myself doing kinda strange things, cause I was just so locked out from what was happening I'd do slightly peculiar things which I was always very self-conscious about.

But wow, 8/9 hours dissociated? Have you found any way of dealing with it, or to improve it?

As for your question:

I'm not sure what you mean about being able to remember things when disassociation lifts? Like, there are some things from my past I remember, some not at all, lots of fuzzy details in-between. Do you mean that after a disassociative state you start to recall things from your past?

To be honest, I don't know if there are things I don't remember at all - there were definitely a couple bits that I didn't remember at all until at some point they popped up into my consciousness, although they strike me as fairly small things, nothing that significant, so no idea why I forgot them. I found that, particularly a few months ago, when people would ask me to describe what happened in the past few years I would give them this incredibly vague, massively inaccurate story, because I simply couldn't recall the most important parts - and was sort of aware of not explaining things properly but not fully conscious at that point that I had just plain forgotten most of it. The irony of forgetting things, unless something prompts you to realise it, you can just not realise it at all. But back to the point, there was a time a while back when a friend triggered off a memory in me and a whole flood of memories came rushing back, and I spent hours writing them all down, yet when I went to read them the next day, while I knew I had written them, I felt no emotional connection to it whatsoever, it was like someone else had written it. So when I'm dissociated, I can struggle to remember what happened earlier in that day, let alone what happened yesterday or the day before. I don't know in truth, I guess it's different every time.....

 

[NovemberStar]

@RedRose Welcome!

I have had flashbacks for a long time, but it has only been recently I have come to understand I have been having them for years, without knowing that is what they were. Yes, I had what I knew were 'classic' flashbacks - where I would re-live something that was traumatic, and it would suddenly 'flash' in front of me, and I'd feel I was 'there' again. But only in the past couple of months have I been able to understand there are other types of flashbacks - or more that they are described or experienced a l;title differently form what I 'thought' they 'ought' to be experienced like.

For several months, I have had many many many experiences where I am in the now, but for a split second (sometimes 1-2 seconds) I feel 'the past and present touch'. It is like one second I am in the 'now' then for a second or two, I am very much back in the past - like I have blinked, gone back to my childhood (very briefly, a second or two), then blink again, and I'm 'back in the 'now'. But the feeling I am left with is a momentary confusion of 'why am I driving this car - children don't drive' or 'Why am I in this city - it doesn't belong to my childhood'?!!! The resulting, albeit brief, confusion, and sense the past and present 'touch' in an uncontrollable and terrifying way like that, however briefly it is for, I did not realize, is a flashback. I honestly thought you had to have specific memories that played out like a video in your mind, and last for 10-15 minutes!

Now I realize, that as a child, I was so super sensitive to everything around me, I 'captured' thousands and thousands of 'moments' in my childhood where I was feeling terrified, abandoned, alone, suicidal, hopeless, and those memories are in tiny fragments. It might have been that one day as a child, feeling traumatized, or alone, etc, I noticed very intently, the way the sun is in the sky, how the rays of light filter down to the ground, how the shadows are made; or how you can 'sense' the change of seasons in the air - and when the exact same condition strikes in the 'now', I have the flashback to the exact feeling I had all those years ago. It's never 'happy' feelings or experiences; they are always very very dark, scary, alone and intensely REAL feelings like I really am back there.

That is why for me, even something seemingly so harmless like the freaking SUN, or a flower, or the clouds in the sky, can trigger a flashback for me. Add to that the dissociation and feeling 'unreal' it really is like the 'now' is just a dream, and any moment I will wake up, and be directly BACK in childhood. That the past 30 years have not actually happened, but I simply fell asleep as a child (and am still asleep) and when I wake up, the horror of childhood will be there for me to continue to experience. That is how 'close' the past and the present feel to me, a lot of the time.

Thought I'd share it just in case anyone else relates, and realizes, 'hey, maybe I am experiencing flashbacks too', and didn't know it.

 

[silkleaves]

That sounds so scary @NovemberStar I dont know what Id do with myself if I experienced flashbacks like that! That is sort of how I always considered them to be though, literally flashing back into a painful moment of time, like in the movie Jacob's Ladder. Mine are more like I dont see the moment, I just react to it based on what is happening now.

Trying to find an example and having a hard time, but say, Im talking to someone and they happen to say something, totally innocent but with a certain tone, or happen to use the exact same words that are familiar to me from a negative experience, without even thinking about it, I will launch into a full fledged attack on the person, not physically! But verbally, like I'm fighting to defend myself the way I wish I had been able to back then, like a very delayed reaction. And in that moment, and for awhile later, I feel completely vindicated and within my right to react the way I did. Its not until Ive come way down that I realize...oh man I acted like a crazy person.

@RedRose no, no real resolution to my disassociative states. It was something that I talked to my therapist about, but I dont think I made it to whatever part of group that may have helped teach me some techniques with that (I wasnt able to complete group therapy) and the medication didnt do anything for me. So at the moment, kiddo is the main way I break out of it, other times I break out of it on my own. This is why too though Im relenting to the idea of getting a dog...esp now that kiddo is going to be 18 and on her own soon. Not a service dog or anything, but just having one around me that may go "hey human, why so still? play with me! do something!" might snap me out of it when Im home alone.

 

[RedRose]

Hey @NovemberStar those sound like some pretty intense flashbacks...... I think if I have flashbacks at all, they're more in the line of what @silkleaves describes - I can respond very intensely to what is technically a perfectly innocent question, be pretty darn defensive and upset and not really get better perspective on it til later. Although, for various reasons this has been much improved of late.

I've had a funny kind of week this week though, feeling very sort of disconnected from myself - maybe it's a form of dissociation, but it's a very particular kind if it is. I feel very much like I did when I was a child, and like I've not full control of what I'm doing - it's actually very hard to describe it. I can possibly pinpoint it to a couple of things that have happened lately, although not as clearly and as tangibly as normal. It's like I feel like I did as a small child - very ashamed, expecting that everything I do is wrong, very watchful and afraid, feel like everyone is getting at me. But then I can rationalise it and now it's not really the case.... so I don't quite know what the hell is going on! Think it may be improving, fingers crossed!

@silkleaves the idea of a dog sounds a good one. Do you find you snap out of the dissociative states easily enough, provided there's someone there to 'wake' you from it?

 

[silkleaves]

I do, sometimes kiddo feels bad because I'm a little startled, but usually I'm not, and just come out of it without an issue. On my own I will slide out of it too, and for the most part just confused because well...I've lost time and it takes me a moment to get my bearings. So having a pup would probably be a really good thing for me. ....Unless I end up with a super lazy pup who will happily just curl up and sleep all day haha!

 

[RedRose]

@silkleaves that sounds pretty disorienting to say the least. I guess there are so many different kinds of dissociation, huh. Sounds like a dog could really help. Maybe get a big dog that needs lots of exercise, that should reduce the risk of being left in peace ;-)

 

[silkleaves]

Haha..indeed. I do think having a dog to force me out of my apartment would be a great thing too...because I can sit in here for days never leaving. I think that just overall that would be a great addition to our family...kiddo is excited by the idea. I've been considering it more and more nowadays, so anytime soon now we'll be down at the shelter.