barefoot
Diamond Member
Hi everyone
A confession to start with: I've actually been lurking here for a few months, reading lots of posts, which has been so valuable - so much has resonated, helped a few things to fall into place for me and also given me hope and encouragement even though I haven't been actively involved in posting. So thank you for all the indirect help so far! :-)
i'm female, in my late-30s and I live in the UK. I started therapy last summer as I recognised that I was feeling depressed and wanted to be proactive about trying to manage it instead of just ignoring it and hoping for the best and then ending up having a full on breakdown (which is what happened about 12 years ago - a lesson learned!)
I was diagnosed with PTSD about six months ago because, as well as experiencing bouts of depression and anxiety, there was also something that had happened when I was a teenager - which I'd never told anyone about - which I knew I needed to talk about in therapy. I'd avoided thinking about it for years but, over the past couple of years, I've found it increasingly difficult to control my intrusive thoughts about it and in the end the constant rumination meant that I finally reached a point where I couldn't ignore it any longer. Rather naively, I think I thought that if I just said it to someone (ie my therapist) a weight would be magically lifted and I'd feel a massive sense of relief, would feel much better for it and could then not have to give it another thought ever again. Ha! Obviously, that didn't really work out...
The last few months have been really tough not just because of the PTSD diagnosis - which I found really unsettling and confusing to begin with - and symptoms (off the scale anxiety, panic attacks, hypervigilance, night terrors...) but also because I got made redundant at the start of this year plus a couple of good friends passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly around the same time. So, there's been a lot going on and lots to manage. But things have stabilised a little now and my anxiety/hypervigilance is largely in check as I've been doing lots of work with my therapist on self-care, grounding and feeling safe.
I feel very lucky in that my partner is incredibly supportive - though we haven't yet discussed the detail of what happened when I was a teenager. I also have a very good relationship with my therapist and I think she is really helping. I do, however, find therapy very difficult. I tend to intellectualise things and find it difficult to connect to my feelings (especially around what happened when I was a teenager - it feels like it's a story I've heard about someone else as it doesn't really feel like it's about me). And I don't actually think what happened is that bad. My therapist says 'minimising my trauma' is a form of denial for self-protection and that there isn't a scale for trauma (this is a message I've seen a lot on this forum too - the idea that it's unhelpful to compare traumas) but I find that really hard. I also dissociate a lot - I didn't ever know I did that until I started therapy - and that's incredibly frustrating because it feels like I'm sabotaging my own progress when I do it.
Anyway, that's probably more than enough information for now! Now I've finally got round to making my introductory post, I'm looking forward to getting involved in conversations here.
Thanks for reading :-)
A confession to start with: I've actually been lurking here for a few months, reading lots of posts, which has been so valuable - so much has resonated, helped a few things to fall into place for me and also given me hope and encouragement even though I haven't been actively involved in posting. So thank you for all the indirect help so far! :-)
i'm female, in my late-30s and I live in the UK. I started therapy last summer as I recognised that I was feeling depressed and wanted to be proactive about trying to manage it instead of just ignoring it and hoping for the best and then ending up having a full on breakdown (which is what happened about 12 years ago - a lesson learned!)
I was diagnosed with PTSD about six months ago because, as well as experiencing bouts of depression and anxiety, there was also something that had happened when I was a teenager - which I'd never told anyone about - which I knew I needed to talk about in therapy. I'd avoided thinking about it for years but, over the past couple of years, I've found it increasingly difficult to control my intrusive thoughts about it and in the end the constant rumination meant that I finally reached a point where I couldn't ignore it any longer. Rather naively, I think I thought that if I just said it to someone (ie my therapist) a weight would be magically lifted and I'd feel a massive sense of relief, would feel much better for it and could then not have to give it another thought ever again. Ha! Obviously, that didn't really work out...
The last few months have been really tough not just because of the PTSD diagnosis - which I found really unsettling and confusing to begin with - and symptoms (off the scale anxiety, panic attacks, hypervigilance, night terrors...) but also because I got made redundant at the start of this year plus a couple of good friends passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly around the same time. So, there's been a lot going on and lots to manage. But things have stabilised a little now and my anxiety/hypervigilance is largely in check as I've been doing lots of work with my therapist on self-care, grounding and feeling safe.
I feel very lucky in that my partner is incredibly supportive - though we haven't yet discussed the detail of what happened when I was a teenager. I also have a very good relationship with my therapist and I think she is really helping. I do, however, find therapy very difficult. I tend to intellectualise things and find it difficult to connect to my feelings (especially around what happened when I was a teenager - it feels like it's a story I've heard about someone else as it doesn't really feel like it's about me). And I don't actually think what happened is that bad. My therapist says 'minimising my trauma' is a form of denial for self-protection and that there isn't a scale for trauma (this is a message I've seen a lot on this forum too - the idea that it's unhelpful to compare traumas) but I find that really hard. I also dissociate a lot - I didn't ever know I did that until I started therapy - and that's incredibly frustrating because it feels like I'm sabotaging my own progress when I do it.
Anyway, that's probably more than enough information for now! Now I've finally got round to making my introductory post, I'm looking forward to getting involved in conversations here.
Thanks for reading :-)
