DesertDweller said:
I had a really tough night sleeping last night. I have gotten to a point where I wake up in the middle of the night not having a clue of where I am. It is very frustrating and frightening. When I do sleep I will have nightmares, I have reoccuring one where I am in a combat zone running and when I get to a point where I stop and raise my riffle to defend myself it is not there, I usually wake shortly after.
DD, whilst trauma exists within you, the nightmares, flashbacks, dissociation will all continue. There is one way and one way only to get rid of these aspects, trauma therapy with a good physician / therapist. Not every therapist is good at trauma therapy, even though they will tell you otherwise. If you don't feel your moving forward with a therapist, you need to find another one, one that will push you, one that will make you work, and not just be supportive to you. Support is one thing, trauma therapy is another.
DesertDweller said:
I think the rough night came as a result of alot of added stress and arguing last night. I had called in sick because I just felt like I would not make it through the day ( I am having more and more of those days lately), I do mortgage banking so end of month is a chaotic. I really feel that I cant function at work anymore. I cant just up and leave my job but I feel that if I dont do something about it soon it will be the end of me. I feel very very stuck and see no way out of this.
Employment is very difficult with PTSD, and I can say that from experience also. Dependant upon the severity of your PTSD at a given time, can depend upon whether or not your physically and mentally capable of performing day to day work functions. Some people can, some people can't. Its not something you can beat yourself up over, its just reality and they way each individual person copes with their own trauma and symptoms. Nobody can really give advice as to whether or not you should continue your employment, instead it is something you need to work out for yourself, in that your financial situation is a factor, we all need money coming in from somewhere whilst we deal with our problems. Good solutions above, especially in regard to Carps statement about possibly reducing your hours if possible, so you can have more time to recover and start dealing with your trauma. The longer you put off dealing with your past, the longer you prolong recovery and ability to perform work at a fully functional capacity. Can you tailor your work to even work for yourself, so you set the hours of your work?
DesertDweller said:
On top of all that I feel that the people that are trying to be there for me only aggravate me when I really need time to cool down.
DD, spouses, family and those that care about us are only trying to help, though they are just as lost as we often are on exactly what to do. This generally ends up in an argument, with nothing really sustained. We with PTSD can abuse our rights for "calming down" time, by often bringing it up so often that we may as well not have anyone that loves us, so be careful you don't abuse this. Spouses and family need to educate themselves about PTSD, and how to cope with you in regard too it, however; you need to also educate yourself in healing, getting back to an emotional level of understanding, and rebuilding your relationships with spouses, family and friends. We with PTSD are often the ones in the wrong when it comes to relationships, because we lose the ability to cope and handle emotional support. It is natural, but you need to understand that it is often us who are the one's that need to fix ourselves, and not our spouses, family and friends that need to adapt to our way of life.
DesertDweller said:
I am fighting to be strong and deal with everything but its hard... and I feel that as time goes on I am getting more an more depressed. I am so lost!!
DD, you need to stop beating yourself up about things now, because you are only going to make yourself worse. How do you do this? Well, what you need to realise is that what is happening to you, you actually have little control over initially. I say initially, because you have so many symptoms now starting to appear, you really probably don't know which way to turn, where to start, or even what to start with. You are now beginning to experience the full extent of PTSD, even though you have attempted to suppress it with workaholism... you are now finding out, that method sucks, and it doesn't work, nor will medication, alcohol or drugs. None of them will make you better, not one.
There is one way past PTSD DD, and one way only, facing your trauma, talking about every single trauma you have, coming to terms with your trauma, and no longer fearing your trauma. When you successfully do all this, you have very little residual symptoms afterwards... only minor symptoms to learn how to control, then some major relearning in socialising and relationships... which take years learning how to rebuild.
We often think that leaving our partners, leaving our family and friends is the solution, to only turn around months or years after, and kick ourselves so hard for pushing away everyone that loved us, and actually cared for us. Its a fine line, one that you need to be mindful off at all times. I can see from your post that you are experiencing relationship difficulties, and what you need to learn now, is it is us who has changed, not those around us. Sorry is such an easy word to say, and powerful... if used appropriately, you will help yourself to improve your relationships, you will help yourself to evaluate and discuss social and relationship inadequacies, and at the end of the day, you will help yourself become close to the person you once where, and in fact, often a much improved version than before, because you have learnt to cope, analyse and look at emotions where you would never have learnt such skills before. Be good to yourself, be better to those around us who just love us and are trying to help... they really don't understand unless we talk with them about what we need, what they need, and more importantly, communicate common ground and reasoning.
