Recent content by The ANP

I say trust your instincts, if it feels true to you, probably is. Everybody has opinions, including therapists. Some of my most productive therapy sessions have started with, this part is off base, but here is where I am at with it... Sounds to me you believe your prior relationships with...

Sometimes the way we frame the question sets the limit on the answer. I am late to the conversation and I have read enough to get the gist of the conversation. Here is my take: it is not always that we get a benefit per se. Sometimes it is that being exposed to repeat boundary violations can...

My body memories are usually triggered by touch in the here and now. Rape survivor. My partner touches my necl, all of a sudden I am back there. My mind wants to disappear. I feel total body terror. That touch triggered a memory from another time. I was 17, so I remember in a troubling...

Congrats sounds like you have a good starting base. Walking and stretching and pleasurable movement are all good to start. Dancing can be good too. Start with reasonable goals so you don't get discouraged. Remember you are starting where you are and moving forward gently. 5/7 days is a realistic...

i am having panic attacks again for the first time in years. I woke up the day after Christmas dry heaving in fear. I forgot how awful these are. Can you guys remind me of some coping skills for panic attacks?

Merry Christmas or happy holidays or some shit. Whatever dills your pickle. I like at least 6. Steady every night. Keeps me regular. Got a smoke? What to put in , what to keep out? Hairs and strings. Nobody strums your toon. I told my therapist I have to watch out for lynchings in public...

i get what you mean about being devestated by the flat mate. During traumatic experience the mind grasps at straws looking for salvation. I remember being terrified when one of my rapists left because he was not a sadist and somehow him being there meant safety... it makes no sense now, but at...

Having been raped by several people I got the gamut a few were in it for the raping. They I can understand. They do not terrify me today. The two who were in it for the torture... I can't even think of them without breaking down. It is an entire different level of trauma. I understand how you...

I was kidnaped raped and tortured by some sociopaths and their friends. The part that really broke my brain is the knowledge that truly inhuman people exists. Trying to understand the mind of someone who enjoys torture is a lost cause, it hurts you as an empathetic person. In the moment of...

f*ck you. f*ck you ten times over. I have never meant "duck you"... except when you swung at my head. Duck you ten times over... A lot of the time I pretend to feel normal. Connected. Reciprocal. In truth, I have limited continuity. I only pretend the dots make sense when I connect them. Sure...

PTSD is awful. I have been facing mine head on for the last 4 years. It's hard. The more you look at it, your symptoms get worse. At least initially. I think of it a burping a pickle jar. You have to vent it in little bursts and then take recovery time. Whatever the trauma, if it caused PTSD it...

Radiation is hard sorry you are going through it. Here if you need a friend who has been there.

What many Americans and foreigners fail to realize about the propensity for gun violence in the states; it has a tremendous amount to do with race issues and issues of social inequality. We are not that great of a melting pot, we have large numbers of diverse people living side by side and...

Practicing feeling the overwhelming emotions that are going to drown me, burping the pickle jar of trauma. Today is fear, sadness, grief, worthlessness, anxiety? (not sure if that's an emotion). This feeling of emotions is new territory for me. My ex used to call me a robot when I would shut...

To me lean into fear means resisting the urge to run from what scares you. My PTSD program is to run away. Leaning into the fear for me is getting comfortable with being scared.