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@Dana1010 - You have to investigate somatic therapy to make any judgement. It works for me and I was as cynical as they come. I read about it first and then tried it. You might pick up Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine, which explains it. Drugs are only temporary. They are band aids for PTSD...

Valium is like a couple martinis. It relaxes you and things don't bother you as much. It wears off of course, and if you take it every day for two weeks, you have to take more for the same effect because you build a tolerance. It's alright if you use it sparingly, but I could not. I could...

Sometimes memories haven't come, but the felt sense of what happened is clear and that has been sufficient to release trauma energy for me. I don't know how deep the well is but signs that healing is happening are clear. For instance, my feet used to always hurt. Sometimes so badly I couldn't...

I don't know @joseph1981, but I read several books by a shaman named Alberto Villoldos (sp) who wrote about his experience with the drug when he was becoming a shaman, and he writes also about treatment of PTSD with a shaman. I believe he started a school to train people who wanted to become a...

The truth is - the way people act towards you and what they think of you is based on where they are in their evolution, and doesn't necessarily reflect you and your reality at all. Also, I don't think other people spend much time thinking about us. They are caught up in their own worlds. But...

Also as a Chicagoan, I don't say dems and dese, and I don't pronounce my a's as in quack. But I did take a lot of French so...once upon a time I pronounced wash warsh. I don't know where that came from! And I have never seen a tommy gun although I used to go to a church that had bullet holes...

I am from Chicago. I didn't find out early how to open doors with just a smile. Idiot boys in college would make moves immediately having learned from song lyrics about city girls. (They actually quoted that song!) I don't think anyone here assumes I am from the mob since I am female. I am...

Sometimes we do need meds to function, but they are only a band-aid. They camouflage symptoms and shut up what your body is telling you. Be aware they cure nothing, and generally numb feelings. Whether or not you go on meds, it would be a good thing to consider mindful meditation so you gain...

The trauma is in your body. Initially, it was an event, but it changes the body/mind when PTSD develops. When your mind is racing, try to focus on your body and feel the sensations. Let the thoughts alone. They are illusory. The compulsion is to get out of the body, but it doesn't work. Our...

Your survival hormones are on their own schedule of SURGE! Ugh. I know it well. I get up and do a mindful thing. I feel my pounding heart and talk to it. I calm it down. I realize it's our crazy biology. It goes away after half an hour for me. It is hard to detach and not panic, which...

I vote no. Or go but be super self aware and leave as soon as you get any sense of overwhelm because nothing triggers like family if they were the source of your trauma. I personally would only go if I sincerely wanted to see family members, and I was willing to endure the inevitable internal...

I call it hyper vigilance myself, sometimes it's more extreme than other times. Re: sound - Can you put in an iPod and play music that centers you? If you can't play music, can you put a beautiful scent on your inner wrists to bring you back from extreme emergency mode? I have had times where I...

Give Al-Anon a try. Addicts lie frequently. His addictions seem to be the issue and lying provides subterfuge. However the lying started in his life, it's the addictions that are the trouble. Focus on you now, not him. Al-anon will be a blessed relief. You will find you are not alone, and there...

I never had paranoia but if you have it, I imagine you would feel paranoid outside your apartment too, but since you only mention your place, I have to ask - did this begin when you moved there? Did it happen in your previous abode? Does Boyfriend hear stuff too? Find things misplaced? It could...

Wow! What am accomplishment - the tenacity and work involved. Very inspiring. Congratulations. I bet your next place will be wonderful. How fantastic too that the real estate had become so much more valuable. Enjoy the well deserved good feelings!!

Maybe try a new healing option like somatic therapy or some of the other ways people find release and relief. The trauma is in the body after the precipitating event. It's got to get out. Books can enlighten but unless they give me exercises I can use to rid myself of trauma energy, then I don't...

All you can do is take whatever action you can and then let go. If full time is out of the question now, use that time that opens up to completely focus on healing. I am with @Hashi on visualization, etc. Double up your efforts. I have had enormous relief from mindful meditation...

(((((Dear Hope4Now))))) Hang on. This will pass. I know it is terribly hard now. One foot in front of the other is our the only feasible option sometimes. Perhaps some of that beautiful poetry you post could bring light to pierce the darkness. You are not alone.

For me, depression was the pressing down of emotion, in particularly anger. The deeper the depression, the greater the anger but it took me ages to connect them because in depression - I had no energy. Everything was an effort. Anger seemed very far away and not related to me. Safely pulling up...

The problem with self medicating with alcohol is that it is like Russian Roulette. It unpredictably activates parts of your brain and turns off other parts so sometimes you initially might get relief from symptoms and then a couple hours later become psychotic or unbearably depressed but you...

Hoorah Gizmo!! All things in time. You so deserve these moments of celebration. Yay!!

Definitely cancel if you like. No more violence in our lives and force is a kind of violence, whether someone is applying force to you or you are doing it to you. Doing things that make you sick do not make you stronger. It makes you sicker. We have options now where once we had none. Yay!

Mindful meditation has worked for me best - awareness of body sensation Focusing by Gendlin was a great assist - but the process can result in VERY powerful experiences so you might want to go slow if you go that route. I say - Look to the body to learn how you feel.

You will eventually build a tolerance with daily intake and then anxiety increases with the same dosage, but sometimes - for a while - we need extra help. So just be aware that over time, our bodies need more to get the same effect, and when you want to stop taking them - you need to do it...

When I burned out, the way I looked at everything and everyone including God changed or disintegrated. I missed that God connection, and began reading about fifty memoirs of people who had once had faith and then gone thru trauma to see how they came out of it intact. I figured if someone came...