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Ummm ... 2011 started with eye surgery to reduce eye pressure (glacoma) and contemplating life with significantly reduced vision, and life in general ... so what is important to me? First and foremost is to continue to learn to live better with ptsd ... this year that means adjusting to my...

Maybe we can, Junebug. I like to think that more or less normal people have more or less normal memories. Memories they can recall if they choose, or not. Memories that don't intrude. Memories that don't generate nghtmares and other symptoms. We have some more or less normal memories. Some...

Surviving a hostile environment leaves us feeling sad and angry. It leaves us changed. It leaves us needing a lot of theraputic support just to do things that should be simple. It leaves us unable to participate in relationships. It leaves us wondering why we bothered doing the things we had...

The challenge is to do what you would do if the intense feelings were not there. It normally takes a lot of practice and theraputic support, but there's no better time to start. Imagine the partner you want to be and act that image out. Doing so will trigger some really intense feelings and...

Let the therapist determine if you are wasting their time or not. That's part of their job. Ted

It is not about your ability to do your job well ... it is about the level of stress you experience in your work environment and how that level of stress impacts your ptsd symptoms. If you have not yet filed your claim for ptsd with the va do it now. If you are formally diiagnosed, you are...

sometimes if you go this way some people on this side die and if you go that way some people on that side die and if you do nothing maybe everybody dies and afterwards you think your decision got someone killed but it was really the situation that got them killed and you just did your best...

I sleep fine now but I used to get about two hours a night until they observed my sleep patterns in an inpatient program. They put me on trazadone which took care of the nightmares and let me get 8 to 10 hours of sleep a night but did leave me somewhat groggy the first hour up in the morning...

stuff happens ... someone else dies, you don't ... sometimes you make promises ... sometimes you aren't paying attention to something you might have been paying attention to ... sometimes you're just not a very good person ... causing others to get hurt ... killed ... sometimes it's so...

I had late afternoon/early evening intense feelings including very high levels of anxious apprehension and panic attacks for years, probably most of my working life. I no longer have them, but I have been retired (medically for PTSD) for 10 years now. The way I came to understand that...

Well said!! Ted

As Heather said, immediately counter the negative with a positive, and back the positive up with something you have recently done, plan to do today, or expect to do in the near future. Sharing in a support forum counts. Your sharing helps others get through the day. Take care. Ted

Touch is an approach avoidance thing for me. Receiving touch feels nice and normal people seem to touch all the time, making me envious, but at the same time touch is a trigger signaling I have gotten careless and let someone get too close to me and stuff is going to start exploding any minute...

It takes some work, Steph. For me, I learned to self-monitor both my level of anger and my level of anxious apprehension. Self monitoring means identifying very specific behaviors and associating them with a level of anger or with a level of anxious apprehension. I frequently am whistling or...

Umm .. cooking is good .. intense feelings of anger are a part of ptsd .. acting out those intense feelings of anger in a way that is counterproductive in our current situation is not so good. We can't wait until "strike three" to act on our feelings of anger. It's too late then. The feelings...

My first ptsd group was in 1985, and most of the participants were veterans employed by gm who were there as part of their alcohol program. That one didn't go too well. Then I was in a group at an outreach center in 1987. Most of that group was court ordered and on thorazine. That one didn't...

Hey Jimmy, nice post. I have come to understand ptsd not as something you have or don't have, but as a continuim. Everybody has their life experiences, some of which are experienced as traumatic to them. What is experienced as traumatic depends on the person and their sensitivities...

The little things aren't little things. They are triggers, which are big things that tap into the intense feelings you stuffed long ago and bring them (the intense feelings) into your current situation. Sometimes you can "break the cycle" by constantly asking yourself if the intensity of the...

Hey Kristina, living with back pain is no fun. I began experiencing back pain shortly after returning from Vietnam. PTSD hadn't been invented yet, and we were just supposted to put stuff behind us and pick up civilian life wherever we left off. My first lower back spasms serious enough to...

Way to go!! I like your new mantra :) Ted

We all have stuffed some very intense feelings which will explode in our current situations in rage/anger driven behavior. Others know little or nothing about our stuffed feelings. They judge us based on how we behave in our current situation. If we have behaved badly around them in the past...

Therapy is at your own pace. When you are ready to talk with a safe person in a safe place, it will all gush out in spite of the feelings. In the meantime, work on identifying your symptoms and triggers and learning to managing your actual behavior in current situations while uncomfortable...

Externalsmile, Way to go! It took me a little longer, but life is good and filled with joy and a mix of the normal challenges that come along as we age for me too. I had a wonderful therapist who was focused but patient and gentle in guiding me into participation in activities and...

Hey Gidge, welcome. In 1976 my mentor and bf committed suicide. He said he was going to do so to get even with me for not being as close of a friend as he thought I should be. I already had ptsd (combat fatigue - it was before the diagnosis was developed) and could only let others get so...

WWII vets had few alternatives other than becoming an alcoholic or workaholic or both to deal with their ptsd symptoms. Today we have better alternatives. The first step is getting off drugs and/or alcohol, then committing to therapy and learning to manage the behavior that occurs when you are...