Search results

You have created a wonderful place for people with ptsd to learn to live better with our symptoms. I think the nature of our symptoms requires a strong moderator/facilitator to keep the focus on learning. You and your team do this well. Thanks for being there. Ted

Hey L, there are lots of us. Every war. Both sides. Sights and sounds and sensations and feelings that we couldn't deal with then, we had to just stuff them and do what we had to do at the time to survive, coming out now that we are safe and removed from the danger. Coming out at night, in...

Big step! Congratulations! I facilitate grief and loss groups at a children's center (I facilitate the parents group) in MI and it helps a lot (both them and me). Share what you can when you can and let the group process help you. It works. Take care. Ted

Hey Fargo, ptsd symptoms plus sleep deprivation is a recipe for distorted perception and disaster. Give yourself permission to sleep for a few days then start taking inventory and sorting stuff out. Take care. Ted

Welcome Brian. I was in the gulf war too, along with Vietnam. I'm curious, is there some reason you weren't collecting your travel pay? I live 76 miles from my VAMC and they pay me pretty well for each trip to see them. And have you ever filed a claim for ptsd? If you have been diagnosed by...

There is a lot of misinformation concerning the VA. They do have their challenges, no doubt. But both TBI and PTSD are potentially elgible for compensation if the case meets the criteria. To be elgible for compensation, any condition must have been caused or aggravated while on active duty...

One of our biggest challenges is learning to identify the relatively minor symptoms that precede major symptoms. When we are experiencing the relatively minor symptoms we are probably still able to manage our behavior. Once we are experiencing major symptoms it is probably too late. By then...

PTSD doesn't make us dumber, but one of our symptoms is acting based on emotional reasoning. Emotional reasoning is "I feel this, so I need to do that." So what an old feeling intrudes into our current situation, we feel a need to do something that make no sense in our current situation. I...

Such a natural conclusion to the thought of taking a risk and sharing :tup: Once we are no longer in the hostile environment the potentially disastrous consequence is living out our ptsd symptoms rather than learning to live with them in a potentially supportive environment. (((Hugs)))...

Hey Steph, try VA_PTSD_INFO on twitter. It will give you linkes to educational sites and videos put out by the National Center for PTSD. Ted

Welcome Sarg!! I'm also a Vietnam Vet. Mech Infantry in IV Corp, sinking our tracks in the Delta ;) I was medically retired for ptsd and am 100% T&P at the VA. I've only been on this site for a month or so, but it seems like a good place to be. Ted

This symptom is called hypervigilance. It's normal for ptsd. In surviving the hostile environment, we had to be alert and aware of details in order to survive. Once we have survived the hostile situation and are safe, we are left with our hypervigilant habits. The specific details of our...

I think learning to live better with ptsd involves participating in a fuller range of relationships and activities, which will trigger stuff and make us anxious and require us to use coping strategies all of which will result in some behaviors that are somewhat different than the behaviors...

Being from Michigan I always thought of it as when the snowball gets rolling :rolleyes: That other person would take over and all I could do was back off and watch the show. It is the feeling of losing control of our behavior, of not being able to not act out our ptsd symptoms. The old...

Yep, it is much easier to be gentle with others than it is to be gentle with ourselves. The reason is in surviving the hostile situation we set some hard rules for ourselves and survived by adhearing to those rules or paid the price on any occasion we violated our rules. It makes us really...

I'm not sure exactly what the question is, LovinHuggin. If the question is might you have ptsd symptoms from trauma you might have suffered growing up with Asperger's I would think the answer is sure. Abuse and bullying are both potential causes of ptsd symptoms. If the question is are you...

After Vietnam I felt a need to keep everybody at a safe emotional distance. After all, if I opened up to anyone something would happen and there would be body pieces and fluids splattered all over me again and people dying and it's just easier to keep everyone a safe distance away. Of course...

Over they years I have changed how I state some things. When I first came home from Vietnam I used to say when I get upset I shake. I was going to college then, and sometimes it would be so bed I couldn't read my own notes so I had to print in block letters so I could push hard enough to get...

Ah Tim, the perception that nobody, especially those who should, cares. Westmoreland didn't really care about those of us on the line in Vietnam in 67-68. We knew that. When he and his henchmen came to visit our firebase around Christmas 67 we mortared our own motor pool area. They left...

I used to tell my therapist that my memory changed around periods of trauma. Normally my memory flows through time, images and events occurring in sequence, kinda like clips from a camcorder stored and retrievable when needed. Memory during periods dominated by traumatic events I described as...

Therapy begins when you challenge the feeling that you can't do what you need to do to get your current needs met. If you can't express the things you need to express because your throat swells (your anxiety symptoms) then write them for your therapist or type then into a reply and post them...

Can it be done? Sure it can be done. You can learn to participate in relationships. I used to have a cycle in which I would participate in activities and relationships for a while, but as I had success and the relationships became more established and closer I would experience increasing...

It's normal and healthy to want approval and recognition and all that stuff from a parent. Make a good poster for him and let yourself feel good about your part in the relationship. He is the one who is not participating appropriately in the relationship. Some parents are just not very good...

Full disclosure is a big thing. Trauma rolls up like a ball of twisted, snarled ball of twine adding knotted strands as we do what we do to survive the trauma then act out our symptoms until we learn to live better with our personal ball of twine. You can't throw a therapist one or two small...

As a person with ptsd, there is a part of me that cheers wildly when a person with ptsd goes off on some deserving target. But Acting out our adrenalin enhanced, intense, old feelings on people in our current situation seldom works out well in the long run. The world of normal people has a...