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I share your love of helicopters :) I participated in 92 air assaults in Vietnam. They had intel the enemy was everywhere, but they couldn't find them (just before tet68), so they would insert us in a suspected location and if we didn't draw fire within 3hours or so they would pick us up and...

Getting your mind ready for work is a real challenge. I used to exercise on the way to work. I drove half way and stopped at a Balleys in a shopping mall. I would jog 3-5 miles around the mall until Balleys opened (6:00a), then go in and do the machines and finish with stretches. While...

All good suggestions. I go for self talk, remindinding myself they are feelings related to old stuff, let them to the forefront while I am brushing my teeth and getting ready for the day, then go do what I would be doing if I weren't having the feelings. Sometimes the intrusive thoughts and...

(((pi...)))

Maybe because of the old feeling that once we accurately identify (and label) it, we can fix it. Ted

My favorite song in that mood was "Born to Lose", especially LeAnne's version. Every dream I ever dreamed has turned to naught. That mood includes a pretty deep spiral of depression in addition to the PTSD symptoms. Depression is just anger turned inward, and intense anger is part of PTSD...

Hey Boomer, I remember that feeling. In 1970, after a year of trying to be something I once thought I should be, I sold our home, sent my pregnant wife back to her mother, and wandered up to the Lesser Slave Lake in Northern Alberta to live in the woods. It was very peaceful. Thing is, once I...

I started therapy for ptsd in 1984 with the outreach program for Vietnam vets. These days I am in contact with my therapist, but I am down to one formal appointment a year to check the status of my recovery program. In addition, I see my psychiatrist once a year to renew my script (Paxil). I...

Hey SGT D, you don't feel like crying for no reason. You feel like crying now because you are starting to feel safe and those feelings you had to stuff because you had to focus on doing what you had to do at the time are starting to surface. All those thoughts and feelings you stuffed in Iraq...

My guess would be they were telling you more about their specialized PTSD section than anything about you other than the obvious, that their PTSD section specializes in single incident trauma and yours is not single incident so you will need a therapist other than those in their specialized...

Congratulations on taking your therapy seriously. It seems unlikely that two people with PTSD would both be ready to take therapy seriously at the same time. Keep working on learning to manage your PTSD symptoms, and encourage him to keep working on learning to manage his (give him the benefit...

In my opinion, if you have been seeing a therapist over 90 days and are not developing a therapeutic alliance or bond with the therapist it is time to try another therapist. It's not a bad thing. It doesn't mean that the therapist is a bad therapist or you are a bad patient or hopeless or...

Sure ... No matter how far into the woods you go, your inner mom is still there reminding you to not do anything to embarrass her. Ted

Sometimes the intrusive thoughts and feelings demand our attention. Find a safe, comfortable place and just let them flow. It's ok to do that. It's not a step back, it's just part of our reality. The intrusive thoughts and feelings are there becauese we stuffed them when we had to to do the...

Boy Doc, every now and then someone says something that reminds me of how far I've come. In the early eighties I wrote a book (unpublished) in which I killed off my parents (each in an appropriate way) and set up a trial in which a large number of deserving individuals were involved and ended...

Yes. Everytime you get back on your recovery program, every time you self-talk yourself through behaving appropriately it gets a little more ingrained until it becomes something you do without thinking and then comes the discovery that you are just doing appropriate things every now and then...

Sure. All those things increase your level of anxious apprehension, which triggers the feeling life is getting out of control again, which triggers memories of what happens when life gets out of control. When that happens it means it's time for a lot of self-talk and relaxation exercises now...

Memories are just memories. Thoughts and feelings stuffed when they had to be stuffed to do the things you had to do in the abnormal situation you had to survive currently seeping into your consciousness bit by bit now that it is safe. Memories don't destroy you. Acting on the intrusive...

Early in the spiral downward for me things other people do shift from feeling amusing or supportive and begin to feel annoying . Instead of feeling like a participant in whatever is going on, I begin to feel like I should be somewhere else, doing something else. Initially, these feelings are...

Well Doc, if we each lived in an independent personal bubble I would agree with you. But we don't. In group, we have had people who chose to mask their symptoms with alcohol rather than actually participate in therapy (beyond showing up for group). We got to watch their skin turn chalky and...

Hey Razorback, people tried to direct me to the VA in the late 60s when I returned from Vietnam. They were into experimenting with shock therapy in those days. There was no way I was going to present for that! I used my educational benefits and got a degree in psychology instead. Kept me...

Not unusual. Relapse is a fact of life for people wit PTSD. No matter how much we progress there are times when our symptoms will overwhelm us and we will do something counterproductive to the process of learning to live better with PTSD. Don't beat yourself up. Just take a deep breath and...

So, it sounds like intimacy triggers an intense feeling to me. It's not about sex, most likely. And the guilt probably has nothing to do with you, but more likely has to do with stuff he did or didn't do in traumatic situations. Keep offering him intimacy and support, knowing he may or may...

Hey JarHed, always good to run into someone else who survived Tet 68. Many of us turned to working lots of hours to bury old stuff, only to have it come up later or on retirement. What a retirement package, eh? :) Ted

Welcome NeverAgain86. Learning to live better with PTSD is challenging. There are a number of immediate techniques to handle PTSD symptoms when triggered, but the real challenge is to learn to identify your triggers and anticipate them so that you can start your self-talk in advance of the...