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One of the characteristics of PTSD is intrusive thoughts and feelings; intense old stuff pushing into your consciousness. Sometimes when you are doing stuff the intrusive thoughts and feelings will push into your consciousness and you will kind of go on autopilot doing what you are actually...

For me assorted traumas (childhood, adolescent, combat) left me confused. I was raised Lutheran and had a strong value structure. I did not lose the value structure, but lost the notion of the authoritarian, male Lutheran God and lost all respect for organized religion. These days I prefer to...

One way out of numbness is to take very tiny steps with big breaks in-between and give yourself permission to let yourself enjoy something for a few moments, kind of a time-out from the numbness if you will. For example, if you have or have access to a garden give yourself permission to set...

Welcome to the forum Maleigh. That's enough to make anyone tired. You did what you could for the girl. It takes a lot to even stop and try to help in a situation like that. Many people would have just kept going. Bless you. Ted

There are a number of people related to one trauma or another I was sure I would never forgive, that I had no desire to forgive. However, once I reached a certain point in the process of learning to live with PTSD forgiveness became the next emotional step in the process. Forgiveness of...

A nice day ... We had just successfully completed an exercise and it was such a nice day I just laid down in the grass and looked up through the trees at the white fluffy clouds and blue sky and everything was so perfect it was just a perfect time to end the struggle. It was such a wonderful...

Water

I think part of learning to live with PTSD is learning to manage your environment. For years I fought being put out of the workplace, but once my understanding of PTSD reached a certain level I was able to monitor my symptoms and level of anxious apprehension while participating in assorted...

No, it's not terrible and you are not terrible :) One of the hardest things for a veteran with PTSD is somehow getting through the VA intake processes. The people you first encounter and the admin processes are likely to trigger so much stuff it feels like their is no way you can deal with the...

Hey k-9 Al, I was medically retired for ptsd in 2001. They had been "suggesting" I cooperate with the process for a few years ... I enjoyed developing creative learning experiences for people in leadership positions who I perceived as more concerned about their own career development that the...

I see a clinical psychologist for therapy and a psychiatrist for meds (they work together). I am on paxil (genaric) for anxiety and depression and took trazadone for several years to sleep until I discovered I could sleep well 90% of the time without it. My primary care doc has recommended...

Welcome achilles :) I like your objective. I like to say to learn to live with ptsd a little better each day. After all we have the time (the rest of our life) and most of all, we are worth the effort. Ted

Hey Misera1013 ... it's good that you have a friend that is 100% and knows the processes at the VA. I am 100% for ptsd too and it's a challenge working through the system but it's worth the time and frustration. A patient rep is a good person to know. You need to start with an intake...

Steph, the way ptsd works is sometimes things in our current situation evoke normal thoughts and feelings that are expressed in normal behaviors and sometimes things in our current situation trigger thoughts and feelings related to old stuff and those (normally intense) feelings are expressed in...

one way of avoiding dealing with the uncomfortable feelings we need to deal with is to focus on other peoples problems, rescuergirl70 ... i would guess the T has seen a number of rescuer people and has a strategy to get them to focus on their own feelings ... it may even be that strategy is...

hey stuff, i used to describe it as being surrounded by would-be friends if only i could let them be ... so lonely when everyones at a safe distance ... so unsafe when people get too close i had to relearn how to participate in relationships with theraputic support ... participation in...

Emotional numbing is one way of handling feelings you can't or don't want to deal with at the moment. In combat it allows you not to feel the things you would normally feel when a friend gets blown to pieces and splattered all over you so that you can focus on doing what do need to to to have...

It's not about them. Yes, we need to share those images and feelings with a safe, trained person (preferably a clinical psychologist). We need to work throught all those intense feelings we had to stuff because we had to do what we had to do to survive at the time. So if the person that...

For years I thought it was the rest of the world that had problems and lived out my symptoms. In the early 80s when the "discovered" ptsd and set up outreach centers for veterans a friend suggested I needed to go talk to someone there. So I wandered over. The peer counselor was a former navy...

princessx, I think when we are first safely away from the hostile environment (war zone, abusive parents, abusive spouse, etc) we experience conflict between needing a super-supportive person that can help us heal our wounds and somehow make our world right and an intence fear of letting anyone...

Excellent advice ... be kind to yourself and give yourself time ... therapy involves unraveling layer after layer of stuffed thoughts and feelings ... as we become more or less comfortable chatting about stuff from one layer stuff from the next layer will start bubbling up ... it's all about...

Printing it out and handing it to your T is a good idea. Also, keep in mind that your therapist is trained to expect and deal with stuff. It's part of their job. I have an inner child that is forever looking for the mom that might have been, and a inner young adult returning from combat...

Hey Ayesha, a trigger is a trigger, even if the trigger is a former abuser. One approach to significant triggers is avoidance. War movies are triggers for me, so I don't watch them. On the other hand, my father was (he passed some years ago) a trigger for me, but my relationship with my mom...

I think the question is does your work environment trigger your ptsd symptoms beyond your ability to manage your behavior given your flow of intrusive thoughts and feelings in that environment. For me, when I was away from my work environment I would answer 'I can do this' because I was in fact...

I was medically retired from the workplace due to ptsd 6/29/2001, so I am approaching my ten year anniversary of being medically retired. Prior to that I worked 32 years at an assortment of jobs, military and civilian first living out my symptoms in the workplace, then working at learning to...