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I used day-timers for years. They have your calendar and to do list and a place for notes and so on and came wire bound and pocket sized. Without my daytimer I would have no way to accurately pick up and proceed when a wave of intrusive thoughts and feelings finally wash out. These days I...

I took trazadone for 5-6 years. Trazadone was developed as an antidepressant but became used for sleep. Dosage is up to 600mg with most veterans I know taking it using 150-300mg (it is very popular at the VA). I used to go to bed around 10-11 and be up by 1 due to nightmares and intrusive...

I think that when you are ready and you have found a therapist you feel safe with it will all come out. In the meantime, learning about ptsd and your specific symptoms and coping techniques for each symptom is very important because because when you are ready to open up it will be very intense...

Mindfullness is a great tool, not a replacement for therapy or medication for me. A big part of anxiety and panic for me is the fear of losing control of my behavior. When I feel an anxiety or panic attack starting, I use mindfullness training to counter that feeling. I immediately shift my...

Sounds like a good description of life when the intrusive thoughts and feelings are flowing. We have all these thoughts and feelings that we have buried or stuffed somewhere because we didn't want to (or couldn't) deal with them and periodically they try to push themselves into our...

I have missed turns on expressways and ended up at the welcome sign for a state 150 miles away from where I was going, and had to do a million u turns or reroutes, but not due to disassociation. Intrusive thoughts demand my attention and next thing I know I have no idea of where I am. GPSs are...

Junebug, that is exactly why we need help and therapy. It is natural to act on our feelings, especially at the time they occur. At the National Center for PTSD they have a class called Affect Management every Friday afternoon in which you learn to insert the cognition prior to acting on the...

No, the traffic accident was in 1965, well before ptsd (the clinical category). The only advice I got was not to tell anyone how much insurance my father carried so the insurance company could make a quick, minimal settlement. I was diagnosed with ptsd (due to combat) in 1984 when the VA did...

When we record an experience, we record both cognitive and emotional aspects of the experience. If an experience is very intense, such as a traumatic experience, when something in our current experience triggers the memory the result will be an intense emotional feeling that seems to overwhelm...

I hit a 16 year old kid when I was 19. I was only going 35 but the car flung him through the air and he landed on the pavement on his head. His Mom came to the scene and was screaming "If my son dies I'm going to kill you!" He died. Later, I was an Infantry Platoon Leader in the middle of...

Things in my current situation trigger old feelings every day. That was true 40+ years ago, that was true today, I expect it will be true tomorrow. Something will happen and I will feel intense anger, and probably some anxiety and panic symptoms. I have learned I don't have to act on those...

No need to explain yourself, or to beat yourself up. Pick up the pieces and get back on your recovery program. Ted

I asked the facilitator of the VA PTSD group I go to about this and the VA here does not offer it and she said she doubts its effectiveness anyway. Hey Femaleveteran, I think they specialize in EMDR at the inpatient program at North Chicago. I know many vets with ptsd (Detroit VA) who have...

Welcome Tomie Mari One of the hardest times for us is when things are going well. The challenge is to participate appropriately in things that are going well even though there is that feeling. After all, once upon a time everything seemed to be going so well and suddenly things were going...

I was in therapy from 1984-85, decided I didn't really need it anymore. I ended up back in therapy 1987-1988, decided I didn't need it anymore. I ended up back in therapy 1991-1992, decided I didn't need it anymore. I was evacuated from a military exercise in 1995 and ended up back in therapy...

Understanding the anger as old stuff that sometimes gets triggered by current stuff helps me. The anger has nothing or little to to with the person in front of me (or the driver who cut me off). It has to do with old stuff inside me. It's always there, probably will always be there, waiting...

Good advice. Sleep deprivation makes all ptsd symptoms worse. Take a deep breath (or 45 minutes of mindfullness meditation), get plenty of sleep, get plenty of exercise, and keep up your normal routine as much as possible even thought it feels meaningless at the moment and you have to fight...

Learning about anniversaries helped me a lot. Now when an anniversary approaches I remind myself the feelings I will likely experience have nothing to do with the people in my current situation, nobody is actually ambushing me even though that's how it feels. On anniversaries I start out to do...

It helped me a lot. I did trauma therapy as an inpatient at the National Center for PTSD (Menlo Park, CA). It is very intense because it is when you go where have avoided, then further. Your T sounds good, you will need a lot of gentle support during the process. Mine took me to a promise I...

Hello. Celebrating the 40 something anniversary of TET68 this time of year, and the 20th anniversary of bagging and tagging the kids from Pennsylvania in Desert Storm. Started therapy for ptsd in the outreach program in the early 80s, medically retired due to ptsd in 2001, 100% with VA. Doing...

"I've made a rather confusing and quite hurtful discovery, ..." But possibly not the discovery you think, Mellotron. Things in a person with ptsd's current situation trigger old stuff which the person with ptsd then has to deal with in their current situation. A smell, a sound, a feeling and...

My theme song for years after Vietnam was Bob Dylan singing "Go lightly from my window, leave at your own chosen speed." I found ways to back off anyone who came too close, usually through presenting the current situation in a way that translated into "not just now" in a seemingly logical and...

Hello. I just discovered this forum. I am a combat veteran (Vietnam and Desert Storm) 100% disabled due to PTSD. I was medically retired from the military due to my symptoms and time required for therapy. I have been in therapy since the 80s and the VA's Outreach Program, and participate in...