Advice Needed On Cbt - Ptsd From Being Passenger In Fatal Rtc

[Georgina-J]

Hi my name's Georgina, I'm 25 years old and I suffer severely from PTSD amongst other things:

I am in desperate need of some help and would love it if someone could give me some advice on CBT and if they have or haven't had success with it and why. First I will fill you in on my background and how I came to suffer from PTSD.

3 years ago life was going better than it ever had, I had just returned to my family home from my first year of med school having completed a highly successful 1st year and made lots of friends. I was asked by my brother who was working in a local shop if I could help out while a colleague was on holiday and jumped at the chance to work with him.

On the 3rd day we set off, I was passenger, after 10 minutes following a slow moving truck, we decided to overtake. A car suddenly appeared in the opposite direction out of nowhere going very quickly, my brother tried to back off to abort the overtake. The truck driver had other ideas and braked simultaneously preventing us from escaping. That's the moment my life and the lives of those close to us were changed forever.

We collided with the other car at a combined speed of at least 100mph, head on but off-centre biased to the drivers sides. The truck driver left the scene. That's where my own real memory stops. I woke up several hours later to be told by my devastated parents that they had not been able to save my brother. Even now, I can barely bring myself to say those words. He was my best friend growing up and I am completely lost without him.

I hit my head very hard and had fractured much of one side of my face which had to be rebuilt as well as less serious but painful fractures to my lower spine and pelvis. I was so high on morphine that it all seemed like one long horrendous dream. It didn't sink in for many months. As well as feeling I am a completely different person I do not look the same as I did before which is hard to accept.

I tried to return to university a few months later and failed, having to return home and wait for a year. My memory is very patchy of that time as it is now thought that I suffered some sort of traumatic brain injury. I returned to university the following year and soon found that I couldn't remember any new material, I now had dyslexia, memory problems, social problems, and sleep issues as well as ongoing PTSD. I lasted 6 months and decided I had to leave my course, I was no longer smart enough to do it. I am now working locally a few hours a week and waiting for some insurance money to be able to pay for CBT treatment before I try and decide how I can move forward in life. I hate driving and being in any car, I have become completely alone and isolated socially, my dream career is gone, and I quite often feel suicidal.

I am very interested to hear from those of you who have had similar experience and had CBT or just anyone with a knowledge of CBT who can offer some words of wisdom.

 

[Ted Moen]

CBT is excellent therapy for ptsd. Most likely, you are every bit as smart as you were prior to the accident, but now you have to learn about your ptsd symptoms and how to manage them before returning to your career path. Memory challenges, social challenges and sleep issues are ptsd symptoms, as is the desire to isolate. Learning to live well with ptsd is not easy or fast, but is possible and worth the effort.

Ted

 

[Lionheart]

Georgina,

Thank you for sharing your experience. I can't even imagine your sense of loss, fear etc. and I am so sorry about your accident. I have never been in a bad accident, but I have had some close calls so that I am terrified of being a passenger in an automobile. I have had CBT and it has helped me to change some of my thoughts in regards to my fears and this helps a little, but when all is said and done, I need to be medicated with 1 mg of Ativan in order to ride in a car.

I am also socially withdrawn/isolated, am disabled and have lost my dream career, and at times I become extremely depressed, but I promise you, you are not alone!

I understand that with PTSD, we often experience hypervigilence. Our brains are on red alert and we are constantly scanning our environment for signs of a threat, but when the threat is real, I don't really see how counseling is going to be helpful because our fear is rational. Maybe you will have a better therapist than I have, I am firing mine and getting a new one and hopefully I will get more assistance with my fears and anxiety when I have a more experienced therapist. CBT stuff; things like positive thoughts, breathing exercises etc. can help a bit with the symptoms of anxiety, but when it comes to riding in a car, I have not had much success.....yet!!! *(I keep trying).

Some things that have helped me; I do not ride or drive during hours of heavy traffic, I do not drive over 45 mph, I do not drive at night or on holidays, or during bad weather, and I stay off of the interstate etc. I do this because it allows me to have some control over my fears and to my mind, reduces the chances for an accident, but as I stated earlier, I still have to be medicated.

I am not sure what you will find to be helpful, but I am eager to discover what works for you, so I hope you will keep us posted as to your progress. In the meantime, I plan to get a new therpaist and start back into CBT because it has been helpful for most things.

I wish you success on your healing journey,
LH

 

[Jacquie]

Oh boy do I understand this one.

I could not 'figure out' for the life of me why my brain wouldnt work (brainiac) and it was so SO distressing!!!!!!!

Even the part of the brain that could figure out what was wrong with my brain wouldnt work :(

Not being able to think, forgetting things, losing things, walking into a room and then forgetting what I was doing in there (like I COULD NOT remember) and I was so SO distressed!

The dyslexia I had already, but had skills to work with it (whole of life) but those skills were GONE! All the ME bits were missing. I even messed up my own computer when I used to fix other people's computers for a living for heavens sake. But I didnt realise I was messing it up until I was in so deep and realised it was what *I* was doing (logic had gone) that was making it worse not better.

Frozen. The sudden realisation I cant trust my own brain or judgement any more.

Grief. Like *I* had died.

Numbness. I couldnt even SEE the details of life any more to create anything (normally creative in most areas)

Then I found something. I still dont know how or where, but I think it was displayed on one the brainiac gaming/skills things I used to do 'for fun' and I went back to one of them to see how far out my judgement was. Well it was. Couldnt even get to first base (instant tears) but I did see this and because I was desperate to a) understand and b) FIX ME I clicked on it

http://www.lumosity.com/

I have been doing daily cognitive exercises EVERY day and at LEAST once per day. But its this thing that 'showed me' instead of 'told me' why I was doing so many 'unlike me' things.

If I saw one thing, it would stay, but in normal life you'd see something else and ADD to it, well I wasnt. As soon as I saw the second thing, the first one literally WASNT THERE! I couldnt pull it up from memory. It just didnt exist any more. It would replacing the first, not adding to it.

That took the pressure off. That at last then became something I could understand and therefore now try to HOLD the thought and not allow it to leave. (peanut butter peanut butter peanut butter etc)

I started these exercises 25th August, for 2 days, and found not only was I TERRIBLE in both speed and attention, but that I was not acting quite so much like a ball bearing in a pin ball machine any more. Still bad but not AS bad.

After a few days of not doing the exercises, I decided to buy into the program and its made more difference than anything else. The more my cognitive skills build back up, the more things I am able to do in other things and I feel like at last the ball is rolling in the right direction (slowly, but its rolling). I'm now tracking my results.

This was after 2 days [DLMURL]http://capturedcolors.com/PTSD/2708.htm[/DLMURL] (look at speed and attention....it says memory is ok but my short term memory seems to be tied to attention+flexibility)

Then have a look here [DLMURL]http://capturedcolors.com/PTSD/0909.htm[/DLMURL] Thats results over about a week and inc charts.

The amazing thing for me is this. 2 weeks ago I couldnt have even organised that information, and I definitely couldnt have created the pages that show them.

I did about half way through 'Basic Training' (there are different modules you can enrol in) and now am continuing basic training but have also started the specialised module for PTSD. And guess what? There is a module especially designed for Med students as well.

On a personal note. It took me just over 20 years to finally say goodbye to my brother. Cheeky little shit he was. I kept him alive (although away) in my mind and in my heart for all those years....and he didnt change. The one day when I wasnt even thinking about it, for some reason just STOPPED and drove into the cemetery car park. Took me ages to find him. But there he was. And I sat on the edge of his grave and chatted to him as me 'now'. As a middle aged woman. And the sudden realisation that he would now be a middle aged man. Probably still a cheeky shit......but an older version of himself.

I was able to laugh, throw some cheek back at him.....and feel like we 'had felt' together, rather than being frozen in that time around his death.

Do I still cry? Yep. Crying right now. Still miss him like hell......I feel sorry now for 'me' without him in my life, and still love him. Always will. But now its somehow 'real'. The accident (yep he was killed in a mva as well) is no longer what both I, and he, is frozen in. I feel like I have him back in a way, all the memories of 'life' are back where they should be. Real....and enduring. I am so grateful for having had him in my life, because he made the sun shine brighter.

And he would be the first one to kick my butt if I didnt get 'me' sorted out and fixed if he were still here. Because he loved me too, and it would have destroyed him, to see me, destroyed the way I am (was) right now.

((((((((((((((((((((((hugs)))))))))))))))))))))) from someone who really does know where you are at.

 

[anthony]

I think you need only understand what CBT is: [DLMURL]https://www.ptsdforum.org/c/threads/removing-therapy-type-confusion.15534/[/DLMURL]