Getting There Now

[tommytwojays]

I signed up last year and I think posted one thread. I got some good advice and support so thanks to you all for that :) I was diagnosed with PTSD in the end and had a course of CBT
Thing is, I didn't really take a crucial bit of advice that I was given back then. To move out from the home I shared with my partner of ten years. Over the last year, things got worse. CBT helped a lot and I learnt how to stay on top....in the main. Though when I lost it, I lost it big time.I'm sure folks here will know what that's all about. My partner too got progressively worse in parallel with me. We passed the stress back and forth, back and forth.

Anyway, 7 weeks ago I decided I had had enough. I was getting increasingly suicidal, my relationship had gone badly wrong, I was on the verge of being sacked, etc etc.

So I moved out and set about sorting myself out. Set about getting to the bottom of it. REALLY feeling it. REALLY understanding what the hell had happened to me. I was determined. It was either that or put myself out of my and everyone else's misery....

It's been a difficult process for sure, with many steps forward and back. I was lucky and had a very wise and experienced confidant online, who seemed to always be there when I needed her with advice and support. That was utterly invaluable. I took to writing a journal. A thing which I'd now urge ANYONE with any kind of mental/emotional disorder to do. It has been crucial to the progress I have made.

Within the first two weeks of focused attention, journalling, grounding and centering techniques, the hyper state began to fade. The anxiety levels dropped and I started to feel vaguely human again.
However, as I dealt more and more with the accident that instigated the PTSD, I became aware that that wasn't all there was to it. There was an underlying malaise. I discovered that traced right back to trauma I experienced as a child. Trauma that I had learned to cope with but never resolved.

I now understand that I was going through complex PTSD, not classic PTSD.

One of the most beneficial techniques I have used involved re-assessing the traumatic experiences that damaged me. Both the accident and the childhood. I was encouraged to look at those experiences from different angles and slowly I started to change the neural pathways and the engrams stuck in the Hippocampus. I now feel so much better. In fact better than I have since I was 7. The only sadness left is that I had to leave someone I love dearly to do it. I am left with heartbreak and no real evidence that the lady and me will ever get together again :( But still, that is a far better thing to bear than the consequence of not leaving and following this path.

I'm not going to go on and on. I just wanted to add another thread that shows that there CAN be light at the end of the PTSD tunnel. We CAN do this! It's far from easy and a painful task but it can be done :)

Good luck all of you with your recoveries :)

 

[tommytwojays]

I'm not yet going to say that I am cured because 7 weeks is but a blink in the span of a full term life but I am confident that I now have the tools and the will to firefight any underlying thought processes, emotional responses and triggers that I'm as yet not aware of.
The process of mindfullness and getting to know yourself is an ongoing one and not finite ;)

So I feel it may be helpful to someone, somewhere if I do basically outline some of the steps taken along the way to the above statement.

First came the realization that suicide was getting very, very near. It had been there all year, as an 'easy' out from the pain, the constant hyper state, the guilt, the trauma, all of it. Just turn the light switch off. Job done. Around 11 weeks ago. on about the fourth of fifth time that I'd gone down the 'seriously considering it' spiral, I got to the stage of planning it. Suicide is a violent thing to inflict on people. Very violent. Traumatising. We all know that. My plan involved minimising the potential damage to others. It was detailed and ready to go. This is not something you discuss with your partner. We were already both ingrained in our insularities anyway. Totally distant from each other though living in a very 'confined' space, each other's pockets.

I'm not sure when but one day some tiny teeny piece of me clicked. A dim glowing light came on in some far away part of my consciousness. Out of sight but there. Over time, this became the realization that only 'I' could help. It was ALL down to me. This wasn't some unstoppable force oppressing me from without. This was me, or rather, what I had become. 'I' was the problem I guess you could say.

The next realization, was that I had to move out. To go solo. To take some 'Me' time. However long was needed. If you are to enter the path of 'mindfullness' from a motorway of careering consciousness chaos, I now fully believe that it can't be done within a relationship where the other participant also has there own 'damage'. Their own 'disorder', 'hang ups' or whatever words we choose to describe the :( This oddly is not me promoting insularity. The 'going solo' process is in fact the opposite of insularity, it's a process of opening up. Unlocking things. Opening doors and windows and letting fresh air replace the foetid stench. I'm not saying it CAN'T be done in a relationship setting but you'll need the mother of all understanding, compassionate, empathic, patient and down right angelic partners ;) I hope you do :)

From there I ran a few things in parallel. I recognized that my body had withered. Various organs were 'causing' discomfort, muscle bones and sinew all showing the results of perpetual tension. Entire gut, well...I recognized that I was, 'off centre'. My consciousness seemed 'askew'. For me, the natural centre of consciousness is the pineal/third eye area. At the time, I felt skewed off to the right and it was difficult to feel 'balanced'.

I recognized that my breathing was always 'shallow' and that i was out of breath, a lot.
So I started to use some very simple techniques that I found on a Buddhist web site. Deep breathing, centring and grounding techniques. Refocussing the consciousness, relaxing and resting techniques. They're real easy when you try them and I heartily recommend that you do :)

I started to make peace with my gut. It had been on a constant war footing. I made a deal with it. Told it that it could 'stand down'. The war was over. I also told it that unlike your average war veteran, it was about to get some serious aftercare. The gut was actually one of the hardest things. getting the gut to relax even took a few weeks. It's still not fully 'healed' now. But the IBS has gone :)

At first, I had to force myself to eat. And I forced myself to eat 'good stuff'. Lots of carbs, lots of protein, a fair bit of fat, a lot of fruit and vegetables and a good dose of organic live yoghurt twice a day. I would also recommend a teaspoon of Slippery Elm.
Once I started on that good diet, I started to enjoy it. Now I am loving food again. It doesn't 'knot' up my gut. Far from it, the gut loves it too. Though with all the protein going in, it can get a bit um smelly down there :D

I started a daily exercise routine. Simple core strength repetitions. Push ups and sit ups. I gave myself clear instruction that this was necessary. An order from the 'highest rank'. get the body back to a 'good enough' level of fitness. I started riding a bike daily. Aimed for 5 miles a day though didn't beat myself up if I couldn't do more than 3. This is key. DON'T BEAT YOURSELF UP IF YOU ERR OR DON'T MEET 'TARGETS'. I endorse setting yourself some rules, some targets but it can't be allowed to become yet another stick to beat yourself with if you are um human. Be kind to yourself. Nurturing and encouraging not chastising and frowning.

I started 'jornalling'. This is a CRUCIAL thing to do. I was typically dismissive of it when I was first encouraged to try. I thought it would just be more 'baggage'. More stress. I was totally wrong. Write it down. Write it in a book that only you will ever read. Write it all down. Scrawl it. Shorthand. Whatever. No one is ever gtoing to mark it or grade it. Just get those thoughts down on paper. Get those emotional responses down on paper. Be mindful of thoughts and emotions that come up and stick them in the journal. It will prove to be an invaluable aid anf friend. I pretty much guarantee it. I was encouraged to aim for 3 pages a day. Day 1 and 2, I barely managed a couple. Day 3, 20 odd pages flowed right down without me stopping for breath. From then on, :) Superb thing is a journal :)

I'm boring meself a bit now :D

I set about making peace. I had completely fallen out of love with life. I hated myself for being alive. I blamed the Universe for being so cruel that it could create events like the accident that I went through and which cost a young man his life in such a visciously improbable way. You've no chance of ever finding your own peace until you make peace with things that have happened. With the people, places and things that were involved. You don't necessarily have to 'forgive' but I would recommend it. I would certainly recommend you forgive yourself ;) Prt of this process involved re-assesing the trauma of the accident and the subsequent year of being told by society that I had killed the man. I knew it wasn't my fault from the first second but the guilt...oh boy the guilt. Survivor guilt. Which was I believe a diagnosis prior to the acceptance of PTSD's existence. You have to shed that guilt. Somehow. Whatever way works for you. For me, I put myself in the place of the now dead motorcyclist. And from that perspective, the world looked very different to mine. Seeing that other perspective appears to be key. Find a way of doing it if you can. It's actually, rewriting things in your brain. Reprogramming it so to speak. Defragging it. It works. Look at the experience you had from another angle to your own. More than one if possible. It WILL help. Massively.


Anyway, that's enough for now. I'll spew out yet more verbosity tomorrow, no doubt :)