Good(?) News And A Question About Support

[seedling]

"Everyone is different, so we have no standard approach"

In thinking about them wanting you to tell them what you need, I found several passages in your later post that, I think, show
what makes you different from other PTSD patients.

You've done so much work in this thread and there are parts of what you've written that speak to your
circumstances, showing what would make your treatment different from someone else's. I've listed some of them below:

Anything that requires introspection terrifies me,

I didn't feel any more distressed than usual in the run up.

I was taking sleeping pills and anti-histamines to avoid thinking

instead they reduce my judgement even further.

I think you are so wise in figuring this out.

I wrote a list of the things that had increased my instability

I know very little about the NHS, but is in-patient treatment an option for you as the one T and your GP thought you might need?

Best wishes for you :)

 

[Suzetig]

One of the many things that stood out for me is how triggering any introspective process is for you and yet you have a need to push through in therapy. It may be that you have some idea of what is expected of you in therapy, to get in, do the work and get out again in quick fashion?

I don't know how far through the NHS process you are or whether their therapeutic support is time limited - if it isn't, can you give yourself permission to take your time. I know when I felt under pressure to get there quickly, I just couldn't do what I needed to. I've found I need a very secure relationship with my therapist, which takes time to build so a year down the line we're able to talk about my trauma at some level. Short term work was never going to be ok for me and I wonder if that's the case for you too?

A number of things on your list are about what you didn't get from the various services involved when you needed it, eg contact from your psychologist after assessment. This pre meeting might be a good place to talk through your needs and expectations and agree some base lines, for example whether they can agree a timescale for response to you after assessment so you know exactly what to expect? I can see how difficult you find this process, sometimes success is just turning up to session regardless of what happens once you're there.

 

[Sandstone]

Thank you all for responding. I'm in the midst of preparing Christmas Eve tea for an alarming number of children/grandchildren.

I'll be back