My husband is worried about my PTSD and says I need to find groups etc. and I haven't dealt with things so here I am.
I was thinking I was doing pretty well since I haven't had panic attacks and nightmares for a while and starting to live my life again, but I guess not. I even went off all medications and feeling fine emotionally. The problem is that I feel numb and disassociated with everything including my family and stuck in the past. Sigh.
I didn't know I even had PTSD until last summer when all of my blocked memories came back at once and I ended up in the mental hospital twice. It's hard and frustrating because before that I was highly functioning. I was going to school full-time with three kids, and my marriage was going great for the first time in eight years. Last year the problem started with a story I wrote for Advanced Creative Non Fiction writing class. I had written stories about my husband and our marriage and kids a lot already. I needed to write something else about my life so I decided to write about the exboyfriend I had before my husband. I thought it would make an interesting story because he was a veteran and had pet wolves and we met in school where we had this crazy teacher who asked him what it was like to kill a person etc.
My version of truth about the relationship had been that he was a jerk and wanted to shack up and he wasn't religious like I was so I broke up with him. But when I started writing, something else came up, a completely different man from who I remembered. I thought I don't remember that or that or that but yet I knew it had happened. A different reality emerged: I had been in love with him and crazy about him, but when he told me he was thinking of joining the military again I freaked out because I was afraid I was going to be left behind. Even when he kept telling me I'd be coming with him, it was like I couldn't think because I was having a panic attack and my head hurt and I just reacted to the pain. I thought I wasn't safe and my brain shut off and I blocked him out...Pretty soon with the memories, I couldn't eat or sleep, I was throwing up and had this peircing pain in my skull. And I was sobbing over the guy from the past.
Besides the repressed memories of him, the reason I had PTSD in the first place came up: what I had blocked out the first time. When I was 16, a man kidnapped me and I was terrified he was going to kill me and it was so traumatic for me that I blocked it out. All of the memories came out in dialogue; I was relieving everything that happened to me aloud and playing all the different parts involved. I was me and the black man that kidnapped me, and me and my ex boyfriend. Needless to say, it completely freaked out my husband and kids because I really sounded like all the people. My mind had a hard time dealing and coping with everything and started inventing other stuff like my husband was the guy who kidnapped me, held me at gun point etc. And acting completely crazy so my husband and therapist had me committed to the hospital where I was diagnosed with PTSD.
While I was in the hospital the second time, I met and talked to several veterans and it was so nice because that could all relate to what I was going through and totally understood it. I'd say you have peircing pain in your skull and sometimes you don't want to be touched and they'd nod and say, "We know." Trying to tell anyone else about this pain was met with a blank stare. "You mean like a bad migraine?" "No, it's in your brain." Anyway, I'm hoping to find some people on this site who understand what it is like. It would be cool to have that and that's why i'm here. Thanks for reading and listening. Any response would be appreciated. Thanks!
Cindy
<edited Nicolette: paragraphing>
I was thinking I was doing pretty well since I haven't had panic attacks and nightmares for a while and starting to live my life again, but I guess not. I even went off all medications and feeling fine emotionally. The problem is that I feel numb and disassociated with everything including my family and stuck in the past. Sigh.
I didn't know I even had PTSD until last summer when all of my blocked memories came back at once and I ended up in the mental hospital twice. It's hard and frustrating because before that I was highly functioning. I was going to school full-time with three kids, and my marriage was going great for the first time in eight years. Last year the problem started with a story I wrote for Advanced Creative Non Fiction writing class. I had written stories about my husband and our marriage and kids a lot already. I needed to write something else about my life so I decided to write about the exboyfriend I had before my husband. I thought it would make an interesting story because he was a veteran and had pet wolves and we met in school where we had this crazy teacher who asked him what it was like to kill a person etc.
My version of truth about the relationship had been that he was a jerk and wanted to shack up and he wasn't religious like I was so I broke up with him. But when I started writing, something else came up, a completely different man from who I remembered. I thought I don't remember that or that or that but yet I knew it had happened. A different reality emerged: I had been in love with him and crazy about him, but when he told me he was thinking of joining the military again I freaked out because I was afraid I was going to be left behind. Even when he kept telling me I'd be coming with him, it was like I couldn't think because I was having a panic attack and my head hurt and I just reacted to the pain. I thought I wasn't safe and my brain shut off and I blocked him out...Pretty soon with the memories, I couldn't eat or sleep, I was throwing up and had this peircing pain in my skull. And I was sobbing over the guy from the past.
Besides the repressed memories of him, the reason I had PTSD in the first place came up: what I had blocked out the first time. When I was 16, a man kidnapped me and I was terrified he was going to kill me and it was so traumatic for me that I blocked it out. All of the memories came out in dialogue; I was relieving everything that happened to me aloud and playing all the different parts involved. I was me and the black man that kidnapped me, and me and my ex boyfriend. Needless to say, it completely freaked out my husband and kids because I really sounded like all the people. My mind had a hard time dealing and coping with everything and started inventing other stuff like my husband was the guy who kidnapped me, held me at gun point etc. And acting completely crazy so my husband and therapist had me committed to the hospital where I was diagnosed with PTSD.
While I was in the hospital the second time, I met and talked to several veterans and it was so nice because that could all relate to what I was going through and totally understood it. I'd say you have peircing pain in your skull and sometimes you don't want to be touched and they'd nod and say, "We know." Trying to tell anyone else about this pain was met with a blank stare. "You mean like a bad migraine?" "No, it's in your brain." Anyway, I'm hoping to find some people on this site who understand what it is like. It would be cool to have that and that's why i'm here. Thanks for reading and listening. Any response would be appreciated. Thanks!
Cindy
<edited Nicolette: paragraphing>
