HELP! Today's therapy session went horribly wrong. Panic during a ‘relaxation’ exercise??

[DogTired]

Night time, and I can't fight off my demons anymore. It goes like this.
Combat exposed me to horrific things. After 30 years plus of coping, BANG! They're back, in glorious color..
The flashbacks I can cope with but the nightmares are not nice. Not nice at all.
I see, feel, smell, hear, and relive, in real time, while interacting with the team I worked with.
The 'film' runs in 3 ways.
1. The nightmare runs it's course. I wake up, usually noisily. My wife can calm me down BUT that's sleep for the night finished.
2. The nightmare is running, I'm either thrashing about or talking in a language I once knew. Wife wakes me, mid dream, calms me, I go back to sleep.
3. The nightmare runs, I don't wake up or wake the wife, but in the morning we have to change the bed as I'm soaked in sweat. Nice eh.

Today the therapist tried a little bit of 'relaxation training' over a secure video link.
To say I reacted BADLY during it, is putting it politely. Panic, the shakes, and utter confusion.
To the question "What the hell just happened"? The therapist just sat there seemingly lost for words.
I think I scared him as he is going to consult his senior therapist on why and what to do next and that was the video call finished.

Now I'm thinking was "relaxation training" a code word for hypnosis as I have no idea what happened to trigger such a reaction.
I literally "woke up" in a state of confusion, swamped by emotions and pain, I've seldom experienced for years.

Simple question. Has anyone experienced something like this?

 

[DogTired]

So sorry to hear this buddy, the UK mental health system is really a sorry state of affairs. Our local wellbeing centre is where all cases are sent first and that's all trainee psychologists for the primary sessions. I only got to a CBT therapist after 4 years of being returned by my GP. I've had 3 self esteem sessions over those years as it's all they can provide and it took the third course for me to be moved to the mental health team.
I wish something as simple as a 6/12 week self esteem course could be enough to put me back together but I know that my brain works differently from the being locked away from 1 year old, withheld food, tortured regularly. I'm sadly one of those kids on the front of the paper that they say should never happen again. I'm always told that I'm resilient like I've got this far 60. I just want to sleep with no more nightmares and make sense of my triggers. I like you have a lovely hubby who brings me back to reality, holding my hand all night but he needs sleep as he is the bread winner. Even my GP is frustrated by the lack of support. I'm now waiting for a space in group therapy ( again I can do this course 3 times before moving on if it's not for me) it just feels like they are wasting my time.

Sorry to read your story hyper. Your care sucks big time IMHO. There again, so does my lousy GP.
If I could get out of this country, I'd go tomorrow. With what I could fit into and on top of our car.
Leaving an agent to sell our home and forward the money.
The UK I grew up in, and served to protect, has gone and with it any semblance of democracy, respect, or health care.
I fought to protect the helpless, and now I am like millions of other pensioners. Helpless.
Go where? Where this madness I am enduring started.
Why there? Why not! Perhaps that would be the Catharsis I need.
After that? Not really worried where but I would never return to this failed state.

Meanwhile, keep on punching hyper. It confuses the hell out medics when you do that!
Happy New Year to you and your kin.

 

[hypervigilant]

I'm so sorry our country let you down. The services should get priority treatment and top notch help. I was only talking the other day about how there are no service hospitals anymore. They were everywhere. My first husband was RAF. 10 years in the system and yet once you hit civvy street there's no support whatsoever. I too am jaded everything is sold off or shut down or privatised.

 

[DogTired]

I'm so sorry our country let you down. The services should get priority treatment and top notch help. I was only talking the other day about how there are no service hospitals anymore. They were everywhere. My first husband was RAF. 10 years in the system and yet once you hit civvy street there's no support whatsoever. I too am jaded everything is sold off or shut down or privatised.

It was our country, once upon a time.
Now? I'm not so sure whose country it is but know it aint mine.