Sufferer Hesitation, Desperation And A Hello

[Foudre]

I'm sitting here in the room I refer to as my prison cell writing then deleting, and writing then deleting, and so far I'm only stuck on the title.

Hesitant to express, nervous to divulge, spacey and drowsy from my new trial of medication to concentrate or apply myself fully. Yet here I sit desperate for you to understand, needy of your attention, and seeking greatly like many of you to be rid of the turmoil I suffer in isolation day by day.

My name shall remain anonymous as perhaps like many of you I am feeling very guarded towards myself, fiercely protective about the fragility of my emotions and my story, but mainly because I am ashamed to be experiencing such complex mental health conditions.
I I'm sure like many others with offer whispers of information, tease you with small insights into my world, hit you with impact fuelled statements and leave you feeling either intrigued and drawn to me, or have little patience or empathy towards my words of struggle, self indulgence and the complexity of my issues.

I am a twenty six year old female (I don't feel it appropriate to call myself a woman at this point) who spends her current life flitting between fight & fight or dissociation.

My therapist believes I am suffering from complex trauma & PTSD, My doctor believes I am suffering with depression and anxiety with all the emotional and physical implications of being switched on to fight & flight mode. My care coordinator believes I have emotional unstable disorder, and I myself feel I am dealing with all of the above, plus LLI and an Identity disorder and Bulimia.

I spend a lot of my time recently feeling as though I'm struggling to feel stable, and beating myself up about absolutely everything other than being in and enjoying my time from moment to moment.

My life is rather isolated spent mostly in my cell (bedroom) and venturing out to the gym or therapy most days. I find it difficult to feel supported, understood or loved. I fear everyone who walks into my life will abandoned me once they see my true struggle, unfortunately this has been the case over the last few years. In the spring my work got on top of me and so did the suppressed trauma which I've experienced over the last sixteen years, I was in a black hole, my buttons were pressed within my volatile relationship with my fiancé which quickly became abusive, the once beautiful fairy tale relationship and all my dream ended in the spring and this sent me into a spiral of emotional turmoil which resulted in several suicide attempts and a hospital addition earlier this summer.

So here I am four months later searching for my escapism, struggling every day(and I mean really struggling to fight on), frustrated with therapy, sometimes feeling like I'm going backwards, desperate to feel not alone

 

[WillyKat]

First off, welcome to the forum! You've taken a courageous step and one that will reward you.

We're all here to help each other, we understand, and we welcome newcomers like you so that none of us feel alone or isolated.

Everyone on this forum probably felt as you do about showing our inner being to strangers. We know its hard, but you've taken a helluva first step. I hope we all use ID's that cannot be traced back to our real identities. These posts can be viewed my outsiders; you can even google them. Using a secret ID like you have and not giving out easily identifiable clues keeps your privacy intact.

Let's correct some misconceptions you have:
- There is no shame in having PTSD; it is something that happened to us, not something we brought on ourselves.
- You are a woman, no question. You are strong on brave and to be admired. Just coming to this forum is proof of that.
- Many of the symptoms you describe are part of multiple diagnoses; they overlap. Frankly, they are all just codes on the insurance form. What ails you, regardless of the label, is unique to you.
- Hey, you are now friend of ours and we don't like it when people beat us up, including when we do it to ourselves. Stop. You've suffered enough w/o you being on your case too. (In case its not obvious, I'm trying to lighten the mood here.)
- Some people don't know what to say to someone who suffers from what we have. It sure looks like abandonment, but it also might be scared of not saying the wrong thing. I know this all too well myself.
- Therapy can be extremely frustrating. I went through the same frustration last spring. But I stuck it out and am making progress now. It's like a fitness program, you may not see results for quite a while. Keep at it.

Now hopefully you feel more comfortable about coming here. You will find a tremendous sense of support here. I know that I have and I absolutely love this forum!

 

[CVC]

It's so hard to start sharing one's thoughts and emotions, even anonymously. You've taken a huge step towards breaking down that isolation just by posting here! I'm new to this forum too, and am finding that people here are quite supportive and non-judgmental. I hope you find this place to be useful for starting to air some of the pain, and to get some support. Welcome! :)

 

[Foudre]

Hi
Thank you @WillyKat your words of encouragement and empathy were really good to hear and thank you also for normalising what I'm going through, some times it feels as though I am the only person in the world who feels the way I do (which I realise sounds very self indulgent).

Thank you @CCV for taking the time to write back to me and welcome to you too.

Do you either of you have any advice for stabilising thoughts? I do spend a lot of my day feeling overwhelmed by how I feel and I literally feel there is no escape which leaves me often toying with the idea of suicide or use of drugs to allow me to have some relief from the over stimulation going on in my mind.

I have seem therapists on and off for the last fifteen years and I find it has at times made me feel less alone, but really it has not aided my recovery. I know from research that talking therapy doesn't really treat trauma and that more modern approaches likes EMDR or DBT work better for people like us.

The problem I have at the moment is my therapist does not believe I am steady enough to cope with any memory work at present so I am stuck in therapy just talking.. Which for me almost relives past upset.

All thoughts or ideas welcome...

I'd just like to feel calm for an hour or so a day. That would be a massive breakthrough for me

 

[WillyKat]

Re: stabilizing thoughts: First off, breathe and breathe deep. When we're in a bad funk, the first thing we start doing is breathing very shallow. Inhale deep!

Beyond that, search the forum for 'grounding', "mindfulness". In fact, you could search google for that as well. There are also good books out there that cover this kind of material. Ask your therapist too.

I have a notebook with one page full of boxes, circles, and arrows. The boxes and circles have words or phrases in them (like "Breathe in the Good; breathe out the Shit") that can often get me going in a better direction. Mind you, the process of coming out of a depressive spiral can take a day or even two.

Different therapy techniques work for different people. I gave up meds two years ago and am now basically just talking and its working for me (this past weekend was really bad, but the general trend is going up). Now I don't know if what I'm doing is "talking therapy" or something else. My therapist now and the one I had a dozen years ago weren't big on the diagnosis label and don't label their technique either.

I would definitely talk over your concerns with your therapist about how you're doing. It can take a long, long time to start to feel like you're getting somewhere.

 

[CVC]

Be as compassionate with yourself as possible. I know this is a cliche, but it really is helpful, especially when you feel so beaten down that everything feels like an impossible effort. Such a deceptively simple yet powerful thing--to look inside and approach what you find there with an attitude of curiosity, love, and acceptance.

When I first faced my traumas, I was completely bowled over with hugely overwhelming emotions. I was so freaked out by my own inner experience, I could barely stand to be in my skin. My therapist gave me a book (There's Nothing Wrong with You, by Cheri Huber) that first got me on board with the idea of self-compassion. Reading this book helped settle some of the frantic self-rejection I was spending so much energy over. It's written in giant letters (great for melted PTSD mind, I find), it even has illustrations. I cannot over-emphasize how helpful this book was to me. I'd curl up in the bath and read it, it was all I could manage, and it felt like something to hold onto. If you're into reading at all, then you might like it too.

In keeping with the message of self-compassion, I'll add, don't beat yourself up if you're feeling reduced to a weakened state, and not really able to "do" much right now. This WILL get better. It will! It may not feel like it, and the progress won't be linear, but if you're facing your past, then the benefits will come.

 

[WillyKat]

You also mentioned going to the gym. There's a great way to help you breathe and it helps with so much else.

I'm fortunate enough to have some open areas where I can walk and have some privacy, sort of.

 

[Hashi]

All this and you're managing to go to the gym? You're way ahead of me there, since I'm one of those people who pays the membership every month but a whole month can go by without going. Maybe for other (non-PTSD) people that's because they're enjoying themselves too much doing other things but for me it's because I just haven't managed it. So I think you're doing really well to be going.

I'm a great believer in (good) therapy, but I don't get any sense of whether yours is appropriate for you right now or not. Maybe that's something that you might want to explore, I don't know. It could be that you've got good therapy but haven't settled into it yet. It may be that you could renegotiate the approach/es with the same therapist/s. A number of people find EMDR to be helpful, and at the same time it's by no means the only approach to trauma. I have non-EMDR therapy (mostly talk and art therapy) and it helps me greatly. In the past I had somatic therapy (craniosacral therapy) and that was so helpful. One size doesn't fit all. It depends on you and the therapist.

As for Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), I really love it but unfortunately I've never been able to see a DBT therapist. Instead, I've read about it online, in workbooks, and here on the forum. The skills are so helpful for stabilisation and creating some hope for a better life. I think it's adjacent to other types of therapy for PTSD, to help us cope, hope and stay stable. I do think trauma processing of some kind is also needed.

Anyway, welcome and I hope you'll find this a safe, supportive place, as I have.

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

Welcome to the forum. :)

 

[arfie]

Welcome to the forum, Foudre. The anonymity helps me allot, though the linguist in me couldn't resist finding the translation for "fourdre." Your identity remains protected.

Stabilizing thoughts...
Huge subject! I use more tricks than I care to list and am still shopping for more. If they only work once, it was still worth the effort. One of my more effective tricks comes from my passion for language. I translate the thoughts to another language. If it doesn't stop the thoughts, at least I get to call it, "Practice." Mantras and meditation are also quite helpful.

Gentle hugs, Foudre. Maybe just finding the courage to share will help all by itself.

 

[fly away home]

Welcome, Take your time with sharing, its not an easy thing to do but know that this is a safe place share.

 

[Foudre]

Hello @fly away home @arfie

@Ayesha @Hashi . Thank you for your comments and interest. Thank you @WillyKat and @CCV for your further comments.

@Hashi I too have read many many good things about DBT but it seems it's a relatively new approach and hard to find therapists in the UK that are specifically trained in this area, I only found The Priory to offer that sort of therapy but as you can imagine the costs were far beyond my reach.

I like yourself spent a fortune on gym membership before I got the nerve to start going, and believe me the anxiety about going was just too overwhelming for a good few months. I then went and met with one of the personal trainers and shook and jabbered my way through a consultation. The end result was that he wrote me out and demonstrated a set training program. This was really was my saviour because I could concentrate on my list on exercises and engaging my body and improving on reps of weights each time. Before I had this program and even the first few weeks I went the anxiety and dread and inner critic was so overwhelming I often fled within half an hour of being in the building. The pressure I put on myself and then the failure caused me to stumble ten steps backwards and I became competent agoraphobic.

Thankfully I've made some progress (small steps as everyone keeps saying) but it does feel like being out in the "normal" world was like learning to be human again. I'm about to go to a yoga class which is only the second class I've been to, the first one last week did turn me into a nervous shaking mess hat stumbled over words of conversation with the teacher. But hey I did it! And it felt pretty good afterwards!

@CCV thank you for the information regarding the book you've found helpful and great comment about the large letters, glad I'm not the only one who struggles even to read when my mind is buzzing, overloaded and unable to take in much.