So what your outlining to me above, is that there are still undealt issues from your past beyond two years ago. Correct? If that is correct, then firstly that is some of the cause. Your therapists abuse, that is another. Whilst you managed your PTSD previously from your hard work, that doesn't mean you control it. This I believe your forgetting. You cannot control what you do not totally understand. Nobody understands PTSD totally as yet, otherwise there would be a cure for it. PTSD management is not just about symptoms, actually it has nothing to do with symptoms. You cannot manage symptoms, because symptoms are a response from another cause. This means you have ignored the cause and tried to "cope" in order to continue life.
ptsd_cracker said:
I have accomplished not killing myself and being to leave my house for short periods of time. I have done exposure therapy, cbt, memory re-framing, medication, abuse treatment center, yoga, meditation, body work , filing complaints, MMPI test and just plain old talk therapy. I will be trying hypnosis within the week.
Ok, that sounds great and all, but more importantly is; what did you get from all this? There is no point telling me how much you have done if bugger all of it actually does anything for you. I have met people who have been in CBT for 10 years, within 6 months I had completely changed them simply due to the responses given too them so that they individually understand what they must do. How much or how long you do things has little to do with your recovery. A lot of people here have been in therapy of some kind over a decade, got more from here in six months than all their prior treatment because they are getting the answers that help them uniquely and individually process a more logical answer to their problem / feeling.
Again, what have you got from all this therapy you have done?
ptsd_cracker said:
I have been extremely graphic in uncovering what I have experienced, my thoughts, my feelings, my reactions to the point that all 4 doctors have broken in tears.
Thats great, so if all 4 doctors broke in tears, then that means you likely got f*ck all in responses to actually help you! Instead you had doctors trying to be sympathetic to you instead of treating you. This means that you likely then wanted sympathy for what you have been through because all the doctors teared up?
ptsd_cracker said:
I was once like you. I could manage my symptoms on my own for many years. I have a high paying job at a bank, I have a house that is 2 yrs from being paid off, my car is paid for and I use to volunteer 20 hours a week.
This doesn't do anything though for you. If I take up smoking again, use alcohol and work myself into the ground, I could go back to work for a few years too... I used to cope at work doing these things, but when I removed only one of my coping mechanisms I broke down severely. Doesn't prove we can do it, just proves where ignorant to ourselves IMHO.
ptsd_cracker said:
How did you get ptsd? What type of trauma did you deal with? How many years have you been in therapy and how long did it take to get your symptoms under control?
- War zones (6 operational tours to be precise)
- Killing people to headless people, to babies blown to bits, grenade attacks, small arms fire, simple threat of constant alertness, watching children shot through the head, lots off innocent deaths... do you want me to go on or do you have the point yet? (Do I want sympathy? No. I did my job and I did it well and if well enough would still be doing it)
- I was only in therapy for less than a year from memory. Why? Because I discovered how useless it was for me quite quickly. Simple fact was, nothing they did or said could help me, only I could help me. I educated myself with what a therapist knew, then used to and worked on myself. Hence this forum being born.
- Took me around six months to have my symptoms under control, another couple of years to learn how to manage myself, not my symptoms, but actually manage my lifestyle, past, present and future.
- Next ignorant / arrogant / argumentative / aggressive question please!
Managing PTSD has nothing to do with symptoms, and that you must learn. You cannot manage the response to an underpinning problem. Actually, its impossible. That is like saying, I will manage to drive my car without any fuel. No fuel is the problem, but the response is the car won't start. You can't fix the car not starting unless you fix the cause, being no fuel.
PTSD is the same, our lifestyle management is the same. If you try and manage the symptoms, you are already too late. You must manage the cause, and that cause is our trauma past, present and future. Any little thing that is traumatic in our past, you must heal. If you have done this, then you should have little to no symptoms now. However, if you attempt to live a normal life with stress in it now, then symptoms will come back again unless your using something to suppress the anxiety, ie. smoking, drinking, workaholic or a lot of medication. These are the only ways in which you could life a pretty normal life work wise without too many symptoms, however; they would come back and bite you on the arse eventually because the mind cannot continue to cope like that forever. Your body will shut down from alcohol abuse, stress, smoking illness, etc. It will and does always catchup with you. Could be a year, two, five or ten. It will always catchup with you though.
If you treated the past trauma and lived without symptoms and you didn't use suppressants to cope, then that is an excellent achievement and well done. Even if you did use suppressants, well done, still a good achievement. What your possibly failing to see though, is that if your breaking down now, you must find the root cause to that. That could be your therapist abusing you. If you where doing well until that point, that is the cause. Because you had a new cause introduced into your brain, your PTSD will now take hold and try and reraise the dead, ie. past trauma you thought you healed. You may find some new problems, that maybe you thought weren't a problem but your mind interprets differently now. Maybe they were a problem but insignificant to others you dealt with and come to terms with, thus got missed!
The point is, treat the cause not the symptom and you will get back to were you once where. Disregard all the reraised issues, go for the new cause that triggered you again, then if you deal with that and the other problems are still lingering, then face them also. Hell, face them all I say because you will only become better at learning yourself. PTSD management is about present and future stressors, not so much past. You deal with your past to lessen the symptoms now. Once you achieve that, you then learn how to manage your present and future thoughts, perceptions and ideations in order to not allow your PTSD to regain control of your mind... in this case, it has done so.
You and your PTSD are going to be a constant fight for the rest of your life. At present, your PTSD is winning once again because you have allowed it knowingly or not. Point is, it is now in control again and you must fix it. To do this takes full honesty with yourself. Its not how much you talk about your trauma, its the quality of information that comes back in responses that you can identify with in order to help yourself.
