I Am So Tired And Don't Know What To Do

[Deleted member 27340]

First off; I'm sorry if I put this thread in the wrong place. Just let me know if I did so that I can prevent the same mistake from happening again. Second; Sorry for possibly poor language and grammar as well as a mix of American and British English, I'm not a native speaker.

I was diagnosed with PTSD about a year ago by my grandmother (socionom with background as therapist) and now "officially" by my psychologist about a month ago. Even though I've been aware of my condition for a year, I have not worked with it more than reading up on it. A lot. Now I'll after this summer vacation start meeting my psychologist (my T from here) weekly, and she's planning on using EMDR and said that her goal is that I'll no longer have PTSD when I stop seeing her. She's working for a public thingy, Children's and adolescent's psychiatrical something or whatever, I don't know how to translate it. That means that I can only stay there till I'm 18 and I find it hard to believe that I'll be "cured" in four years, after all I've gone through.

Anyway, currently I'm that bad that I can't sleep because I constantly have to turn on the light and check if there's someone there till I'm so exhausted I basically faint into sleep, I can't have anyone touch me without having "it" come to my mind, I can't hear someone talk about their mum without having another "it" coming to my mind, I can't be anywhere without turning around to look behind me all the time, I can't talk to people without analysing potential ways they can harm or hurt me, I can't go out the f*cking door without feeling like I'm walking around with a huge banner above my head saying "I'M YOUR NEXT VICTIM!!!!!"

My concentration is so f*cked up I can't even do the things I love the most, and reading only the back of a book my buddy bought me for my birthday was a challenge (how on earth am I supposed to read the whole book?? It's Dracula and that's awesome but how?). I still get good grades, actually so good my teachers go crazy trying to challenge me and I might skip a grade, but how does it matter when I still don't do my best and I still can't do what I want to do? I love singing and playing instruments. My favorite genre is metal and I'd love to be one of the first women in metal that actually play in a real old school metal band, can sing and don't do only symphonic metal-vocals. But to do that I'd have to find my own style, and to find your own style you gotta practise. I'd be cool with spending four hours of my life a day only practising vocals and instruments, but I can't. I sit down, decide to learn a song, learn maybe half of it but the challenging parts get too much for my brain to handle and I end up getting angry because I can't focus and then angry because that makes me unable to learn the song before proceeding to becoming angry because I feel like a failure. When this is the outcome I end up avoiding situation where this might happen, because it's simply horrible. Still, I keep buying more music and art equipment and that's the only things I wish for my birthday and christmas.

I'm constantly tired and feeling either anxious or depressed, and I have anxiety attacks everything from once every other month to 5 or more times a month. Usually they're triggered.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this but I felt like I should come here instead of to my real life friends... My friends are amazing, but they can't understand my disorder and I don't want to spend loads of time explaining it only to be met with "but you know you can't complain when you don't even try". Maybe some of you have any advice to some of this... (the concentration problem would be great to get some tips on!)

Sorry for a long post and than you for reading.. x

 

[Spiderallis]

How about starting with smaller, easier to reach goals? Rather than plan on practicing music for four hours and mastering one song, set a timer and play for fifteen minutes. I know it helps me to break up big goals into smaller pieces. Rather than look at the whole book, would you be able to read one page a day? If you're having a good day and can handle more, read more, but make it part of your routine to read at least one page every single day. It's how I have to do things- it gets overwhelming to look at the whole mountain, but it's not as scary to take one step, then another.

 

[KwanYingirl]

First of all I think it's a great step to see a therapist. With PTSD our perspectives are colored by abuse and it's so important to have a knowledgable guide on your journey. So much of what's happening in our brain is because our bodies get activated by triggers, be they known or not, and our blood systems just teem with stress hormones. This results in all the difficulties we have because our brain is spending 100% of it's energy on fight, flight or freeze. We get anxious, irritable, can't concentrate, can't access memory, can't memorize, can't find words or phrases to explain ourselves, can't eat right, sleep right, and just fill in symptoms I've forgotten (also a symptom).

We don't trust, we are filled with fear, we have difficulty with intimacy, we lack self esteem and struggle to hope. With time and guidance you can learn to live a meaningful life. A life you deserve to be happy in. There are highs and lows. Over time and with faith and determination you can look forward to better days ahead.

Having said all that, I'd like to recommend that you prioritize what you would like to accomplish. You are articulate, obviously very smart and creative. There are only so many hours in a day though. You can stuff yourself so full of things to distract you from thinking about your triggers that you miss out on your passions. This is a classic coping mechanism for people with PTSD. Anything to avoid running into 'it'.

Seriously, I know you can't schedule creativity, but consider trying to. As for memorizing lyrics to songs, I have to master them one at a time. I can't be learning more than one song at a time. Time, repetition and persistence. Don't beat yourself up. And when you need to vent, this is the place for it.

 

[Deleted member 27340]

@Spiderallis The thing is I've been attacking the whole mountain at once for so long that now the smaller steps are scary. Everything I do hurts. People think I'm lazy when I say I didn't even try to get my homework done and then explain it with lacking concentration, but I've frightened myself with all that happens when I fail at focusing. Those small steps you mention, fifteen minutes and one page a day... they're not small to me. I lose it after 30 seconds -- a minute on a good day, I start skipping words and paragraphs and read in the wrong order after the first or second sentence -- maybe even a (short) paragraph on a good day. Some of my symptoms are not so bad, others, like concentration, memory and anxiety, are severe. And then again they depend on the situation. I can't read a sentence book but I did read the whole first paragraph of KwanYingirl's post. Confusing.

@KwanYingirl That was an extremely good explanation of the disorder. You kind of just bottled my current life up in a couple paragraphs. Thanks you. I'll probably end up coming here close to daily, as far as I've seen till now this place is amazing.

I can't imagine recovering. My biggest problem is probably that I'm afraid of recovering. I've been like this for something in between six and ten years, I think. Considering the fact I've only just turned 14 it's obvious I wasn't old when my symptoms started (my first was at age four, it settled in for sure at eight). I can't remember life without PTSD, therefore being recovered is foreign. Foreign = scary.

 

[KwanYingirl]

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