Is It Coming Back Again?

[Kaite]

My name is Kaite, I'm 21 years old. Anyways, I'm a pretty upbeat person, hardworker, what-not. I was severely neglected and abused as a child, and had gone in and out of equally abusive relationships.

Ever since I had begun to really experience the symptoms full force around last year, possibly even before that (I had figured out what it was last year), I had had two full blown episodes, and when I say episodes I mean, all the patterns, the re-experiencing, the avoidance, and the arousal, and it lasted perhaps for a month at a time, give or take. The first time was after "thawing" from a particularly damaging stress I had been dealing with for 2 years, the second was this past summer when I was desperate to find a job and was worried that my savings would begin depleting. Now, all is well. I have a job, I am in college, I have savings, I have a very close relationship with God, and I have community.

But I'm scared.

For the last few nights, I can't get to sleep. I'm just scared. I'm worried about having to go through the symptoms again because I can't stand how it made me feel. I go to go to bed, and I just have a feeling that something is wrong. Like, best described as the intuitive feeling that something is not right, so I can not go to sleep. I have been crying lately, and I would like to think that it is because I am just overtired or perhaps even hormonal. I cried when I saw this video of this little girl who has this disease that causes her to jerk and she is 6, and there is no diagnosis for her. I felt so bad for her, I cried. She reminded me of my sister and I felt so protective of her. So hurt that this little girl does not understand what is happening to her and that she can not live the life she deserves.I don't know if that could have been it, although reading it seems like it may have been.

Anyways, at school I am just so overtired and just afraid of drawing into myself again because I desire to focus my attention on school and my abilities there.

Am I seemingly hormonal ladies, as for the last few days I can easily find myself brought to tears. The only stress I can imagine is that I have a lot of papers due this week and I am having trouble keeping up. I also get the impression that life is just... like the idea that "there is nothing to look forward to".

I'm sorry to rant. I'm usually such a happy person, and I try my best to approach this in a reasonable way.
Thanks for reading my long paragraph!!! :)

 

[ronin47]

Only a professional can tell you if what you're experiencing is specifically PTSD since it effects different people in different ways. But it definately sounds like what you're experiencing is fallout from trauma. Whenever you are in a situation of heightened stress, regardless of whether or not that stress seems like it is relevant to what you exprienced as a child, your response is one of heightened distress. I still have times like that. I got extremely depressed a year or so ago even though I had everything I could possibly need including the best therapy one could ask for because my stepfather and mother were seperating. I was a lot happier the year before when I started really effectively working on recovering from my PTSD and when the severe depression came back I was like, "What the heck is wrong with me!?! Wasn't everything just getting better a little while ago!?!"

As I heard one person put it, the emotional pendulum for trauma survivors swings a lot higher so it takes much longer to be still again. It sounds to me like you're trying to just will your way out of another "episode." No matter what your circumstances are, until you actually get professional help for your trauma, you will continue to go through these emotional trenches. It's like getting an infection. No matter how many band aids you cover it with, it will still be there, and it will still be swollen and painful. Until you take those band aids off and dab the would with rubbing alcohol, it willl not go away. Dabbing it will probably sting, in fact I gaurantee you it will sting, but it will feel much better afterward. Then the actual would itself will begin healing.

I don't know if that made any sense.