Sufferer Newly diagnosed. 17 years of physical abuse.

[NonnegotiablePeace]

I was diagnosed with PTSD two therapy sessions ago. I have been going to this therapist for about half a year. I went before when I stopped drinking about four years ago. Its funny how they never look to see if maybe you have some other mental issues and that's why you feel compelled to drink a liter of vodka a night. I was surprised when she told me half way through the session that it was incurable. Looking back I should have known that. I just had some vague idea that something was wrong and that if I went to therapy enough I would get better at some point. But its treatable and not curable according to her. I haven't really accepted that. Out of the 7 billion people in the world there is one guy in Sweden who claims to be able to cure it sometimes, but I don't speak Swedish and I can't afford that plane ticket.

It does explain a lot though. My amygdala had to adjust to me having the shit beat out of me almost daily for 17 years and change. So it makes perfect sense why I am scared of everything, don't want to be around anything that reminds me of that the era, and have a serious aversion to all but a select few people touching me.

It does piss me off though. Someone did this to me and so I'll never have a normally functioning brain. What caused me to go to therapy again was that my life is actually awesome right now, but I can't actually process that. I can't fully enjoy what I have because my brain always thinks that something MUST be wrong, and since it can't point to what it is it is really worried about finding it, so it is looking desperately for what is trying to hurt it because it just KNOWS that something must be.

 

[Friday]

Welcome to the community! :)

The good news: Treatable is actually a really good thing in this case, because with this disorder... that means that we can -for the most part- get symptoms down to zip, zero, nada, zilch :D Not curable, but the next best thing.

I usually think of PTSD a lot like diabetes. Both are incurable. Both can be hell on earth when untreated, and can run along in the background f*cking things up and you don't really know why, for a long time. Both can take awhile to get in hand, and come along with some major lifestyle changes & ongoing monitoring. But once things ARE in hand? Voila. Checking blood sugar / monitoring stress, taking the steps one needs to on a daily basis to make the whole thing a virtual non-issue, most of the time... Becomes really easy & natural. Hugely difficult in the beginning. But super worth it, long term.

Check out the Stress Cup, which is one of the few things which can start to help durn near immediately.

 

[NonnegotiablePeace]

Ok, I can deal with that. Its still annoying, but if I can get to mostly zero, I'll be ok. I know it'll be work- I was expecting that before the diagnosis. But when she said "incurable" I was just like: so I'm working for nothing? But it seems like I'm working for 99% from what you're saying.

 

[Deadman]

I can't fully enjoy what I have because my brain always thinks that something MUST be wrong

I really get that. I suspect many others here do too. My current tactic is to try to accept that sometimes good things happen and that they don't always come with a catch. If it works I'll let you know ;)