Poll Reading And Ptsd

[Changing4Best]

I love reading biographies. Somehow, the truth is always stranger and more intriguing than fiction.

 

[Hope4Now]

Before all this hit me in the fall, I probably read at least a book a week. Fiction. Reading fiction is always an escape for me--sort of a shift into another consciousness. I didn't think of it as escaping traumatic memories...more like just escaping from myself for a while. In my post-grad work I used to read books twice...once for escape/pleasure and then again for analysis. Since all these symptoms have hit me, I have not read a single work of fiction. I can't concentrate. I can't escape into it. I tried a new one by my favorite author and gave up. It's like I've lost another of my self-soothing strategies. I am reading compulsively about complex trauma, but that isn't really escape. More like worrying a loose tooth.

Faulkner was the worst and Chaucer the best for escaping

LOL! I just watched a screen adaptation of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. Bad idea. Left me very upset. Had I remembered the novel, I wouldn't have watched it!

 

[tillybee]

@Sheliakathy I agree with that also sometimes they are the best read

 

[cherryblossom]

I haven't answered the poll. I'm kind of torn between the first two responses. I'm a big reader, and sometimes I read books as a distraction when my head is too full of other stuff. Not necessarily traumatic memories, although I will sometimes use reading novels for this. Other times it might be just too much other stuff going on in my head, that I need an escape from.

Having said that, even when I'm doing okay, when I'm not having traumatic memories, and when I'm not stressed with other 'life' stuff, I still like to read - just for enjoyment. I always have a book on the go. Even if I don't get chance to read during the day, reading is part of my night time routine. It helps me switch off from the days events and stresses, and also makes my eyes sleepy and tired. I do have to be quite strict with myself and resist the urge to read just one more chapter, if I know I have to be up by a certain time the next day.

I think 'sleep hygiene experts' would say not to read in bed, but it works for me!

 

[Deleted member 25333]

I wish I could but I can't concentrate and end up reading the same 3 sentences 5 times.

 

[Shan-Nav01]

I kinda get distracted when reading, so when most people read a chapter at a time I read a book at a time... The last 2 I've read (books 1 and 2 in a series of 3... Waiting for the 3rd to be published!) took me less than a week in total, including ordering the second book off amazon... The first one was 700pages and the second over 1000...

I've discovered a free bookshop in the town near me... It's both great and really bad for me! ;)

 

[Deleted member 8714]

You didn't really have the right one for me. I'm an avid reader now. For years I couldn't read anything in the horror or thriller. Now I love thrillers though it has to go fast or else I lose interest. I used to get triggered so bad I couldn't read novels of any kind.

 

[SnowyLeopard]

I used to read obsessively when I was younger, but as life got busier that dwindled. Since I've been diagnosed I actually started reading more as an escape, and a way of having connections to emotional characters without any danger.