Ok Anthony you wore me down. I will try to approach all this therapy with a little more open mindedness.
Awesome FV... that is really positive. Please don't feel as though I was trying to wear you down though, as that is not my intention, but more to answer your questions to the reality of the situation. Many mental health professionals just become burnt out, they forget that we are dumb when it comes to PTSD upon learning we have it... and to understand the processes we need to understand the logic behind them. I can never stress enough, education is key to PTSD. The more you know about the fundamentals, the underlying aspects, the basic biology of what happens to you, then you understand the principles used to change, reshape, manipulate and relearn aspects to change how we are, to how we want to be again... or atleast close enough.
PTSD never goes away, in that there is no cure, but if you think like cancer, it does have remission, it can go away forever or years, depending on how much trauma / stressors you expose yourself to that will provoke it again. Once you deal with the past trauma, then if you manage your exposure to present trauma / work through it as it arises, the fallout is kept minimal vs. the compounding issues that are very typical the first time round, usually resulting in major fallout, depression and suicidal ideation.
There is no one answer to PTSD, there is no one answer to a therapy, there is no one way to skin the PTSD cat, so to speak.
I am impressed that by learning some background though, hence proving the point about education is key, that you are willing to approach this with a better attitude, which immediately changes its outcome.
If someone told you that you where doing exposure therapy and it has no fallout, then their a liar. You will have massive symptom fallout after exposure therapy, however; if you know this and expect it, recover each time, then hit it again, each time increasing your exposure, very very quickly you find the fallout reduces each time, until minimal / zero, and suddenly you are enjoying specific aspects of life again, shopping, socialising, going to concerts, football games, etc, without constant fear and anxiety, hypervigilance, etc. Sure... PTSD doesn't just go away, but you really can lessen the daily impact to near zero and if managed well.
I'm not sure if I get what you are saying. What do you mean by 'method'?
Sorry for being so dense -.-
Your not dense, so please don't put yourself down. Method... easily explained.
Ok, so lets say you fear leaving your home, so lets look at how you would change this by applying different methods to what you currently are. A current method of being reclusive is that you reinforce within the brain that you are safe within your home. Ok... that is kind off true, but not really. If you change your method of thinking to be broader, then you could begin coming up with a myriad of ways you are not as safe in your home as you think, ie. if someone wanted in, they could break a window. A window is not a concrete wall, they break easily, entry is easy.
Cognitive restructuring is about changing our method of thinking, without even touching exposure therapy yet, but changing our thinking to include realistic thoughts vs. what we often tell ourselves and have become our realistic thoughts. A plane could fly over any one of us and the engine fall off and come through our house and kill us. It has happened before. Basically, there are things that can harm us even in our own home. We can get electrocuted, we could fall in the shower or on a slippery floor, the list goes on. Safety and how safe we are, are two very different things. We apply safety to limit risk, but if you try and become safe at all times, then that is unrealistic and impossible.
Lets say you fear going outside, so by using exposure therapy you would create a small dare for yourself bit by bit. Day one, open the door and stand within it, no security door or such between you and the world, for say 5 minutes. Wait and see if you get fallout, ie. symptom increase. If so, wait until they subside over the next days, then do it again... each time daring yourself that little further, ie. go sit out the front for 5 minutes, next time, increase to 10 minutes, next time, walk x distance down your street... continue until you suddenly have no more boundaries where fear is stopping you. These methods change your brain and replace your current thoughts because they over-power the brain with realism vs. theoretical realism that you have reinforced to yourself. This is all normal with PTSD...
The methods we apply in our life are either positive or negative. A negative method is being reclusive, having no friends, not socialising, not enjoying life... so we must change them to positive, little by little only, until suddenly you remove as many of the negatives as you like and replace with positive influences within your life.
Example... Nicolette and I have now taken up dancing lessons, for nothing other than its an activity, we both think its fun and interesting, its outside our normal scope of things we do... we had initial fear, forced ourselves to go, enjoyed it and are going back for more. It allows us to meet others, just get out and be social and relax for an hour or so, it changes a negative behaviour of spending too much time in front of a computer, in the house, or working, to taking time out to be out of the house, out of our normal comfort zones, but is relaxing and non-stressful in any way. We identified a negative, so we introduced a positive to help counter. That is a method replacement.
Sure, everyone loves time out, alone time, relaxation time, etc... but if you are reclusive with it, that is a negative because you are missing life itself.
