We Don't Get Better Do We?

[eagle6764]

Daisy

I keep thinking that all the weepiness will pass if I can just work out what's causing it. It doesn't work - a few words of a song or something on tv - the most mundane thing and it will set me off again. I've resolved to do the writing thing and if I were in a good enough place I might be good at it - who knows? But like you it never goes anywhere. I was sitting here thinking about how the people who have damaged me the most have just moved on like nothing happened. I selfishly think that there is no justice when the person who has had all this done to them is feeling all the hurt and the ones who've done the hurting - the ones who proported to care are blissfully unaware of what they've done - and yes it is self-indulgent of me to feel that way but I do. Positive thinking seems a million miles away when I start thinking that way.

 

[externalsmile]

Hmmmmmmm, better, hmmmmm, means something different to everyone I suppose!

For me, I didn't know what my better was. I didn't know where I wanted to be but I did know "happy" was the place I wanted to be. Like better, happy is something different for everyone.

I consider myself happy now. Actually I probably was all along but didn't recognise it as well as I am now and got caught in the depressive mode and PTSD symptoms took control because I didn't know how to control them.

Yeah I still jump at the slightest thing, I get upset if someone is cross with me, I get messy when I am stressed, I feel like vomiting when I can't handle something and I consider death when I am afraid. The only difference between now and then is that I am able to work through my emotions and get myself back to reality in a few hours rather than the symptoms spiralling and taking the control out of my hands for weeks or months.

Definitely not cured, nor will I ever be. I have been through too much for that too happen. But I am definitely better!

 

[Daisy_May]

Daisy

I keep thinking that all the weepiness will pass if I can just work out what's causing it. It doesn't work - a few words of a song or something on tv - the most mundane thing and it will set me off again. I've resolved to do the writing thing and if I were in a good enough place I might be good at it - who knows? But like you it never goes anywhere. I was sitting here thinking about how the people who have damaged me the most have just moved on like nothing happened. I selfishly think that there is no justice when the person who has had all this done to them is feeling all the hurt and the ones who've done the hurting - the ones who proported to care are blissfully unaware of what they've done - and yes it is self-indulgent of me to feel that way but I do. Positive thinking seems a million miles away when I start thinking that way.

Haha Eagle reading your post I just think myself, "Well, you are not trying hard enough! Get over it!" HAHAHA! such a simple solution! I once told a friend I was unhappy with a recent weight gain, and he said "whoa, just stop eating dude". Or I read Dewayne Dyer's book "Your Erroneous Zones", about how it is all in your head and you have the power to stop being anxious and depressed right this very moment, because we are making things hard on ourselves by dwelling and choosing sadness!

I suffer compulsions. I count telephone poles and twitch my toes and when I was a child I used to pull out all my eyelashes, how does this end!?!?!?!?! The biggest success I've had was quitting smoking on Zyban, the pill, which is called something else in the US I think. It almost killed me, but it made the compulsions stop. I cannot handle medication because I throw it up or faint from the brain zaps, or like Prozac it just does nothing. Am I choosing this? My therapist of three years QUIT ME a few weeks ago because she said I have a serious underlying biochem problem. THis is not choice.

Sorry Eagle, my point is, you're not alone.

 

[just me here]

Sorry everyone. Better is relative and if you were suicidal and are now just depressed or you were depressed but have entered a state acceptance and existentialism, that is better. We can get better, but I still say and hear that we don't get cured.
And I can't speak for everyone when I say all the techniques and strategies are BS because they obviously do help some of us get from one level of suffering to another. Not me, at least not for long.

I just spent my day hauling a hot tub to the dump for a friend of my wife, picking up a 3 cubic yard load of compost for the garden on the way home, stopping and getting 450 lbs. of fertilizer, unloading all of that and spreading the fertilizer, mowing a 1/2 acre lawn, rototilling and planting peas, and loading the woodbox because it still gets cold here at night and we need a fire to keep the house warm. I was distracted all day long, and my PTSD symptoms were basically non existant.
I sit down, relax for a half hour, and back come the thoughts of bad things happen to good people, my sister just lost everything but her kids and the dog and her husband in an Alabama tornado, I was nearly side swiped by an idiot that didn't see my huge white pick up with the bright blue hot tub in a trailer behind it, and I witnessed countless acts of aggressive driving that probably netted a savings of just a few minuts travel time for the idiots doing the rotten things.
I fealt better all day until I sat down, 30 minuts and I am on here looking for validation of my feelings from others that know what it's like, seeking comfort from the masses.

We don't get better, but we do alter our courses and improve in small steps for measured periods of time. thats going to have to be enough I guess.

thanks everyone.

 

[Sethe]

Welcome to the club. Here's your membership pin.

 

[Tinyflame]

Dear just me here, I am so sorry for your sister and her family.

Not a 'but'- or a brightside- however I am thankful that it wasn't reversed that her possessions were safe but she lost 'her people' (including her dog). :(

Terrible, terrible suffering for so many. Talk about 'ptsd just waiting to happen'. :(

 

[Reclusive]

I realized today that, with all the PTSD crap, I'm more content with my life than I was when I was being abused. That getting away and focusing on my healing in itself was a step up. That even though I have extreme anxiety, I'm not carrying nearly the same amount of stress. I still have to be careful with overloading myself with stuff and schedule lots of relaxation time (it's a loose schedule, strict schedules make me freak out), I spend more time with my fiance, I can actually sit back and enjoy a movie now.

My agoraphobia is becoming diminished little by little and I'm considering going to a fine arts club meeting in June. It's a tiny town, so it should be a small group of people. I'm looking forward to the day when my PTSD is just chalked up to me being an artist - they're all weird, right? When my symptoms are 'quirks' or eccentricities. I know I will have my PTSD forever, but I'm aiming for a working relationship with it.

 

[eagle6764]

I really appreciated your post Reclusive. I can empathise with a lot of what you said. I'd like to think that like you I might one day have a working relationship with ptsd although I have a long way to go yet.

 

[OKRADLAK]

Daisy--THat is very sad about your T quitting you!! How rude!!!

I do not trust Ts at all. They will drop you in a heartbeat if you lose insurance, don't do it their way, etc etc......

One threatened me with that for 1 year and I finally dumped him. He was like WTF? HAHA

 

[Iam]

I The healing part for me involved dealing with and accepting every aspect of the trauma, every memory, every trigger, every thought, every fear, every meaning, every belief including the new things that would come up during working on the stuff I was already aware of.

You always have such gems to share Curiouser. Your success has been such an inspiration for me over this last 10 months. Thank you for that.

This sounds very much like what I am doing in EMDR. It's taking forever, or at least seems like it is, because there are so many traumas to deal with. We start with one thing and so often something else will pop up out of the blue. The path really twists and turns. Recently we dealt with one issue and got my suds level down to 0 on it. My T then had me go back and pay attention to all the sights, sounds and smells. As soon as she said "smells" I could smell it and my anxiety sky rocketed again. Same trauma, different aspect. Apparently the different perceptions, e.g. sight, sound smells, are stored in different areas of the brain and each must be dealt with on it's own. Including all the individual thoughts and feelings that go with it. It's an arduous process. One that sometimes leaves me feeling sick, exhausted and sometimes in tremendous physical pain. I have really learned that drinking lots of water to rid my body of the toxins is truly important.

I am frustrated today. Frustrated with constantly having to fight the depressive symptoms, but if I look back, I really am so much better that I was a year ago. I think I still cling to the hope that someday I will have this thing licked. I just don't want to accept that I will always have to deal with it.....

 

[aditi]

Yeah I still jump at the slightest thing, I get upset if someone is cross with me, I get messy when I am stressed, I feel like vomiting when I can't handle something and I consider death when I am afraid. The only difference between now and then is that I am able to work through my emotions and get myself back to reality in a few hours rather than the symptoms spiralling and taking the control out of my hands for weeks or months.

Me too, all of the above. :tup:

Externalsmile, I relate to your post completely. I've always been this way but never understood why. I always knew other people seemed happier than me, even though I laughed a lot.

Now I can see where it started, and that I'm having a normal reaction to living in an abnormal situation for so long, I can learn what to do with it, and even though I have ptsd symptoms I can't say I'm unhappy. I'm actually happier than I've ever been before, because I understand it and know how to avoid unsafe people and situations at last, and I'm learning not to hate myself at this late stage too! It was like everyone else had the secret to life and I was being left out, but now I have the tools myself and simply have to learn to use them.

Even though there are more and worse nightmares, I know what they mean and I've stopped being terrified of them. I see them as my brain getting all the junk out. It's like not having to have a secret from myself any more.

 

[obliterated]

This is my first time here, or anywhere, talking about this. But I came across the forum after coming to the realization today that I will never be who I was again. And I have been so sad for so long - therapists and drugs do nothing - but I fake happy all the time and I am worn out from it. My family is all gone and my closest friend told me this week that my misery is just too much for him and is causing him too much pain so he has to pull away. I feel very alone. Reading some of what you have all said makes me feel a bit less crazy though. The idea of mourning who I was struck a chord with me. I just wish I could like who I am now!

And that is BS about a therapist dropping you. A year ago I got the courage up to try therapy again, but at my intake appointment was told 'your case is just more than we are equipped to handle'. Ha!