What does PTSD FEEL like to you?

[Newbie]

I am on a quest for relatability and I’m hoping to find it here!

What does PTSD FEEL like to you? As in what does it physically feel like ?

Do you work on what it physically feels like in therapy or do you simply try and reprocess the trauma, or both?
How?

Finally - do you share with your therapist how truly bad things really are?

I’m mostly interested in how PTSD presents Itself in your day-to-day life and how it physically feels.

 

[Freida]

What does PTSD FEEL like to you? As in what does it physically feel like ?

wellll thats a big question. PTSD manifests differently for everyone so it's hard to say because a lot of times it is like an echo of the original trauma. When mine flares up it hits my hands the most. There's a book out called The Body Keeps the Score that does a great job of explaining the ptsd/body connection

Finally - do you share with your therapist how truly bad things really are?

Eventually .... but it takes a while to build that trust

 

[piratelady]

What does PTSD FEEL like to you? As in what does it physically feel like ?

Like Freida I find it really hard to describe. When it hits me I usually just get incredibly tense. Like all of my muscles get tense, my stomach muscles do so that I can't take deep breaths anymore. My shoulders also get really tense and won't stay down where they belong (I start very slowwwwly shrugging my shoulders essentially). I also get very slow. Like I walk and talk much more slowly.

Editing to add: Also, my face tingles. I'm starting to think it's from not breathing enough but I've been noticing that with my flashbacks and before I start dissociating then slow motion after the flashbacks. I only recently tied the face tingling to the ptsd when looking back over the recent incidents.

Do you work on what it physically feels like in therapy or do you simply try and reprocess the trauma, or both?
How?

I haven't been. I hear good things about yoga and PTSD so I'm going down that road. I do intend to tell my therapist about yoga, maybe he can give me more insight on that. It will be my "we need a break from talking about the traumatic incident" subject change.

do you share with your therapist how truly bad things really are?

Nope. I always mean to and then don't. Sometimes right before the next appointment I'll email him and tell him how bad I was before the previous appointment. So not helpful lol. One day I'll learn.

 

[shimmerz]

As in what does it physically feel like ?

Like a 20 story building is resting on my legs and I have a group of people surrounding me - that don't see the building - telling me to shore the f*ck up.

Doesn't matter how many times they tell me it happened in the past - the fact that I can't move my legs means absolutely that it is happening right here, right now. *heavy sigh*

Do you work on what it physically feels like in therapy or do you simply try and reprocess the trauma,

Only if directed too. I still don't have an ever-present mindfulness of my body and what it feels like/is doing.

How?

Feldenkrais. Without my therapist. It is helping me quite a bit to feel 'good' in my body. Which is a switch, I have to tell you.

do you share with your therapist how truly bad things really are?

I would if I didn't feel like such a whiner. And besides, we only have 2 hours a week~!

My trauma is all about my body. I deal with body issues first, thoughts next. For myself, the body leads my head down the rabbit hole.

 

[Ronin]

I said it elsewhere around here, tackling PTSD is not my main problem, trauma itself though, whole different thing. I can shuffle the nastiness of symptoms and figure work arounds and tricks for them, provided I am not thrown right into the trauma perceptions, full force.

In therapy, nyup. I need a sparring partner (or I mean, someone darned physical), or a heckuva good communicator around repressed and compartmentalized and eerie memories and tidbits in a therapist, and have not found that a good long while. Had someone who was the latter, about a decade ago, who knew very much what to ask and how without setting me off to way worse, but lost contact since.

But I had hella awesome therapy in friends, mentors, people of similar walks of life, so blessed them.
Sharing wise, with ofi therapists, no. Since they panic about basic isolating (when I am fine), and do not understand how deep down I am when I am Fine, I Have All This :D ... which is a difference friends and teachers and the like, *get*. Yo. That smile was kinda sideways. And you are joking about the wrong country. Why are you scanning this way again I already checked the people. Chill chill, allowed to joke. Ayy, no, debts do not mean that, debts mean you get an extra dinner or two. Rooo, chiill.

In sixty ways that make me stop sideeying everything and abandon gun eating. Therapists and me are so frequently the exact opposite tendency. :shifty:

 

[Justmehere]

I’m mostly interested in how PTSD presents Itself in your day-to-day life and how it physically feels.

What brings up the interest for you? Do you or a loved one have PTSD? Are you doing research? Writing a book? What’s your connection to the topic?

 

[EveHarrington]

It feels like anxiety running through my veins but of course it's just running through my nerves. I say veins as that's a more common phrase that people understand.

 

[Emotional girl]

For me it is constantly being on edge all the time and the fact that I can never fully let go.It is having these negative thoughts that swim around and around in my head and this feeling that I am a bad person and I am at fault for everything.
I do think PTSD/CPTSD is different for every person and also everyone's reaction is different as well.

 

[DharmaGirl]

It feels like fear. All the time. Nightmares every night causing my blood sugars to rise. I need quiet time every day.

 

[brokenpony]

it feels like: just thinking about answering this question already gives me anxiety and gets my heart rate up because having to answer your question in depth or detail requires me to concentrate on how awful i feel inside and access memories of recent episodes, which could compound my current symptoms and screw my whole week up.

 

[InsertCoinsHere]

To me it varies in intensity.. there’s a constant anxiety that everything could fall apart at any moment, my inner sanctuary has been breached.

As the overwhelm increases the more I feel like I’m facing a familiar scenario in which I can provide the analogy of attending a bungee jump, waiting to bungee jump, moving closer to the edge, standing on the edge and looking down the canyon, believing I’m clipped onto the bungee cord, jumping and only to then find out I’m not clipped in and I’m heading towards catastrophe.

My daily battle is to remind myself that the familiar scenario is no more and that now I am on safe land and if it were to happen again I’d make sure I had my bungee cord clipped on.

 

[Newbie]

Thank you all for sharing a bit of your story to help me with mine. As I read back I recognize how badly I was struggling when I posted this.

I thought I responded already, but I apologize as I don’t see it!

Things were pretty dark and scary for me and I thought I had completely lost it. I turned here hoping to find somebody who understood my experience.

This video was shared with me, and it moved me to tears. All of a sudden this was real for me. I’m sure many of you relate to this too :

I’m working on acceptance and then compassion with my experience this week - and I feel less alone in this journey now.

I hope that you all find comfort <3

Thank you again!