What Now? Really? How Unreasonable Can It Get?

[Sandstone]

I've never really had the dramatic re-expereincing symptoms until the last couple of weeks. Yet now, when I 'm feeling so fragile and still have no support they are coming at me all the time.

I wonder if it's because having been sectioned I was put back into the childhood experience of being trapped, having no control and having to pick up on the subtle cues of others to make myself acceptable to them.

Writing about them has me retching, pacing and even weeping which I don't do.

I've had the clearest flashback of being in my bed as a small child, not alone. I could see, hear, smell everything

I've had a nightmare relating to the grooming and dressing room abuse where an actor with a 20"" penis was using it to impale people. Lots of blood, and police blundering about the wrong parts of the building.

I'm constantly haunted by two actual memories - of going on holiday aged 12-13 and being made to share a bed with my adult male abuser because my mother didn't want to share it with her husband, and of having run away from home, then on being returned by the police, being told by my parents "You've caused a lot of inconvenience, we'll say no more about it"

Yesterday I looked at my boobs and though " for my age they aren't too saggy" and went straight back to having them handled without any control.

And last night I had two nightmares, one of being in a hospital waiting surgery without anaesthetic in a foreign language, from which I could only escape by looking a woman in a room with two exits, using a gilt key. Then being in a church where a vicar was angry with a small 9 year old girl, so had her put in a stone coffin with two men to guard her and punish her if she should move.

Are these outbursts of memory and fear any use, or is best just to try to ignore them?

 

[Pencil]

I guess you've ignored them for too long.

 

[Sandstone]

The trouble is, they feel as though they could break me. I can't believe the irony - for so long I've been struggling to get into contact with the emotions and not just the facts. All I could dredge up were the cold hard facts - X did this to me in location Y.

Now I have the feelings too, and no-where to put them, and no-one to work with on them

 

[scout86]

It sounds like finding someone to work on them with would be a good idea. This stuff is complicated and pretty hard to sort through on your own. Those of us here can share our own perspectives, but that's not a good substitute for therapy with a good professional.

 

[Pencil]

Yes, I was going to comment on the fact that you don't have support, but then my battery ran out and I had to charge, - so I did not add that bit.

You say you've been sectioned. Would you care to elaborate?

 

[Sandstone]

After a hefty mixed overdose and car crash, I was sectioned first to a General Medical ward to be clinically stabilised and while they looked for a bed elsewhere, and then to an acute unit on the other side of the county. The main function of that unit was to get people established on new drug regimes, and several people were there doing detoxes. I was there 8 days, and it was during that time the past started charging out at me. I'm off section and home now. They only provided one session a week of group therapy.

Prior to that I'd had a year of NHS therapy, sadly with a therapist I never liked, trusted or could communicate with, then 8 months with a good private therapist, but not a trauma specialist. She had cautioned against going too fast, but we had begun to look at the traumas not just general upbringing. She is on holiday for two weeks , and couldn't see me for the two preceding weeks as I was in hospital.

The Acute Unit said I'd now be seen daily by the Crisis Team while a decision was made about what comes next. Our district is in a bit of a mess though and in fact they have only been out once in the week since I got home, and have only responded vaguely to my husband's phone calls. I called them this morning in distress about these flashbacks etc and their advice was to take a Lorazepam, and wait till after Easter when people were back from leave and a decision might be made. Later my Care Co-ordinator called for the first time and suggested I try not to think about it , and she would hope to find out what was happening when she comes back in 10 days. She did say they might be able to find another acute bed 150 miles away, but it sounded like she wanted the answer "no" I try to be resigned to this as it's been my ongoing experience of the NHS.

In the short term - it feels dangerous whether I wake or sleep. I'm doing the breathing, yoga, soothing music and Zentangle, and I have tried the Lorazepam, but I'm cautious of that because I recognise the urge to OD. I'm writing down the details of the flashbacks, memories and dreams in the hope that they will get out of my head and may be useful when I get back to seeing someone. I keep telling anyone who will listen that I think I need an inpatient trauma programme to keep me safe while dealing with it, but I doubt that's achievable on the NHS. And can't help being aware that though there is a lot of trauma over a long period, no one element is very severe, so I think I might be wasting resources.

In the short term I just need to know what to do with the next flashback or whatever - pay attention afterwards or try to obliterate it? Unload it on some innocent bystander or keep it to myself?