You Know You Have PTSD When...

[Deleted member 12723]

Feeling envious of older couples who have their minds intact. They can still do things and I cannot.

 

[Changing4Best]

Gizmo, I can so relate! My psychiatrist told me to play Scrabble to help me regain my memory, so I play it against myself every day. I have the board right next to my computer and when a page is taking forever to load, I am thinking up words for it and playing them. I don't keep track of points, because I always win no matter what! (grin). I do try to focus on which words I create would make me the most points though, that (I think) helps me to multi-task while doing this, a skill I never developed because I was never able to have kids, I think. Anyway, my mom's dr. must have advised her to do this, because she was mentally sharp til the day she died!

I thought I was doing better with memory until today I left the toilet seat up while dumping some dirty water into it. I flushed it thankfully, but I still had a nasty surprise when I used the bathroom about an hour later and didn't bother to turn the light on (because I know my way around in the dark in there USUALLY, ha ha, right!).

None the less, I do believe the Scrabble playing is helping my memory, it does in general seem better these days than it had been a few months back. Also, they make Scrabble software and little handheld games too, if you got enough money for them. In my case, I use the old fashioned boxed variety though. I think holding the pieces and manipulating them exercises my fingers and my arthritis has been non-existant these days, thank God! ENJOY!

 

[Britt.f7]

I do believe the Scrabble playing is helping my memory

Sheila there is a game, free, on yahoo, called Literati. It is pretty much like scrabble and you play other people. They have points, but you can also play without points. I like that you can play people all over the world. I use to play all the time and had to cut myself down to three games a day. Now I rarely play but I think that is mostly because I've cut back in a lot of things I use to love.

My husband's grandma lived well into her 90's. She always played cards with other's among other games to keep her mind fresh. Until her last stroke, she was on top of everything.

Gizmo, do they recommend anything to help hold on to your husband's memory. I know my grandma was starting to slip into dementia before she passed. It was really difficult to see.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

He is on different medications and sees a psych doc for the depression and the dementia. There is nothing he can do. He is fading fast. He is not having a good day today.

I wish there was something he could do. But he watches alot of tv and cannot follow it for very long. One thing he likes to do is watch the news. So I put it on for him. He can do self care still.

The parkinsons is starting to escallate now. He is jerking and shaking alot more. He cannot be on parkinsons medication because it gives him hallucinations and delusions really bad.

Thanks for asking. It is really difficult to watch him fading so fast. He can still talk on a cell phone. So I turn that on when I go for frappes and do things.

I hope he has a good day on his birthday.

 

[Britt.f7]

Gizmo, I hope he has a very good day on his birthday! As always, ((((hugs)))).

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Hugs back at you Britt.:hug:

 

[Changing4Best]

One thing he likes to do is watch the news. So I put it on for him. He can do self care still... Thanks for asking. It is really difficult to watch him fading so fast. He can still talk on a cell phone. So I turn that on when I go for frappes and do things.... I hope he has a good day on his birthday.

My hubby, God rest his soul, had dementia too, as did my daddy. Both of them enjoyed my visits and phone calls. I did my best to call or visit as often as I could as they were both in nursing homes during the final years of their lives.

One thing I did with daddy was to ask him what he had to eat each day. This caused him to use his memory and I think may have helped to keep it working better. Often he could only tell me that he had, had some kind of meat, not what kind it was. At first I was disturbed by this, but then I realized a lot of the meats served were just patties, who knows what they were! So, if all he could was remember was that he'd had some kind of meat, I was pleased with him. No matter what he did, I was pleased with him! At 88, God knows, anything he could do was a miracle, so I always did my best to praise him in some small way for remembering and things.

Another thing I'd do was to recall happy memories from my childhood, like places we went on vacations, things I knew he would remember as happy too. And he did. Distant memories he could recall easily.

I hope this helps!

 

[HëllaBubz]

You are always so sweet and positive Sheila, it's impossible not to like you!

My mum is a serial Op shopper (second hand stores), and Lord help me, I've caught that bug but BAD!

Anyway, she comes back from shopping to my place and shows me this tummy control singlet thingie which she bought for me and gets me to try it on.
Now, that being said, the ONLY way to get this damn thing on is if you step into it, somehow wrangle it over your hips, past the bulging tum tum, and finally put your arms through the arm holes so that it fits you like a singlet with the chest part cut out so you can wear your bra.

So I step into it, and rapidly pull up thinking it would stretch over my hips, only to be brought to an abrupt halt because it WON'T stretch!

So I grab a handful in each hand and heave upwards, making the appropriate grunting sounds, and get it as far as my stomach where it screeches to a halt again.

Mum's killing herself laughing by this stage as it takes me at least 3-4 solid tugs to get it to budge an inch upwards, so I tell her that I'll hold onto the bannister so she can heave upwards for me, because when she tried before, she nearly knocked me off my feet!
Then my sister points out that we're pulling it on, not off, so if we try that I'll get my head implanted into the bannister and starts shrieking with laughter at the mental image.

By this stage Mum's crying because she's laughing so hard, and I don't help things by stopping, looking at her and saying plaintively...... "Mummy?" "Yes you silly child?" "It's not coming off again, is it?"
Which starts another gale of laughter from her, and she has to stop pulling it up because she's laughing so hard she can't hold on.

Of course, I'm starting to feel a bit silly, so as mum and my 17 year old sister are trying to pull it up, I egg them on saying "Heave woman, for the love of God, Heave!!! I can't stay like this forever!"

So my sister is sitting on the floor crying with laughter, mum's begging me to stop because she can't breathe, so we stop for a moment, I get my arms through, and tug it into place......then I turn to them and say,"It's not bad for a second skin, but it's going to make intimacy VERY interesting, where's the Savlon?"

And by this stage my sister has tears running down her face, mum's got her head on her arms saying "No more! I can't take it, shut up, shut up!"

Me lost my marbles a few miles back. :sneaky::p
Mum reckons my sense of humor is deadly to her, and one day she's going to die laughing at something silly I've done.

 

[kdblossom]

I know a 6 year old with PTSD. I am amazed at the ways it effects his world:

He rides to work with his Dad eveyday and rides the short bus to his Grandmother's every afternoon. The big bus is just to stressful. He attends special ed because a normal class room is just to stressful.

He goes to bed at 9pm otherwise he is up at the crack of dawn. He gets up every night at midnight to go to bathroom, drinks a glass of water and roams until he finds some place that feels safe to sleep.

He thinks weird dreams and nightmares are normal. He does not remember a time when he did not have them...

 

[Charmedone]

When you have random teenage thoughts that are inappropriate lol

 

[Charmedone]

When you still feel guilty for killing a moth by accident, years ago!

 

[Changing4Best]

When you look back on the disembodied voices you heard and believed and cannot fathom how you were so far gone as to actually have taken them seriously!