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Messages - stillhere.stilltrying.

#1
Please Introduce Yourself Here / Hello
August 02, 2017, 10:42:06 PM
Hi.

I'm a married 32 year old father of two. My children are 2.5 and 4 years old. They, and my wife, mean the world to me.

I've been diagnosed with many of the same things that a lot of you probably have been, before I was able to ever open up enough in therapy to land on a PTSD diagnosis. BPD doesn't fit but CPTSD does. CPTSD fills in all the gaps and questions that a PTSD diagnosis left open.

I started therapy again about a year and a half ago after six years without. I first started seeing a therapist once a week when I was 5 years old and have gone on and off until the last few years when I was unable to afford treatment.

Strangely enough, it was a dependency to benzodiazepines that got me the trauma counseling that I needed. I, as many do, found my way to drugs and alcohol to suppress my emotions and memories enough to function. I don't want to go off-topic into talking about dependency and addiction, but the only way I was able to get psychiatric help was to look for help at a chemical dependency treatment clinic.

Fast-forward a year and a half. I've tapered down to a dose of medication that would still put most people reading this to sleep, but wouldn't send anyone over 50 lbs to the emergency room. That should feel great. The thing is, now I'm feeling everything that I had been numbing out for so long.

Being in a treatment center doesn't give me the same consistency in therapy as I would find with a private therapist so I'm now on my third therapist in 18 months. Both of my previous therapists left immediately after we began talking about my trauma events... I know it's not that I scared them off, but I can't help thinking that I did. A therapist when I was 13 abruptly discontinued EMDR therapy in response to how I handled whatever memories came up, and I've never quite shaken the idea that whatever I'm running from is too much even for a therapist to handle. Again, I "know" it's not the case... I honestly can't fully believe otherwise, however, partly because I simply cannot remember much of my life and I don't have any idea what these memories are that I react to.

I've had "intrusive thoughts" that are experienced the same way as flashbacks are, since I was 15. The best way I can describe these, and what ultimately led me to this forum in search of some sort of explanation, are flashbacks of events that haven't happened. Accidents happening to loved ones, etc. They're extremely vivid and stop me in my tracks. Since my recent (and again abruptly halted) therapy work, talking about the most recent and clear event, these have gotten much worse.

My therapist seems to think that I'm simply experiencing these as a manifestation of anxiety stemming from work. While this adds up on paper, I "feel" like it is missing a very significant detail of what I'm struggling with. I don't know what is being missed, but I feel pretty dismissed by that suggestion.

I don't know what to do and I feel quite helpless so, here I am. I just want to be calm and happy. I want to stop crying in the bathroom and I want to stop losing my temper and being harsh with my kids. I want my life back, whatever and whenever that was.

Does this sound like C-PTSD? I don't know what to put here. I'm not used to talking about myself or any of this and I feel like I'm just writing here for attention but I'm not. I need some support from other people who have felt this way. I just want to know that other people can read this and tell me that I'm not crazy. I'm having a really hard time keeping myself going and a tiny bit of acceptance or even just a word of validation, acknowledgment that anybody else feels these things, or at least that anybody understands, or at least doesn't think I'm a lost cause, would be a huge help.

Wishing you all the best, and sending positivity to everyone,
Still here. Still trying.