Messages

@Badmemories: Thank you for asking. It worked yes and no. It still hits me too hard for me to use it during the daytime. And nothing seems to be helping me to sleep more than four or five hours at most. No matter when I go to bed I wake up in a sweat around 4 a.m. and can't get back to sleep.

I'm meeting my lawyer today about the papers to file to get my legal custody restored and between the court date and now is going to be really rocky. My ex is liable to throw out all kinds of ugly accusations and it makes me ill just thinking about it and though my lawyer says I won't lose joint physical custody I can't help fearing it anyway. My ex has pulled some crazy rabbits out of his hat in court and gotten away with all sorts of things. He will fight this because he likes being the patriarch of the family and says he "owns" the children because he has temporary sole legal custody right now. Of course his wife is doing the bulk of raising the kids, he's working under the table somewhere right now to avoid paying child support.

Hi, Butterfly. Thanks for what you said about my having reason to worry. Sometimes I get worried I'm worrying too much haha. It just never stops. Like you, I don't have trouble falling asleep so much as staying asleep. Once I wake up in the middle of the night, my brain starts in on its list of woes and it seems like there's no stopping it.

I hadn't heard anything about GABA before, but I just did a little research on it and it looks intriguing. I'm going to have to run it by my doctor before I decide whether to try it, due to all the meds I'm on already.

Crack's one thing I never did, I hated the way regular cocaine felt so I avoided the other version.

I don't have an answer to your question, but I am very sorry that happened to you. My heart goes out to you for your loss and the callous way your mother treated you afterwards.

Hi, Glenna, welcome, I don't have a lot of advice, but wanted to let you know you're not alone. I am in a high conflict custody situation with my uASPD ex and court always triggers terrible panic in me, getting spells for months at a time around the time of a hearing.

Reaching out for support is a great step in helping yourself. During my panic times I always get a little relief if I'm validated by others that know what I'm going through. Writing out how I'm feeling and having support of folks lets me get the worst of the panic under control, temporarily at least.

I'm trying to work on breathing exercises, myself. My daughter's therapist gave me some tips on how to do it. It's too soon to tell what effect it's having, though so far my mind still won't shut up and pay attention to my breathing, I have been told if I keep at it, I will learn and it will help me keep a handle on things and cope better. I've tried lots of other things that didn't help much, so I'm hoping to have at least some success with this and so I'm sticking to it as best I can.

I was pretty lucky with the meth, I was on the streets for a year and a half and got Hep B. Right after I got over that I relapsed one time and ended up in jail because of some stupid scam someone I was running with talked me into pulling. In order to make probation I had to stay clean. I was lucky to have some friends that took me in, in another city, and I had to take court ordered therapy as well. It wasn't that hard compared to what some people go through. A couple of cravings over the next six to eight months and that was it.

I don't know if you're a bad patient, around here the doctors don't like to give out narcotics as a first treatment (or second) in a lot of clinics. They will do everything they can to not prescribe them. You might be a challenge (haha) but I think it's a good thing to be able to talk to your doctor about what you will and will not take, and it's an excellent doctor that is willing to allow you -- who lives in your body and knows it best -- to have input on your medications. Some of them don't like the patient to "tell them their business."

You're not much older than me, I missed the hippie days but did a lot of different substances as if I had been one.

My scrip is take as needed as well. Having been a meth user a long time ago I'm usually leery of using medication as a first line of defense.

Mental illness runs in my family too, there is probably a genetic predisposition. Probably nurture has something to do with it as well. I know that my mother probably has CPTSD and she used to beat me black and blue pretty regular, so it's no wonder I ended up with it as well. Then my second ex-husband the uASPD made it so much worse, seemingly deliberately.

Thanks again for your support! I'll let you know how it goes once the zombie wears off. 

Definitely a quarter pill for me until I'm used to it, but I'm still going to wait until Friday night when my kids go to their dad's so that I can try to get used to it before they come home.

I was really leery of taking it at first because it's an anti-psychotic. And in all honesty, I'm not much of a fan of pharmaceutical science, for political reasons that I won't bore everyone with. It seemed like they didn't have enough psychotic people to make a good market share and then when they started marketing it for anxiety and depression they started making billions off it. I'm always suspicious of that and what the long term effects of things are. I was on Zoloft for many years, and found out years after the fact that it isn't supposed to be taken during pregnancy for risk of birth defects. And of course I took it while I was pregnant - I think it could possibly have something to do with my son's neurological issues now. Hahaha now I sound paranoid.

Thanks again for answering and giving positive feedback on seroquel. your experience has given me enough information to try it again.

Thanks for answering. I have a 25 mg dose, as needed, but I've been cutting the pill into halves and quarters and finding it still really strong. What are your experiences taking it? The first time I took a full one I ended up zombified for the entire next day. It really scared me, especially as a single mother.

But it did seem to make my mind less freaked out for the week afterward. Maybe after the kids go to their dad's again this weekend I'll try it again and see if I can get on top of the residual effects.

I have the usual CPTSD stuff, hyper-awareness, hyper-vigilance, anxiety, depression, self-esteem issues, self-imposed social isolation but what's bothering me lately is worry.

I worry all damn day. And most of the night. About things that are legitimate, and things that haven't happened yet and may not happen for a decade or more. I get less than 5 hours of sleep a night on average because my mind won't stop going over and over these things, and if I "resolve" one worry, another one instantly takes its place. The one "resolved" often comes back after a while.

It's usually much worse when I have something going on, like I'm filing to get legal custody of my kids back right now, and I think that's probably what's got me in high worry gear. Family court has been a real crap shoot for me, I hate it, there's no telling what they'll decide. My ex is ASPD and does well lying in court. I don't really have the funds to pay more if the lawyer wants it, and she hasn't finished the paperwork yet, I'm anxious to get it filed soon so that we can be seen by one of the decent judges before the judicial reassignments in January. It goes on and on and on. It's getting debilitating.

I'm against SSRIs, have a scrip for ativan as needed and I use it as little as possible. I have a scrip for seroquel but it's so strong it scares me so I don't usually take it. I don't seem to have success meditating and therapy is out because 1) I can't afford it and 2) I've been in and out of therapy for 20 years and it's been useful during crises but sitting long term crying in front of someone about the same things over and over is too much for me, I literally hate going. I had one session of EMDR and had such a strong physical reaction (I was dry heaving so hard I thought I'd make my stomach bleed) that I can't bring myself to do it again. A lot of my reluctance to go to therapy other than financial is that I don't trust people and can't stand to open up, therapists are no exception. The whole process makes me really uncomfortable and I look for excuses not to go.

I'm just wondering ... does anyone else with CPTSD have issues getting stuck in a worry rut and what other ways have you found to deal with it? Thanks for reading!

Seconded; I'm glad there is now a site just for CPTSD. I'm really struggling with issues caused by mine right now and it will be nice to have a place to compare war wounds and for support.