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I recently went back to work and have been feeling extra anxious and overwhelmed.  I've also found myself suffering from itchiness.  My scalp escpecially, but pretty much all over.  I think they must be linked.  Has anyone else experienced this type of itchiness?  I find that Benedryl (OTC allergy med) helps, but it also puts me to sleep.  Creams & oatmeal baths do nothing.  Just curious to know if anyone else has dealt with this issue.

I've been having intrusive thoughts and nightmares.  I've been living in a serious EF for the past few days.  Time is all screwy.  I can't remember most of what I do throughout the day.  I keep crying.  I've been self-medicating more than usual.  I've self-harmed.  You know...like you do when you've got C-PTSD.

I keep telling my therapist that the pain is intense, and it is.  But it's not located anywhere.  It just freaking hurts.  She called it psychic pain.  I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about...don't you?  Everything and nothing hurts.  Everything and nothing is wrong.  I'm drowning while sitting on my leather couch in my perfectly dry living room while I watch TV. 

Please tell me you know how I feel.  Right now I'm feeling a bit crazy.

Hi all!

It's been a while since I've been here.  As some of you may recall, I started a master's in education program with a concentration in trauma and resilience in the educational setting.  It is heartening to know that more and more schools are becoming trauma-informed and changing practices.

Through my studies, I am learning about all the ways trauma can affect the developing brain and how this affects learning and behavior.  There is a lot of focus on cognitive deficiencies and acting out behaviors.

While I suffer from complex-ptsd and a dissociative disorder, I do not fit the descriptions of the trauma-affected students I am studying.  I was a very good student academically and behaviorally. I was social and somewhat popular, so I wasn't necessarily struggling with social skills.  I do recall having trouble regulating my emotions.

I am curious to know of others' experiences in school.  Were you the student who was withdrawn and disengaged?  Did you have poor attendance?  Drop out?  Were you the student who acted out, disrupting class and getting into trouble?  Did you struggle with your studies or excel or were you an average student? 

So far, there has been no mention of trauma-affected students who excel in school.  I suspect many of you did well in school and would not have been suspected of suffering trauma.  Just curious.

Be well,
Kat

Hello all!

It's been a while since I last posted.  I just thought I'd share the fact that baby steps are being taken to address trauma in the educational environment.  I'll soon be going to a two day training on trauma and resilience in the classroom.  I'm also in an online master's program where the concentration is trauma and resilience in the educational setting.  I was surprised and thrilled to see such a program exists.  I'm on the second course right now, so we haven't gotten to the courses for our concentrations.  I'll have to come back, and share what those are like.

Hey all!  I'm wondering if any of you have quit antidepressants abruptly without tapering off and what the consequences were.

Bit of background info: Jumped around from psychiatrist to psychiatrist for med management for years.  Finally got my general practitioner to prescribe them for me (which is unusual, in the U.S. at least).  Last two years he prescribed full year's worth at my annual check-up.  Pharmacy had prescription(s?) on file and filled my order each month. 

I had been taking 400mg of Wellbutrin and 20mg of Lexapro daily for last 10 years.  (I was also taking 25-50mg of amitriptyline, but not regularly.  They were initially prescribed by neurologist for headaches.)

Due to a combo of bad timing & a mix-up at the pharmacy, the pharmacy "sent back" the meds that I was due to pick up at the end of December.  They won't fill my prescription until they get dr.'s ok.  With the holidays, they've not been able to contact him and won't give me anything to take while I wait.  Truthfully, I haven't tried to fix any of this myself.

Sooo...holidays (always rough) + off work (lack of structure/schedule throws me big time) + therapist of 15 yrs on vacation (always tough, but was getting easier) + no meds = big time crash--excessive sleep, binge drinking, self-harm, suicidal ideations, etc.

I can't tell which of this mess of horrible feelings are situational regarding holidays, etc. and which are due to being unmedicated.  It's been 12 days since my last dose.  The dizziness and feelings of wanting to crawl out of my skin have pretty much subsided.  I'm still super weepy and hate life. 

I'm not sure I want to go back on them, but if I'm going to feel the way I do currently because of not taking them, then I need to really rethink things.

I walked into my therapist's office yesterday and told her that I remembered that I'd killed someone.  Obviously (hopefully), I haven't.  But the other night a "memory" popped to mind that I'd killed someone long ago and had forgotten about it.  It was actually a memory of a recurring dream I've had my whole life that I'd forgotten about. 

I used to dream quite often that I'd killed someone and that I had to keep it secret.  The dream was so real that I was often convinced that I actually had.  I had it quite often when I was younger, probably during college.  And then I've had it off and on since.  It's something that had come up in therapy a few times long ago.  I had forgotten about the dream until the memory came up during waking hours. 

I became curious about the dream because it feels so real.  It always brings up intense feelings of guilt, shame, and fear.  I looked online and found that quite a few people have experienced the same thing.  People shared that they too were stunned by how real it seemed and how they'd been convinced that it was true.  One gal said that she was a child in her dream.  She had killed another child and buried her in concrete that was poured in her backyard.  She knew that the part about concrete being poured when she was a child was true, so she ended up grilling her parents and some childhood friends because she was convinced she'd killed a kid. 

The thread I was reading was on Quora where one can go to just ask a question for people to respond to.  It wasn't for people who've suffered trauma or anything like that.  A few people did offer up the fact that they are recovering alcoholics and tied the dreams to that.  I'm just wondering if any of you have experienced this dream or something similar.

Does anyone else swing between getting too little sleep or disrupted sleep to sleeping excessively?

I'm currently on break from work.  I've been off for a little over a week now.  I've got a pretty stressful job and I've also got two kids--13yrs and 10yrs.  Now that I'm on break, I'm sleeping 15 hours a day fairly regularly.  It's nothing new.  I can sleep that much on a weekend as well.

I used to not be able to get to sleep, but that's not as much of a problem anymore.  I do know that I typically wake a lot during the night.  I'm taking meds that make me sleepy at night, so getting to sleep isn't much of an issue. 

I went out yesterday.  That takes a lot of energy.  Today I didn't wake until 1:00 in the afternoon.  Now it's starting to look like evening and I'm feeling out of it and very sad.  I don't like it. 

I spoke to my T the other day and mentioned how much I was sleeping.  She said that she doesn't think I realize just how much I'm handling internally that sucks up a lot of energy.  Maybe she's right?

1.  My children
2.  This forum
3.  Laughter

It's now been over a week since my last binge drinking episode.  I did have two beers yesterday.  I was planning to avoid any and all alcohol.  I was at a party with family and decided to have the beers.  I realize I was playing with fire, but I was sure to stop well before I headed home so that I wouldn't be tempted to stop for more beer on the way home.  Now I just need to get through this evening with family without resorting to old, unhealthy habits. 

BTW, It's also the second year in a row that I've gotten up Christmas morning without a hangover! 

I wasn't brought up religious.  My mother had had brain cancer when she was 19 and decided at that time that she didn't believe in God because God would not have allowed her to become so ill.  Her father was a Jehovah's Witness for a while.  During his last years of life he was a member of the World Wide Church of God, which was later deemed a cult, from what I understand.  My father's side of the family was not religious either, as far as I know.  I do remember one of his sisters would occasionally take my cousins to church, but usually only on Easter or at Christmas.  I took a course on world religions in college.  My mother was upset about it and asked angrily if it meant I was going to be a "Holy Roller" from then on.  I also took a Bible as literature course, but didn't learn much from it. 

As I've gotten older, I've started to believe more and more that there is something larger out there.  I have a number of friends who are Christians, so I'm able to talk to them some about spirituality.  I took what's called an Alpha Course at a local church.  The course was supposed to be an introduction to the Christian church for outsiders with questions.  Most of the people in the course were church members who were maybe trying to reaffirm their beliefs.  The course was taught with an assumption of belief in God. For instance, a question for discussion was, "How do you exhibit your Christianity at work?"  Um...slow down there...  It was tough to fit in there.

And that's where I'm going with this.  I feel like I want more, but I'm not sure how to fit in or even gain access so that I may someday fit in.  I've told my friends it feels like there's this secret club and everyone in it uses special language and knows all the inside stories and I'm on the outside feeling lost.  I feel like the wallflower at the dance who would like to join in, but doesn't even know how to get herself onto the dance floor.

I'm not sure what I'm looking for.  I think I'd like to be in a small group of people who read through the bible and learn together, but I don't know when those classes start, etc.  When and how do I jump on board?

Anyhow, last night I was thinking about emailing the pastor at a church near my house just to ask these things and introduce myself because just showing up at church on Sunday morning never did much to help orient me.  As I was thinking about this and what I might say, I heard my name being shouted sharply inside my head.  I couldn't tell if it was my mother's or my father's voice shouting at me.  Wow.  Talk about an introject.  It was clear "they" didn't want me to go down this path.  Interesting.  What else are they keeping me away from that could be enriching my life?

I have a Healing the Inner Child CD that leads the listener through visualizations wherein the adult you goes back in time to rescue the little you from a time you remember being abused, were feeling alone and scared, etc.  I'd gone through a couple of the visualizations in the past.  (I do them in my car on the way to work, which might not be optimal.)  I hadn't used the CD in a year or so and had actually forgotten all about it.

I recently rediscovered the CD and decided to give it a go.  This was a few days after a teenage boy acting as protector inside of me kind of came forward in therapy.  I started the visualization, but felt like it was the protector who needed the adult me to "rescue" him.  I shut the CD off and visualized a whole scenario in which I was able to get the protector to forgive himself for not being powerful enough to stop the abuse.  Then the two of us went in to save little me.  The visualization sort of unfolded on its own and I felt like I was along for the ride as witness.  I wept the entire time I was doing the visualization.  It was really powerful.  The times I'd done the visualizations before I didn't feel much emotion.  Maybe I wasn't ready before. I felt very peaceful and content after the visualization.  I feel like it has made a big difference.

Another step in the direction of health and wholeness is that I sent out an invite to a number of my colleagues to join me in a challenge that will take place next year around this time.  A store that sells outdoor gear puts on the challenge each year.  It involves hiking to the summit of the three tallest mountains in my area.  Participants can choose to try to complete it in 24 hours, 3 consecutive days, 3 consecutive weeks, or 3 consecutive months.  I think we'll be doing the 3 months challenge.  I got a really enthusiastic response from my colleagues.  I plan to set up a Facebook group for us so that we can stay motivated by checking in with one another's progress, get help, share tips, etc.  We're also going to do some smaller hikes throughout the year in preparation.  This is something I never would have organized in the past.  I would have been too fearful to put myself out there.  I'm hoping this helps with my tendency to isolate so much of the time.

It's so strange to be in the position of the "listener" or "witness" to an other's pain.  It is especially difficult when you're unsure how much of your own experience to share. 

In my job, I came to meet a young gal whose family is completely dysfunctional.  She was in inpatient treatment and is now in outpatient treatment--all while trying to finish high school.  On the one hand, it's so cool to see a young person with so much insight and understanding in regard to the dysfunctional system she's imprisoned by.  As awful as it is, I can see how she's used it to empower herself.  On the other hand, it's so very painful not to be able to affect change.  It's so difficult to witness the pain of an other who simply wants to experience the unconditional love of a parent, but gets nothing but criticism, lack of support, and false accusations. 

My heart hurts for this girl.  Yet, I can't help but be impressed by the fierceness of her Spirit.  She amazes me.  But I worry that I will not be able to show HER that fierceness within her and let her really, deeply know her own power.  I so desire to somehow let her see that energy, that power that will take her so very far beyond from where she came.

Well, here it is again.  It barged in without knocking and bumped up against all the furniture before sitting down hard on my chest.  It's so * heavy and sitting so high up on my chest it's almost on my throat.  It's so hard to breathe, hard to swallow.

I tried to outwit it and go to bed early before it came looking for me, but my procrastination cost me.  Nine thirty.  Nine thirty and I slipped into bed hoping it would see the lights out, hear the white noise machine and the soothing music playing and leave me alone. 

It's not that easily fooled or deterred.

It started as thoughts flitting in though the open windows and into my mind.  Thoughts of divorce.  Plans.  Questions.  The thoughts, once planted, quickly grew into fears.  The fears sent out tendrils across my face that pulled at muscles, making them tense.
   
I saw what was happening and tried to stop it.  I tried to concentrate on my breath—inhale deeply, hold one two, exhale, repeat.  Ok, maybe I'll be ok.  Relax your muscles.  Inhale deeply, hold one two, exhale, repeat.

It responded by turning up the soothing music and changing the notes so that they scratch my ears.  It threw sand into my eyes to make them ache and shrivel.  It latched a vise to my temples and slowly began to turn the crank.

I can't * breathe.  There's a lump in my throat.  My eyes ache.  My head feels full of cotton that's been soaked in acid.  The lump is turning into nausea.  My whole body aches now.

I'm suffocating.

The worst of this is that I know what will make it go away, but it is what I most hate, most distrust, most abhor, detest, loathe, despise...  Alcohol.

Why can't it just leave me the * alone?  Let me sleep.  Let me relax.  Let me breathe.

Why won't it just go away?  What does it want from me?  What is its purpose? 

I ask. Beg to know.  But it just laughs.

I got a text from one of my sisters with a link to an article about a big research study being done on depression and bipolar disorder.  Even though our mother has severe borderline disorder, my sister believes any depression anyone in the family experiences is simply an inherited chemical imbalance. 

So, my borderline mother had four children in a span of four years.  I am the youngest.  My father was not the type to help out with diapers and such.  My maternal grandmother died from colon cancer when I was about two years old.  My mother often talked about being the only one to take care of her while she was dying. 

A perfectly sane person would have had a time of it trying to care for a dying mother and four children under five.  I know I can't do anything about it, but the way my sisters minimize what happened to us is frustrating and infuriating. 

I texted back saying that my bouts of depression are symptoms of complex-ptsd which is a developmental disorder.  But then I  added "I guess the resulting brain development could be similar to that of people with chronic depression--low serotonin and all that."  She said a genetic test would tell you if that's true.  BUT IT'S GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH GENETICS.

Sorry.  I'm just angry at the level of denial and also the way in which I'm completely misunderstood.

I wanted to describe something that happened in therapy today to see if anyone has experienced anything somewhat similar.

Background Info: My mother suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder.  Borderline mothers can be any one or any combination of the following: Queen, Waif, Witch or Hermit.  Mine was waif, witch, and hermit.  She was very verbally abusive.  During the course of individual therapy, I've come to believe my father molested me, but I have no concrete memories of it.

I went into therapy without much on my mind, or so I thought. We were just getting started and my therapist was just kind of checking in.  She said something and a voice in my head responded immediately with, "Shut the * up."  I told my therapist this and we started to explore whose voice it might have been and why they wanted her to shut up. 

Pretty soon thereafter, I felt as if my whole body was physically shrinking, and I had become a small girl.  As we explored this feeling, I mentioned that if felt like I was in elementary school and had been sent outside.  I was in trouble and was hanging my head.  I used to cry a lot in school so teachers would often send me out to go put water on my face and calm down.  I told my therapist it felt like I'd been sent out for crying.

All the while that this was going on, I had an urge to hit myself in the head or hurt myself somehow. 

And then the muscle spasms or involuntary muscle movements began.  This often happens just before I go into another state that often involves "something like memories" to play out.  My arm muscles become very tense, but also my arms or legs sometimes jerk involuntarily.  When the muscle stuff began, I said, "Oh, man..."  My therapist understood what I meant--that I could feel something coming up and that I didn't want to deal with it.  She assured me she knows how much I hate it, but also asked to be curious about what was coming up if I could.

Out of nowhere, I got an image of a dead squirrel.  The image was static and less like an actual image than a feeling of a dead squirrel being presented.  (I know, confusing.)  I found myself saying that my mother had cut the head off of a squirrel and was holding it up over the kitchen sink.  Then I got an image of guts coming out of the squirrel.  I began to gag IRL and had to breathe to steady myself.  I again found myself talking from the perspective of me as a child.  I told my therapist that I thought my mother was going to cook the squirrel and that she was mocking us (me and my sisters, I assume), for being so disgusted.  I got a sense that my mother was telling us that if it's good enough for a dog to eat, it's good enough for us.  She then got angry at us for being so grossed out by the dead squirrel and told us to "just get out...go!" 

So, what I'm wondering is if others have experienced bodily signals letting you know you might be switching states or are about to have something come up--memories/images?  The other thing is that I doubt this whole thing with a squirrel happened, yet it was all just sort of revealed to me.  Have any of you experienced this type of "remembering"?  I'm just wondering if any of the way this played out feels at all familiar to anyone.

This morning when I got up, I heard a strange mechanical sort of grinding noise coming from my daughter's bedroom.  She's away on vacation.  I went into her room and realized the noise was coming from her fish tank.  The pump was running, but there was absolutely NO water in the tank.  All four fish were dead.

The sight of the empty tank and dead fish threw me a bit especially since I was barely awake.  The thing is, there was no water anywhere.  The tank sits on a little nightstand.  The floor, walls, baseboards around the nightstand were all dry.  I opened the drawers.  Dry.  Where did the water go?  I unplugged the pump and left the room to sort of regroup.

Not sure why, but I called my husband to see if he could explain what happened--as if he could.  He was upset about the fish dying and our having to tell our ten-year-old her pets were gone.  I was more concerned with figuring out where the heck the water had gone.

After I got off the phone with my husband, I made couple of other phone calls and went to put the coffee on.  I decided to go look again to see if I could figure out where the water had gone.  I noticed that there was water under and around the tank itself on the nightstand.  As I was inspecting this, one of the fish gasped!  How could this be!?

I ran to get a bowl of water to put it in.  When I put the net in to scoop it out of the empty tank, one of the other fish began flopping.  HOW!?  I'd been up for almost half an hour at this point.  I put all four fish in the bowl that was much too small for them.  The biggest, ugliest fish--a bottom feeder named Jaws--flipped himself out of the bowl.  At this point I'm completely freaking out.  I had to pick his ugly, scaly, pokey little body up with my bare hands more than once, and I did not like it one bit.

The tank they had been in is fairly new.  The old tank that they'd outgrown was stashed in the garage, thankfully!  I pulled out the old tank, put it on the front porch for some reason and filled it using the garden hose.  I then carried the bowl of semi-conscious fish out to the porch and put them in the new old tank. 

It was clear right away that one of the fish was completely dead.  Jaws seemed absolutely fine.  The other two were not looking too great.  I had to plug the filter in using an extension cord plugged into an outlet in the garage.  So, as of now, Jaws and one of the goldfish are living on the front porch enjoying a summer rainstorm.  Sadly, the other little guy didn't make it.

Oh, and, as for the water?  We've got those laminate floors that click together to install.  The water leaked out of the tank and drained down through the laminates giving the appearance that everything was completely dry.  I can't wait for the stench!  Ick. 

As many of you know, I was re-traumatized earlier this week and have been walking around in a daze.  Last evening, I finally felt like the fog had lifted.  I spoke to my T on the phone and felt myself coming back together...I mean this almost literally, if that's possible.

I'm not working right now and have just kind of been hanging out at home with my kids doing chores, reading, and watching a lot of TV.  I keep a brief journal in which I jot down the major emotions of the day, how well I've taken care of myself, etc.  I hadn't filled it in for a few days and couldn't recall very well what all I'd done from day to day this week.

After jotting a few things in the journal, I pulled up a email I'd sent yesterday.  In it, I mentioned going to the Dept. of Motor Vehicles.  That blew my mind because I'd forgotten all about going.  Once I read it, I could pull up a detailed memory, but I checked and double-checked the day and date because it really doesn't feel like I just did that yesterday.  If I hadn't read it in the email, I would not have remembered going at all.

I know I dissociate and tend to have memory issues, but this has kind of rocked me a bit. Have others experienced this type of forgetting?

   
           I see you cowering
           in the corner there
           alone
           at home
           nowhere
          except maybe in your mind
          but mostly it's too crowded
          with thoughts
          that won't let you
          be

          just be
          I'll sit with you
          I won't come close
          you don't have to speak
          I understand just fine
          We'll sit here together
          just you and me
          together
          we'll be
         

I recently bought a workbook by Lisa Ferentz called Moving Beyond Self-Destructive Behaviors.  I haven't read it all the way through yet or done many of the activities.  She developed a protocol one can move through which she calls CARESS (or CARES if you prefer).  The protocol is to be used to combat the urge to be self-destructive. 

CA asks you to Communicate Alternatively for 10-15 minutes by choosing to do something like drawing your emotions, writing a poem, making a collage, etc.

RE is for Release Endorphins, so for 10-15 your to do jumping jacks, run, march, or watch something funny, hold/stroke/hug a stuffed animal or live pet (though I doubt she means your fish).

You finish up with 10-15 minutes of Self-Soothing (SS)--wrapping yourself in a blanket, taking a warm bath, reading positive affirmations, etc.

There are many more suggestions.  My problem is that once those urges to be self-destructive (I binge drink) come on, I either forget all about anything like this protocol or I consciously choose not to give them a try.  She acknowledges that this is the case for most people who perform self-destructive behaviors so her suggestion is to create a CARESS box filled with things you may need to work through the protocol.  The box will help serve as a concrete reminder.

I'm making a list of things for the box I plan to make including my boxing gloves, a stuffed otter I have, some essential oils, and other things like that.  I'll put in some poetry books I like as well.  I also plan to use index cards to write reminders of things I can try.  I'm thinking I may even make them in to CA, RE, and SS "decks" so I can shuffle and randomly choose a card to try.

She suggests personalizing the box by painting and decorating it.  I love that idea.

Just thought I'd share.  Oh, and there's a companion book for therapists.  So, if you're in therapy, you can work through the workbook with your therapist's help.

Not sure if this is the place to ask this, but I'm wondering if Complex-PTSD is an official diagnosis outside of the United States.  Here, it's not part of the DSM (Diagnostic and Systematical Manual for Mental Disorders).  I keep reading of people being "diagnosed" with C-PTSD on this site.  Here, that would not be considered an official diagnosis.  That said, my therapist has told me that C-PTSD is what I'm dealing with.  So...