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I dont know how many boards I have been banned from.

The latest because I clearly identified the moderators bias.

The real world cant handle the most simple of truths.

Let alone what we have experienced.

I just blew my nose and as per usual inspected the results.

I have read on other forum boards disgust projected at those who do so.

Why should I be ashamed of the things my body naturally produces? It does so for a reason. And checking the result gives me feedback on the state of (il)health I may or may not be in.

It is time to free myself from the shackles of judgement. The "wider populace", my FOO, and last but not in the tiniest bit least my inner critic!

What other bodily functions should I celebrate next?

This is a canadian GPs efforts to help members of her community.

https://painimprovement.com

October last year we had solar panels installed.

Then in May we got our Tesla2 battery.

A few hiccups later as various monitoring, connection and billing issues have been sorted.

This months power bill $18.21.

A saving of $281! Woo hoo!

I am only a new member.

What I have been able to achieve in my journey in a few (short) posts is .... there are no words I know to express the steps I have made.

I feel overwhelmed at times reading the posts of others. Yet there are other members always there, always encouraging. I salute you.

Okay so I have a two other diagnoses besides cPTSD, it is complex chronic pain syndrome. The meds I am on do a great job on the most part, but if I am exposed to too much sound it becomes pain - somatiform disorder.

And it is now midday and I still haven't left my bedroom yet. Too many contract lawn people in the houses nearby. Just as one finishes another starts!

This is tedious.

Last night the other half went off to his dance lessons and the boarder disappeared after dinner into his bedroom with his PC. So I started beating myself up about what lousy company I am after dinner because I drink too much wine, and drank more wine seeking solace or oblivion. Who knows?

I kept on beating myself up this morning when I woke. After a while I decided I would vent on the boarder but he disappeared as quick as a flash. So I guess I'll just vent on here.

My inner child is terrified and in rage at that terror and pain, sadly with sufficient  wine on board he makes an appearance that frightens all within range. And I have no memory of it the next day so am left bewildered.

At least my wine consumption is dropping. Hopefully with ongoing therapy it will drop enough for me to be pleasant company of an evening again. 

That's all. Thanks for listening.

Hi all,

I started a blog in January of this year as I began to reconnect with people and telling my story over and over simply re-traumatised me. So I wrote the blog and instructed people to read it prior to our catching up. My partner Andy has been sharing it with many people as well. For some it is an echo of their own experiences and they tell me my Journey makes them feel validated and up lifted.

So I'm not sure if its the right material for a recovery journal as per the guidelines, but documenting what happened has been a key part of recovery for me. I have taken my first blog and sanitised it of some identifying details and I hope the moderators consider it appropriate and the members of our community find it useful. I will add some of my other blog posts following this.

*Trigger Warning*

The Journey

As I am slowly reaching out and reconnecting with my friends I am needing to explain repeatedly how I am, how I got here, what's happening now and where is this all going? All very reasonable but the retelling is painful in itself and as pain is the central theme of my journey I wish to lessen it by recording here the essential questions.

Pain.

Pain is a brain event. We know what "turns it on" in most cases, but we do not understand how it turns off. We do know some people are born without the neurons that transmit pain messages to the brain, and they never experience pain. We also know in some people pain (particularly back pain) gets turned on by a physical event, and that the pain never turns off for a prolonged period.

My Pain Journey.

I was born with a cleft lip and palate. I was the third son to my parents with a cleft palate, so they knew the drill pretty well by then. At that time the plastic surgeons were delaying the first repair until the baby was 6-9 months  old so that the baby's mouth was bigger and a bit easier for the surgeon to work in. The plastic surgical unit also had a policy that the parents were to be separated from their child until 1-2 days past the surgery so that they were not upset at how their child looked.

Mum knew what was going to happen. She knew that I would know she wasn't there and that I would cry - risking tearing apart the sutures that had been carefully placed to achieve a good cosmetic and functional child's mouth. She had nursed two children through this procedure previously, she wasn't going to be upset by my appearance. However Ward Sisters rules were not to be over-ridden no matter what.

So it happened. I cried. I cried in pain and my mother was not there to console me. I tore my sutures. I was then taken back to theatre where the frustrated surgeon did a rush job resulting in a poor cosmetic outcome. Thus I had two further trips to theatre whilst I was still a toddler in an attempt to achieve a better cosmetic outcome.

The period of ages 2-3 years is a critical period in which the child forms the idea that they are a separate being to the world around them, and that there are other beings who may come and go. They learn that they can influence the behaviour of others around them. Unfortunately during this period I suffered painful surgeries, and learnt to use my brain to suppress the pain messages so that I could get on with my life.

One of my earliest memories was of a nurse threatening to smack me if I did not stop crying. So the message was clear - don't verbalise your pain or you will be punished. There were many other such messages. When it came time to have the sutures removed (a painful process) I was told to be still and stop wriggling as that was only making things worse - the message being if you are good and still this will hurt less.

I learnt my lessons well. By the time I was 14 I endured a 75 minute procedure under local anaesthetic in which the surgeon removed a tooth, cut a trench hole into my palate to locate the adult tooth that was in the wrong place then try to put it in the place now vacated by the removed baby tooth. Hmmm, hole too small. Chisel bone out. Place tooth and suture everything up. At the end of this procedure the doctor and nurse both complimented me on how well I had handled what they had done to me.

Yes, be good and deny the fear and the pain and people will be happy and say positive things to me. Unfortunately they lied. The better you are at denying the fear and pain the more terrible (painful) things they do to you!

So I have for a very long time been using my brain to suppress pain. It is still doing it today. It has never received the message that things have healed and that the pain has stopped. For as far back as I can remember if I cut myself whilst preparing food I only notice when there are smears and spots of blood  - here, there and everywhere. Sometimes there has been so much blood I have had to wash my hands in running water in order to find where the cut is. There was no immediate pain signal, or rather there was but my brain is already suppressing pain signals so one small slice is nothing compared to the rest of the pain it is working on.


My PTSD Journey.

I'm sure many of you can already see where I am going. I talked above about fear. I have early memories of listening to the footsteps of the nurse coming down the corridor. "Are they coming for me, what painful things are about to happen?" I learned to suppress my "fight or flight" response.

There is also one very unfortunate event. I was eleven and we were at Middlemore Hospital seeing the orthodontist who was beginning planning for the braces he would fit to my teeth. A mould was going to be made so that he could continue to study it in his planning, and also provide a marker from start to finish. The nurse mixed the mould material with too much water, so that when she placed the mould tray into my mouth it began oozing down my throat and choking me.

I tried to get her attention and was rewarded with a stern "Be quiet! Lie still!" Finally, as my airway was about to be overwhelmed by the oozing mould mixture and I would die of asphyxiation, I forcefully vomited it out. Where upon I was told off for making a mess! I protested. The orthodontist intervened and shooed the nurse away. He helped clean me up and explained the error that had occurred. He reassured me that he would do it right and asked me to lie back in the chair whilst he did a new mould mixture. Fight or flight? I had no choice, I could do neither.

So slowly over the last several years as my brain has finally reached saturation point I have been having moments of meltdown - total fear of what painful thing is going to happen. There isn't any actual painful thing about to happen. My brain is using triggers it learnt during my childhood and applying them to events that are totally disconnected. There is no threat of danger but my brain has lost track of present day reality and is applying past learned experiences.

Fortunately I had the good experience of meeting an amazing man who has been a cardiologist, a GP and now a psychotherapist. We have been working together and it has been because of his help that I have held it all together and put on a brave face and carried on working for as long as I did. And now, given where I am in my life, I am looking forward to gathering up some energy to confront some of my demons and vanquish them rather than letting them rule my life. This will take some time, but I do now have the time to address them.


Where Am I Now? (this was written in January 2018)

I am currently taking 17 pills a day. Most of those are aimed at trying to calm the pain nerves down, and they are definitely helping. My psychiatrist has treated people like me, traumatised from multiple surgeries at a young age. He has gently guided me to discover for myself what is important and what is needed. He has agreed with my decision to consider myself retired. Whilst he expects improvement he agrees that this will take years.

So I am back to being a patient again. I am fortunate that I have income protection insurance so that money is not a worry for me. I am also blessed in having a loving and supportive partner in Andy.

We are planning to get married this year on the 25th anniversary of our first date (May 2018 yay!). This will be a very small event with less than ten people invited as I simply could not cope with more. Not even family members of Andrews and my family have been invited. My apologies to them and you. Perhaps we may find a way to have a few small gatherings in the months following our wedding so that some of you can celebrate this milestone with us.


The Future.

The future is unknown. I am taking my time to slowly heal and perhaps one day become a more useful and functioning member of society. I have overcome an awful lot to have achieved what I have already done and am relaxed in knowing that I can continue my journey, take the time to heal, and then discover what comes next.

Salutations.

I am lying on my bed, the doors, windows and curtains closed and it is not enough. I need my noise reducing headphones as the local dogs barking is doing my head in. And I found this forum.

I came here via multiple surgeries as a child for my cleft lip and palate. I grew up and was a reasonably successful adult until I was 48 years old. My life had been crumbling for a few years prior and then it completely collapsed.

Fortunately I met the right people to help me, but even now two years later every day is a battle. I spend an awful lot of time cosseted in my bedroom with my Ipad, and yet I have only just discovered this forum today as I was googling depersonalisation after my session yesterday with my second psychiatrist.

I hope I can find a little bit more life via this forum.