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it is, and it will.

right now tho, I'm bonkers

UPDATE

ouch on meds, but not so much emotional, more physical. Exhausted, headaches, nausea etc etc. But my head is clearer and I'm getting stuff done. The effect will go but aye, pretty extreme.

But worth it, I need to take action and the meds were stopping it. Had to go.

IT IS!

helps if I don't drink half a bottle of port too. Lesson learned.

Surfing? Me.... ? You would not want to see me in a wet suit.

So far so good on the meds, in fact better than good. My clarity of thought is waaaaay up. I got a lot of productive stuff done yesterday that seemed way beyond me last week. I then saw my pal in the evening and she was stunned by how much more alive I was, I looked and acted like my old self and was really on form. Definitely a good move.

They did their job when I was desperate and on the ropes, but when the crisis lifts, I think they tend to just wipe you out. Back in action... that's the thing.

I hear ya... Not to worry tho, I am rigged for every scenario.

getting a large tax rebate has cheered me up tho... oh momma...

Thanks all,

gonna play safe with the meds and taper them as much as my scalpel blade allows me. Tiny little things. I just want my head back really, I am willing to take some angst in exchange for some cognitive improvement, right now I feel badly sluggish. Writing is the thing... If I write and produce, I'm happy, if I drift, I panic. If I was being looked after by a doting family and a loving partner it would be different but considering they did this to me and I'm now on my own, I need some gas in the tank.

So...

big year for me.

Firstly, I move to Wales to save cash and concentrate on my writing. Big deal this. My costs will halve and, as sales of my novels start to climb, they pay my bills and I get to make it a job. Exciting stuff.

Next, I come off meds. I've been weighing this up and I just feel that although they did stop me thinking about leaping off the castle walls, they now numb me too much and are working against me rather than for me. I'm going to taper the little blighters as much as possible because they don't like being dropped.

Then there's my escape from the business partnership. Been a long time coming this but it's been hellish of late, a rolling storm of triggers. I let far too much pass when things were at their worst and this is the only way to correct the negatives. Outlook is good tho with new clients and contacts bubbling up and new routes to gain work starting to appear.

Mood. Well, it's still an upward curve but there seem to be far sharper ups and downs as you get better. I'd warn anyone here to watch for that and build it into your expectations, as you get better, you will feel it more. It's an odd paradox but this condition is all about numbness overlaying anxiety and panic and you have to take that lid off at some point. It's a lot like dentistry, you feel the pain when the anaesthetic wears off but it's nothing compared to how it would have felt sans the injections. I know I have a lot of pain and crying still to come, but I have to see it all as a symbol of recovery and keep objective.

Energy. This is the big one for me. My adrenals are a mess, no question. Also, I've been drinking on top of the meds (lepraxo/ecitilopran) and this has not helped. I'm now switching to low alcohol options and tapering the meds so we shall see how that pans out. I'm also making my diet fit the profile of adrenal fatigue and avoiding sugar and caffeine as well as burying myself in supplements. Seriously, if I get hiccups, people form conga lines. Vitamin D, ginseng and B 12 seem to be the main recommendations but there are lots of others on the list. Most are placebos but what the *, if a placebo works, have another. Alcohol reduction is a challenge because I have leant on it just to break the isolation so initially I am going to try and just drink less and lighter and still go out. But then it's sugary drinks... sigh. I might just buy food!

But it's going to be a big year. I must remember to take it slow tho and not burn out. You have to learn to self-care as much as possible, listen to your body and act on the warning signs. I'm impatient, I lost 7 years of my life to people who gave nothing back and left me with nothing, I want a life again. But we have to start from where we are and learn to overcome the desire to protest and recoil at the expense of building and moving ahead.

I'm still very hurt, bewildered and angry at how I was used, abused and let down but I want life more than I want to root through the wreckage. I'm 54, I have a life and I have a lot to give and that is my course now.

To all of you in here, all of you who have been so hurt and mistreated, I just want to say that I wish you nothing but peace and space to heal in the year ahead. We share as much that is positive as we do the negatives tho and I never fail to marvel at the humanity you all show. What was done to us all was wrong and just plain dumb and we, because we are so human and sensitive and empathic, took that stupidity deep and let it do us a real injury. But it is not like losing a leg. The brain is an amazing thing and if treated right, it will recover and serve us well as we go forward. Give it time, treat it with understanding and respect and let it heal in the way it needs to. Dress its wounds with logic, knowledge and common-sense. Find friends and supporters who understand and ringfence your recovery from those who don't or won't. This is your story, your injury and your recovery, put yourself first.

Let's all stand back up and fight back.

x

Hi!

No, you didn't need to go through anything so painful. Looking for reasons and explanations can be counter-productive tho, sometimes there is no other reason but that the people we trusted and needed don't possess a moral compass and if we are in their way, they WILL run us over without a seconds thought. It's a shock to the system and it is the root of C-PTSD, that incredulity and betrayal.

Recovery is all about repetitive positive messages and the employment of as much logic as you can at the story til it settles down. The brain is a creature of habit and it wants to return to patterns it knows, so keep reminding yourself of the basics again and again until the balance shifts: it was not your fault, it was wrong and you deserve better.

ello,

huge frustration here. I had been doing really well, my energy levels were coming back, my head had cleared and I was starting to make big inroads into the future.

Then I get hit by work plus one of the most drawn out colds I have ever had, one I have had to work through, and work through the usual high emotion and blamestorming that has become a hallmark of my business partner.

This is now the third week of this cold and finally, I guess inevitably, it's joined hands with the C-PTSD. Fatigue and muddle-headed brain fog are all over me again. Hugely frustrating. I have a huge list of simple jobs to do, things that are fun if anything, and I just can't do them. Everything feels like it's too much for me.

I'm really annoyed because I made it clear to both my biz partner and the other editor that I needed to pace myself but they both carried on in their less than merry way and took us right up to the wire. Both had overbooked and then acted hard done by when it hit the fan. So I was forced to work straight through this bloody cold and so here I am, three weeks in bed and full of the anxiety that drifting gives me.

It's a real rabbit in the headlamp thing this, you know that time is going to work against you if you don't get on top of things and yet you just can't engage. Big trigger for me, and something of a feedback loop. The worry makes it worse of course.

The long term plan is good, I know what I'm fixing to do and I am certain I will get there, it's just the short term. I have to cut my links to these old patterns and regain control but I'm stuck in it until june at the latest. I move to Wales in march and my costs plummet, which is fab. New clients are in the wings, the writing is earning more and more... it's good.

But now, now is a *.

take the thing to bits Rainagain, see how it works, then put it back together. It's all about perception. If we win the high ground using fact and logic then we win the battle and the battle wins the war. I refuse to let the people that injury me go on making me stagger like this. Defiance.... they can stuff their madness  where the sun don't shine, I'm gonna thrive.

well the xmas period is nearly over.... hang in there. Soon we can roll our sleeves up and get stuck in to the new year and start making a difference again.

Once more into the breach dear friends

my seasonal message to the troops

People of OOTS..

It's that time of year again, the time of year where it gets harder to dodge the triggers, harder to forget the mayhem and abuse of the past and near impossible to get on with normal day to day life. So be it.

The new year is the thing, the rest of the xmas silliness can go take a jump, the new year is what we all need to look at and focus on.

The people on this board have been through some horrible times, make no mistake, but they are universally the nicest community one could hope for. Gentle, self deprecating and slow to anger, I see more humanity on these forums than I do anywhere else online. Be proud chaps, you've kept that side of yourself despite the storm of human nature you have had to endure and you can be proud of that.

I hope that for all of you, the journey in 2018 takes you forward to a deeper understanding both of yourselves and the mechanisms that brought you here. You are not to blame, you are not flawed, you are not fated. Given enough time and space you WILL come out of this and make a happier space for yourselves. It is your life, reclaim it. Take your life, cut the wires and hooks away and begin to repair.

So I raise a toast.

To life!

x

James

good, well done. I have to say that making new connections that "get it" is a vital change to make. It's very normalising isnt it?

I suspect 2018 will see you consolidate this breakthru, keep it up Hellipig.

banzai!

I think it all comes down to removing every influence on your sense of self that simply is not you. You don't make yourself into yourself, you just get rid of all the backseat drivers, bullies, malcontents and parasites that have found their way into your thoughts. 90% of my recovery is going to be down to getting out from under these outside voices and accepting that I am more than enough as I am, was, and will be. It's an odd truth, well it is certainly so in my case, that the loudest voices undermining me were also the most flawed. In the final reckoning, I am looking back on some very broken people who needed to extend their influence to feel that they mattered at all. That is the definition of a narcissist, an angry nobody who is terrified of the world and needs a trapped audience for their desperate ranting. They chose us. Taking apart the insecurities and working out who the voices belonged to has been epic for me. So much of what I thought was flawed about me were often strengths and those that were flaws are just that, flaws, like we all have, to err is human. We are no less or more than anyone else but for a narcicist, only diminishing others will make them bigger, "for me to win someone else must lose."

The sheer normality of us is the cure really, there is nothing wrong with us, and never was. The injury we carry belongs to others and to escape it, we have to snip, snip, snip at the spider's web until we are no longer connected.

been a really interesting month, I've been meaning to post in detail but time is very short. Some big changes in the CPTSD issue and I'm determined to relate them at some point because it's been a great lesson in how persistence pays off.

This thing is beatable folks. It was created by negative repetition, but it can, CAN, be beaten by positive repetition. The brain is an amazing piece of gear and it can repair if it has the space and time to do it. I've been through some very dark patches with it, as many of you are experiencing now but truly, it will go.

I'll write something substantial on what I've learned and what has worked for me so well recently once my deck clears, but there is one very simple thing to know, it is natural to react as we have all reacted. Do not pay any attention to any other message on that, there is no measure on how we react other than what the chemistry and physical reality of the brain says it will do. Trauma is a natural response to things that should simply not be happening. Ours is a natural and normal response to events that are neither natural, or normal.

Hang in there everyone, every battle has to end.