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I've seen crocuses in my garden

Dear Dee,
that must feel really unsettling when your hands shake so much. Maybe it's really because you can't /don't rely on your old coping mechanisms anymore. Which is great 

When I reduced my watching television all the time + reading newspaper/magazines/Books + drinking + eating too much, I felt a short breath and a pressure on my chest. Maybe that was fear. Honestly it's still that way often.
I think it is hard and takes time to be in the present when one tried so hard all the time to escape the present feelings. Especially, when you experienced a trauma so recently. Have you tried other healthy coping skills?
Mine are at the moment: learning guitar via app, reading in this forum, listening to music and move my body to it.

It is good however that the nutricionist has a look on it in case it is something physical which needs treatment.

Hello Rainagain,

although I have not moved far away, I can relate to what you're saying. I find your going away is very understandable, too. It's good that you are able now to protect yourself and care for yourself.
What your GP said is comforting to me, too, because I quit my job lately, and it felt that I was so acting against our society's laws and "normals". I know it is something very different, but i can feel a link there. So thank you for sharing this.
Anjulie

Thank you!

yeah, thats a problem I know, too: having phases where you cannot do much. And then I have to cancel things I planned in my better phases. Good that you are getting better of not getting swept away. 

For finding the balance, I think I may have to learn to fly over my life and view it from above so I can see that there are these changes and my decisions should be so that every side/shape of me can live with them. Absolutely not one of my strengths...

Since I know about efs I have wondered sometimes, if there could sometimes be more than one flashback. I'm glad you told me like it is for you - it helps 
As woodsgnome said, it would be to much for me to always track them to where they come from. But we can do self-care as much as possible.

I still have a thousand impulses to act on finding information on all kinds of therapy. But have not acted on it. I am proud that I didn't.  Maybe there will be a true instinct / feeling on this subject when the urge is not so strong anymore.

Blueberry, at the moment I can hardly find words... I am touched. Your response is so unexpectedly kind... I've had a quite a big ef after my last post and the feelings attached.
Just

If I really fit in because of that... you could cry and laugh about that, couldn't you (sad but huge relief!). Those are the things that often threw me out of other groups... (or better I threw myself out...)
I really consider myself very lucky to have found you all.

woodsgnome, thank you so much for understanding. 

I don't feel your words sound frustrating, more that you have come to a point where you can stand more safely and more down-to-earth. What you have (no doubt with much work) achieved in your inner thinking/attitude - that sounds hopeful to me, the hope of a more accepting way of life, more slow.

We didn't ask for this, but now that we're here I guess we at least still somehow have the strength to choose our new direction, starting with huge amounts of self-compassion for being here.

     

This moved me. Thank you.

O dear, now that I reread what I said of my English knowledge... It really gives the impression that I was just fishing for compliments... I'm so sorry. That was not my intention.

Hi
at the moment, everything is a bit overwhelming to me. I think it's because of the book "From Surviving to Thriving" from Pete Walker and that I really dared to quit my job. And now there is this forum. All these things are very very good, I can feel it in my heart. But, as I'm used to in such times, I always want to add even more activity to this.

For example, yesterday I signed up (I said I would come for a trial session) for a local yoga class - because I've read the posts here in the forum about the book "The body keeps the score". Yesterday evening I felt so exhausted and totally overwhelmed with everything, that, together with my husband, I realized that it is way too much with the yoga class. As it was nothing fixed yet, I decided just to not go. It was the right decision but I was already exhausted by the process. 

This morning, it went on with excessive App- browsing and downloading. Well,  by now I've recognized this and have deleted the (self-optimizing) apps, fortunately they were all free....

Does anyone know this? I wonder if there's always an ef behind it... because if it is, I might be in ef most of the time these days....
And that makes me sad. And afraid, because my husband is already really exhausted by my inner work and the changes in my life and the depression-like feelings.
Anjulie

Notalone,
thank you for your words on my job... It means a lot to me that you think it was a good thing to end it.   

About the English issue. I've been thinking about that.
1. I realized, as blueberry said, that it's the same over-and-over thinking in German (I know from having been in the German ptsd-forum). It's true, blueberry, I have a very strong inner critic...

2. And English is a hobby of mine, I really love the English language, for example listen to English Audio Books. It's been that way forever, since I learned English at school. I even write songs in English, as they are not easily understood around here  But I never did it in real with real native speaking people. So there was fear to not be enough.

But I heard you all and it's sinking in... Thank you so much.

And thank you Tree Roses and woodsgnome for saying that my English is good. This is really helpful to me because I tend to worry about everything I say a lot, even afterwards it goes on and on inside me. So it's good to know that you understand what I'm saying so I can tell myself to relax a bit.

I know that from my previous experience with a ptsd forum... I worry too much about what I write, what others might write... But this time, I don't want that to keep me from being here.

Thank you, Blueberry,
its really the same to me with the book and I am so grateful for it.
Again, it is sad because it's not abailable in German, I would very much like to give it to a friend of mine. Ok, enough of complaining 
I can just be happy for myself for the moment.
Anjulie

Hi woodsgnome,
thank you for your welcome . In Germany, there doesn't seem to be any understanding or knowledge about cptsd. All there is, are very few ptsd-therapists which you have to pay yourself...(health service pays only psychoanalysis and behavioral therapy) and some hospitals specialized in trauma-treatment. This is sad. I hope that in the future, there will be more research and "spreading" of cptsd - not of cptsd of course, of the knowledge and treatment of it.
Yes, ist is very good to know that here are others with similar experiences.

hi Three Roses,
just thanks for your kind words 

Hi,
I've found this forum through the book "From Surviving tho Thriving" by Pete Walker. This book was such a relieve to me and made me see clearly what it is that I have to deal with every day.
I'm 43 years old and have been more or less in crisis since I was 17. There was a lot of therapy, sometimes hospital. My diagnoses varied between mixed personality disorder to ptsd. English is not my native language (I'm from Germany), and I hope I can expess things properly.
Due to my cptsd, I had to quit working and get a low pension. I live with my husband who is also affected by childhood trauma. This is sometimes heavy, but most of the time it helps us understand the other one and support one another to be my/himself.
Until recently I kept a once-a-week-job (cleanig another household), but I had to put so much effort into being capable to go (and there were almost always ef) that I quit two weeks ago. One part in me (inner critic as I know now) keeps telling me to be ashamed, but the other (my heart) tells me this was a true act of love towards myself.
So, at the moment I feel overall not so bad.
What I've read in this forum touched me, because you are so kind and supportive to each other. I'd like to be a part of this :-)

Anjulie