Hello, just found this site

[FuzzyDuckling]

Finding this site caused me to weep from relief, and I haven't even read much yet.  I didn't even know there was an effort to describe the effects of being in a consistently traumatic environment until this morning...I need help and whenever I build up the courage to reach out there is nothing for me to grasp. The psych and medical professionals I've gone to only ever see in me their particular speciality or  world veiw, and ignore all evidence to the contrary. The experience has been at best disheartening and sometimes dangerous.

I want to share a particular experience because of how egregious it was, and how it demonstrates my utter inability to protect myself even when I recognize a situation isn't right, something that I discovered today was stereotypical of C-PTSD. Hopefully, my experience can help someone. It's a long story, sorry for that.
   A psychiatrist insisted that ADHD was my core problem, and that the stress of my childhood hid the ADHD, I believed him. Certain "emotional events" were symptoms of particular concern to me, and he assured me they were typical of ADHD. Through medication and mindfulness (I only had to learn that everything I was experiencing was entirely in my controll) they would go away, if I was willing to work hard enough.
  I expressed concern about the medication, since I had a strange reaction to prescription pseudoephedrine which I described to him, he told me I worried to much "worrying was killing me. "  Unfortunately for me the medication either aggravated temporal lobe epilepsy that had gone previously undiagnosed, or simply brought on the seizures because I have a lower threshold. Whatever the reason for my original susceptibility, as my treatment progressed the seizures increased in both their frequency and severity.

The worse I got the more he insisted I just needed a higher dosage...I believed him, not just because of my desperate need to fix what was wrong with me but because I was no longer cognizant of the state I was in. I couldn't hold on to a memory long enough to realize there was anything wrong. I seemed dopey but happy to those around me.

My husband was concerned, but was told that people with anxiety issues often have memory problems as they get better. Eventually,as I got progressively worse, it became apparent that I wasn't just a little dopey. I was confused not just about the time or the day, but that I thought it was a different week, month, or year. I'd ask a question, walk down the hall, turn around walk back and ask it again, towards the end I slept nearly 20 hours a day. My husband intervened immediately, and asked the psychiatrist what the check was going on. He told my husband I was having seizures, took me off the meds, and then diagnosed me with narcolepsy. 
I never wanted to step into another doctor's office, but I had go to a neurologist, whatever was happening to me had gotten better after stopping the medication but I was so much worse then I was before I began treatment. The neurologist after questioning me about those "emotional events", the symptoms that I had most wanted to be rid of, told me that they were stereotypical of temporal lobe seizures not anxiety or panic attacks. I should have never been given that medication to begin with, and now I'm stuck with the damage it. A great big cherry on top of the half melted sundae that is my brain, but I'm being treated for the seizures now and things are getting better.

Thanks for listening,
A Fuzzy Duckling

[sanmagic7]

dang!  i hate those frickin' think they know it all shrinks!!!  i went thru a similar experience, ended up falling and breaking my wrist and something in my back because she wouldn't believe that the side effects i was experiencing had anything to do with the meds she insisted on giving me and continued to give me saying - it couldn't be from the meds, it's only been 3 days and they don't work that fast.  bull pucky! 

i can't tell you how sorry i am that you had to go thru this.  i, too, have little confidence in the shrink profession after that, and even less in the medical profession.  it absolutely sucks that they won't listen, clump everyone into the highest part of the bell curve and treat us all the same.  faster and easier that way.

i'm glad you're having better luck now, and may actually be getting the problem treated by someone who's competent.    best to you.  how horrible for you.

oh, and welcome!  thanks for posting, although it was a horror story.  keep us up to date on how your recovery is going.  glad you're here.

[prairiewind]

Hello FuzzyDuckling. It's cliché but we really have to be our own advocate. I lost sleep recently the night before a Dr appt knowing I would have to interrupt him before my time ran out and remind him what my real issues are. Hang in there!

[Kizzie]

Hi Fuzzy Duckling, a belated but warm welcome to OOTS    

I can see why you chose the forum name you did, the fuzzy part at least.  Unfortunately it's a story we hear too often here because the diagnosis of Complex PTSD is not known about as much as it should be.  I'm so sorry to hear that treatment caused you damage. 

Hopefully we can help change that as Prairiewind suggests, although it's very hard to advocate for ourselves when we don't know what's going on and we trust in that trained person who should know better than us. Toward that end (being our own advocates until Complex PTSD is more widely recognized), we have a number of forms and handouts in the "Resources" section under "Downloads" that can be printed out and taken to GPs, T's and other professionals involved in treatment and/or services for Complex PTSD.

I hope you find information and support here at OOTS 

[Grant]

Hi, I have just found this site after recently being told I have complex PTSD.

I'm tired, so tired, so tired of fighting a battle that only exists in my head but everyday feels so real.

I was battered as a little boy, then went on to years of drug addiction and after 15 years clean I have children which is wonderful but crippling at times.

My boy is a wonderful little boy but when he cries it feels so painful.

I haven't and never will hit my boy, or daughter, it's just so horrible when my past is triggered.

I'm tired, so tired but feel a sense of relief and I am Scottish and stubborn so always have hope, I feel there's more hope after finding here..........

Thank you for sharing.............

[Debcaf]

Me too I was just diagnosed with complex ptsd looking for others like me.

[Debcaf]

Hi fuzzy
I just joined this forum and read ur message. So sorry for what the shrink did to u. At least ur away from that and getting the correct help. I was just diagnosed too. I'm glad I found this.
Debbie

[Three Roses]

Hello and welcome, debcaf! Thanks for joining

[Kizzie]

Hi and a warm welcome to you both Grant and Debcaf    You're in the right place to talk with others who have Complex PTSD and understand struggling and being tired of dealing with the disorder.  Hopefully you can find some good information and support here  

[Grant]

Thank you and yes it feels helpful already.

Compassion, kindness, love and patience....,,,

Thank you

Just know you are all out there makes me feel less mad

I actually can be amongst a room full of people but feel left out, isolated and detached......

I feel like I now know why I suffer, why I do what I do