Fleas to Grace; PTSD

[Guest guest]

Grace, I can't believe your post. I almost cried when I read that you too have

had times where you did not venture outside. I have had attacks all my life,

and when it came out around the FOO, this helped the FOO and nada especially

split me as all bad. The entire time growing up, I was blamed for having PTSD.

Nada and fada and the FOO all said that my " anger issues " was the problem in the

family, and I was the scapegoat. Everyone else was normal of course. SInce I

was split all bad, this was my burden to bear.

Well, I am older now, and I have been in T for a long time. Everytime I stop

T, a few months later or half a year later, soemthing else comes up. Right now,

I have had some major breakthroughs regarding my attacks from PTSD. I can't

believe the insights I have had int he last few months regarding my PTSD

attacks. IT is such a relief to know that this is not something inherently

wrong with my character (like the FOO blamed me for) but is a result of all the

abuse and neglect and unpredictability and nada attacks. The more I heal, the

more I realize how bad it really was.

I can't believe you understand!! Just in the last few months, I have been

able to apologize to people that I had the attack around, and there are a lot of

people. My behavior in the past has been, after having a PTSD attack around

someone, to feel so scared (because I had been conditioned by the FOO to be the

one who was wrong and evil, and to expect more nada abuse whenever I had a PTSD

terror attack) and stay away from that person. I put a lot of effort into

avoidance and cutting people out of my life. Other people who didn't understnad

cut me out of their life.

It's only been in the last few months, that I have had the lightbulb of

learning the words to talk about my experience. I also learned that it is okay

to talk to people, apologize and explain that I have extreme PTSD and I am

struggling with this, and my reaction was not about the other person. It has

been my great surprise and blessing to actually have people and friends in my

life these days that don't cut me out of their life and also don't abuse me for

having PTSD. I actually have people these days in my life who are willing to

continue to be my friend. Being able to explain with the words " PTSD " and

really understanding what that means really helps;' my T has educated me well on

that. I even have one friend who was really encouraging, and she told me

" Walkingto, people understand when you own your issues. Everyone has issues " .

It is a new level in my healing. I actually feel like sometime soon, I will

grow beyond this PTSD. It has been several years of T, and it has been work,

but I really feel like the breakthroughs keep coming. And I keep working at it

with my T, and learning to reach out to ask people to understand and help me, to

reach out beyond the smokescreen of PTSD that clouds my mind and reactions so

that I can't see the loving and caring people in my life now.

But the smoke has started to clear with my PTSD, and I can sometimes see

through the smokescreen of my reactions, and see the people on the other side of

the smoke. RIght now, that is the most important thing in my life. I have

rearranged my life to continue to live where I live, in order to continue to

work on my relationships. I think one of the biggest breakthroughs for me was

to be learn the skill of apologizing. To go to someone who had seen me have a

PTSD panic and terror attack and verbalize all kinds of nonsense ( I mean, these

attacks were frequent... try living like that!! And then to feel so isolated....

that is why your posts mean so much to me, and why I am having diarrhea of the

keyboard, I am so excited that YOU UNDERSTAND!!!!!!!) SO, I learned to go to

that person and say " I am so sorry, this is not about you, I suffer from PTSD,a

nd this is what it is like, and I am so sorry. Please understand. " To learn to

go to people and repair relationships, and

to have people who were willing to understand and reach out to me... these

were my biggest breakthroughs, and it just started about two months ago. I know

there are bigger and better breakthroughs in store for me, I just hope they keep

coming, because my life is really getting better. I can connect with other

people in a REALLY honest way. It is exciting.

For me, I don't trust medicines so much. I would like to learn more about

these adrenal medicines you are writing about. For me, being able to connect to

other humans is really big. Learning that not everyone is the FOO, and not

eveyrone is nada. Learning and experiencign that people really care, and really

care enough to continue to be there for me, even after tehy have seen me loose

it in a PTSD meltdown.

Something else I would need to learn next is how to reign myself in. Once a

PTSD attack starts, it takes me days to get back to my present reality. IT's

like that part of my brain that learned to survive with the PTSD is more

powerful than other parts of me. Once I get into that fearful, panicky state,

it takes me DAYS to get back.... Any idea on skills or therapies to learn how

to reign myself in? My T gave me the homework of checking in with my feelings

(asking " what am I feeling right now? " several times a day) and also to talk to

myself telling myself that the people around me right now mean well, care about

me, and are not nada. to just repeat to myself over and over " this person

(name) is not nada " .

Thank you SO MUCH for understanding, the connection with you is helping my

PTSD panic smoke clear. And I just realized in writing this post, that it's

really crazy how many layers there are to the nada abuse and FOO dynamics. I

mean, think about it-- as a child, I had PTSD panic attacks because of abuse

inflicted on me by my caregivers. In turn, when I had such an attack, the

aforementioned caregiver (you know who I mean) would then abuse me even more,

using the PTSD attack as an excuse (telling me that I had " anger issues " and

that no one would love me, and that I was All Bad because of my anger issues,

and that my anger issues were the problem in the family,couldn't I just please

do something to reign in my anger?) and the whole time I was suffering PTSD....

and that is REAL. WOw, it's so crazy, it makes me realize that the relationship

between nada and myself was really like the Stockholm syndrome or whatever that

is where the kidnappee can't leave the kidnapper.

My entire identity came from nada and her and fada's diagnosis of my " anger

problems " .

For the first time in my life now, I see that there is a ME beneath all of

that, and all of that was training and learning. I am not my PTSD. On the

contrary, I am a loving and caring person who is, unlike nada, able to connect

with other people, and it's just some PTSD that getsin the way, but I can talk

about it, and other people are there on the other side to reach out there hands

and hearts.

Thank you so much. You are among those people reaching out to me on this long

road to recovery. These last few months are the first time in my life that I am

able to see beyond this haze and smoke of PTSD. It has to get clearer and

clearer from here on out, I just can't see it going otherwise. For the first

time in m ylife, there are people aroudn me, who don't blame me or cut me out of

there life or abuse me for my PTSD symptoms. ANd for the first time, I can

venture outside and interact and there is a little less fear for me.

But I know exactly what you are describing, I lived like that for years!!

Thank you.

Wa lking To.

From you friend

" WALKING TO HAPPINESS " .

May we all walk towards happiness...