Ptsd

[Galien]

Some days I feel like I will never be okay again. I will never again be able to see people as good, or trustworthy or caring of anyone but themselves. I won't ever experience the world as a safe or kind place. I won't ever be able to get rid of the anger that turned to rage that turned to fury. I won't ever be who I used to be. Now I don't know who I am any more but this angry, confused, disappointed person who is floating around trying to work out where she should land.

[Margee]

You won't ever be the same person Galien. A lot of things changed my personality. I am not the same person. I know your pain.

 

Just make it nice and safe in your own little world Galien. And try to remain as peaceful as you can. That's what I try to do.

 

Hug for you tonight.

[Annier]

.   Are you getting any professional help, Galien?   I understand what it is like living with anger, and being unable to trust. 

  Sometimes counselling/therapy can help. 

Your GP should be able to set you on the road to finding the right people to help you.

 

You don't have to go through your life feeling this way.  

 

Look after yourself, spend time outdoors in the garden or in a park where you can relax.   I found that focusing on individual plants, watching ants at work,  examining a leaf, or blade of grass while relaxed can really help  and takes me away from my negative thoughts.

 

You are a special person, an individual, beautiful and important. 
And you have a right to acknowledge that you are.

 

((((Hug))))

[Galien]

 

.   Are you getting any professional help, Galien?   I understand what it is like living with anger, and being unable to trust. 

  Sometimes counselling/therapy can help. 

Your GP should be able to set you on the road to finding the right people to help you.

 

You don't have to go through your life feeling this way.  

 

Look after yourself, spend time outdoors in the garden or in a park where you can relax.   I found that focusing on individual plants, watching ants at work,  examining a leaf, or blade of grass while relaxed can really help  and takes me away from my negative thoughts.

 

You are a special person, an individual, beautiful and important. 

And you have a right to acknowledge that you are.

 

((((Hug))))

 

I have had as much counselling as is possible, now I just have to work out a way to live with it. I have family visiting at the moment so that is making it much worse. Thank you for your kind words.

[Galien]

 

You won't ever be the same person Galien. A lot of things changed my personality. I am not the same person. I know your pain.

 

Just make it nice and safe in your own little world Galien. And try to remain as peaceful as you can. That's what I try to do.

 

Hug for you tonight.

 

You are right Margee, I won't. I am usually able to cope but at the moment I have grandchildren visiting from overseas, one needs to be dropped off a pier, and a feral 23 year old of my own who wont be happy until I am rocking back and forward in a corner somewhere. Thank you for always being kind to me.

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

I know the feeling. Part of me wants to trust again but none of me lets me. It's hard to have to live with PTSD.

[Chikirin]

I am reading a good book on PTSD called Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman

[Denyoz]

Some days I feel like I will never be okay again. I will never again be able to see people as good, or trustworthy or caring of anyone but themselves. I won't ever experience the world as a safe or kind place. I won't ever be able to get rid of the anger that turned to rage that turned to fury. I won't ever be who I used to be. Now I don't know who I am any more but this angry, confused, disappointed person who is floating around trying to work out where she should land.

 

I think you're okay just the way you are right now.  No one says you have to see people as good, trustworthy or caring.  This world is NOT a safe and kind place.  You have a clear vision.  Anger, rage and fury are great fuel for writing passionate articles.  I love reading angry posts.  Have you noticed that the Highest Reputation Posts on this board were all inspired by anger?  You are right where you ought to be and you have great potential for creating great works of art.  Forget the fact the fucking experts call this a disease.  It's who you are at this moment, period.  Most people are blinded by beauty and need to see the ugly side of things.  Go ahead and show them, baby!

[Pantophobia]

Getting used to "the new normal" is always overwhelming. Give yourself time to mourn what you've lost.

[RipVanWinkle]

Denyoz: I agree with you about seeing the bad as well as the good. Is it two sides of the same coin? I have a melancholy personality. So I didn't have the great big drop from happiness to depression expressed by so many exchristians here. I have suffered from depression but that was years before my deconversion. My depression was satisfactorily  treated with medication, after many years of suffering. But the bump wasn't so hard for me when I deconverted because there wasn't that much difference in my mood..

 

But I have met so many people who, for reasons I will never understand, believe the world is basically a good place. Every time I hear that it astounds me. Mostly Xtians say it but not always. There is of course beauty, kindness, tenderness, forgiveness, and all the other positive things we know about. But the horror in this world is so extensive and bad that most of us could not even have made it up. I'm not going to list any of them because they are so depressing and everyone with an education knows most of them anyway. But the older I get the more of them I learn.

 

Therapists can recommend tactics to see the world another way, like with cognitive therapy. I think a lot of these ways to treat mental illness and to cope with these hard truths are tactics humans developed through evolution. Name a horror and there is a defense mechanism to counter it. Read Victor Franks' book for examples. And these defenses are good for our mental health.  But they are tactics: mental tricks to cope with the very real horrors. So when a therapist tells one that he is depressed or suffering from anxiety attacks, or any of the many other mental "diseases", he who has figured this out (the fact that these are tactics.) must just ignore the fact of the classification of accurately seeing reality as a mental disease and learn and practice defense mechanisms. This is true even though one knows he sees reality accurately.  After all, these defenses can work, whether the tactics are technically true or not. Rationalization is an example. Who cares that it is a rationalization if it works?

 

The first step is to get a good therapist and practice the "proper" way to use the defenses he/she teaches. Practice a different way of thinking. Of course, I know this doesn't work for everyone. But you will never know if you haven't tried it.

[Margee]

Denyoz: I agree with you about seeing the bad as well as the good. Is it two sides of the same coin? I have a melancholy personality. So I didn't have the great big drop from happiness to depression expressed by so many exchristians here. I have suffered from depression but that was years before my deconversion. My depression was satisfactorily  treated with medication, after many years of suffering. But the bump wasn't so hard for me when I deconverted because there wasn't that much difference in my mood..

 

But I have met so many people who, for reasons I will never understand, believe the world is basically a good place. Every time I hear that it astounds me. Mostly Xtians say it but not always. There is of course beauty, kindness, tenderness, forgiveness, and all the other positive things we know about. But the horror in this world is so extensive and bad that most of us could not even have made it up. I'm not going to list any of them because they are so depressing and everyone with an education knows most of them anyway. But the older I get the more of them I learn.

 

Therapists can recommend tactics to see the world another way, like with cognitive therapy. I think a lot of these ways to treat mental illness and to cope with these hard truths are tactics humans developed through evolution. Name a horror and there is a defense mechanism to counter it. Read Victor Franks' book for examples. And these defenses are good for our mental health.  But they are tactics: mental tricks to cope with the very real horrors. So when a therapist tells one that he is depressed or suffering from anxiety attacks, or any of the many other mental "diseases", he who has figured this out (the fact that these are tactics.) must just ignore the fact of the classification of accurately seeing reality as a mental disease and learn and practice defense mechanisms. This is true even though one knows he sees reality accurately.  After all, these defenses can work, whether the tactics are technically true or not. Rationalization is an example. Who cares that it is a rationalization if it works?

 

The first step is to get a good therapist and practice the "proper" way to use the defenses he/she teaches. Practice a different way of thinking. Of course, I know this doesn't work for everyone. But you will never know if you haven't tried it.

 

this is the thing bill.......we are brought up thinking that this world (especially as chilrdren) is a wonderful place. Everything is practically fantasy. The tooth fairy, santa claus, the easter bunny, halloween and dressing up, birthday parties, skipping in the school grounds, laughing with your friends, watching cartoons, skating, swimming.... all whle your mother or father cooks your meals, cleans the house while you play!! 

 

Now I know that my first signs of there being something wrong in the 'real' world was my mom and dad constantly fighting. Ummm...........this was starting to wreck my 'fantasy'. Then you might of had to deal with the dirty old men in the family. Ummmm.....  .... .wrecking my fantasy again. The teachers started to hollor at you and put you in the corner for the kids to snicker at while you felt totally ashamed. Ummmmm.... My 'fantasy' of the good life is REALLY starting to get destroyed!!!!

 

And so goes life.The older I get, the more my eyes open and I can see much evil and control. I can see horror. I don't like the world. I didn't say nature and some of it's beauty, I said the world and it's controlling people.

 

I stay in my own little world now and I just feel safer.

[RipVanWinkle]

Margee:  Gawd bless you. You are so smart and so sensitive (in the good sense of the word) I'm sure that what you are doing and  will do is and will be right. But I'm very sorry that you have to seclude yourself. The world doesn't know what is missing.    bill

[wanderinstar]

Galien, I think I can understand a little of what you are experiencing. I have had PTSD and Depression almost all of my life. I first recall wanting to kill myself around age 9, most likely because i was being sexually abused by a family member and bullied at school. From then until now I have experienced continuous blows which make it impossible for me to feel safe in the world so like Margee, I tend to isolate a lot. The despair that hits when you feel you can't keep going on being so deeply broken in a confusing and dangerous world can be overwhelming. Many people can not understand what it is like to suffer as much as you have while also having a sensitive heart so they expect you to act like they have. The book Trauma and Recovery is a good one, although VERY confronting. When we have been abused and/or neglected as a child it affects our development so that we do not have the resources that most 'normal' people have when we receive further blows as an adult.

 

My opinion is that I will never be completely 'well' mentally (and probably physically too). In fact I often want to punch people who tell me, 'Don't worry. You will recover' as if I have been unwell since I was about 8 the odds are I'm not going to recover. None the less I refuse to stop fighting to find some sort of quality of life that I can be satisfied with and even enjoy at times. The hardest barrier to overcome is to be able to trust people again in any sort of relationship. I'm not sure if I will ever be able to do that.

 

Sorry, I have prattled on. Take care of yourself and rant away when you need to. You are a valuable person to many people on this forum, at least definitely to me and I am pretty certain of a few others. 

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

I don't think I've ever known, at least not that I can remember, seeing the world as a safe place. It seems safer now that I'm grown, and its easier now that I'm grown and on my own than it was prior. Though everyone is different. I get to baby myself now though