Sunny  I have been triggered for ages and the symptoms are countless.  My HP is with me constantly and directs my choices. Often HP directs my choices so that others do not suffer endlessly or needlessly. I met my HP when I was conceived and took up screaming and shouting at Him because I was afraid and wanting control.  I get control when I follow HP's will which I am looking toward now....

Jerry, your symptoms are constant? You never get a break from them?

Have you been to a mental health professional or have you had trauma therapy? There's medications that can help too. You don't have to suffer so much when there's help available.

I still struggle but not as much as before trauma thrapy. I usually only suffer when I have been triggered and I have to just ride the symptoms out until they finally pass. Sometimes it's a few days,sometimes weeks,it's never the same. Once they do pass though I feel like I am recovering from the flu.II have to take extra gentle care of myself during symptoms and then after too,until I am well again.

Yeah,both meditation and yoga are good for PTSD episodes


Since PTSD is a life long disorder that can't be cured and only managed we have to find ways to deal with it the best we can.

I'm finding that AlaNon is helpful in some ways,especially with managing emotions (or trying to).

 

ETA: That's a good,helpful link you shared Debb. 

 

 

-- Edited by SunnyFrogs on Sunday 13th of June 2021 08:28:27 PM

 Yes my symptoms are constant and I have used therapy and some medications though I don't like chemicals that alter the mind from my  history with alcohol and drugs.  I practice now and have for a long while, psycho cybernetics which is strong mind and mood altering behaviors which works for me.  I use visualization with meditation and prayer and active communication with HP.

Although I know that physical and mental and emotional conditions are different and mental/emotional are not, for me, as forceful as physical behaviors and such I don't react as if I am being controlled actively.  I can weather the imaginations and thoughts and "act as if" another positive reality is also taking place.  I know the working reality of insanity (the continuous and disorderly process of thought) and have other awareness to use.

I have the experiences of being a behavioral health therapist also and can turn off and on what I need to rely on.  I have experience with attempted suicide and much more.  My alcoholic/addict wife was a victim of my PTSD and we survived it together in the  past.  PTSD is NOT a minor condition.  My understanding is that it is similar to living in an altered state while understanding reality.

Al-Anon is my altered state.

I hope my experience here and the explanation of my ESH has been appropriate.  If not I apologize. 

Jerry I have complex PTSD and I have problems when I am triggered where my brain is not regulated the frontal lobes are not in a match. I have found what others above me said about meditation and yoga and also reaching out to places like here and also close loved ones, I am very blessed in that I have two loved ones who are also happen to be in recovery. So I am sorry that you are suffering from this. But I think being mindful exercises and yoga and meditation and keep coming here and feel the feelings, be with the feelings so you can come to accept them and then release them thats what I do and it helps, please Take what you can use and leave the rest. Sending healing hugs

Jerry.
Certainly there is a very good understanding of PTSD related to war time experience as a #moral injury# .
For some of us who have been morally injured it is a lifetime of work. We can become closely identified with other people who have PTSD
The VA have done some state of the art research work on PTSD especially in relation to combat .
I think for me the issue with complex PTSD is that at different stages of life various issues are triggered

For some of us those symptoms may be very difficult to ma age. I am well aware you know the whole package of diet, lifestyle, calming measures
Certainly being aware of the need for regulation is key

One of the other premier experts for PTSD Richard Kluft has said it is very difficult to integrate cumulative trauma over a lifetime . Therefore someone with a major dissociative disorder and complex PTSD who has got to a place of some stability is a rare phenomenon. That is a rarity rather than a common occurrence
I know many many people who are dysregulated and find nothing wrong with it. They lash out all the time and make excuses for it. Moreover there are numerous people, very smart and engaging people, who remain profoundly disassociated and in essence fragmented their whole lifetime. They cannot imagine being otherwise

For some people the prospect of facing trauma is too triggering. In my family of origin this is the case. They will never address those issues. I am certainly at peace with that. For some of us as we move through the formidable task of integrating PTSD brings survivor guilt.
There are so many people who never make it to seing beyond their symptoms That is a source of very real grief since of us need help with. Grief is a natural phenomenon. However David Kesslor is extraordinary resource on grief. His understanding of the cumulative grief so many of us feel daily is so nourishing and redemptive.
Therefore you are most certainly a revelation to be able to be so articulate and crystal clear about the issues you face.
On top of that you are compassionate and kind and truly emphatic. How you acquired those awesome traits no o n.v e knows but everyone at Miracles in recovery has benefited from your generosity

The VA have resources they have the expertise and they have the capability. Why not use them?
The Clovis area has many facilities that can lend assistance
Call the hotline and see what is available for you

You deserve this time and attention

Maresie

Sunny I thought that Al-Anon was a imaginative state others dreamt up and was not an accepted reality; I did not believe and did not attempt to believe in it.  I even found the presence of other dialogues and accents in  language disturbing and proof something was seriously unbelievable.  I was alone and a foreigner even in a room full of Alanoners...I didn't get it and along with my refusal to get it I have spent a very long time working at getting it...Thank you God cause now I can tell myself "I know and know that I know" where as this awareness was lacking for me when I first got here while shouting, "Let me Go!!  Leave me alone!!".   

All of the resistance going in with the PTSD hanging on from birth. I was born to this disease along with the tuberculosis which showed up on a yearly basis on employment checks.  Now I have answers and tools ...lots of them to help get around and by the insanity.  I even have a definition of INSANITY given to me thru each program that makes this all real.  

Sanity...the continuous and orderly process of thought and to face the PTSD all I have to do is include the "dis-"  The continuous and "dis-" orderly process of thought.    The literature, the ESH of my recovery family, my sponsorship and continuous love and support of Al-Anon and AA provide spiritual integrity and safety to my spirit.

I have accepted a definition of spirit much in the like of the spirit I gained in the military which is and was a very different way of living.  

Again to all of you, my family...thanks for letting me share and get healing.  (((((hugs))))) 

-- Edited by JerryF on Monday 14th of June 2021 01:10:10 PM

Thanks for that awesome share/explanation Jerry.

Hugs

Welcome Girl58 to MIP!!

 

  I showed up at an Alanon meeting- in a northern city on Monday. There were two of us visitors, and two fairly new local members.

There was some very good Alanon there- with the no cross-talk guideline being practised during the core sharing period. And equally as

healthy it was not imposed around the greeting and "coffee time".

I sometimes jokingly say- that I suffer from chronic hypochondria. Anything going round I will identify with it. And so too C-PTSD. But

C-PTSD ideas have opened up a lot of doors for me. Healthy meetings and groups that offer me numerous reality checks. This is a great

substitute for "family time" that I did not get. And it does get me stable.

Thanks Jerry for getting this topic into the mesh of "coffee time".  ...