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Hi there,

I've already posted some of this information on another thread, so apologies for repetition.

My C-PTSD started just over a year ago, which is just over a year since the actual trauma itself gradually ended and I'd just begun to get my life back together again. I am now six months into therapy, initially CBT and more lately EMDR.

The trauma itself was five years of caring for my teenage son as he battled with anorexia nervosa and clinical depression / suicidal tendencies. It was a 24/7 fight and too horrendous and triggering to describe here. Thankfully he is now recovered.

I found this forum having come across its sister forum a while ago, but wasn't aware of a specialist C-PTSD forum until today, so am grateful to have found you!

At the moment my life has ground to a halt, really, in that I can't concentrate on anything for more than a minute or so, can't face most things ("too big"), even the simplest most straightforward of things, am self-isolating in a Big Way, and staying at home rather than getting out of the house. I have shouting nightmares most nights, all anxiety-driven, not flashbacks to the trauma itself but other things that scream out extreme anxiety. I also have all the physical symptoms of anxiety: IBS, heart palpitations, exhaustion, insomnia, over / under-eating, nausea, the works.

I feel as if I've turned into someone else - a stranger.

And, of course, the inner-critic has revved itself up screaming at me that I'm a failure, I'll never be able to focus on anything for more than a couple of minutes, will end up isolated and friendless, blah blah blah. Aaarrggh!

So that is me, in a nutshell. Thank you for listening!! 

[Everything.]

That's the best way to describe it: everything just seems 'too big'. Everything. There is too much going on inside my head, too many things I should be doing, like a crazy snowstorm of stuff whizzing around my head. Result? I am like a rabbit caught in the headlights and can do NOTHING. Complete inaction, constantly nagged by the Inner-Critic-on-Steroids inside my head which leaves me feeling physically sick.

I have to literally force myself to do stuff: socialise, exercise, work, be a functioning wife and mother, go on vacation, read a book, watch TV... anything. It is all just 'too big' and sends me into a frenzy of panic. Also lots of physical symptoms which are very unpleasant.

I am currrently seven months into treatment for C-PTSD. After a series of CBT sessions which focussed on removing the 'numbness' I'd been experiencing for so long (successful), I am now undergoing EMDR because my anxiety levels have gone overboard. Last night, for instance, my H and I went out with a couple he knows (I'd never met them before) for a restaurant meal. On the surface I appeared just like a normal sociable, ordinary person having a good evening; inside it was.... well.... whoosh! Like a Tsunamii going on!! I couldn't eat - felt as if I was going to vomit after every mouthful, and ate nothing, really. Followed by a terrible night with all the usual lucid shouting / moaning / groaning nightmares which occur at least four times a week...

Not surprisingly I am fed up with feeling like this and want to get back to 'normal'. Googling 'PTSD, everything seems too big' this morning I came across the Outofthefog website which I'd come across before and noticed there is this new forum for C-PTSD, so here I am! Just knowing that other people are experiencing something similar will be of great help.

I live in the UK, by the way and so am receiving treatment from the NHS (National Health Service) Mental Health Services.

Thanks everyone...