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I'm sorry Phoebes  

There have been times when I'm sure I'd have been happy to join but atm I feel no hope and as if healing is going backwards, especially with all the physical stuff plaguing me, worrying me. If I get out of this funk in time, I'll contact you Kizzie.

I've inquired anyway. Apparently you only have to be able to speak English, you don't have to be in the UK with NHS experience, which is what I assumed on reading the title.

[anxiety]

My throat is weird atm. Not hoarse, but feels difficult to breathe, though it isn't actually that way. Didn't even go to church this evening never mind sing with the choir. Anyway I googled "weird throat" and found my symptoms can come from anxiety.

There are possible other causes, including over-use (singing lessons?) and over-eating late in evening, though that would normally give rise to heart-burn, which I definitely don't have atm. It took me a few years on this forum to figure out I was even having anxiety (!) due for instance to people being in my apt / my space, like tradesman or even my computer guy. I know the latter, but didn't help much, I was totally exhausted and that's all I knew - more exhaustion - till I figured out from others' posts on here that the exhaustion was due to anxiety.

www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6pp70xd1n7o    

1) Singing lesson was difficult today for me physically/emotionally BUT the Good Thing was how my singing teacher worked with me. It was in such a way that I did end up being able to do warm-up exercises that involved singing though after we'd tried that fairly early on, I said it was far too difficult and I'd just like to do head/face/neck relaxation exercises and maybe Gorilla exercise and call it a day. No, I did manage to sing AND my teacher brought in some of my favourite exercises near the end    She'd remembered, tho at least one we hadn't done for at least 4 weeks!

2) Yesterday I bought myself something like a quiche and warmed it up to eat today piping hot. It tasted good and has left me feeling pleasantly satiated.

3) I made it to church service this evening and enjoyed the singing.

4) Did a little weeding today and gazed at my flowers and other flowers in garden.

5) Whenever I cycle or walk down the drive a nice scent from one of the roses wafts my direction

Having now googled it, I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole since I've had quite enough not-up-to-par therapy over the years, which has thrown me massively back at times. I don't find things like "life coaching and counselling" very promising for dealing with cptsd. Unfortunately I have some experience of that kind of stuff

So as not to write a novel here, I'd just say to anybody new to OOTS, there's a lot of support here on our forum!! 

[marta]

Hi, I've been wanting to know if someone has felt the same as I have.
Starting from yesterday, my body has been physically hurting so badly: my brain hurts and my muscles ache a lot. I kind of am freaking out inside because I don't know what's wrong with me.
I've people talk about "emotional physical pain", and I think I've had it, ... Everything hurts.
...

My body hurts all over at the moment too, though it's low-level pain. But a couple of hours ago I was thinking I should maybe get it checked out by a doctor, but unfortunately I no longer have a doctor (a GP) who really understands my emotional-physical health, the correlation. It's probably 'just' severe armouring but then I come up with bizarre ideas (influenced by FOO's unqualified finger-shaking "Watch it! You're going to get xyz physical health problem if you do abc" in my childhood and later). So I get 'hypochondric' tho I'm not quite sure that it's hypochondria, I think it's more I go into an Inner Child and can't access any knowledgeable Adult information, and the Inner Child is still influenced by and frightened of FOO and FOO's predictions about health and FOO's prejudice against the medical field and doctors.

Probably all my pain is muscular, but then I think even my bones are aching so I probably have cancer in my bones. Which is probably a totally ridiculous idea though at this precise moment I have absolutely no idea whether it's impossible or not. FOO would get angry or maybe they'd just ridicule me (or would have / did do so in my childhood / teens on other topics) for being so 'gullible' as to think the pain could herald a serious problem like cancer. But actually I'm not being gullible and nor was I in my childhood / teens. FOO has a lot to answer for, like about the way I suddenly have 'no idea', some of the 'irrational' fears I get and my inability to sort out what could be true or not. Particularly the latter, which is not surprising considering the amount of gaslighting FOO did to me from a young age.

I don't think you've been around for a while or are likely to read this marta but I don't want to start a new thread. Others may read it and discussion may take place again, new experiences may come up, the way they are for me rn as I write.

I think the studies did include people with severe and chronic trauma like child abuse as a substantial part of the cohort studied, not just 1 time trauma, MDMA studies at least. I think of that a bit as a marker of likely cptsd.

Oh yes, that means cptsd as far as I'm concerned, so thanks for chiming in with more qualified information, Armee 

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Hello MMercy,

A warm welcome to the forum

I see that Geeky Gramma has not been on the forum for 2 years, so it's unlikely she'll get back to you anytime soon, unfortunately.

Maybe you can find the group yourself by googling or similar.

In the meantime, the active forum mbrs here are actually very supportive and empathetic and there's a ton of helpful information and helpful experiences all over the forum.

I took my post down because I felt like it was too much. People don't like that. I had who I considered a close friend about a year ago pretty much dump me because I couldn't seem to "let things go" about my parents and that seemed so incredibly dysfunctional to her. I guess I'm still sad about that and when these memories come up and I entertain them, I feel like I should keep it to myself. (Even on here).

Based on my own past, I can really understand that.

I'm wondering if you would be helped at all in this respect if you wrote this kind of difficult text on  Member Journals? The information about them is on Recovery Journals, stick-ied at the top. See https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=15429.0. Sometimes I start posting about some particular topic on my Recovery Journal or on some other thread like this one. After a while I maybe get deeper into the topic and it feels too risky for me to leave it on the general forum visible for all members and non-members, so I copy the final couple of posts onto my Private Journal and continue there. The "risky" worry is based partly on the remote chance that somebody in FOO might come snooping and recognise me, but mostly it's due to me getting a bit EF-y.

If writing on Member Journals is unlikely to help you, you're welcome to just ignore my suggestion. You don't have to explain and justify yourself. 

1) Still feeling more hopeful, and more energised

2) Did a lot of self-care today, including skin care and foot care

3) I was at choir practice for the first time in a few weeks this evening and now hymns are running through my head and I'm smiling

3 Good Things Today

1) Opening the window into the sunshine, feeling the sun on my face and looking down into the garden

2) Looking up names of flowers in English and seeing more photos of the flowers and information on the plants while I'm about it. I enjoy the whole process

3) Suddenly feeling the energy and general wherewithal to do a few things - phoned 3 friends to pass on some information and have a quick chat of whom I reached two + cleaned a couple of parts in my bathroom that really needed it and now I feel good and purposeful for having accomplished that rather than exhausted or otherwise triggered (as is often the case unfortunately)

3+ Good Things Over the Past Few Days

1) Working in the garden yesterday

2) Going into town centre yesterday morning and enjoying bumping into friends and having a quick chat, enjoying outdoor farmer's market, getting an enthusiastic greeting from one person at 'my' farm stand, doing a quick job for them that will help Sun/Mon whether or not I manage to go, enjoying the sun

3) Nice hot cup of tea
4) Getting the bus (free here on Saturdays) and walking as an alternative to cycling; I notice different things when I'm walking and go slightly different routes. Had a little waiting time and went to gaze at the river flowing deep and fast atm, not something I would normally do at that location if I have my bike with me

5) A friend's husband brought me the last remaining bulky item that he kindly took into his storage facility when I had to clear the storage area in previous building where I lived. It was in his storage room for 18 months   (tho there were reasons for that, mostly my exhaustion...)

6) Yesterday I got the call bus for part of my route and I was grateful that the person I spoke to when I was ordering it told me to go ahead and order because "that's what it's there for". I'd been thinking and said that if nobody else had ordered then it would be a kind of a waste so I 'should' just walk, since not really very far. Oh there's that 'should' again, so a doubly Good Thing that the bus co. employee said things that meant "Of course it's worth it just for you alone !"

7) I went to our local library's board games evening on Thursday. It was fun and sociable and I managed a good mix of mentally taxing game and a bit more relaxing and relaxed but not too easy

8 ) I have flowers in vases dotted all over my apt

9) Friday after trauma T, I managed about 12 minutes of the 15-min. meditation I'm meant to be doing daily if possible and it did help me settle better. It was good that I tried it when I felt it would be helpful and that I tried it at a different time from what I had been practising regularly (before stopping) which had been immediately on getting up.   

10) I feel more hopeful after trauma T on Friday

So friends in warmer parts of Canada are telling me about all the lovely spring flowers, trees leafing out, etc and here we are just growing snow.

How is your snow plantation doing?