Dipping My Toes In

[Catlady]

Just a quick hello and intro to get involved.

I've found myself at 40, and still struggling to overcome my childhood trauma and then domestic abuse from most relationships that I've been involved in. I have been involved in therapy on and off my entire life. Failed many different medications. I have only really connected with one therapist in adulthood, but after 5 years with her, she let me go because she said she hadn't been able to document any progress with me for over a year. I was honestly very hurt by it. For the next 6 years, I have probably tried a therapist a year? I'm convinced that there is NOT some magic number of times that I'm going to speak my truth and not be left raw and shredded for at LEAST the day...if not a few days, depending on triggers. And that seems to be the common theme with therapists in my area. They think I need to say it all out loud until it doesn't shatter me. That approach hasn't worked in all these years. Maybe it's time to try something new? I tried group therapy last. I excused myself to the restroom 20 minutes in and left. I just couldn't handle it. What I think that I would really like is more of a life coach, that comes in and helps me more hands on with life so they can teach me to manage my triggers until hopefully they aren't triggers anymore. I seem to no longer be able to even time manage myself, prioritize, schedule...I lose nearly entire days, hiding out in my mind and art. Numbing out, in my little hermit life. I know that I am a very intelligent and talented woman and I have so many plans and ideas for my life. But I am becoming more and more recluse, and I don't want to be. I have dreams of traveling and even now have an RV that my husband wants to help me renovate and make my dreams come true. But I can't even get started on it because I would have to leave my house to work on it, being parked away from our home. My children have started leaving the nest and everyone around me, even my kids, are encouraging me to start making my life more about me. And I want that so badly myself. But it's like I'm paralyzed with fear of being triggered.

The last 2 therapists that evaluated me mentioned CPTSD when I mentioned a few different psychiatrists said that I couldn't still be suffering from PTSD after x-amount of years, that I should be considered for different diagnoses. Every therapist that I have seen has always agreed with a PTSD diagnosis. They all also seem to think that I will most likely always struggle with it. My grandfather is nearing the end of his very hard life, having grown up with an even more horrible childhood than mine. He talks obsessively about the things that happened to him, as if he held it in all that he could all these years and now he can't contain it another second. It's heartbreaking. I don't want that for myself. I don't want that for my children. I've made really great progress over the years, no matter how slow. So I know that I can make MORE progress. I just don't think it's within an office space with a stranger.

So, here I am. I do better in written form and online anyway. We won't discuss how long it took me to write this and rewrite it. Control issues. Yes, I do. I can only take in so much information at a time before I become overwhelmed and shut down. I think this is a great way for me to get more information and hopefully ideas and encouragement, at my own pace.

[Blueberry]

  Welcome to the forum, Catlady!
Welcome to the club too! You're not the only one here who's been in and out of therapy for years, making progress albeit slow. Me too. And there are others on here. I'll leave them to identify themselves.

I know, it's very hurtful when a therapist or other health worker says we're not making any progress. So I'm sorry that happened to you, especially since it was a therapist to whom you felt a connection.

I've been told I'll likely always struggle with my emotional health, even long before I had the C-PTSD diagnosis. That doesn't however mean that no healing is possible; no, some is possible so that we can live life more fully. Just from reading around on here for the past 6 months I'd say that all of us are making progress in some way or other, so I'm sure you will too.

This forum is very supportive and there is a lot of collective knowledge on here. I am in trauma therapy atm, which is doing me a lot of good, but this forum is in second place for providing support and growth. I really hope it helps you find your way better too. BTW writing takes a lot of time for me too, though I've been getting better at it since I started posting on here.

Hope to see you around the forum! 

[Rainagain]

Hi catlady,
I hope you find this place helps you.
I found myself identifying with so much that you said, I have a little hermit life too, feels safer but I know it isn't really healthy.
I'd like to try to offer you some things to consider, they may not be true but see what you think.

I have read a few things over the years which I believe to be true:
1. PTSD is treatable
2. Without treatment a long term effect is withdrawal (little hermit life)
3. PTSD will remain with you until treated (even if it is many years/decades).

It sounds like you have been told things which simply aren't true.

It might be that the therapist you trusted 'let you go' because they could see the treatment they could offer you wasn't helping you, it might have been the action of a compassionate friend and not a betrayal? A villain might have just carried on taking your money?

Having said that, I think counsellors are like car mechanics, some are great, some are hopeless and some are villains.

I found EMDR had an effect on me, it wasn't a cure but I could actually feel that it was changing things in my head while it was going on and it did help.

I read your post and wanted to respond.

[Rainagain]

Hi again,

The idea of group therapy makes me shudder but also sounded funny.

Was it a roomful of people all trying to sit facing the door?

Like musical chairs for the traumatised?

It sounds so threatening I can't imagine trying it, ever.

[EliseB]

Thanks for the great practical advice in these posts.  I had found individual therapy helpful, but there was always something missing in treating the trauma piece...    Then I did some sessions with EMDR, and I found it to be helpful and calming when I was going through a really rough, anxious time.  It was like my brain was making connections between all these different memories and parts of my life.  I am not doing it currently, but I  would ask my therapist again if I was to go through another hard time.

Medicine for sleep is also a lifesaver.  I felt like my brain didn't want me to sleep because that is when memories are consolidated, and that is part of the problem with any type of PTSD.

I have never done group therapy because I am too shy and nervous, so I'm glad this forum is here 

[Blueberry]

The idea of group therapy makes me shudder but also sounded funny.
....
It sounds so threatening I can't imagine trying it, ever.

Rainagain, at a time when I couldn't find anybody local to do trauma therapy with me, because at that time trauma Ts didn't think I'd been hurt enough in the appropriate ways by the appropriate people to have that count as trauma, I went to a long-weekend of group therapy on Inner Child. I was absolutely at my wit's end by that stage. The two therapists there listened to me, the group did too. Things I'd said in another group (a place where I had been often before, but that couldn't understand the desperation I felt by that stage) e.g.

TRIGGER WARNING

I had the feeling my body would implode so that little bits of me would fly all over the place, and that would be a good thing because it meant I would no longer exist

End TW

made them draw in their collective breaths (it was audible) in shock. Somebody or rather some people finally heard and understood how bad my situation was and yes, how terribly badly I'd been traumatised as a small child in FOO and of course that that traumatisation continued up into adolescence and early adulthood.

The two therapists took a break to discuss my situation with each other. They decided they could work with me that weekend if I agreed to a few things. Which I did. Within this group session, they introduced me to trauma-informed treatment and they gave me hope! I honestly do not know what I would have done if I hadn't come across these two therapists. For several years I could only function because I did these long weekends of Inner Child healing 4 times a year. Not only did I function, but I made a lot of progress too. The feedback from others was very useful and healing too, the way it is on here.

There are still no trauma-informed therapists in my immediate area who I can get on with i.e. who don't trigger me. But there is fortunately one a bit further afield who I've been going to for a while with very good results.

So don't be frightened to try the unorthodox when there's nothing else to try!

Sorry for the big hijack, catlady.

[Catlady]

Hi again,

The idea of group therapy makes me shudder but also sounded funny.

Was it a roomful of people all trying to sit facing the door?

Like musical chairs for the traumatised?

It sounds so threatening I can't imagine trying it, ever.

I laughed myself into tears at this! I worried afterwards that maybe I'd ruined it for myself by being so anxious about it beforehand. But seriously, talking about my trauma can be traumatizing for me. Plain and simple. And that just wasn't the environment for me to be so vulnerable in.

I believe strongly that healing is possible. I'm also pretty sure I'll never be a person who will be able to even be in the same house that a horror movie is being watched without being triggered. I'm fine with that. It's really the social aspect that concerns me and effects me most. Holding a typical job has proven to be impossible. I know that I could easily bring in a steady income with my art and photography, as I did in the past. But I'm so...stuck? Somehow I have lost the ability to...I can't think of the word...like, prioritize or even create a schedule for myself. STICK to that schedule. It's hard to stick to a schedule sometimes when you're being ruled by emotions. Frustrating. I want more and I'd like someone to send the map there, and pronto!

I appreciate the warm welcome. I actually had a good day today when I went out into the world. I had a conversation with a woman who revealed to me that she struggles with CPTSD as well, and it prompted me to come back. It was an encouraging conversation. Doing the work on this exhausts me on a level that's just, stupid. It helps me to read about it and learn about. And I think meeting more people like me will help too. But I can only take in so much at once, and then it's like someone gave me a tranquilizer.  It's exhausting feeling everything so deeply.