[QUOTE=Sateryn76]
When you say you overcame PTSD, does that mean you don’t feel that way anymore? Ever? Did you consider meds? I have to say that, I’m so beat down right now, that the thought of just taking a magic pill sounds very attractive, even though it goes against everything I stand for, and I have at least two people in my immediate family that have become med zombies.
[/QUOTE]
Sort of. I first started experiencing symptoms at age 18. I didn’t just ‘‘consider’’ meds, I was a walking pharmacy for a while there, I was hospitalized, declared a disabled student, withdrew from college for 2 years, those were dark times. Meds did very little for me and in all honestly probably made things worse. In retrospect it is clear my biggest problem was lack of access to the proper treatment. Too many therapists encouraging me to beat a dead horse rather than find empowerment in the present.
I am 27 now, very high functioning and med-free since 2006. Things aren’t perfect, but I will say that since doing prolonged exposure therapy last fall and starting cognitive therapy this summer I have been improving on a basis I can only call exponential. Today, in fact, I did something (a personal thing) I never thought possible due to PTSD. So yeah, there is real hope for recovery without meds. I’ve been telling people that for years but I mean it more than ever today.
One of the first steps in cognitive behavioral therapy is identifying and refuting irrational beliefs. It sounds like you know you have some, as you are already trying to argue with yourself in the moment when you feel pain in your legs and begin to wonder if you have a clot.
On the subject of blood clots, I guess where I’d start is to go online or somewhere and look up the actual risk for blood clots for someone in your age bracket. You will likely find the probability vanishingly small. Tuck that in your personal arsenal the next time this seems like a reasonable outcome.
One big fear I struggle with is of someone breaking into the house at night and stabbing me to death (this particular fear has no relation to my original trauma, but it doesn’t have to.) One of the first things I did to try to address this is find out the statistical prevalence of murder in my neighborhood. I found that in the past 6 years there have been zero murders. Zero.
Then I asked myself how many times have I been certain someone was breaking into the house? And how many of those times did someone actually break in? What I learned is that my fear is in no way an indicator of real danger, it’s just fear. Likewise, you can ask yourself, ‘‘How many times have I worried something was seriously wrong with my health? And how many times has that turned out to be true?’’
Now here is something very important I learned recently, which has made a world of difference for me. The above refutations of irrational beliefs are really important when you’re writing them down during the day specifically to refute them or whatever, but they aren’t necessarily helpful in the moment of anxiety. Those refutations have to be turned into positive statements.
For example, if I was panicking and said to myself, ‘‘It’s not likely someone is breaking into the house,’’ my brain, in its panic, will likely only process ‘‘someone is breaking into the house’’ and I will probably not feel calmer.
Instead, I have to create a positive reality.
Such as:
The house is empty.
The cat is making noise.
I am safe.
I have found that envisioning the empty house distracts me from the imaginary spectre of serial killer. It’s better to focus on the positive reality in the moment. So you’d want to avoid thinking, ‘‘It’s not a blood clot’’ in the middle of a panic attack. For you a positive statement might be, ‘‘I really slept funny last night,’’ or ‘‘I am healthy and take care of my body.’’
Anyway, that’s just a start. This stuff is going to take time. And because you have trauma, it’s probably going to require processing all that grief you stuffed. By ‘‘processing’’ I don’t mean ‘‘talking about it calmly as you carefully suppress your emotions,’’ I mean getting to that place where you feel like you’re there and the world is falling apart. If thinking about your Mom dying makes you want to cry snot bubbles, then dammit you gotta cry those snot bubbles. You have to feel the pain and agony and grief and learn that it won’t kill you or else you will keep trying to avoid it, and it will keep popping up again and again in the form of PTSD. (This process I refer to is the basis of prolonged exposure therapy.) You won’t be truly better until you can feel that pain in the moment and experience it without feeling the need to push it away.
I’m not even pretending this is easy, in fact going through the exposure process sucked balls. I basically had to relive my traumatic experiences for two hours a day for three months straight until they didn’t scare me any more. But the way I look at it, I’d already been reliving them for 9 years, what’s another three months?
Oh, and like you, IIRC, I also have an amazingly supportive husband. I strongly recommend you use his support whenever you need it, don’t be afraid to reach out to him and always remember that because of his love you’ll never go through any of this alone.
I feel like I’m babbling. Anyway, I really want what’s best for you and absolutely believe if you can handle a baby at 19 and something as difficult as your mother’s death that you can pretty much overcome anything. I mean I’m 27 and I’m planning on conceiving a baby soon, a baby I WANT, and I’m still scared shitless. You’re obviously a very strong person to come through all that. I wish you best of luck.
