Complex PTSD and no help available

JeremyJ

SurvivingTara  said There can be emotional flashbacks triggered by anyone (boss, partner, friend, therapist, GP etc), at any moment, their phrases, tone of voice, behaviour reminds the brain of a past event, and it goes into flashback mode. It`s just the way it is reacting.  This is a particularly difficult aspect of the 'condition' - I know it is difficult for other (close) people to understand. I've found that with practice, patience and a loving partner I'm now more able to 'feel my way through' (credit to Pete Walker) this when it happens

Earlier Holly says  'I really have to think to get my head around things so apologies in advance if I am missing the point' So do I - I have to think and to feel to get my head around things. As for education, I managed to scrape through, got a third from Wolverhampton Polytechnic - ended up there as a matter of luck and fortune from meeting some like minded friends aged 16 and it was a way out. The third was a source of embarrassment for years and I married someone with a 2:1 from a Russel Group Uni - which again reinforced my feelings of not being good enough. I've managed to progress well in work and postgrad despite the background, but one of the consequences of all this drive and achievement post childhood was ignoring my feelings, pretending that everything was ok and the world came crashing down around me. Unfotuntately, this all had to happen otherwise I would not be on the path of recovery that I'm on. 

We have Descartes to blame for the medical division between the mind and body which has fuelled the meds and unhelpful labelling: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3115289/ taken from the abstract of this paper:

'The cause of concern is that this theoretical framework rarely gets questioned despite its inherent limitations and self-defeating consequences, leading to crisis in the concerned field. The field, which is facing crisis today, is that of medicine, and the paradigmatic stance that is responsible for the crisis is Cartesian dualism—a view that mind and body are essentially separate entities.'

Totally agree with 'Holly Cat apologised for not being educated in these matters, feel sad. Life really has nothing to do with education or being articulate.' and as Newborn suggests, Holly your posts are inspiring and full of the most important type of intelligence.

HollyGCat

All - I am officially blushing!!! But thank you for your kind words @newborn @SurvivingTara @JeremyJ

newborn

At last, there are faint stirrings of new thinking, even among the misery industry  professionals. 

In Canada, N.S. T. Survivors are being recognised,  after  two ex nurses spent 20 years campaigning.  

In u.k., napac is trying.  Havoca, pandoras aquarium and other sites allow online groups and threads on recognisable topics.

Matilda

Also divisions within physical and mental medicine that are not helpful.  A holistic approach is necessary.

Chloe_Alumni

Hi guys! Thank you for continuing this discussion and I'm so glad you are finding it so helpful to discuss things. You're all such valued members of the community!

SurvivingTara

So grateful for the posts on this site !!!!!!.

Like I said, education is all head, left brain stuff, that the powers that be in todays society, (may be Descartes and pals), theory way of being forces us into, to supply the capitalist system (work), and condition our head for service to western society.  The right brain creative part of us has been suppressed, and is in schools today (music art etc) as resources withdrawn to make sure we focus on maths, science and english....

Also  as Jeremy J says the mind body split came (the dualism), and this theory has affected us humans. There is no split between mind and body, and so no split between mental and physical health its all affected...

Our journey in life, experience,  and coping/managing what life has thrown at us, is what matters. Not what people try to fill our heads with so we can regurgitate in an exam to make us and others (who want to see certificates),  think we are OK because we passed. Very often academics have few social skills and common sense. I see a lot of common sense and coping and pushing through on this site!!!!!

The false self term is a person centred term coined by Carl Rogers and others, to say or intimate, we were  born with a true innate ,good lovely self. We still have it. However, through conditioning / programming, (or behaviour modification techniques by others), we are damaged, altered or changed generationally, away from our true innate self./spirit/consiousness etc we were born with.

In one religion it says, " give me the boy until the age of 7 and I will show you the man", in other words every one is broken/ conditioned/programmed/so called civilized according to someone/society/culture/family etc, to behave in society in a particular way. Then you will be accepted by some, and not by others.

Good Person Centred Counselliing, (this is not the only support) allows safe space to process everything, peel back the onion skins and get to that lovable, good self, in there, the inner child, (before wounding) which  we continue to beat up, berate and re abuse, because we were wounded, and taught to do it by others initially, so we do it by proxy now, we have learned to do it, and hard not to accept ourselves as we are..

The SHAME thingy, is only a symptom of CPTSD. We have been made to feel ashamed of who we are, not good enough...

COME ON FOLKS WE ARE ALL WONDERFUL SURVIVING ADULTS, coping the best we can with the suffering experienced at the hands of others.

Yes, we will have flashbacks, and symptoms and be triggered by others into regressive behaviour,feel abandoned and depressed (eg anger and rage turned in on us ) , because we were wounded early on.  We need unconditional love, support, compassion and enabling to surive. I am 72yrs had 3 breakdowns,  after CSA by father (a church elder-yes)  and at my age gone back into counselling (private P.C) to work more on my suppressed stuff, which was affecting me, and giving more symptoms. It is a life long journey and often painful......All coming up because I suppressed all the suffering with pain killers, to try to function and not acknowledge what had happened. We are all doing it, surviving...Well done folks !!!!!!

JeremyJ

Thank you SurvivingTara  Felt emotional when I read this post and 'I am 72yrs' and still working on it, I feel so motivated by this 

SurvivingTara

thank you Jeremy J for your comment appreciate them . Surviving is not easy,   it is a heck of a journey and symptoms, can still be triggered by something or someone. We survivors pull together, and manage the dross and unite for the better. 

newborn

Hi Chloe, thanks.
Re what others have said,  on respecting each unique person holistically,  it is heartening that a u.s.a. surgeon,  of all  people,  has gone heavily into placebo.  Others are at last stopping sneering, just long enough to check facts.

I never comprehended the hatred of every alternative to chemicals and knives.

Why would anyone try those first, if there was anything else at all which shows  promise?  Maybe talking to bees, or hugging trees, or tying a piece of green cotton round your big toe, or walking three times in a circle chanting the word 'bo'.  

I saw a documentary showing routine treatment in a chinese hospital,  where the surgeon followed the routine traditional  sequence of acupuncturist and the hypnotist,  instead  of modern anaesthetists,  but the patients  were fine, had quick rates of recovery.

The u.s.a. surgeon began his interest in placebo when by mistake,  his patient was not informed that at the last minute, he had stopped her knee operation a moment before it began, due to an emergency call. He rushed to her room to explain. But  she was awake and happy and thrilled, when he went to apologise and re-book. The pain was instantly cured, the range of movement almost back to her youth, and she couldn't wait to get back to golf.   

He already  knew that many procedures are performed  by tradition, rather than statistics.  She later insisted on a placebo operation for her second knee, which  worked even better. He began  offering no-op operations yet the recovery rate was no different,  fake or real. 

Other researchers have found the 'placebo paradox', that a proportion of drug trial subjects respond better to the placebo than the chemical on trial, but what is more surprising is that the effect remains even when they know it is an inert placebo.  People find it works. They want a continuing supply.

That makes it even less forgivable that n.h.s merely doles out, without question,   whatever chemicals are being promoted by the pharmaceutical industry.  

HollyGCat

On another thread this was shared. I thought it also belonged on this thread. It is probably something many of you have read, but I hadn’t, and after a long night (being a ridiculous moth to a flame) long story...I needed something, this gave me whatever it was I needed. Unashamedly plagiarised for us all; 

A SOLDIER WITH PTSD FELL IN A HOLE and couldn’t get out.

A Senior NCO went by and the Soldier with PTSD called out for help. The Senior NCO yelled at, told him to suck it up dig deep & drive on, then threw him a shovel. But the Soldier with PTSD could not suck it up and drive on so he dug the hole deeper.

A Senior Officer went by and the Soldier with PTSD called out for help. The Senior Officer told him to use the tools your Senior NCO has given you then threw him a bucket. But the Soldier with PTSD was using the tools his Senior NCO gave him so he dug the hole deeper and filled the bucket.

A psychiatrist walked by. The Soldier with PTSD said, “Help! I can’t get out!” The psychiatrist gave him some drugs and said, “Take this. It will relieve the pain.” The Soldier with PTSD said thanks, but when the pills ran out, he was still in the hole.

A well-known psychologist rode by and heard the Soldier with PTSD cries for help. He stopped and asked, ” How did you get there? Were you born there? Did your parents put you there? Tell me about yourself, it will alleviate your sense of loneliness.” So the Soldier with PTSD talked with him for an hour, then the psychologist had to leave, but he said he’d be back next week. The Soldier with PTSD thanked him, but he was still in the hole.

A priest came by. The Soldier with PTSD called for help. The priest gave him a Bible and said, “I’ll say a prayer for you.” He got down on his knees and prayed for the Soldier with PTSD, then he left. The Soldier with PTSD was very grateful, he read the Bible, but he was still stuck in the hole.

A recovering Soldier with PTSD happened to be passing by. The Soldier with PTSD cried out, “Hey, help me. I’m stuck in this hole!” Right away the recovering Soldier with PTSD jumped down in the hole with him. The Soldier with PTSD said, “What are you doing? Now we’re both stuck here!!” But the recovering Soldier with PTSD said, “Calm down. It’s okay. I’ve been here before. I know how to get out.
~Author Unknown

JeremyJ

HollyG great post, the last paragraph - there is something profound, helpful and healing about someone showing understanding about what you’re going through - it’s validating.l wonder how a CPTSD adult gets out of the hole - when I read the last para above I cried a little, just the thought of another person showing some understanding and knowing how awful it can feel - I can hold on to that thought. That’s helpful in itself, it allows me to feel which is what I tried to avoid so much as a child - I always feel a bit better when I’ve given space to allow myself to be emotional and that it’s ok to feel upset because it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with me.

A number of years ago 10+ a clinical psychologist gave me a poem about falling in a hole, walking round the hole etc I pinned it up by my desk but looking back it was quite unhelpful, rather than avoiding the hole (which the poem encourages) I learnt that when I end up in the ‘hole’ I need to stay with it - feel it - I know that this was a safe place when I was a child - just allow myself to let whatever I’m feeling come and then tell myself I’m ok (worthwhile, loveable etc - all those thing we actually really hate hearing about ourselves - so I tell my inner child/younger self that I will love and protect him and mediate on that etc), only by doing that does the hole start to feel a little less deep, a bit less scary/dangerous etc than it did before. The feelings do pass - it can be exhausting!! This is what helps me and yet again your post.

Ps moths are extremely helpul!

Thank you

SurvivingTara

HollyG Cat, awesome post  about the soldier, they too suffer. We too are all soldiers in life and veterans of the developmental trauma -CPTSD war. Struggling with symptoms of woundings...That post is exactly it, it says everything we have all experienced in different ways on our journey through the mired environment., in the trenches,  It`s what many so called professionals do, tick boxes, placate, and leave you down a deep, dark hole, until the next week, march into our lives, the following week with a smile and more placating appropriate words from the head, (not heart-wooah, we work from the head book, not heart we been trained to be clinical eh says them).

YES, Jeremy J you say, "I learnt that when I end up in the ‘hole’ I need to stay with it - feel it - I know that this was a safe place when I was a child - just allow myself to let whatever I’m feeling come and then tell myself I’m ok (worthwhile, loveable etc - all those thing we actually really hate hearing about ourselves - so I tell my inner child/younger self that I will love and protect him and mediate on that etc), only by doing that does the hole start to feel a little less deep, a bit less scary/dangerous etc than it did before. The feelings do pass - it can be exhausting!!"   Know  of this poem about the hole Jeremy J....

This method of staying with the feeling and experiencing arisings, is what the buddhists are taught when things come up, they call it arisings and passings emerging. They do this in meditation practice and experience their inner goings on etc, to be able to clear them away.

Then the NHS in UK, some years ago brought in MBSR  8 week courses to teach   mindfulness, (as taught in USA by Jon Kabat - Zinn), they pinched this mindfulness course and adapted it from the Buddhists, and turned it into a type of CBT course (for funding purposes), and deliver it in the UK, you can be referred by a GP to a course if its delivered in your area. It is supposed to teach you to stay with what feelings are arising, not matter how horrid. That is OK if you have follow on support, which is not always there on the ro ro NHS course .

Also Pete Walker and a therapist of mine taught me skills of soothing my inner terrified child when I was in the hole, ( something never had as a child -soothing or skills given),

Learning soothing skills and staying with the experience and feelings, even though they are terrifying, they say is an important part of therapy, for "what we resist persists", (Carl Jung), and grows bigger. 

However, there are times when I am down that dark hole, triggered, when I fail to soothe, and stay with it also, shake, feel terrified, panicked, want to run, etc. Regressed, and  in the child state I  need to be reminded and want someone to facilitate, the climb from the hole. With someone who understands how dark and deep the hole can be, has been there and has climbed out...

dolfrog

The problem is the corrupt so call medical professionals who only want to sell medications and bogus programs who do not want to begin to understand the real underlying causes of our various causes of stress.
They only want to make money out of the vulnerable, and massage their egos, and definately do not want to work as part of any multi - discipline support team - Frauds.
In my case of PTSD the frauds are UK NHS employed Audiologists, Speech and Language therapists, and Psychologists. CBT is a scam and does not even begin to address the real underlying issues
There are also many researchers at UK universities trying to maintain their existing research funding sources, and avoiding new international research which suggests different related areas are the cause of the symptoms they claim to  research. Such is the high level of corruption.

SurvivingTara

Dolfrog you speak the truth!!!!!. You are awake...........However, when so many of us since 1946 from our birth and the birth of the welfare state, are indoctrinated to go to a GP for help, (as the only person to so called cure us), not understanding that they are trained gate keepers of the big pharma, whose aim is profit, and who quell symptoms (the message of our body telling us something), with the chemical cosh. GPs are not trained to look at the cause of a person`s condition, just to supress and help them to accept and live in the environment they find themselves in, via toxic chemicals that destroy lives. The medical model of health has outlawed alternative forms of healing and the searching for an understanding, of the cause of the symptoms, our behaviour. Takes too long and a quick fix with an outcome or target is required. CBT is a scam  therapy (perhaps taught to a nurse over so many days for her/him to be able to deliver, and send you home with homework to do) and the only treatment allowed by the NHS, its methods solve nothing. Mindfulness on the NHS is founded on CBT lines, e.g. go home and practice the techniques, if things arise so be it, you are on your own to suffer in your living room. Everyone in the helping professions in the NHS or caring services is designed to pull the wool over the eyes of the patient and make them believe they are curing us, its magic at its best and with smoke and mirror and slight of hand on a prescription pad, they fool the population. When will we awaken to truth? Then what are we going to do? Still go pleading to the medical model of health when they are so resistant to change and embedded within the pharmaceutical industry & profit? Or discover an alternative approach, someone (possiblly who has suffered and come through it) with compassion, empathy, kindness and a willingness to get to the root of our malady, and  enable us, and build us up (for with the right approach and understanding the mind/body will heal  without toxic chemicals), from there towards functioning adults, (who have suffered and have wounds also so they know where we are), where we can start to enjoy life?

newborn

Blessed are they who let it be known
You are loved, respected and not alone

I agree with these posts.

P.S. please  please  Tara can you try to remember to use paragraphs? Better in every case to use too many than too few.  A couple of sentences, then a break in text, means  most people can read it.

A long block of solid unbroken text is a great problem for many types of disability.  Brains can't  process.  Eyes cant convey information.  

The worst of it is, some of the best most informative  most unique posts are written in passion.   But unless all writers  go back over the text and press that spacing key,  they  are preventing  some potential  readers from access. 

They don't  mean to. They would  be shocked to think they are  by mistake discriminating. They just had not realised how hard it is, for some readers, to face the solid text mass.

SurvivingTara

Thank you Newborn for your feedback and how my post was written and affected you.

I can see you are angry with the way I set out or not my writing and I am sorry it has affected you in this way, and caused you distress in reading. You want me to block everything, and space things for you, use the english language rules.

As I read your post, I started to shake.

I became dysfunctional.

I felt criticized, judged and condemned by an authoritarian type parent or teacher. It affected me  harshly.

My partner enabled me to ground, come out of the child I had regressed to at the age of 10, I am 72 now.

Processing this immediate situation, I discovered I had been triggered by a post which was critical. I flashed back to an earlier traumatic time in my life.

You see, I have the condition called dyslexia, a disability along with trauma which has plagued my life. Dyslexia affects the ability to communicate via the written word.

My partner who is my buddy, who helps me communicate, has to check spelling and such like, so its hard, because you can`t rely on a spell checker. If I let you read a post unedited I doubt you would understand it at all.

Therefore, once again Newborn I apologise for how the letters on the page affected you, they affect me also, however,  I have never judged anyone, and railed at them for the way their text affected me. I have communicated compassionately and with empathy with others, understanding that we are all different and may have a disability the same as me.

You say "The worst of it is, some of the best most informative  most unique posts are written in passion.   But unless all writers  go back over the text and press that spacing key,  they  are preventing  some potential  readers from access".

It is understood Newborn, and I am sorry for this, at times I don`t know the englich lanuage rules and my partner buddy is not an english professor either. We do our best.

It is difficult for me to communicate at times as I was not as people are today enabled and trained to manage dyslexia and I consider I have done well to survive with dyslexia and trauma, and have done well to communicate at all with others,  via the written word and inconsistency  and retention about the language and its rules is also an issue, but I am sorry once again Newborn my commnication was not good enough for you, and caused you to experience frustration, when reading my posts.

I will as alway continue to be sensitive to how my words are going to be received for they affect others, and with compassion and understanding I always relate, and try to do no harm.

One still travels hopefully, that others may some day understand disability and how they communicate with others can be a struggle.

As your post says blessed are they who let it be known...........

I do not feel respected, loved and I feel lonely..But I am surviving.

newborn

Dear Tara. 

The last thing in the world I would ever do is attack  you, or anyone else.   Im so very sorry  (and hurt) you could for an instant  have thought such a thing.  Nobody  attacks people in Scope threads.   We are on the same side. We help each other. We support  each other. We care about each other.

The request  about breaking up solid blocks of texts is made elsewhere,  made before in the Scope threads. Long ago.  Lots  of people  ask for this..... Not because  they dislike the person who wrote.....  Exactly the opposite. 

They really, very much indeed want to read what the person wrote. Because they respect  the person. Because  they like the person. They know that person must have written something  interesting and important.

Can you understand that people  admire you, that's why they want to know what you wrote?

What would you do if you were speaking to someone who is rather deaf?  They would ask you to speak more clearly, to face directly towards them, not to cover your mouth.  Why?  Is it because they want to be horrible to you?  Or is it because they respect  you, value whatever you say, and do not want to miss anything?

If you have, perhaps,  an important or interesting document, or picture, or a magazine article, and you want someone  to look at it, then you show respect for them by making  sure they have enough time to look,  If they don't  have good eyesight,  you will not feel angry if they ask you to hold it a bit closer to them. 

They are not criticising  you.  They are not telling you off,  they are  not telling you you are wrong,  they are not having a go at you.  Their wish to properly see the thing you are showing  must be because they are on your side.

On your side means N O T against you, N O T your enemy.  Please believe you will not find any enemies here in Scope.    Any time in future you feel angry or upset, maybe it would be worth pausing  and  before you lash out in what you may think is retaliating  against enemies, just asking yourself if it is really, truly, very likely that the Scope boards are the place where bad people go, intentionally harming other people.  

Tara l care about you, please  let me know you know that, because  it distresses me to be accused of distressing you! 

 I care about a lot of the pained people here. You have no idea how  much pain l have gone through,  and how my heart goes out for others, many worse off.  Some have been born with considerable problems,  and some are terminal.    Unlike you, describing your supportive partner,  some are alone in the world without family or any support.   Not all those things apply to me,  some do..   I never feel l have the  right to consider  myself  anything except  lucky.  Do you remember the  saying of a man who wept, because he had no shoes, until he saw a man who had no feet?

HollyGCat

@SurvivingTara @newborn.  Now I need you both to realise that I rely on both your posts. I eat in the words and they help. Neither of you will want to have upset the other. I don’t see that either of you are those people. So in a massive hug to you both filled with good wishes, please can you both make peace. Xxxx

I have had some really awfully chaos occur and I am very unwell and need help from you both. Can I carry on? Because I’m really struggling. Your views on what I can do and how I can stay alive... I’ll wait to post until I hear. 

JeremyJ

Hi - I think there’s something
very specific and special about this thread, as a safe place to share, support and understand experiences of CPTSD. 

I’ve found the shared experiences of each contributor, particularly where it’s relatebale to my symptoms of CPTSD as (am probably being a broken record now!) validating - that’s what I take (need)
from it. 

Blessings to all.

JeremyJ

Holly - I think I posted as you were. It sounds like you’re having some difficulties and I’m sorry to hear that.