I wish people understood that flashbacks are not something in my control and how physically painful having this condition is, but like I said, what do all of you wish people knew about it?

It doesn't seem to help when I try to explain, people either say it's no excuse or take your meds. I've been on meds for 16 years now and they've never really helped.

3 years ago I had a big trauma and many others before. Also childhood. I got diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia because I had psychotic symptoms. Now that I calmed down, I actually realized I have Ptsd from my traumatic childhood and the Chaos I lived through as an adult. Doctors keep treating me for Schizophrenia but the meds don't help. I also tried getting treatment for adhd but the doctors shut me Down. I want treatment for ptsd. Is there a way I can convince the doctors to check me for ptsd?

I (51F) have been dating my bf (48M). I was misdiagnosed has having just anxiety however when I started to work an amazing highly qualified and recommended by 3 friends who see her, therapist she noticed something different. All my life I have worked very stressful life or death jobs, I was sa twice, had cancer the whole time nine yards. The jobs I was in should provided crisis management but they didn’t. Anyway over the summer I almost drowned and I didn’t care. It was a way for me to get the nightmares and flashbacks to do away. Ok that was the short version. I have been trying to tell my bf of 8 yrs what has been going on with me because I am different now that I am starting to process things. I even bout him a very short book about how to love someone with PTSD. We are away this weekend to talk about this. I gave him the book and the next morning he said he’s not much of a book reader. When I try to talk about I feel like he tunes me. What can I do? I love him but he is not emotionally there for me. Oh and he said that “every one has some sort of PTSD “. I said ptsd is different for everyone. He also told me to deal with my flashbacks head on! Sorry for long rant

Hey everyone. I was recently diagnosed with severe PTSD and adhd a month ago, but I can track the uptick in symptoms to last November. I didn’t realize it was a result of my past trauma, but the tension in the US basically pushed me over the edge.

As outlined in the rules, I don’t want this to be a political post, but I’m just commenting on the increased tension in the country. I’ve lived outside of the US for 8+ years prior and have experienced an increase in aggression and intensity every time I return.

Has anyone else experienced this? Can something like this push someone with PTSD over the edge?

Thank you all for your support and input. 🙏🏽 I’m learning a lot from everyone.

I feel like the worst times is nights, I struggle to fall asleep so stay up late. Being alone, the flashbacks, depression, sadness and flashbacks can come flooding back. I could get drugs, get high, get drunk and pass out but I don’t want to use substances besides what I have prescribed. Idk what to say else, just venting. Having a bad night, just want to be tired already and sleep and live another day.

I don't want to go into the details of what happened, but I was raped by a guy I was dating. He did other questionable things that I later learned are actually SA as well. It's been a year since all of this happened. I got diagnosed with PTSD a couple months later and have been going to therapy since. My mental health is still shitty (It's never been the best, but ever since that it keeps getting worse). Over the past two weeks I have had two people ask me, why I am still going to therapy and why my mental health is still this bad. They can't believe that I still "haven't gotten over it" despite a whole year passing. I don't think they said this with bad intentions, they just don't get it. They both have never experienced SA (they said to me) so I shouldn't expect them to understand I guess. But I feel stupid for not being able to just get over it. I haven't told them that I got diagnosed with PTSD from it. I don't know if telling them would even change anything. I'm kind of embarrassed that I developed this disorder, I feel like what happened to me was not "bad enough" to even have this. I don't even know what i'm trying to achieve with this post honestly I just wanted to type about my feelings I guess

I work with an elderly gentlemen who very clearly has PTSD after years of serving in the military and working in law enforcement. He’s an amazing guy, and I view him kind of like a grandfather. It doesn’t seem to impact him until he gets to drinking, which appears to be every night. It isn’t uncommon for him to text or call me after he’s been drinking, and begin telling me stories of traumatic experiences that he’s had. He doesn’t tell them in a way that’s extreme. He tells them very casually and every time I never know what to say. For example, the other night he contacted me. He was cleaning out his house and had found some items belonging to a friend that had been killed in the line of duty. He told me the story and I didn’t know what to say. I’m afraid to give sympathy that doesn’t seem genuine, but I’m also afraid of coming off as though I don’t care. He’s not a religious man, but I pray for him often, and I’m not really good at expressing it, but my heart kinda breaks for him, and the fact that he’s actively drinking his life away. What’s a better way to handle this without setting him off in some way?

its because of one night when i was really little due to my actual father, i cant be away from them, at all, ill throw up, and cry and cry, and i dont know how im gonna hold down a job, which they want me to do, about to go to sleep so ill respond in the mornin

HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO FEEL THE EMOTIONS?!?!

It feels like I've felt all the emotions plenty! I have years of processing and grieving and being disgusted and confused and terrified under my belt. I let myself feel. I ruminated on it! It was all I thought about for so long! Then I found other things. And I remembered the ones I had that mattered. I kept myself alive.

The emotions are still here. I am trying to keep functioning and keep myself alive, and the emotions are STILL trying to sabotage me. (Logically, they're actually here to protect me. They want to keep me from being hurt again. They make me want to hurt again, so they're bad at it.)

I'm sick of this inescapable cycle! I don't want to feel anything! I don't want to remember any of it. Therapists say that self harm and alcoholism and shutting down instead of thinking about where my life is is "unhealthy" but what do they fucking want?!? For me to meditate on grief and pain every day and night until I fucking die??? I don't wanna feel shit! I've felt plenty! I'm tired of it!

i used to smoke weed to sleep, but i noticed it made my depression and anxiety a lot worse. i am on zoloft now (used to be prozac) and it’s doing good for my depression and general anxiety, but i CAN NOT sleep for the life of me. i was diagnosed with ptsd over a year ago, and i’ve been in cbt therapy for 4 years now, so i do have someone i can talk through my trauma with.

my doctor is aware of my sleep troubles, and i mentioned to him that i have a hard time falling asleep because i’m always scared of having nightmares. i was put on prazosin (1mg) 2 weeks ago, but had 3 really bad nightmares almost immediately. i had a follow up and was advised to stop taking it, but the nightmares will not stop now.

i do have a nighttime routine that i created over a year ago with help from my therapist, but that doesn’t even seem to relax me anymore. i read, journal, drink tea, have a hot shower, cuddle with my cat…but everything that used to help before isn’t working. i dread the nights now where i have to relive everything. does anyone have any advice?

Hi, I’m a 21 year old AFAB nonbinary person and at 17 I was diagnosed with PTSD. Flashbacks, screaming fits, suicidal ideation, the whole shebang. It feels like it’s getting worse and I don’t know what to do. I want to get better but I can’t afford anything… are there any free resources for people like me? I have non combat ptsd (obviously) and I’m not sure I can be given anything to help. I’m not even in therapy.

I have tried certain medication I don’t remember the name. I just know it was also for blood pressure, I have tried medical cannabis and I’ve tried journaling and it’s been really bad recently. What are y’all’s best tips for nightmares? I’ll take anything at this point.

So I don’t really know how to explain it, but recently I’ve been dealing with at least a decade of unresolved sexual trauma and I had a breakdown due to it. Because I was on my college campus I was told to go to the nurse office (where they have a psychologist on site) and for the first time in my life I was told that I may have PTSD. When she told me I was baffled because I thought that I didn’t deal with enough things to warrant such diagnosis but the more I look into it, the more it becomes a scary reality. I never really took it seriously until I was woken up by my husband’s cries because I fell asleep on the bathroom and I almost drown myself accidentally. I don’t even remember why or how I even got there. I don’t know how to test if I do, or if I can even get a test for that, and I’m even more afraid that if I get diagnosed I won’t be able to cope with it. I don’t know what to do and it’s honestly eating me alive.

In the good book it says the second tme is easier, life is crazy, and that's wat ptsd is. lol

Does anyone else get stressed when they plan a date? My partner and I have been trying to go on a date so many times but our plans keep falling through and now just thinking of the word starts to stress me out.

We were supposed to go on a date yesterday but he was feeling sick, yes I questioned him thinking he's crying wolf or if he's not telling me the entire truth but he told me he wasn't lying, I'm thinking of not planning a date for a while and giving me time to recover so that I don't get very stressed about it.

The stress I get makes it hard for me to function normally, I get VERY jittery, I lose my appetite, I can't sleep, and my body starts to ache, I would go to a psychiatrist but I can't drive and so the only person who could take me would be my mom and she doesn't think I need a therapist and that I can control my stress..

If I'm unable to calm myself down I'll take either benadryl or trazodone, because breathing techniques don't work for me, what can I do to stop stressing over dates because my partner and I really wanna go on a date and I'd rather not be very overwhelmed when planning one.

My wife witnessed her mom kill herself and cleaned up the aftermath a few weeks ago. She hasn't talked about what happened that day, she refuses too. Last night she was making dinner and cut herself and I think she had a ptsd episode? She was diagnosed a year ago for a different childhood experience. She kept saying she had to clean up the blood and was visibly upset. There really wasn't much blood but she insisted there was and kept saying she was sorry she had to clean it up. I couldn't get through to her and couldnt get her to breathe with me. This went on for awhile and I ended up taking our kids for a few days so she can decompress. How do I help her?

I cannot believe this happened, but a long term therapist I’ve seen for other issues recently invalidated my trauma. I’ve been spiraling for weeks as result. I have a new trauma informed therapist, and am considering filing a complaint against the last one. She said everyone has issues, my physical symptoms are all psychosomatic and I should stop “looking for answers”

I’m so angry!!!

Hi everyone.

I (21f) am new to this healing journey. After discussing with my psychiatrist, I am showing signs of intense effects of my childhood trauma & abuse.

After over a decade, it resurfaced. I can’t face my parents. How do I cope? I feel so lost. They fucked up my childhood & teenage years. I am so lost, I don’t know what to do.

I have a boss who triggers my PTSD . She made an unfounded accusation against me and now I have a work meeting with her and hr to address next week. I need way to get through the physical meeting unscathed without going into fight / flight and having an emotional or physical reaction .

In these situations I tend to revert back to being a scared kid and will cry from my very inner being. Is there a way to do an emdr like technique but without my eyes? For example what if I alternate tow taps or muscle tensing on one leg and then the other or something else so that I can avoid a primal reaction ?

I work in a professional office and want to maintain my composure and don’t want to create a scene .

I am also planning on focusing on my breathing .

I felt great. For like a week. I was happy, i wasnt crying randomly, i wasnt disassociating in my car, i was painting and drawing and spending time with my husband. The audio hallucinations had stopped, the dreams stopped, the anxiety attacks werent there, everything was gone. Honestly, i was a little worried i was too happy, leaning towards hypomania or something. I was taking risks and going out more. I cared about how i looked. I spent time planning for my future. Everything felt so nice.

Its over now. It started with hearing things at night again. Then i got more tired and stopped caring about work. Then i started disassociating again, the intrusive thoughts came back. Then i started with nightmares again. Not the exact situation I went through, but the same premise (looking for help, scary person, threats, cant escape). Now today all i’ve done is stare at my phone, struggle through my class, and try to build up the motivation to do anything.

I knew it would come back, i knew it was too good to be true. I just wish my break could have been a little longer. Its been so long since i’ve felt like that. Since at least 2020. It was so nice. I dont even know why things changed. I thought maybe i was getting better. I was obviously wrong. Back to normal i guess 🥲

I have OCD and every time I see a doctor about it they put me on antidepressants. I have depressive tendencies but I just never saw myself as having depression. This week I had an evaluation for therapy services relating to my OCD. Firs the counsellor tested me for OCD, then when he asked about my life I was extremely honest and brought up my extremely disturbing and traumatic childhood.

He then changed course and tested me for PTSD. Everything clicked. He asked if I knew what 'hyper-vigilance' was. It perfectly described how paranoid, jumpy and neurotic I am. Then asked about my memory problems, my risky lifestyle, flashbacks etc.

Now it sounds so obvious that I was battling PTSD my whole life and now I'm 32. These are just basic checklists from the DSM-V but I nearly cried just knowing I could finally place these things that disturb me into language and I can finally start taking action.

Sometimes I feel like I’m more likely to experience a flashback in a safer feeling situation…like around someone I’m more comfortable with or when my guard is down more so than normal? Or even that there have been times where I start to panic in a public situation and I’m able to contain the episode until I get into an isolated area or with someone I feel safer by. Is this normal for anyone else with PTSD? Sometimes it makes me feel like I’m faking it all.

So this past Tuesday night into Wednesday, I had flashbacks, was hearing voices from my past and really bad tremors. I go to the trauma therapist's office and ended up having a Psychogenic seizure while in session. I kept feeling hip pain as I lay on the couch falling asleep for a bit after the seizure as I am always wiped out from them for several hours which were memory pains. I talked too much about the trauma (Abused and Tortured in an orphanage for six years, witnesses other children the same, losing 37 loved ones, surviving one domestic violence situation, surviving attempted murder, SA, Witnessing a second violent domestic dispute and being nearly killed by police SWAT). My body shuts down from all the stress to the nervous system and reboots itself. I was doing good for two months and out of the blue this happens. I don't feel defeated, I just realized more of my limitations for talking about the chronic trauma.

My encouragment to everyone is keep fighting and surrendering what you do not understand or can cope with. Fighting against the demons that plague you and surrendering what is impossible to see or understand in feeling. I surrender to Christ, make sure you surrender to the right entity, otherwise Hell freezes over your hearts and mind if one is not careful.

I recently have been diagnosed with PTSD. I’ve been aware that I’ve had some traumatic experiences, but until recently I never thought I could have PTSD.

I have been going to therapy for some time for anxiety. Through this process, I’ve thought more and more about my trauma. As I came around to the idea that I could have PTSD, I decided to start taking an SSRI to help with my anxiety. The medication is working to reduce anxiety, but I now feel the effects of PTSD more . This includes thinking about the events more and how it affects. I get weird feeling related to these thoughts like I’m frightened in a way, which aligns with what I understand about PTSD.

Anyways, I’m wondering if my anxiety could have been a distraction from thinking about my trauma. Like I would always be so anxious and thinking about all sorts of things that I never gave attention to these deeper issues in me. Now that the medication has lowered my anxiety, I no longer have this distraction.

Is this common? Maybe my anxiety was a defense mechanism to keep me from thinking g about traumatic events?

So I'm 15 and I was diagnosed with PTSD after a classmate, let’s call her S, pushed me down two flights of stairs in elementary school because she thought my nose was “not pretty enough” (Yes, she actually said that to the school supervisor) I ended up with a broken knee, and since then I’ve had panic attacks when I’m around girls who bullied me or remind me of that time.

Not many people know what happened. S. and her parents have apologized and paid my medical bills, so it didn't gain much attention. Now a lot of girls at school are friends with her or at least get on well with her. I never wanted people to know about my PTSD anyway, because I’ve heard people make fun of mental illness and I don’t know if they would take me seriously.

The bullying stopped for a while, from 6th to 8th grade, mostly because of COVID. But around that time it started again, only with other girls. They threw trash at me, tore up both school and personal books (including a special edition of AGGGTM that I’m still upset about), stole my gym clothes, made gagging noises around me, and even put their feet on my back in the auditorium. The whole class excluded me and bullied me, but I tried to focus on my studies and switch places to bring my grades back up, because becoming a surgeon had been my dream since I was a kid.

At the end of that year, I asked the school administration to change my class for the next year so I could be with a friend and have a fresh start. The only thingwas that I had to go to the same class as S. I thought I would have gotten over the PTSD by now and decided that if I just avoided her, I would be fine. And honestly, I was.

Until I recently received a random phone call from an unknown number. A girl, about my age, shouted insults, gave my full name, my birthday, my parents’ names and even my old address, then I heard S. laughing in the background before the call ended. I had my first panic attack in around a year.

Since that incident about 2 weeks ago, I've been having panic attacks daily, and I don't know how to stop. What can I do?