How do you manage you PTSD symptoms?

[SunshineRainflower]

I’ve been told by a therapist that I have a high PTSD score. Thankfully I have some therapy on the horizon and have found a support group and met other women I can really relate to which has been great and given me some hope, and made me feel less lonely.

I am doing as well as I can by spending time with friends, exercising, journaling, reading up on domestic abuse to make sense of everything.

I’m just wondering how you cope with your PTSD symptoms? I wake up every morning with a racing heart and thoughts of him and a depressive mood, and tonight I feel very fearful, shivery, on edge and have to prompt myself to move as I keep getting sort of frozen sitting down thinking about him and not getting on with things.

I feel sick that I find myself checking my phone actually HOPING he has contacted me even though I am extremely scared of him. I know this is trauma bonding and an addictive reaction, I just wish I didn’t feel it – I want to get him out of my head.

I talked a lot to a friend today about it and am wondering if I re-traumatise myself by telling different friends the whole story about it and maybe I need to stop doing this and start talking more about other things to take my mind off it?

[Anonymous]

Hi I have ptsd too, I have felt the need to talk loads about all that happened too, even though I desperately want to forget him & all that happened. To me I have it all trapped inside & to talk about it was/is kind of release, letting it out so it’s no longer causing my brain to keep it all inside & keep going over it all myself. On the other hand by me keep talking about it has also kept it alive! I re live it a million times, that’s ptsd I don’t want to, I want to forget it. I wake umpteen times at night, sweating, panicking, re living, like he is still in my life! I get in a dreadful high state of anxiety recalling the fear, wondering how I will lose it, asking myself will I ever trust again? Ptsd is vile, so too is trying to be me again! I lived so many years with an abuser that I still struggle to do anything & lose pre conditioned things he had done to me, I’m still scared to use too much water, loo rolls, electric, food etc I’m still scared to say an opinion, I’m terrified of saying or doing anything that might upset anyone for fear of any verbal onslaught! All I think ptsd! Now I think just do it, don’t tell anyone, anything, just live how I want to, never again tell anyone my fears, just in case they see my vulnerabilities & play on my fears – just like he did until he quite literally emotionally disabled me! No one unless experienced long term abuse gets it, that’s why probably like you we try to explain ourselves, our nerves, our anxieties by saying “sorry I’m like this but it’s what he’s done to me” almost all will look at you & think she’s crazy, she’s away, why does she not just get over it? Ptsd is why ☺ we need re wiring to forget all they did xx

[Anonymous]

Ps I reckon we have to be incredibly strong to lose the dreadful scaring, feeling so weak & incapable is debilitating to say the least, our confidence levels are rock bottom & I so thought wrongly, once away I’d be free!!! Never for a moment did I ever think his abuse would haunt me like it has. In answer to how do we recover from ptsd? Slowly, by forcing ourselves to ignore anyone who thinks we want it & by focusing really hard on rebuilding our lives with tiny baby steps, until we believe in ourselves again xx

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