I am doing a bit better today and yesterday than I was the couple of days before that. Reallynotimportant and Holly stopped by the blog and had helpful things to say. Thanks! Originally, this post was a response to the comments, but I spent a little time on it so I thought I would make it its own entry.
Reallynotimportant suggested a bunch of things for the intrusive thoughts and the nightmares. I do try to do something to distract myself when the intrusive thinking comes up. When I feed the right dogs, I can often get through by seperating me from the abuse and the abuser, realizing that I am not the trauma or what my abuser tried to make me. Sometimes that works. Other times its something good like exercise, playing my guitar, or doing some work, but often I feed the wrong dogs and its internet porn to kill the thoughts and feelings. I don't use drugs or alcohol for the past 20 some-odd years, so fortunately that's not an option. Lately I've been writing in this blog and that has greatly reduced the need for the pain-killing behaviors. The medications help a lot with the intrusive thinking and the compulsive aspects of my reponse to it too.
With the nightmares, I was trying to write them down for a while and taking them into therapy, but often I don't wake up enough to get to that. I hadn't thought about the feelings being more important than the content. Hmmm....
Mostly the nightmares suck because I thrash around and mumble stuff and wake my poor partner up and she won't be able to get back to sleep. This has been going on for 4 or 5 years now, ever since the worst of the ptsd kicked in, so we've mostly worked out a sytem where she'll jostle me and tell me what I'm doing and that will snap me out of it. Often I don't even wake up. She gets kind of resentful about this sometimes, but she knows I am working on it and is really patient. Neither of us wants to sleep alone. I'm pretty grateful for that.
You are right about getting whatever kind of sleep you can. I take a lot of naps. Fortunately with my work, I can schedule things mostly how I want to, with lots of flexibility.
Hi ptsd guy,
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning I recorded my dreams, nightmares. It did help because if I woke up the recorder was right there. I also noticed the difference with my voice during the recordings. It may be something you could think about. I also did something fun before nighttime, played cards, puzzles, the list can go on and on! If you and your partner could do something together you may find it helpful also. It will be different for everyone. I did find it helped with being able to face the day. It was nice to read that you were feeling better. I admired your courage. Take Care, I have some ideas around feelings! I will have to think about how to expain that one next time I drop in.
"Not important," Bingo.
ReplyDeleteFor years before I quit drinking, I had a vague "intellectual" memory of some of my abuse.
Within a month or so of quitting, the emotional content came up like a tidal wave.