Hi, it has been a while since I last posted, but I am still here. Lately I have been very busy with work. I pointed out a BIG problem there recently, and instead of dealing with it, the folks responsible decided to blame the messenger, scapegoating me as a distraction from the real problem. Getting blamed for stuff that I didn't do is a real trigger for me, and I woke up today crawling out of my skin, which I haven't felt in a while. For a little bit, I even thought I might go into a flashback or have a little non-epileptic siezure again. I was as close to that as I have been in quite a while. I was dissociating and feeling very much out of my body because of the skin-crawling feeling and another feeling that I have described as being in an elevator that is hitting the top floor all day. Another way I have come to describe it will make sense to drivers maybe. The feeling is like when you are a passenger in the front seat and somebody doesn't hit the brakes at a time when you would. That moment of feeling out of control, of not being in charge of yourself as you hurtle through space and time, of hitting the imaginary brakes and finding them not there, but all day, not just for the moment: that is my most common everyday experience of ptsd at present, some days worse than others and today, with the skin crawling and dissociation, pretty bad at the start.
What to do? I have a nice view out the window of my home that I find centering and comforting, so I sat and looked at that while I had my morning cup of coffee before going to work (cutting back on caffeine helps a lot! I used to drink a lot more coffee and it is no help for ptsd at all). At work I did my grounding exercise a couple of times through then got started with my job. After a while of engaging with that (I quite like my work, even when things are rough like at present) I slowly settled back into my body and the jitters and skin-crawlies subsided. Now my main goal is to stay out of the path of the mudslingers at work to keep the triggering to a minimum.
I still have plans for more posts, just no time to write them. I want to put a sticky post at the top of the blog with a sort of guide to all the previous posts so people can find resources quickly. I also want to talk a little about a couple of therapeutic techniques I have been working with, EMDR and a related practice called DNMS. I have had mixed, but overall useful results with both, though I remain a tad skeptical, which is an old defense that results from previous betrayals by therapists. I have since learned how to protect myself better when choosing therapists.
