tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-188422242024-03-07T06:14:34.063-08:00PTSD and Mehmmm...this is the place I will work through some of the more personal aspects of my journey through ptsd. Some are not polite or pleasant,--hence the anonymity--but they are mine. Everybody's different. Maybe you will relate, maybe not. I am not a professional, I am just offering my own experiences.GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-1144990468037523232023-08-13T20:20:00.001-07:002023-08-13T20:28:16.191-07:00Sticky: Guide to the blog<div>
<b>Latest Post: <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2019/04/altenatives-to-12-step-and-why.html" target="_blank">alternatives to 12 step and why addiction recovery is crucial to PTSD recovery</a></b><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">New!</span> Now you can <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default">subscribe to PTSD and Me</a> to keep up with new posts and comments.<br />
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This is sort of the "best of" section where I'll link to the blog entries people seem to read the most. Perhaps I ought to have a page on "What is PTSD" but lots of others have already done that, so I'll just my favorite, a <a href="https://www.sidran.org/glossary/" target="_blank">glossary from the Sidhran Institute</a> [<i>link checked 7/12/20</i>]. <br />
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Two notes before we begin. First, I am not a professional. I have kept this blog to share my experience with PTSD, but I cannot help you directly if you are suffering from PTSD. I only check in here intermittently and it breaks my heart to see someone plea for help and get no response. Please, if you are in crisis, call 911. If you are looking for treatment or direct help, please contact the <a href="https://www.sidran.org/" target="_blank">Sidran Institute</a>. They are an excellent resource and can help you find appropriate treatment. If you are finding out about PTSD in yourself or another and want to know what my experience has been, read on.<br />
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Second, if you make comments that contain negative statements about people at various facilities by name, I will not publish them. Stay general, and even say there are problematic people to avoid, but no names. Probably best to leave out names of people you consider praiseworthy too. Self-promoting comments or links to link farms or anything that is the least bit suspicious will be deleted. I err on the side of caution. That said, there is a wonderful compendium of knowledge and wisdom in the comments, so thank you to all who have shared there over the years, and please feel free to continue commenting as you see fit. They are one of the great rewards of writing this blog!<br />
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People in crisis often want to know where they can get help. <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/12/grounding-exercises-for-ptsd-symptoms.html">Grounding exercises</a> for PTSD can help get us through the short term. Here is a way of finding <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/comprehensive-list-of-us-treatment.html">US and global treatment centers</a> that specialize in PTSD. That is of course assuming you are privileged enough to have access to these resources. <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-race-class-homelessness-and-money.html">Not everyone is</a>. And in case I forget next winter, here are some tips on <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2008/12/ptsd-and-holidays-revisited.html">PTSD and the holidays</a>. One of the most disturbing symptoms of PTSD is <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/12/betrayal-bonds-trauma-reactions.html">flashbacks</a>, especially when they result in "<a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/12/ptsd-flashbacks-and-pseudo-seizures.html">non-epilectic seizures</a>" or what a doctor might have called "<a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/12/ptsd-flashbacks-and-pseudo-seizures.html">pseudo-seizures</a>," though there is nothing "pseudo" about them.<br />
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If you are looking to help a loved one diagnosed with PTSD, you might want to <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2011/09/open-letter-to-someone-who-is-looking.html" target="_blank">read my open letter to someone looking to help a loved one with PTSD</a>. My partner, who is a key part of my <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2007/08/loving-and-supportive-network-of.html" target="_blank">loving and supportive network of friends</a>, has been absolutely critical to my ongoing recovery, and I share some of the ways she has both helped me when I could not help myself and some of the unfortunate costs she has paid as a result of my PTSD. It is a hard road, but we have come through stronger than ever, so there is hope.<br />
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<a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/choosing-therapist-for-people-with.html">Picking a therapist</a> can be difficult for someone with PTSD, because often times the PTSD itself messes with our pickers. Through necessity and trial and error and generous borrowing of other people's wisdom, I've come up with a brief subjective <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/choosing-therapist-for-people-with.html">guide</a> on how to choose a therapist for ptsd. It contains links to some other, less subjective guides too.<br />
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Along with getting medical and psychological help, <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-and-meds.html">medication</a> helped get me stabilized even though I was really resistant to it because of being a recovering addict. I wasn't resistant to trying Effexor, and kind of wish I had been (see <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2006/12/battle-of-effexor.html">Battle of the Effexor</a> and <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2006/08/joy-of-meds-effexor-withdrawal-and-oh.html">Joy of Meds: Effexor withdrawal</a>) I have quite a bit to say about <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-and-12-step-programs.html">PTSD and 12-step programs</a>. While 12-step programs saved my life, I found that their one-size-fits-all model did more harm than good after the initial haze of the drugs and alcohol wore off. There is <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-aa-and-different-types-of-addicts.html">more than one type of addict</a> (and some more on the subject <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2007/07/more-on-type-b-addicts-12-steps-and.html">here</a>). And although it claims not to hew any one denominational line, it is <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-aa-and-christianity.html">based on Christianity</a> in some ways that were harmful to my recovery. I finally decided to <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/my-name-and-more-on-12-steps-aa-people.html">leave 12 step approaches</a>, a difficult decision. In hindsight, however, <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2009/03/exploitative-folks-in-12-step-programs.html">some of the most exploitative folks I ever met</a> were from the halls of twelve step rooms and the addictions recovery industry. Spiritual and psychological abuse are real and create huge barriers to recovery. Just to be sure, I tried a few alternatives to 12 step approaches that were promising but fizzled out, so I tried again, home group and everything, The results were the same, but magnified in a way that <a href="https://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2023/08/was-looking-for-something-in-way-of.html">really drove the point home</a>. For the past few years, I have found an Al-Anon home group that takes care to welcome everyone and not get caught up in "my way or the highway thinking. It turns out that my main problem, as long as I don't pick up, is not with substances, but with addicted dysfunctional people, so this Al-Anon has turned into a real home group for me. Might not work for everyone, but it is working for me.<br />
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<a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/12/more-on-betrayal-bonds-aka-trauma.html">Betrayal bonds</a> form a major part of PTSD as I have experienced it, so I've spent a lot of time writing about them. You might have heard of this as <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/trauma-bonds-or-betrayal-bonds.html">Stockholm syndrome</a>. They take a number of <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/12/roots-of-ptsd-how-trauma-affects.html">different forms</a>. Fully understanding the <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/12/whats-this-betrayal-stuff-got-to-do.html">nature and effects of betrayal</a> was key to beginning <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/my-ongoing-recovery-from-ptsd.html">my recovery</a> from PTSD. While the guy who wrote the book on betrayal bonds associates them with sexual addiction, I have found this <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2013/06/betrayal-bonds-and-sex-addiction.html" target="_blank">ain't necessarily so</a>.<br />
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If you are interested, I can tell you more about <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-and-me.html">my PTSD</a>. Some days are still rough (<a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/crawling-out-of-my-own-skin.html">skin-crawling</a>, <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-and-wasting-time.html">time-wasting</a>, <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2010/01/losing-time.html">losing time</a>, etc) but I have found a certain amount of recovery, and my life is once again bearable, even enjoyable on <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2006/03/writing-when-things-are-ok-for-once.html">good days</a>. And I'm <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2012/09/still-here.html">still here</a>, yes <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2012/01/neglect-hopefully-not-traumatically-so.html" target="_blank">still here</a>, and even now, <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2013/06/semi-annual-still-here-message.html" target="_blank">still here</a>. Partly it depends on which <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/feeding-right-dogs.html">dogs I feed</a>. It also helps to have a <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2007/08/loving-and-supportive-network-of.html">loving and supportive network of friends</a>. Oh, and to stay far away from <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2008/12/toxic-relationships.html">toxic relationships</a>.GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-18900677746995487642023-08-13T20:18:00.006-07:002023-08-13T20:26:58.764-07:00One more try with AA. Swing and a miss<p> I was looking for something in the way of fellowship for a<span style="font-size: 14pt;">ddiction recovery. I tried one of the Buddhist approaches and one of the secular approaches, but both fizzled out. I tried AA again, seeing if maybe that would work if I found the right group. I thought I did, right in my own neighborhood even. Things went well enough I declared it my home group and signed up to do coffee and setup. A different person picks the speakers each month and unfortunately for me, my last month in this group was ledd by an AA Christian fundmentalist. Here is my account of what happened in the form of the email I sent the group when I left. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">Hi all, just one last thing...Sorry it is a little long. You all never heard my story, so consider this that, and humor me by hearing me out if you wish.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">I spoke with a few of you about leaving last night and I want to be clear so there is no misunderstanding...I’m not leaving because of the speaker, or even the Course of Miracles stuff about angels and whatever. And though I give both of those beliefs a wide berth, I have no problem with other people’s beliefs. My reason for leaving comes from the last speaker of the evening and the truth of what he said.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">He said that agnostics like me maybe don’t drink but aren’t in recovery like “we” are by which he meant proper, god-fearing AA, which he called “the Truth” in affirmation of the speakers who preached Christianity prior to him that evening. OK, actually still no problem there, even when he wrapped up that little ball of intolerance and disingenuously labeled it “love.” Sorry dude, not feeling the love over here, but ok, principles before personalities. He also gave all of us, but especially me, since I was the person who identified as agnostic (I am pretty sure he has no idea what that word means), an assignment to read the chapter on the agnostic from the big book. So I re-read the chapter for the Nth time, and it is still an argument of the same type and thinking as that of the birther movement or Creationism, both of which I reject. Still no problem. Take what you want and leave the rest. OK, so let’s see what the google-god tells us about what the agnostics are up to in AA and what AA thinks of them.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">It turns out that AA officially accepts agnostics and special interest meetings for agnostics, atheists and so forth (see the Oct. 2016 Grapevine for a whole issue on this). Cool, I’m in. Now where are those meetings? Pull up an Oahu schedule, and there you go, and right there at the top it is, an AG/AT symbol to mark the meetings where we are actually welcome, as opposed to the others, where I guess we are still not welcome. Well ok, ctrl-F, lets find all the AG/AT meetings. Zero. People like me are not welcome at any meetings on the Oahu schedule. OK, if I had infinite time and energy, I could go on a crusade and start one. Maybe I’m just copping out.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">But here is the rub. AA has also declared that not a word of the first part of the big book can be changed, so that means that the chapter to the agnostic is considered divinely inspired and infallible in practice, which is what it means that AA declares as Gospel Truth a text written by a bunch of newly sober drunks flying blind in 1938 except for the guidance of a book on religion by William James and a Christian group called the Oxford Group (read Pass it on). The chapter on the agnostic does pretty much say I don’t have real recovery until I have a personal deity.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">This, and the comically sexist chapters on “Wives” (stand by your Man) and employers (give Him some slack) are officially considered by AA infallible and unchangeable. It is a baked in principle and actually a dogma that my recovery is "less than," which is odd for a book that closes with the statement that it is “merely suggestive. We know only a little.” So it is a bedrock principle of the book, and the book is considered unchangeable truth, and it says I’m a second class citizen unless I have found God as We – not I – understand Him.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">This is fundamentalism, which allows people to cherry pick from a text, do whatever hateful thing they want and call it love and God’s Will and “the Truth,” which is exactly what the last speaker did. And he was right to do so by the AA principle that the Big Book is a an unchanging, infallible, fundamentalist text.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">I have severe PTSD from fundamentalists (who come in every shape from followers of some brands of Jesus to New Age stuff to the Course of Miracles stuff artfully spouted at Tuesday’s meeting). It has put me out of work for over a year two times in sobriety, caused two trips to mental hospitals, and one for a residential treatment center for PTSD and addictions where they were amazed that I did not pick up after the stuff I have been through sober. And, get this! Since meetings were triggering my PTSD, a rehab after verifying that I had no plans of picking up a drink or a drug, actually recommended I stop going to meetings! LOL, I still wonder how many times that has ever happened. Mind you, I had sixteen years under my belt at that time, and I wouldn’t actually take the advice for another year, being a stubborn alcoholic. Now like anyone, I may pick up a drink tonight or get struck with the drunken lightning for not going to meetings, but I’ll try not to do that today, since every good thing in my life depends on staying clean and sober and picking up would do absolutely nothing to make anything better, no matter how bad things seem. If you want to know how to get through a hard day without picking up a drink I can tell you a few things about it. Despite these challenges, I have carved out a good life, one that was beyond my wildest dreams when I came into the rooms.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">I have PTSD from people in the program doing abominable things to me and calling it love and God’s will, because they had a personal God and they like to think everything happens according to His plan, so whatever hateful shit they spout and do is actually God’s Will, part of the Plan, and if you don’t get it, it must be because you are not special and chosen, poor soul. Because of how I was raised, in a generations’ deep swamp of alcoholic dysfunction, it has taken me years to figure out that this was their problems that they were dumping me with, not some flaw in me. And certain types of alcoholics from therapists to car salesmen to lovers to predators to sociopaths (not kidding) and to my family of birth look at me and, probably unconsciously except for a sociopath or two that has found me, see an awesome target for some reason I am still working on figuring out and that I am getting much better at avoiding.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">So let me sum up here. AA endorses its own peculiar brand of fundamentalism. Some fundamentalists take shit that and run with it. Fundamentalists like this have caused tremendous harm in my life and I seem to have some kind of blind spot and they seem to be able to pick me out easily. Therefore, it does more harm than good for me to continue in AA.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">Please be careful to note, I am not saying that everyone in AA or even AA as a whole, is fundamentalist. Only that it endorses its own peculiar brand of fundamentalism that is available to people who, like the last speaker, do take that and run with it. To me there is little in the world more dangerous than an alcoholic who is not drinking, has his or her wits about them, and Knows The Truth for sure. I saw this in the previous week’s meeting and its homogeneously uniformed and disciplined AA team following a charismatic leader, but I set it aside in the name of tolerance. This last meeting was not my cup of tea, but as I shared at that meeting, I actually think it is great that everyone from a follower of Jesus to someone like me who does not have the dubious luxury of such certainty, can all figure out a way to get sober together, which none of us could do on our own. I did have a major problem with the last speaker’s statement that without a personal deity you are not really sober, but I can do principles over personalities. The problem is that when I explored the principles, that brand of exclusive, intolerant faith is not only encouraged, but considered infallible. At that point, I’m done, and I have a better understanding of why I seem to run into so many people who see me as target practice rather than a fellow human. I'm actually grateful for that last bit, as I understand it a little better now.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">I have not met anyone in the group who has been anything other than lovely to me in my short time with the group. I seriously mean that. I think the last guy was a hateful ass, but I didn’t even see who it was. You’ll have that all over the world, not just in AA, so whatever, it is not really more than a passing bit of anger of the everyday sort one has to work through wherever they are anyway.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">The principle is the problem. I am not up to fighting against it, and there are other things I can do in my life to be there for the still suffering alcoholic than try to make AA into my image of it. I found this out in my seventeen years away from AA but not recovery: there are plenty of people like me. I am one of the fortunate ones, who like you has been able to get in recovery and build a good life which completely depends on that recovery. Plenty of others – I think one in ten actually sticks around in AA and achieves sobriety that way – still struggle and many of them feel excluded for reasons similar to mine for leaving. Through the gift of anonymity, I have corresponded literally with hundreds of them with lots more behind each person I have been fortunate enough to talk to. They make me understand that I am not alone and that my recovery is just fine, and I am grateful for that, and them, and you all, and fortunate every day. Recovery, I have found out, is not a monopoly enterprise. We do “know only a little,” so it makes no sense to me to declare a solution with a ten-percent success rate to be infallible dogma. Especially when it does tremendous harm in my life and others. But AA does exactly that. That’s why I am leaving. But I am glad it works for you. </span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">So you guys never heard my story but there is a little of it. Anyway, like I said, I live in the neighborhood, so if you see me at the ABC store say hi please, and if a green Subaru sedan honks at you as I drive around the block to my place, it means, “Hi,” Not “get out of the road and quit smoking ya bums. What the hell kind of church is that anyway.” </span></p>GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-48435997179185554032019-04-02T19:06:00.002-07:002019-04-02T19:08:45.580-07:00alternatives to 12 step, and why addiction recovery is crucial to PTSD recoveryI received <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2018/12/anyone-still-read-this.html?showComment=1554051896742#c1999767383123614914" target="_blank">one comment</a> to my December post asking if anyone was still out there. That is enough. I'll try to make a few new posts, with this as the first. Techie, the commentator, is having a difficult time with the spiritual aspects of AA and other twelve-step approaches.<br />
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A major problem with PTSD sufferers is addiction. Without recovery from addiction, my belief is that no recovery from PTSD is really possible, since the addiction continually exposes us to retraumitization which just compounds things. That is why, despite my misgivings with 12-step approaches, I remain grateful that they provided a way for me to get clean and sober many years ago. I have expressed my reservations with 12-step approaches in these blog posts:<br />
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<li><a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-aa-and-different-types-of-addicts.html" target="_blank">ptsd, AA, and different types of addicts</a></li>
<li><a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2007/07/more-on-type-b-addicts-12-steps-and.html" target="_blank">More on Type A & B addicts, 12 steps, and trauma</a></li>
<li><a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-aa-and-christianity.html" target="_blank">ptsd, aa and christianity</a></li>
<li><a href="http://my%20name%2C%20and%20more%20on%2012%20steps%2C%20aa%20people%2C%20and%20trauma/" target="_blank">my name, and more on 12 steps, aa people, and trauma</a>.</li>
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Since I wrote these a few years ago, a whole secular approach to AA has arisen and even gotten some <a href="https://www.thefix.com/aa-officially-recognizes-atheist-and-agnostic-membership-months-grapevine" target="_blank">grudging recognition</a> from AA's General Service Office. Here are some of the Secular 12-step approaches I know a little about:</div>
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<li><a href="https://lifering.org/" target="_blank">LifeRing</a>. Secular non-12-step approach with active online community. I am not fond of their endorsement of cross-talk, however.</li>
<li><a href="https://secularaa.org/" target="_blank">Secular Alcoholics Anonymous</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.sossobriety.org/" target="_blank">Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS)</a> LifeRing's Grandma.</li>
<li><a href="https://aaagnostica.org/" target="_blank">AA Agnostica</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://aabeyondbelief.org/" target="_blank">AA Beyond Belief</a></li>
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I am currently going to <a href="https://refugerecovery.org/" target="_blank">refuge recovery</a> meetings in part because they exist in my town, where there are no secular AA meetings, and also because they adopt a Buddhist approach. I'm not a Buddhist, but their approach does not involve seeking any external deity, so I am more or less down with it, and I have found the meetings are more open to my experience as valid than 12 step approaches have been. I (re-) started going to an AlAnon meeting, since changing my responses to addictive type behaviors of others is central to my ongoing recovery and they are upfront at this particular meeting about keeping out any religious beliefs as anything but personal beliefs, and welcoming all, including those with none. That is close enough for me, and I have never been shamed like I was regularly in AA. So far, anyway!</div>
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All of the approaches mentioned above have active online communities and meetings as well, which you can find through the various sites. </div>
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AA still, however, <a href="https://aaagnostica.org/2015/01/04/hallowed-be-the-big-book/" target="_blank">treats as unchangeable Gospel</a> the dated, sexist, and patronizing approach spelled out in the big book chapters on "to the agnostic," "to wives," and "to the employer." This despite its closing statements that it is "merely suggestive" and that "more will be revealed along the way." </div>
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After giving AA another spin this year, I have found out that ultimately, the big book endorses the idea that a person who does not define spirituality at all, much less the way AA does (a personal deity that intercedes in <i>your</i> life) is a second-class citizen who is not getting the program. Many AA-ers feel free to say that people like me "aren't really sober" and are fully in line with the Big Book. AA does suggest tolerance, since some of its earliest and long-lasting members were dyed-in-the-wool atheists. In fact, in the early days of searchable texts, people used to say at meetings to search the word "tolerance" which appears however many times in the Big Book. What they don't mention, is that AA is repeatedly stating that what needs to be tolerated is me and my choice not to believe or disbelieve.</div>
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Part of my PTSD has been to go through life being treated as, and accepting a role as, a second-class citizen, <i>tolerated</i> at best. I could throw in my lot with the fighters and rebels, but I have other support networks and remain pretty secure in my sobriety. I don't need to fight them as much as get away from them. I have no use for any organization that treats my experience as second class, even a little bit, even if it is not everybody. Fortunately for me, I was sixteen years clean and sober when I left twelve-step approaches but it is pretty difficult for people just starting out to find a recovery community that respects our decisions to leave spiritual matters open rather than fixing them a certain way, or are atheist or agnostic. Thus I am particularly glad to see approaches other than first-164-pages-of-the-big-book fundamentalism arise. The important thing for recovery from addictions in my life was that I was utterly incapable of doing it alone. I needed the help of others who had faced that situation and succeeded, and when I got sober, they were pretty much all in AA unless they were born again. I am grateful to see other fellowships that are not stuck in religion take hold.</div>
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I will spell out what my "beliefs" are and are not if anyone is interested. I do not believe that there is anything called God that I can understand. I have witnessed everything from individuals to whole societies use their understanding of such a deity to do tremendous harm in the world including in my life. Believers say that is the followers, not the deity, but that is nonsense. If followers can commit everything from genocide to individual spiritual abuse in the name of "their" higher power, I want nothing to do with such beliefs. If there is some form of higher power, it is pretty much by definition beyond my comprehension, so I try not to get in the way by trying to figure out what it is . This includes spiritual, life-changing experiences, of which I have had a few. I don't know what they were: <a href="https://michaelpollan.com/books/how-to-change-your-mind/" target="_blank">some chemicals</a>? (of which I had a lot in my body at various times) or the supreme wisdom of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahura_Mazda" target="_blank">Ahura Mazda</a> interceding directly to save me? Or something I don't understand? </div>
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The only one I can say truthfully is the last. I have no way of knowing, despite my subjective experience, since the matter is, again, pretty much by definition, beyond my comprehension. And I do not believe that believers in whatever have any way of knowing either, and their beliefs are merely ways to trick themselves into an understanding where there is none, and often, to convince others of the correctness of their own beliefs, almost always with terrible consequences for those around them. Am I challenging <i>your</i> beliefs? No, I just don't believe them. You, obviously, are free to. </div>
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If I am going to be back on this train, I would love to hear from you in the comments to know that there are people reading. </div>
GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-2897165732073950682018-12-14T13:32:00.000-08:002018-12-14T13:35:02.885-08:00Anyone still read this?Hello.
I am wondering if anyone still reads this blog. when I checked stats,
it seemed like a half million people have read parts of this blog
over the course of its long active and dormant lifetime. I was
shocked! A lot of bots and Estonian trolls must have PTSD! If you are
a human, and are in recovery or seeking recovery or just suffering
from post-traumatic stress reactions, please let me know in the
comments if I should make an effort to say a few more things about my
journey with PTSD and recovery. I could use the company right now!<br />
<br />
When I started this blog many years
ago to see if there was anyone else like me, I was blessed (and that
is a pretty big deal for an <a href="https://ptsdme.blogspot.com/search?q=agnostic">agnostic</a>:^)
to find out that not only were you out there, but that what I
thought, through shaming and isolation, was my own peculiar problem
was actually something that many people could relate to, even if the
details of our experiences vary from person to person. So if you find
this and it touches you, let me know. If there is no response, I will
know to let this rest and look for new avenues of support.GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-87304979505995184612013-06-11T04:40:00.001-07:002014-02-07T18:30:59.210-08:00betrayal bonds and sex addiction<br />
In the comments, someone was wondering if trauma bonding is necessarily tied to sex addiction. I started to write a comment, but as occasionally happens it turned into a post. <br />
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Patrick Carnes wrote an excellent book called <i>Betrayal Bonds</i> which I have written about extensively on the blog and which many people have found helpful. He has a test for betrayal bonds which is situated within a web site on sex addiction. You can find the links <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/trauma-bonds-or-betrayal-bonds.html" target="_blank">elsewhere</a> on this site. <br />
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I have worked on the assumption that Carnes book applies to both sex addicts and those who do not identify as such and that has worked very well for me. I got concerned about this issue when I was exploring ptsd (through flashbacks, pseudo-seizures, and all that fun stuff along with trying to find some help) and went to some 12 step sex addiction recovery programs. What I heard in them certainly did not fit what my experiences were. <br />
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Just like probably all abusers have trauma issues but only a small percentage of people with trauma issues become abusers, I think that most sex addicts have issues with trauma bonds but not everyone that has trauma bonds is a sex addict. Carnes filed it under sex addiction on that site because that is primarily what Carnes works on. The emphasis on sex addiction in the book is pretty heavy too, again because that is what he works on. Carnes's approach to sex addiction is broad and includes love addiction and pornography addiction and relationship addiction and more. His approach is also among the gentlest of 12 step related approaches. <br />
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The 12step sex addiction stuff as practiced in actual meetings in the real world rather than an institutional setting was really counterproductive for me though. It was actually kind of awful in fact. A room full of perpetrators, which I wasn't, some of whom were hitting on me it seemed, all in the name of fellowship. yech. It gave me the willies and I left. The actual world of 12 step addiction rooms and programs is not filled with the broad spectrum of people Carnes is concerned with, nor do they operate on his somewhat more enlightened principles. In my short experience of the rooms -- I tried going for a few months in two different cities and many different meetings -- I found the rooms to be mostly full of actual sexual perpetrators, many of them court ordered, none of whom I could particularly relate to. They wanted to convince me that all my other recovery meant nothing and that it was as if I was never even in recovery, which was just bullshit. My life had improved in many respects from being in recovery from the drugs and alcohol for a long time, but the trauma issues were preventing me from enjoying those improvements in any way and in fact threatening them. I used to say I had a nice life if only I could be in it.<br />
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In fact, a lot of my trauma issues had come just at the hands of people like I met in the rooms, and they were not all on the road to recovery by any means. I wish them well and all, and I see how I could have gone down that road if things had been different, but that is not the way it worked out, and I believe pretty strongly from my own experience and from reading all of you readers sharing in the comments that survivors of other people's abuse and perpetrators need to be separated and that any coming together of such parties should be on the terms of the survivor, including, especially, any attempts at amends. <br />
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Where it gets tricky is of course that perpetrators are pretty much universally themselves survivors of abuse too. But they have no grounds to expect empathy or forgiveness or even cohabitation in the same space from survivors. Survivors, and here I'll speak for myself rather than all, so let me rephrase -- I was raised from an early age to think that abuse was what I deserved because I was a bad person and whatever it was that happened to me was because I deserved it if not worse. Abusers count on this destruction of a person's self esteem to get away with what they do. The person literally takes the blame for the abuse that others commit on them, allowing the abusers to carry on with their lives. The shaming and silence keeps the survivors -- and those who don't survive, for there are many -- isolated, confused, and wretched. Do the abusers care? Some, the narcissists and phsychopaths really don't. These are hard people to understand at all, they have little or no human empathy and live in a world of calculated manipulations and appearances. Others may be wracked by guilt, but for the survivor that changes nothing and does not matter.<br />
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I knew a guy named Bob who had cut some guy's arm off in his addiction. In recovery, he went to make amends to the guy. The guy called the police immediately and got a restraining order and told Bob to stay the f@&k away from him. That is a healthy response in my view. It is easier to see when it is a missing arm, but when one of the people who perpetrated some vicious and cruel abuse in my life wanted to make amends, I let the person in and got another emotional equivalent of an arm cut off. She was just probably doing this because that was the step she was on and her sponsor figured out what she had done and told her to make amends. She actually used it as an opportunity for more hurting and bullshit. The arm thing is easier to figure out. I should have told her to stay the f*#k away too, but because of betrayal bonds and my traumatic past making me susceptible to such people, I didn't. And I paid in PTSD.<br />
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This is where all the crypto-Christian crap of forgive and forget was positively harmful. I did not need to forgive and forget, this for that, it all works out, we're all connected, I grew from the experience, pray for the other person, yadda yadda yadda. I needed to tell that person to get away and stay away which I eventually did, even though the feelings and longings were still there that this was someone I care(d) about. That is where learning about betrayal bonds helped so much. I had a reason why for my inability to see and treat this person as harmful, and I had a method of dealing with it. It did not make everything alright again or any such thing, but it did allow me to get my sanity back slowly and start learning to trust people who actually earned that trust in my life. It is like a magic trick or something. Press this button and voila, I am right back in the crazy world of betrayal bonds that is always right there in my psyche. The key to recovery for me has been to learn, most of the time, to not press the button and that it is not magic but harm and damage that makes the trick seem to work. <br />
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That has little or nothing to do with what the sex addict perpetrators in the 12 step rooms had to say, and I think Carnes does a disservice and some actual harm by sending survivors off to sex addict 12 step meetings in the real world. I think it is somewhat unfortunate that he associates the two so closely, as I found the work on betrayal bonds to be life changing. <i> I just didn't do the sex addict part of what Carnes recommended and things worked out well for me.</i> And I have learned to find love and support in healthier places than 12 step programs. Working on trauma bonding issues can no doubt be life changing for people who have been perpetrators too, and perhaps 12 step programs can restore them to some sanity and humanity, but we don't need to do that healing together, and none of that healing should be contingent on me giving anything like forgiveness. That is just nonsense, and as soon as I learned that, I started to get better.GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-88044470406961015922013-06-09T00:24:00.000-07:002013-06-09T00:24:25.524-07:00semi-annual still here messageHi, just a quick note like most of the others in the past few years...I am doing well. I don't have time to keep up with the blog every day but I do eventually check it. This means that your comments might not go up for a while. Sometimes it takes two months for me to get off my lazy ass and fix them (actually I don't even have to get up). Thanks to <a href="http://strangethingslikeme.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Hylie Random</a>, my favorite blogger, for nudging me out of my torpor/busy-ness enough to catch up.<br />
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I read each comment and post any that are relevant. That is the only way to keep things spam free, and even though I am slow, I do like to read each comment. Consider it an exercise in defered gratification. But that means if you need help, don't make this the only place you reach out to! Ask for help until you get it, you are worth it. Just a caution, if you say negative things about people by name there is a good chance I won't post for legal reasons. I encourage specifics, just not names. I'll even post things I personally disagree with most of the time, even though I'll usually follow up with a post reiterating what I think (the advantage of it being my blog). Stick with your experience and avoid names of people and I'll post it. The comments help me keep perspective sometimes. There is a lot of wisdom in the them, so thank you all and I wish you wellness and wholeness even as I continue to seek it myself.<br />
<br />GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-79854553075424607102012-09-19T21:22:00.002-07:002012-09-19T21:22:36.945-07:00still hereHi, to those who left comments since early July, sorry for being so slow getting them posted. If you leave a comment, it waits for me to moderate. I had surgery (all fine now, thank you) and basically did little on the computer for the past two months. Anyway, all the comments are now posted except a few that were mostly empty except for a link. I don't post links unless they check out, look legit, and are relevant to the post they are attached to because half of the rest are links to malware sites. So sorry if your brief message with a link to a dubious site did not get published. :)<br />
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I have a few more topics I might post on, but have not gotten around to posting. Other than that, unless there is some big change in how PTSD is in my life, I have pretty much written most of what I can think of and have nothing new to say, so that is why I post so seldom. My PTSD has gotten much better once I knew what it was and was able to get appropriate help, so I hold out that hope for people reading too. Until I knew what it was and took those appropriate steps, all the time in the world and all the mis-treatments in the world helped not a bit.<br />
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I still have it, and it still bugs me some days, but I manage it much better. Its more like a limp or a scar than an open wound now, but that process of healing once it began was s-l-o-w, so if you get help and don't see immediate results, hang in there. It took nearly five years for me to get through the worst, just like they predicted at the treatment center I went to. That was five years after I knew what was going on, not beginning to end, which was much longer. No shortcuts, and whatever you do, stay away from quick fixits like NLP or cultish religions. They will make matters much worse, and a major part of my ptsd came from hoping for such quick fixes and getting screwed while in a completely vulnerable place.<br />
Ok, so I guess I do have something to say still, though not much new. If you come to the site on this page, chack out the rest. I have been very lazy and not made any links, but most of the topics I raise are treated more fully elsewhere on the site. OK, one link: <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2007/12/sticky-guide-to-blog.html">Guide to the blog</a> has the links a descriptions of most everything. GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-8659921036965946002012-01-31T22:17:00.000-08:002012-01-31T22:17:57.683-08:00neglect (hopefully not traumatically so this time)eeep! I have neglected the comments here and a whole bunch of really important onces came in. I was backlogged since October. Had a major death in the family and let things go. They are all posted now. I apologize to anyone who missed their post, and thank you all for writing. The comments are often the most powerful part of the post!GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-38686144758836073322011-09-06T21:04:00.000-07:002011-09-12T16:42:58.818-07:00An open letter to someone looking to help a loved one with ptsd<br />
Hi,<br />
<br />
Since you did not post anonymously and wanted to get a hold of me I won't publish your comment but will respond to your email. If you want to repost anonymously, you might get some help that way too, so if it comes through again anonymously I'll publish the comment. I never had Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT), and have heard nightmarish stories about it, even in the new and improved version. If it is not having a helpful effect, please reconsider it!<br />
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First off, sorry to hear you and your wife are having such a tough time. When <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-and-me.html">I went through the worst</a> of the <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/12/betrayal-bonds-trauma-reactions.html">flashbacks</a> and other stuff I was very difficult to deal with and a real burden. I am fortunate my wife recognized what was going on as similar to what happens to battered women (she had done some work in the domestic violence field) and people who have been abused, but we had no idea when it went down what PTSD or flashbacks were. It was incredibly frightening...I thought I had just gone crazy. That is why I publish the blog, so that if people are hunting around they will know that what is happening is not unique and that there are ways through it. The only way out, unfortunately, is through. <br />
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It put me out of work for 1 and 1/2 yrs, and I had to go to inpatient. We basically maxed out credit cards and borrowed from friends and my wife's family. Insurance would not cover anything. I looked into but did not get social security for a disability, we were too busy with the symptoms to be able to go through with that when it actually could have helped. My family of origin was in such denial they did not help and went on a sort of in-the-family PR campaign to discredit me and my wife. I don't talk to them at all any more. That whole things was weird, because the immediate causes of my ptsd were not directly anything to do with family other than raising me so I couldn't recognize psychopaths when I encountered them. We had ok credit but not much income at the time and basically maxed out the 0% introductory offers and juggled them around for a couple of years before paying them off. No fun, but it worked.<br />
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If you can go that route, do careful research on the place. I went to Life Healing Center in New Mexico. Some people, like me, have gotten a lot out of it, others, not so much. It did not cure me, but it did give me enough tools to manage the worst of the symptoms and set up a structure of recovery, which slowly happened (with lots of work from me) over the next five years. I have not had a flashback in bout five years, but I know that seems like forever from the other side. With help though, it can and does get better. Without help it will not ever get better, and would have resulted in incapacitation, institutionalization, and death for me if left untreated any longer. It kills lots of people through suicides and addictions, and the stigma prevents the experience from helping others. <br />
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About the careful research, look at the <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/comprehensive-list-of-us-treatment.html">comprehensive list of treatment centers</a>. You might contact Life Healing Center and ask where to go or what you can do. They were supportive when we called. The <a href="http://sidran.org/">Sidran Institute</a> that is listed at the top of that page serves as a clearinghouse of info and advice on getting help with PTSD. They have a <a href="http://sidran.org/sub.cfm?sectionID=5">great help desk</a>. I would also check "<a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/choosing-therapist-for-people-with.html">how to choose a therapist</a>" on the blog. While setting up longer term plans, try to get short term support in place. If Kaiser will pay for therapy, try to get a referral for PTSD. There are lots of positively harmful mental health professionals, I would say the majority of them, so if you get a bad vibe with one try another. It is not you! Other people I know on Kaiser have managed by trial and error to keep trying the therapist they assign and if that one does not work ask for another. Make the first session an interview. You may want to attend with your wife, because if she is now like I was a few years ago, I would pick abusive therapists! Ultimately though it has to be someone she feels she can work with, so you can only support, not do it for her. But she has a right to get appropriate treatment specific to her case, and might need help to do that. <br />
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Kaiser may want to do an economy one-size fits all solution, but you have the right to get the help you guys need. Especially be careful with <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-and-meds.html">psychiatrists prescribing meds</a>. If you get a sense they are just prescribing this week's pharmaceutical company offering and not listening to you either before during or after you start on meds, clear out fast! I'd say psychiatrists approach closer to 90% incompetent. I really had to hunt to get a good one that would actually listen. My wife helped me find a good one, and the "how to pick a shrink" page is what we learned about how to find one and interview her or him. Meds are an important part of my recovery today though. But if one gets overmedicated, it is just zombifying, and if your wife gets on the wrong meds and the psychiatrist does not listen, it is horrible.<br />
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Also, check the laws in your state. In my state, major depression, which I had from the PTSD, qualified for more intensive treatment and the insurance company had to pay for unlimited sessions, not just the usual 24/yr or whatever. The insurance company of course will not tell you this, so check the laws and the fine print of your policy on it. I went twice a week sometimes when things were just starting to get better. <br />
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If there is addictive behavior involved, <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-and-12-step-programs.html">tread very carefully around 12 step programs</a>. They have little to no understanding of trauma issues and even if it works for the addiction, like it did for me (I went to 12-step groups for 16 years), the cure can be worse than the ailment, and <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2009/03/exploitative-folks-in-12-step-programs.html">charlatans and @$$holes abound</a>. That is not to say don't use it as a resource if it works for halting the addictions, because the addiction, particularly to drugs or alcohol, will prevent any progress in recovering from the ptsd. Just don't drink the kool-aid that says it is a cure-all and if you are not happy joyous and free in 6 months you are doing it wrong. That is positively harmful and very prevalent. Get help with the PTSD elsewhere. <br />
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With that said, a number of treatment centers are incorporating trauma work into their inpatient programs. The meadows in Arizona and the Caron Foundation rehabs in PA are two examples. Places that work with trauma primarily often won't take a person with substance abuse issues until they have come through a rehab for that. When I went to Life Healing Center I was already 16 years sober and had to do a bit of convincing to get in without having to go through another drug and alcohol rehab! Without the sobriety, the other work is impossible. <br />
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I am forever grateful that <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2007/08/loving-and-supportive-network-of.html">my wife and my friends I had made outside of 12 step groups</a> came through and stuck with me. I did <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2006/03/writing-when-things-are-ok-for-once.html">get better over time</a> and returned to being a more-or-less fully functioning adult again. It was (and still is) a long slow process, but things do get better. My wife was for me when I was not, when I was hopeless, she supplied the hope, and we came out the other side of it fine after some couples counseling. Don't underestimate the strain on yourself and inequitability of what is happening. It is not fair that you should be stuck cleaning up trauma that you had nothing to do with, and Christian strategies of <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-aa-and-different-types-of-addicts.html">turning the other cheek and repressing anger will backfire</a>, coming out sideways and destructive. It is a tremendous strain to live with someone going through PTSD, to the point they have a name for it, secondary PTSD. So please, if you are going to support your wife, remember that you need to take care of yourself ultimately too. That can get lost in the cycle of crisis, but it is crucial if you are to be supportive and if the relationship is going to come through in the long run. It can and does happen, even if it seems hopeless now. Having come out the other side, it was an awful expereince, but once we sorted things out, with a lot of emotional work from both of us and short term guidance from a good couples therapist when we got stuck, we are stronger in the relationship than ever, and I owe my recovery in large part to my wife's unstinting support. I'm not advocating martyrdom though, please be clear. I had to work hard at my recovery and do a lot of work in restoring the relationship. If I had not done that work, even when I saw no point in it, nothing would have gotten better between us. <br />
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I hope this is of some help. I know PTSD is terrifying and awful, so please hang in there. All the struggles and hardships paid off for us in the long run and I hope they do for you too. I'll probably post this as an open letter on the blog without hooking it up to your comment. Thank you for writing. GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-25428845805703437892011-06-04T20:50:00.000-07:002011-06-04T20:50:16.327-07:00New LookWhen I moderate comments, I often go back and review posts and comments for strength and sustenance (especially the comments!). Today I realized that the bright white text on a black background was hard to read for any length of time, so I updated the look and feel. I know a lot of people who come here go on extended readings of the info and your comments, so I made the text a little less bright, and switched from a sans serif font to a serif, Georgia, for the main text. Serifs, the little horizontal guidelines at the tops and bottoms of letters, make it easier to read because the help the eye follow along horizontally instead of emphasizing the vertical. I enlarged the font a notch too. The background is from a stock theme. I like it because it is <a href="http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&global=1&q=bokeh">bokeh</a>, out of focus, so it gives the illusion of depth. I also like that it stays in place while the text scrolls: it gives the illusion that there is a scene behind the writing. And the rainy day seems to fit PTSD bouts with depression, even if the vista is inspirational. The headings are in a felt marker-type font. I wanted a sort of zen brush-stroke effect there. <br />
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The last real post is still the one about <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2010/01/losing-time.html">losing time,</a> which I have been doing a lot of, and my updating the layout just goes to show you how desperately I am avoiding the real work I need to do!<br />
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Let me know whether you like the new look if you got distracted enough to come over to this page and have read this far. If you want to get back to reading the blog, here is the <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2007/12/sticky-guide-to-blog.html">guide</a>.GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-47116956710102357882010-07-20T19:14:00.001-07:002010-07-20T19:16:05.251-07:00Sorry to those who have commented since May 8th. I've been traveling and working and got behind. Comments are all published now, and I hope if you are suffering from PTSD and maybe don't know what hit you, that you find something of use here!GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-74539628139222244332010-01-27T14:21:00.000-08:002010-01-27T14:36:16.717-08:00losing timeThis started out a comment, but became a post. The <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-and-wasting-time.html">time-wasting thing</a> is weird...partly, I've had to learn to give myself some space to waste some time on having fun and stuff like that that I used to think I did not deserve. But the losing time thing was a real problem for me for a long time -- still is in some ways. <br /><br />I used to be in this weird form of denial about it. I would have dissociative, losing time, flashbacky stuff happen all the time, but as long as I was the only one who witnessed it I could pretend it was not happening, or I was just faking or being "dramatic." Denial runs very deep in my family! <br /><br />Anyway, eventually, I started losing time so others noticed and I had to make up stories to cover (should sound familiar to anyone who has or had an addiction that is trauma-related), but ultimately, it spilled over, or I finally decided I could trust my partner of many years and what had been my own private nightmare was all of a sudden shared. Instead of leaving me in disgust, she said "oh my this is terrible." She recognized what was going on with me as similar to what another set of trauma survivors (women who have suffered domestic violence) whom she was familiar with go through. This set us off on the slow process of learning almost from scratch what PTSD is. I thought she would leave if she discovered how "bad" and "crazy" I was inside my head, but instead, sharing what was going on, even though it kind of spilled over rather than being a conscious decision on my part, began the process of recovery for me. <br /><br />My ability to trust others was so damaged by the various traumas I have alluded to in this blog that it was nine years into our relationship before I trusted her with what was going on inside me. I really thought I was to blame for it all, and that I was just crazy or defective, and I had been burned so many times on trust issues I was extremely wary. And I was fortunate to find someone who saw things for what they really were instead of just being freaked out and leaving. <br /><br />I guess the moral of the story for me is that when I am "losing time" it is a good idea to run it by someone I trust. That is hard for me, because I used to trust people who had not earned it and I got burned all the time.GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-72499166329926348082009-07-06T16:02:00.000-07:002009-07-06T17:05:06.332-07:00god and stuffCatherine wrote in a comment <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2009/03/exploitative-folks-in-12-step-programs.html">here</a>, "Does this mean the steps don't work? Does this mean God does not exist?" I tried to answer briefly but it turned into a post.<br /><br />"God is dead" - Nietzsche<br />"Nietzsche is dead" - God<br /><br />I always liked that even if I disagree with the moral of it. I have come to more or less of a truce about spirituality. I have no way of telling whether or not any deity exists other than subjective guessing, which I have seen is often wrong when I do it and when others do it. In fact, the most harmful people in 12 step rooms for me were ones who were convinced they knew and were carrying out "God's will" saying things like "I like to think things happened for a reason" when the reason was that they did it: god as cop out in other words. So I have suspended judgment. If there is one (or more) or not is apparently not my business. My job is to do the best I can with what I have got, and belief in a deity has just not been sustainable for me, though I don't see disbelief as being any more supportable in my own case. In other words, I am not an atheist, I just don't know (which I think is the literal meaning of agnostic, though I am not keen on that label either). I am not one to substitute a faith that god does not exist for a faith that one does. Same goes for faith in science or AA or anything else as the answer to everything too. I don't think the whole world is reducible to the observable, but again, I don't know. I just don't know, and that is fine. <br /><br />A higher power is a different story, I just don't need to deify it for it to work in my life...it is just the admission that I can't do it all, know it all, be it all, myself. I need others, their perspectives, their help sometimes, their human frailty at others, and mostly their love (that last one is hard to admit and write even now -- trauma has taught me so many times that I must be self-sufficient because I can't trust anyone). Finding a few people I can risk trusting in this regard has changed the everything for me and allowed me to get better even when faith and 12 steps failed me.<br /><br />I know this is not everyone's path, and I hope I am not going to draw and evangelical types by my stating my lack of belief, but it has worked for me when all else failed and I have some peace of mind, whereas before, for me to believe at all, I would have had to have bought into the idea of a punishing (or very stupid and powerless) god that pretty much wanted me to suffer in order to test me. If so, I failed the test, or maybe I aced it, I don't know, which is the point. If the deity I used to believe in is in fact the case, nothing I can do about it, but I don't have any compelling reason to place my life in the hands of some invisible malevolent-for-my-own-good deity any more. Been there, tried real hard to make it work, results not so good. I have had to find my higher power in people around me, human and imperfect as they (including me) are. That has sometimes worked and sometimes not so much, but it is good enough for me right now. <br /><br />What does it have to do with PTSD? Well for one thing, many of the tools that self-help have to offer rely on on putting your trust and faith in a deity of some sort, however contrived. Professionals rely on this to some extent too, especially ones who don't have proper training or better tools to offer. Some of the trauma I suffered had to do with spritual abuse of the first order, people invoking a spiritual higher power to gain trust and to then do extremely harmful things that truly f***ed up my life. And it was done as part of my seeking to recover from earlier trauma. So the tools I was supposed to use to get better were turned on me. Talk about having trust issues. Same sort of thing happened, in a related way, with therapists. And the end result was that "very spiritual" people put a big head trip on me, so that I was supposed to (and did for a time) believe that things happened the way they did because of my failures and shortcomings and god's will (constructed in the usual new agey fashion...I never got into church since being raised as a strict Catholic as a child). <br /><br />This left me in the most forlorn place in my life, worse than the black hole of addiction because there was no addictive pain relief and no reason for any of it that made sense other than that I sucked. Nothing made sense anymore. Everything that I was taught would make me "happy joyous and free" made me miserable...I got the feeling of being some kind of alien, the butt of a joke I did not get, plopped down in a world meant for others that worked for them but not for me. That was the effect of spiritual and emotional abuse I now understand, but it led to a feeling of nearly complete abandonment and years of suicidal depression as I labored under the beliefs I had learned in early recovery. <br /><br />I won't say too much about how I got through it, but after a suicide attempt that could have been successful, when I chose (a few moments away from not being able to come back), to go to the hospital, I made a very willful decision. They held me at the psyche ward until I promised to be good, that was about all, other than some horrible group work and an attempt to torture me physically in the name of an EEG by sticking an electrode on the end of a tube through my palate and into my nose. But while thereI basically made a decision that if I wanted to kill myself that I would have, that I had my chance and failed even at that, and that I just would not try killing myself to relieve pain any more, no matter what I had to do. This was not easy, because for the next nine years I suffered from ptsd without knowing what it was, getting (mis) treated for whatever this week's malady was with last week's pharmaceutical offering. I walked around suicidal for nine years, figuring that that is how I would live out my life. If I felt so bad I thought I would act out on it, I spoke up, not because I wanted to get better -- I had no such illusions by that point, but because I had promised myself not to and yelping for help was the only way I coulds see not acting out on the desire to stop hurting. The one thing I did right was I kept showing up as best I could. The other thing I did was change my friends and gradually, fitfully, and with much guilt and worry, clear out of 12 step rooms. Finding out about ptsd was like a cover being removed from my eyes. Things that made no sense finally did. That is why I write this blog, on the chance that someone else in the same state as I was might find out what the hell is going on in their life and skip some of the forlorn-ness of it all without checking out permanently.<br /><br />As for the steps, they work for some people, though not nearly as many as 12 steppers claim, and I see value in them as a way to "clear the wreckage of the past" but they alone were not enough for me. I kept going over the same things, working the steps as well as anyone, and things kept getting worse. The reason was that I was taking responsibility for things that were not mine and stuffing anger because the literature said it was a "dubious luxury we can ill afford." One of the things I heard in 12 step rooms was that if you keep doing the same thing over and expect different results, that's insanity. I finally had to apply that to how the steps (did not) work in my life after a point. PTSD complicated matters and the steps did not and were not designed to help with it. I needed to do something different, but the only solution 12 steps had to offer was more step work. So my short answer to Catherine's question, "Does this mean the steps don't work?" is that they did not work on PTSD for me. A lot of the stuff was simply not my fault, and any attempt to take responsibilty for it just aggravated the problem. I needed to get good and angry, and I did not and still do not have any need to forgive or forget, much less make amends to these people. My life did not fall apart as dire warnings from the literature and the rooms said it would. In fact, getting angry and placing responsibility where it belonged was a true first step toward my ongoing recovery from PTSD and a return from the brink, or maybe over it, of insanity. <br /><br />This turned into a way heavier post than I intended, but there it is for what it is worth; it is my experience and your mileage may vary.GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-85953232794774219862009-03-13T13:34:00.000-07:002009-03-13T14:02:41.571-07:00exploitative folks in 12 step programs and elsewhereOnce again, somebody's comments sparked a post from what started as a simple response. Anon, thanks for your comments on <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/my-ongoing-recovery-from-ptsd.html">this page</a> and and on the "<a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-aa-and-different-types-of-addicts.html">type A&B</a>" page. In a nutshell, she said thanks for the heads up as she tended to trust 12 step folks blindly and had not realized there were some exploitative types in the rooms. <br /><br />I really need to tread a fine line...AA and 12 step programs saved my life at one time, but nearly cost it another. I managed to get sober there when I could not under my own steam no matter how hard I tried. I'm forever grateful for that, because it has made the rest of my life possible, painful as parts have been. <br /><br />That said, the most manipulative, scheming, two faced, fair weather friend type people I have ever met, straight or high, have been in 12 step programs or the addictions recovery field. I had the blind trust anon talks about -- after all, these people had literally saved my life and I knew it! And there are some great, decent, and honest people in AA. There are also used car salesmen (I bought a lemon from a guy who used 12-speak and AA "seniority" to get me to trust him when making a purchase I wished I hadn't), spiritual abusers ("when I f&%*ed you over it was God's will"), therapists ( did anyone ever notice that the word spells "the rapist?" -- just kidding sort of...while several of my therapists were akin to rapists, others I have learned to choose have been remarkably helpful) willing to rip up families to make a few thousand bucks, even to the point of driving the abandoned ones to suicide ("oh she was messed up...good thing he left her when he did!"), and this is before even getting to romantic relationships, where as I said, because of my tendency toward <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/12/betrayal-bonds-trauma-repitition.html">trauma repetition</a>, and never having been around healthy people to know any better, and my blind trust in 12 step folk, I got involved with the sickest most twisted people I have ever met in my life. I'm still trying to sort it out 15-20 years later! <br /><br />I would never tell anyone to avoid all relationships with recovering people...there are some healthy ones I am sure (plus I'm one!), but tread carefully! Trust slowly and cautiously if at all. Trust is earned and provisional, based on actions not words, and not granted eternally, just for now. Pay attention...don't disregard your common sense and intuition...a major part of my recovery has been to slowly reclaim those things...if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. <br /><br />The thing is, I was so needy and vulnerable, even 5-6 years into recovery, that I ignored all this and rather than waiting and going slowly, I dove in and trusted blindly because I did not know how to develop <span style="font-style: italic;">earned </span>trust over time rather than just give it or withhold it arbitrarily. As a result, I got in traumatic relationships again and again (twice in recovery, to be exact) that I am still struggling with much later. They very nearly cost me my life. They did cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost work time when I just could not function because of the results of them. They caused unbearable and completely unnecessary pain and a number of trips to psyche wards and a trauma treatment center. When I have told people the details, they have been amazed that I didn't pick up over this stuff...many just assumed I had. One person I respect a lot, an earth person (i.e., not in 12 step programs) said the last perpetrator was an emotional rapist. <br /><br />But honestly, I don't know if I could have taken the advice I am giving now, because I was stubborn and thought if I did not get somebody *now* I'd be alone forever. Looking back, I would have been better off alone, but I needed to learn it the hard way I guess. And even today, knowing what I know, I don't know that if I were single and put in the same situation I wouldn't repeat my mistake again. I like to think I have learned better, but I don't know that. I am just glad I am in a healthy non-abusive relationship for a long time and don't have to face that particular weakness in myself. <br /><br />It is a funny thing...the healthy relationship didn't come with all the drama, risk, and emotional highs -- or lows -- that the sick relationships did, so it took me literally years to figure out that all that drama and ball of hurt I was used to was not an intrinsic part of human relationships! I thought I was missing something and I guess I was. To be honest I missed the rush, just like a drug, but also to be honest, I have learned I certainly don't miss the consequences. <br /><br />I just have to say, over the few years I have intermittently written this blog, I have been continuously gratified that there are other people who understand. One of the worst parts of my PTSD was thinking I was alone and hopeless and crazy. So thank you to all of you who have commented over the years. You keep me thinking and writing about this stuff, which helps me work stuff through, and I am grateful that something helpful to others has come out of something so insufferable.GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-11494361056121873252008-12-09T17:16:00.000-08:002008-12-09T17:25:07.270-08:00PTSD and the holidays revisited...Holidays have always been rough for me. A lot of <a href="http://www.sidran.org/pdf/PTSDandholidays.pdf">trauma anniversary</a> (pdf) stuff comes between Thanksgiving and New Years for me. I didn't even realize it but my partner pointed out that I always have a hard time with holidays and depression and PTSD symptoms. This year seems better so far. I am in a place I like. I won't be alone. People who traumatized me are far away and not in contact. So maybe things will be ok this year.<br /><br />Another set of holidays has started, and I need to be aware of anniversary reactions. Awareness and talking about it to the people around me (I wouldn't recommend this unless they understand PTSD and are supportive) have helped reduce the worst of the reactions, as has staying away from my abusers, and unfortunately in my case, my family of origin, who are all mightily invested in <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> understanding my PTSD, which several of them find pretty threatening.<br /><br />Why are holidays tough for people with PTSD? Well for one thing, getting in touch with positive feelings can be really difficult, and during the holidays there is a lot of pressure to do just that...be jolly in other words. For another, some holidays a reminders of anniversaries of traumatic events. Anniverseries are proven triggers for PTSD, and they sure were for me. I finally realized I needed to cut off contact with my family of origin -- a drastic step, not for everyone, BTW -- after calling on Thanksgiving and getting off the phone and having a severe flashback. I would have never put the two together because the content of the flashback was not my family, but my partner noticed that this happened regularly with contact with them and around holidays in particular. The "joke" in our family was "OK, we're going to have a good holiday or else, godammit" which was usually followed by some drunken craziness that turned ugly.<br /><br />For me, controlling whom I am around, and scaling back expectations of jolliness both help a lot.<br />There is a bit more on how someone with PTSD can <a href="http://ptsd.about.com/od/selfhelp/qt/holidaycope.htm">cope with the hiolidays</a> in About.com's PTSD section.GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-45596760262977966542008-12-08T00:18:00.000-08:002008-12-08T00:35:49.707-08:00toxic relationships<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Well, this started as a response to a bunch of comments but turned int my first post in a while, so thanks to the anonymous poster who made the comments referenced below.<br /><br />anonymous said:<br /><blockquote>My story was a string of "moderately traumatic" events that left me feeling constantly on edge, ready for betrayal or chaos at any moment, completely in physical and emotional pain for years.<br /></blockquote>Yes, <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2006/02/still-here-still-have-ptsd.html">I know that feeling well</a>, that there is no safe place, the world might give way under foot at any moment. Finding ways of being and places, even imaginary ones, that are safe has been a big part of recovery for me. EMDR, which I have been thinking of writing a post on for a very long time but haven't gotten around to it, was helpful in doing this. I started out with an imaginary safe place, but also learned to trust that<a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2007/08/loving-and-supportive-network-of.html"> loving and supportive network of friends</a>, which has been a challenge, but also tremendously rewarding as far as recovering goes.<br /><blockquote>anonymous wrote:<br />The supportive, loving people I have new relationships with don't deserve to deal with my insecurities from the manipulative, destructive people in my toxic past.</blockquote>I think awareness is a crucial first step. All the toxic people who were in my life surely had their own unaddressed trauma issues, I know this for a fact. I think perpetrators of abuse are traumatized people who feel entitled to take out revenge for their trauma on the world around them. Its their way of dealing with it, but it creates more trauma, passing it along to new people. Most traumatized people won't turn into abusers, but I bet 99.9% of perpetrators come from traumatized backgrounds. Its important to reiterate that this is not a <span style="font-style: italic;">fait accompli</span>.<br /><br />It is a slippery and seductive slope though. Most traumatized people hold it in til it blows up, which I did, or find constructive ways of dealing with it, which is what I try to do now. But when things blew up, I hurt those around me, the closer and more supportive they were, the more so. I realized this and it was a major incentive to get better so that I would not continue to have the stuff come out sideways and hurt the ones I love and who love me. I can see though, that had I just felt entitled to what I was doing rather than being appalled at it, it would then be but a short drive to perp-dom. So I have understanding, but no tolerance or forgiveness for abusers.<br /><br />I am grateful for being able to break the cycle in my own life but it has come at great cost. My tendency was to buy into the perpetrator's version of the story and see myself as defective or the source of whatever problems they blamed on me. I promised myself when I was a little kid that I would not do to my kids what was done to me. My latest greatest abuser played into all my fears and insecurities (and ignorance about boundaries!) and after I got totally screwed over, the person convinced me that I was the abusive one (I hesitate to even write this for fear that whoever reads it will side with my abuser too!) by invoking what I had recognized as lies a previous toxic person had accused me of.<br /><br />The latest, greatest one knew my feelings and insecurities about this because I told her all about them. Rather than realizing "wow, what a sick person, trying to justify her abusive behavior by flinging that stuff at me," I thought "well that's twice in a row...maybe I'm as blind as my parents were to their abusive behavior and just cannot see it." As a result, I decided not to have kids, because I took my childhood promise to myself seriously, and until I could see how it was I was being abusive I would do what it took to make sure I didn't pass it on.<br /><br />This was my backwards sense of boundaries, where I thought they were to keep me walled off from doing harm from others rather than to protect myself from toxic abusive people. Years later, the person admitted I had not been anything close to abusive and that she made it up to justify her actions, but by then it was too late to start a family and the harm had been done. Because a life of traumatic relationships with everyone from parents to siblings to strangers to lovers, my belief in myself and my own feelings was nil. This is perhaps the greatest thing I have recovered in getting better from PTSD, my trust in myself as a basically good human being. I had to learn what most people learn as children, how to tell what's mine from what's not, and that has made all the difference.<br /><br /></div>GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-21248880571926219392007-08-03T19:21:00.000-07:002007-08-15T15:56:50.467-07:00a loving and supportive network of friendsIn a comment to <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-and-me.html">this post</a>, anonymous wrote:<br/><blockquote>also maybe you just haven't found the right support group yet. There's nothing like sharing with others who have endured similar experiences</blockquote><br/>This is true, sharing with others who have been there, or who have other ways of understanding, is a tremendous help. If you look through the rest of the blog, you will see that my recovery has come a long way. I do have a lot of support but it is not formalized in a "group" right now and that is fine with me. What I do have is a loving and supportive network of friends and family of choice. Groups have served their purpose in my recovery, and I have done them in several different forms and may do more if I see an opportunity to get better by doing so. <br/><br/>But groups have also been fraught experiences for me. I've said enough elsewhere on 12 step approaches, but even in therapeutic groups, the nature of a lot of my trauma and its manifestations is often threatening to other male group members' sense of their own masculinity and they have often gone out of their way to <em>not</em> identify with me, distancing themselves as much as possible. From what I gather this is their issue, not mine, but I'm not there to have them play out their idea of what a man is by being hostile to me or undermining my sense of who I am and what I have been through. Its counterproductive and whatever the opposite of affirming is. <br/><br/>Here is what I do have though, a loving and supportive network of friends and family of choice. Most <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">untraumatized</span> people grow up with the family part and develop the friends part as a matter of course. I had to spend decades to learn how to do it, and it had to be with a new family of my own creation, not my family of origin. I was able to manage this by reaching out to people as people, not as alcoholics, drug addicts, or trauma survivors.. Some had some of these issues mind you, but I reached a point in my life where that no longer needed to be the primary basis for a relationship. <br/><br/>When the PTSD came on hard, I involuntarily had to lean on this network for all it was worth, and these friends and family were there for me and came through for me in ways that my family of origin and my old frineds, both as an active addict and as a person recovering within the frame of the twelve steps, did not. What I like to think is that I had gotten well enough to operate in the world of "earth people" -- normal folks, in other words -- as one of them, instead of identifying as an addict or a victim or a survivor first and foremost. One of the goals of recovery is to reintegrate into society as a useful member, and over the course of many years that is what I have done. I'm just a person among people. Like everyone, I've got my own unique history, and I act in some particular ways...for example, not drinking or drugging. But I am more or less just a regular person, as long as I take care of myself. <br/><br/>So anyway, when doing EMDR, I was having difficulty facing some of the trauma yet it was intruding in my life in the form of flashbacks, seizure-like things, hypervigilance, and a host of other things. We did what is called installing resources, and the resource that I came up with was to think of my firends as a literal net, holding me up and protecting me from falling when I could not do so myself. This resource or whatever has helped me immensely, and my earth-friends have come through for me again and again to the point where I don't have to rely on that net anymore. It is good to know it is there though. Actually, it kind of reminds me of the end of Harry Potter (spoiler alert) where he goes and faces the evil Voldemort alone sort of, but with the sort of mental company of supportive and loving friends and family that carry him through things he did not believe himself capable of. Even when the are not there they are there. <br/><br/>Perhaps that image...a literal net made up of supportive and loving friends and family...is one that will help others get through the trying times of PTSD like it did me. It was not a cure, and it did not make it easier or less painful, but it did enable me to get better and to face some pretty horrific stuff to know I wasn't -- and still am not -- in it alone.GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-89605401391855394092007-07-09T02:45:00.000-07:002007-07-09T03:31:14.269-07:00More on Type A & B addicts, 12 steps, and traumaThis was originally a response to some comments to "<a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-aa-and-different-types-of-addicts.html">ptsd, AA, and different types of addicts</a>" that grew too long, so it became a post. If you're curious, or want to try and convince me that my experience is wrong ;^), you can read more about my thoughts on <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-and-12-step-programs.html">PTSD and 12-step programs</a>, the <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-aa-and-christianity.html">Christian basis of AA's "spirituality"</a>, and why I finally decided, after 17 years, to <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/my-name-and-more-on-12-steps-aa-people.html">leave 12 step approaches</a>, a difficult decision.<br /><br />anonymous at 9:17 pm said:<br /><blockquote>I believe that AA can help anyone to sobriety and a life worth living. </blockquote><br />Oh dear, the <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-aa-and-different-types-of-addicts.html">type A</a> AAs have found us :)<br /><blockquote>...There ARE AA members experienced with PTSD. Value your own recovery enough to seek them out. </blockquote><br />Indeed, during the seventeen years I attended AA I did find some people who knew personally what PTSD was and they were a tremendous help. I also met a lot of crazy people who thought because their way of doing things wasn't working for me that I was doing something wrong...kind of like you are here.<br /><blockquote>If it were easy, EVERYONE would be sober and sane. </blockquote>a little condescension to help you endear yourself to us struggling misguided fools who don't do things your way....<br /><blockquote>... But sobriety and life are worth the effort. ...Find the people in AA who relate to who you are and where you've been. They are there.</blockquote>Translation for <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-aa-and-different-types-of-addicts.html">type B</a>s: You are doing it wrong if you are not doing it my (anonymous's) way -- oops, I mean, the AA way, and you're not sober or sane unless you go through AA. Thanks, but no thanks. Been there done that. That is <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-aa-and-different-types-of-addicts.html">what the post explains</a> if you could see through the haze a bit. If you go by the slogans, I might suggest "live and let live" to the anonymous poster here...Things only got saner and better for me after I left AA. That seems to be threatening somehow, and of course the type A response is that I didn't do it right. Well excuse my French, but fuck that. I've now been sober over 22 years, the last five without AA. I got a lot out of AA and gave a lot back, but it became more harm than help, to the point that my worst days sober were as bad or worse than the low points of my addiction, which included homelessness, hallucinations, lot's of "lucky to have lived through that"s, and lots of drug induced emotional and physical injury, so I left. Mind you, I wouldn't trade those awfullest sober days in for the druggy ones -- I learned a lot of hard-bought things about people and --I can't think of anything else to call it...sickness just doesn't capture the true extent -- evil from the hard times of my sobriety.<br /><br />If I remember right, and I do, the definition of insanity I learned in AA was "to keep repeating the same things over and expect different results." Working things through the aa way became exactly this form of insanity. At a certain point the aa way...steps, spirituality, constant meetings, the whole thing that I was doing with the best of them...just wasn't working, again and again, no matter how hard I tried or how close I hewed to the big book and the rooms. <br /><br />Maybe I'll drink tomorrow. I saw plenty of twenty and thirty year AA-ers go out and drink too. I plan on staying clean and sober, as I value the life it has granted me immensely now that I have been able to stay clear of the craziness and harm I encountered in AA. If it works for you, well bless you, go forth....I probably would have sided with you the first 5, 10, or 15 years I was sober. I was wrong, and I humbly submit that you are too if you think AA is a one stop shop with the answers for everyone's recovery. Open yer mind a little, please. <br /><br />the next anonymous said:<br /><blockquote>But to say that the person with PTSD is .."almost exclusively harming themselves..." is denial at its greatest. It takes courage to ask for help.</blockquote> <br />Just for clarity sake, that quote within the quote is from another commentator, not something I said, though I said something similar. I agree with the wife of the PTSD sufferer, and I am sure my own partner would too, as she endured a lot of agony in supporting me through the worst of my PTSD. I am forever grateful for that...It has taught me what love really is in many ways, so if you are truly supporting the recovery -- and recovery can happen -- of a PTSD-er, well then props to you! Its a huge task and takes a lot of love and understanding.<br /><br />I was referring, and I think the commentator was too, to the sort of perverse tendency Type Bs have of trying to make amends to their perpetrators. In my case that <span style="font-style: italic;">included </span>members of my family. They are the ones who are in denial, not me. And to live as they would have me would kill me, quite literally, and they would rather see that than see what they did. I just stay far away now, which is sad, but I have developed a wonderful family of choice and made a life for myself with room for all of who I am. <br /><br />When I was in the worst stages of my addiction, and my recovery, I isolated like the commentator, and any pain I caused my perpetrators was probably from pangs of guilt more than anything else. I managed to keep everyone else away from me. I didn't have anyone because I didn't think I was worth anything to anyone, and created a self-fulfilling prophecy. When I stopped drinking and drugging, this left me real vulnerable to a particular type of misanthropic, often charlatan, type of person who can be found in or around any AA anywhere (I had home groups in four different cities over the years). Mind you, I'm not saying all AA is like that, just that all AA attracts such people, and they prey on people like I was. I've seen it many times and experienced it more than once before I wised up. These types took some people's lives to get what they wanted and almost got mine. Maybe someday I'll tell that story here, but I try to keep things general so more people can relate and also so as to remain anonymous myself. <br /><br />Anyway, there was no wife or partner or significant other in my addiction because I thought I was too fucked up to be with anyone -- and I mostly was. Type Bs tend to blame themselves and take on the violence and anger of others as their own. This has ...ummm....negative effects on one's social skills and attractiveness to others. This is what I had to learn to reject and get angry at in order to get better, that the guilt and shame I felt were not mine, but belonged to others, and I would imagine that the commentator was trying to express something similar. I am sure if he or she had people in his or her life, they were affected as you say, but some of us clear everyone out for their own good to protect them from what awful people we have been taught by our perpetrators to believe that we are. Realizing that was a lie, and dumping the evil others had dumped on me in a safe and non-abusive way were key to getting to a place where I could let people in and have real relationships. I could have gone to AA for eternity and I would never have learned what I needed there.GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-1166832673038986652006-12-22T16:03:00.000-08:002006-12-22T16:11:13.053-08:00Battle of the EffexorOh well, just checking in to update anyone who reads this. I more or less lost the <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2006/08/joy-of-meds-effexor-withdrawal-and-oh.html">battle of the Effexor</a>. I had to go back on it, back up to 150 mg a day. This is a third of what I had been taking, so it is better, but the withdrawal just never went away while I was off it. I was miserable for a couple of months straight. Maybe it is the PTSD and depression returning without the meds, but I don't think it was. A lot of the stuff I felt was not related to the PTSD or depression, but after feeling like hell for a couple of months, I did get depressed. Anyway, my psych doc says we can try again down the road, going even slower on the tapering off, but I am feeling better again and in no hurry to go through that again, even if it means staying on the drug. Within two weeks of going back on it, I was better again.GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-1155257277489563262006-08-10T17:00:00.000-07:002009-04-28T15:58:20.654-07:00Joy of Meds: Effexor withdrawal (and oh yeah, Blogspot sucks)Grrrr...I spent a whole morning on this post and blogspot went down for maintenance and ate the whole thing when I tried to post. When they came back up, I could only recover about half of it. Bastards.<br /><br />First the good news: I have been doing pretty well lately, well enough to slowly come off some of the <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-and-meds.html">meds</a> I take. All has gone fairly smoothly. I went from 140 mg/day of Geodon to 40mg. When I went lower symptoms came back, but getting rid of that and the Seroquel was like coming out of a daze. Friends noted a definite change in personality for the better, I seemed more alive and engaged, both subjectively and in the eyes of others. I reduced the trazodone (for sleep) to where I usually take half of a 25 mg tablet, occassionally taking the other half if my head won't shut down for the day and keeps spinning, a trauma response in some ways but also I think a symptom of a busy life. Wellbutrin went from 450 mg to 300, where I am leaving it for now because it seems to help more than some of the others, and Naltrexone, which I use to fight some of the addictive thinking and compulsivity involved with self-harm stuff, is next on the block but currently at 100mg and holding.<br /><br />Everything has been more or less fine until the Effexor. If I had known what the withdrawal was, I don't think I would have gone on it even though I was <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-and-me.html">pretty desparate</a> for some relief at that time. I was on 450 mg/day, pretty much at the top end of what can safely be prescribed. My psychiatrist, who I work with on the meds, said withdrawal can be tough, but at first it was fine. I got down to 75 mg/day over the course of the better part of a year, knocking it down by 37.5 mg every few weeks. In going from 75 mg to 37.5 mg, I felt a little achey in the joints and feverish, but it passed after a few days.<br /><br />Then when I made the last step down to zero, it made me really sick. I had <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_shivers">brain shivers</a>, or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_zaps">brain zaps</a> -- sort of like an electric short circuit going bzzzzt in your head with the attendant feeling, or like the sound some modems make when they are connecting (more on other people's experiences of Effexor withdrawal are <a href="http://depression.about.com/cs/venlafaxine/a/brainshivers.htm">here</a> and <a href="http://www.psycom.net/depression.central.withdrawal.html">here</a>). For about a week I slept for 16-20 hours a day, and I was very low energy when awake. Fortunately, I don't have fixed hours at work in the summer so I could do this. I ran a low grade fever, felt constant nausea, felt dizzy, like if I closed my eyes I would fall down a dark hole. This was different from the <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2006/02/still-here-still-have-ptsd.html">top-o-the-elevator, car-with-no-brakes</a> feeling and or the <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2006/05/safety-and-familiar.html">world-dropping out from underfoot</a> feeling: It was a visceral, bodily sensation of falling rather than a PTSD-induced feeling of unsafety, sort of vertigo without the heights. Also experienced headaches along with the feeling of having a wet blanket over my brain, sort of like in the cartoons where they show the little fizzy bubbles above people's heads. Consensus seems to be that the severity of the withdrawal symptoms is due in part to the short half life of Effexor (several hours as opposed to weeks for Prozac). To quote <a href="http://www.iggypop.com/">Iggy Pop</a>, "<a href="http://www.lyricsdir.com/iggy-pop-no-fun-lyrics.html">no fun</a>."<br /><br />I did some research and found out what I experienced, along with a couple more, are pretty common <a href="http://www.psycom.net/depression.central.withdrawal.html">withdrawal symptoms</a> from Effexor. There are some <a href="http://depression.about.com/cs/toppicks/tp/withdrawal.htm">suggestions</a> for alleviating them, including tapering off the Effexor in smaller increments than 37.5 mg. This was my psychiatrist's suggestion, but I had already gone through the worst of it by then, and was not experiencing a re-onset of the symptoms the Effexor was supposed to treat (PTSD-related anxiety and depression) so I decided not to go this route as it seemed like it would only prolong the misery. Another option was to take a dose of Prozac, which has a longer half-life and masks the withdrawal. I didn't like Prozac at all when I took it, so I nixed this. A third was to take the anti-flu concoction Benadryl. I was a little skittish about this as a recovering addict, as twenty some-odd years ago when I was in rehab, they said to stay away from anything with antihistimines because of speed-like qualities. I tried it anyway and so far have not broken out on a crystal meth rampage :) -- and it seemed to help a little.<br /><br />I seem to have made it through the worst of it, though still a bit dizzy and have the wet-blanket-over-the brain sensation a little. I think that about covers most of the stuff blogspot deleted.GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-1147010204376924752006-05-07T06:11:00.000-07:002006-05-07T06:56:44.390-07:00safety and the familiarMy partner is out of town and I've been staying up late catching up on work. I got caught up so I decided to do something different and go out. I realized walking down the street that I have become a creature of habit because of the PTSD. I have a safe set of things that I do and seldom step out of them, which is strange because I used to be quite adventurous.<br /><br />I realized that as soon as I got out in an unfamiliar time with unfamiliar people (I went out by myself) in a setting I no longer frequent, I got anxious and unsettled. The old feeling of being worried that the next step will be right off the world into some crazy traumatic space came back, like I had a feeling that I wouldn't be welcome -- these spaces are for other people, not for me. I wasn't doing anything dangerous, just going to a club to listen to some music and take in the scene. I don't drink or anything, so no worries about things getting out of control either.<br /><br />Even so, my breath grew short and I had the <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2006/02/still-here-still-have-ptsd.html">top of the elevator, hit the brakes when your not driving feeling</a> pretty bad. I practiced a mini version of my <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/12/grounding-exercises-for-ptsd-symptoms.html">grounding excercise</a> and tried to get back into my body and settle down. I just focused on breathing. Once when I was in the same room as someoone awful from my past, a friend just whispered to me to breathe. I think I had a mini-epiphany. When I dissociate, the first thing to go is I stop taking in the normal amount of air. It is like going underwater. <br /><br />Focusing on breathing helped a little and I began to feel a better. Being outside helped, and I walked in the wrong direction, thinking the club I wanted to go to was somewhere else (I guess I don't get out much) and I think just walking helped. I hadn't been out all day, and a lot of the time, I think if I didn't force myself, or my partner didn't, I'd just hide out at home and never go anywhere because it is safe. <br /><br />So my adventure was fine. The music wasn't so great, but I did something out of my usual routine and not only got through it, but even enjoyed it a little and learned a bit about how sheltered I have made my life. That has been crucial to my getting better, the feeling of having a safe place, a home. When I was in treatment for the PTSD, we decided that safety was the first thing I needed, before I could work on anything else. It makes perfect sense. I think a lot of Americans feel entitled to it and take it for granted for the most part, but the world I lived in wasn't safe and I no longer trusted any situation when the PTSD got bad. Everything was dangerous. Going out a little while tonight made me realize how much I depend on the safety I have established in my life, the familiar, home. Maybe I can extend that space outward little by little and slowly move back into the rest of the world without such a sense of foreboding anymore if I am careful and go little by little.GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-1142477773193880352006-03-15T18:40:00.000-08:002006-03-15T18:59:59.286-08:00Writing when things are ok for onceHi,<br />I'm still really busy with work and it is still crazy, but I've kind of made my peace with it for now and have gotten back to my regular work, which I like, and am just trying to stay out of the s***storm (see "<a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2006/02/still-here-still-have-ptsd.html">Still here, still have ptsd</a>"). The Grateful Dead had a song with an appropriate line about getting through such things: "aint no luck/I learned to duck." And no, I don't think I could be considered a deadhead. At least not lately. But sometimes when I am in the right mood I can listen to some of their stuff and enjoy. I used to like them a lot more.<br /><br />So my ptsd on a good day is pretty mild. I feel a little off from the <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/ptsd-and-meds.html">meds</a> I take (still slowly lowering the doses on them) but that is normal. My hands are not very steady. That is from both the ptsd and the meds I think. But I am in the present. I am not obsessed with the traumatic past. I'm in my body and able to function. That is pretty amazing considering how awful the symptoms used to be.<br /><br />I guess I should be grateful for all this, and to some extent I am. But I am not grateful for the traumatic events that led to the destruction of a good chunk of my life. I don't get all yippy-skippy with joy when things are going well. I've seen the bottom of that drop out in an instant and always remain a little detached and skeptical. I guess that will never go away. Maybe its normal, a reality check. When the ptsd was bad, I'd get terrible lows. But I am not after equally ecstatic highs. I'd rather go along kinda steady and ok. That is good enough for me and more than I would have expected if you had asked me a couple of years ago.GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-1141161384864343572006-02-28T12:40:00.000-08:002006-02-28T13:34:56.906-08:00Still here, still have ptsdHi, 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 <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/12/betrayal-bonds-trauma-reactions.html">real trigger</a> for me, and I woke up today <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/crawling-out-of-my-own-skin.html">crawling out of my skin</a>, which I haven't felt in a while. For a little bit, I even thought I might go into a <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/12/betrayal-bonds-trauma-reactions.html">flashback</a> or have a little <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/12/ptsd-flashbacks-and-pseudo-seizures.html">non-epileptic siezure</a> again. I was as close to that as I have been in quite a while. I was <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/12/betrayal-bonds-trauma-splitting.html">dissociating</a> 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.<br /><br />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 <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/12/grounding-exercises-for-ptsd-symptoms.html">grounding exercise</a> 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. <br /><br />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 <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/12/whats-this-betrayal-stuff-got-to-do.html">betrayals</a> by therapists. I have since learned how to protect myself better when <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/11/choosing-therapist-for-people-with.html">choosing therapists</a>.GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-1135434757195011962005-12-24T06:16:00.000-08:002005-12-24T06:37:06.220-08:00Fell off the blogosphere....Hi, If you have been looking for a post here this past week or so, it hasn't been happening. My partner is out of town on family stuff and I got really busy at work and the two combined have thrown me a little out of whack. Plus writing all that stuff about trauma, <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/12/more-on-betrayal-bonds-aka-trauma.html">betrayal bonds</a> and ptsd was sort of emotionally draining. I just kinda wanted to get that out and then didn't have anything to say for a while. So my clock is all messed up from the ptsd. Having a hard time sleeping...I get terrible nightmares as I am dropping off that then wake me up, then I start to fall back asleep and the same thing happens again. Oh well...this is probably my karmic payback for once telling someone with insomnia that nobody ever died from lack of sleep. Days have been ok though. I'm seldom alone so being by myself is a different way of occupying my world. I miss my partner bunches but I'm ok alone. With the nightmares its probably good she's not here as I often accidentally maul her (not hurtfully fortunately, just wakes her) in my sleep or wake her from yelling out in my dreams. This has been going on for several years now, but this past week has been the worst its been in a while. So I don't have any new info...there is more I want to write about...I got a couple of books that Holly posted on a while ago. I read one and will give a mini review, then look around the other blogs on ptsd and related stuff and see if I have anything to say! And Grrrr...I just found out one of my posts that has the links to all the other ones disappeared. OK, fixed it...If you have been looking for the first page of the betrayal bonds post its <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/12/more-on-betrayal-bonds-aka-trauma.html">back up</a>. So that's my little 4 AM stream-of-consciousness report from the front.<br /><br />If I don't get to posting tomorrow, I hope you have a warm and safe holiday with people you love and that love you. G'night.GettingBetterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13051926931303055938noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842224.post-1133664270826323462005-12-11T13:09:00.000-08:002008-12-08T19:58:12.494-08:00grounding exercises for ptsd symptomsToday I'll go over a grounding exercise I learned that was very helpful in managing <a href="http://ptsdme.blogspot.com/2005/12/roots-of-ptsd-how-trauma-affects.html">ptsd symptoms</a>. Its not a cure. At best, it makes the unbearable manageable. Sometimes when things were really bad it did not work well at all, but I did it anyway. The goal is to bring the ptsd sufferer back to the present by way of the senses, out of a flashback or intrusive memory. Anytime the symptoms of ptsd come on, whatever they are for you, is a good time to practice this exercise.<br /><br />First look around and <em>see</em> five things present where you are, naming them -- out loud if possible (the naming out loud is supposed to help, but sometimes I would cheat and do it under my breath, too). Anyway, name specific things, in detail, as you see them. For example, I see a picture of my old dog with a wet nose; I see a black computer speaker; and so on. Then name five things you can hear, like the humming of a fan, cars passing by, the dishwasher running, and so forth. Then name five things you can feel. I had a hard time with this first, because I thought it refered to emotions, feelings, but that's not what I was supposed to be after. Its the sense of touch, so I feel jeans against the skin of my left thigh; I feel the soles of my feet on the floor, and so on. If you get stumped, its ok to repeat things, just concentrate on actually <em>sensing</em> them in the present. Then repeat the whole process for sight, hearing and touch four times, then three, then two, then one. You get extra bonus points if you become so wrapped up in your senses that you lose count. Generally, this would bring me back a little. I would still be miserable most of the time and in pain, but the memory part would subside and sometimes the worst symptoms of a flashback would recede.<br /><br />[<span style="font-style: italic;">n.b.: updated 12/8/08 to replace broken links with new ones</span>]<br />This isn't the only way to do it, just a very simple and easy to learn one that worked for me if you need it. About.com has some <a href="http://ptsd.about.com/od/selfhelp/a/flashcoping.htm">simple suggestions</a>. The Mental Health Matters web site breaks it into three options: accept it and go through with it, learn to control it, or escape it. It is not always a matter of choice though. Their <a href="http://www.mental-health-matters.com/articles/sv001.php?artID=154">methods of coping</a> are the same for whichever option you choose (or which chooese you!), including one that I tried during the worst of the flashbacks at the behest of counselors in the PTSD treatment center I was in. They had me hold two liter bottles of frozen water (ummm, I think they call it ice :), one in each hand to bring me back. I melted the ice in both and still didn't come back...they were about to send me off to the hospital, but I managed to get a handle on things after about a four hour flashback. Possibly the worst few hours of my life. Cold, the site explains, activates some reflexes that slow down the heart and exert a calming influence. Finally, you can read a more academic but still enlightening and useful treatment of coping techniques in the book <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=Px38Y1fOUTUC&pg=PA112&vq=grounding&dq=ptsd+grounding+%28technique+or+exercise%29+dissociative&source=gbs_search_s&cad=0"><span style="font-style: italic;">Rebuilding Shattered Lives</span></a> by James Chu.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com10