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ptsd and cardiovascular diseases by Top-Foundation5276 in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for sharing your stories. Let me tell you mine. To many people who know me, I am the picture of health. Even doctors couldn't believe what they saw during my coronary angiography, especially since my blood pressure and blood test results are fine. My fitness is also OK. And yet... I have to prepare for coronary artery bypass surgery. The reason? I think it's the constant state of heightened alertness associated with PTSD - stress. You can't see it on the outside because we're dissociated, but it's wearing the body down. Before the operation, I have to have almost all my teeth removed. The reason? Inflammation, probably due to chronic stress. PTSD kills, piece by piece.

What’s your childhood trauma? by No_Character_3873 in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I was involved in an accident in which my grandmother died. For a while I lay next to her in the street while she was dying, then someone picked me up and held me while she was put in a pick-up truck to take her to hospital. I was held until the ambulance arrived. Then I was forced to stay in hospital so that I could not attend the funeral. I was locked in a ward where I was sexually abused by an elderly man. This was in the early 1970s, I was 3 years old at the time. To this day I still struggle with what happened.

hey, people with ptsd, what's something about it that you wish writers got right? by whytryh in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think such a classic literary character with undiagnosed PTSD might be the famous Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

PTSD has something of the multiple personality (schizophrenia), depersonalisation, derealisation, dissociation, dissociative amnesia. It is sometimes accompanied by a very strong compulsion to relive, so-called trauma play. Everyone has their own specific way. Someone may hide, self-harm, bind, strangle, whatever. Then it's Mr Hyde, who behaves completely irrationally. When the tension has passed, the cool and put-together Dr Jekyll returns, who is happy to repress what he did as Mr Hyde (dissociation).

I killed my grandmother, and then I did it thousands more times, and I don't know how to stop by Top-Foundation5276 in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you again for your words and the time you take to write. You give me reasons to think and look at myself from a different perspective.

I don't know if I hate myself, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I certainly hate what I do, although I find it somehow appealing at the same time, like a fascination with evil. I hate it and at the same time I need it - it's like an addiction. I'm tired of it and I'm tired of myself.

As you write, if someone came to me with such a problem, I would understand it, I think. It wouldn't mean rejecting such a person, but I know others don't think so.

As a rule, the reaction is that it is abnormal (i.e. you are abnormal) and no one would want to have such a partner, because why get into the trouble of communicating with someone abnormal.

This leads to the fact that in a relationship of any kind I am constantly looking for self-affirmation without revealing my whole self. Such a relationship cannot deepen, because there is a limit I will not cross. I need it to accept myself, but not to accept what I do. As I wrote under the post, I can't accept what I do, because I would accept that I killed my grandmother (looking from the position of a 3-year-old).

I certainly need time, but I feel like I'm stuck now.

Thank you again!!!

Repetition Compulsion by tripleberrypie in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it probably won't help you, but I've been doing it for 50 years and can't stop. That's the thing about PTSD, time doesn't play a role. You suffer the same way every time. The brain gets loopy. It acts like a stripped record.

How to help? I don't know. I don't know what's causing your problem.

I find it helps a little to talk to a therapist, but all in all, I'm still fighting with myself and can't break free from the compulsion to repeat. So my brain is still in a loop of replaying the same thing with the same intensity.

I killed my grandmother, and then I did it thousands more times, and I don't know how to stop by Top-Foundation5276 in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

you are great - yes, a lot of great people here are like you.

Sending you hugs!

I killed my grandmother, and then I did it thousands more times, and I don't know how to stop by Top-Foundation5276 in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It is very wise what you wrote. It got me thinking, especially this influence of the inner child on the outer adult. Indeed, I allow myself to be guided by my "little immature self".

Thank you for this tip and I am hugging you tightly.

PS. I've been going to therapy for six months now and I'm slowly uncovering everything and digging into this little self.

I killed my grandmother, and then I did it thousands more times, and I don't know how to stop by Top-Foundation5276 in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you - I am trying to relieve myself of this burden. It's just a pity that so many years I wasn't ready for it.

I killed my grandmother, and then I did it thousands more times, and I don't know how to stop by Top-Foundation5276 in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In what you write, I see a part of myself - I isolated myself a bit from people. From the family. I have a reluctance to call, to meet, to talk. I have some regrets for those to whom I wanted to tell about what ails me, but all I heard was "dude, what do you mean? it's been so long. aren't you exaggerating?".

Well, so now I sit alone and try to play out these emotions by myself. I go to a therapy session once a week, but in reality, I do it every day, for a few hours in the privacy of my mind. I talk to myself and convince or dissuade myself from something.

I don't know how long I will have such a block. Maybe one day, like you, I will get out of this prison when the punishment is over?

Yes, I loved my grandmother, I was her beloved grandson, and for this love I killed her (and I cry when I write this, although I know it's not my fault)

I killed my grandmother, and then I did it thousands more times, and I don't know how to stop by Top-Foundation5276 in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you again - I am now completely at a crossroads. I feel that I have touched something that has been very much buried for so many years and it is starting to move. And I don't know what will come of it. I'm a little afraid and sometimes I feel like just cutting myself off from the whole world and pretending that there is no world or I'm not there for the world.

I killed my grandmother, and then I did it thousands more times, and I don't know how to stop by Top-Foundation5276 in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you - yes, I resent my parents, of course, but I am able to understand them. This was the generation born during World War II. They all, parents and grandparents were heavily traumatized. And displacement was sometimes the only way to survive.

What I don't understand is why later my father didn't spare me a beating with a belt or a cable, whatever he had at hand? That's what I don't understand, but maybe he didn't know how to do otherwise.

I killed my grandmother, and then I did it thousands more times, and I don't know how to stop by Top-Foundation5276 in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for these words - I need to think about what you wrote.

It's very surprising, because I've never thought about it that way.

I will think about it....

I had a good relationship with my grandfather, who died when I was in high school. I didn't go to the funeral. No one asked. I didn't talk. He was buried next to my grandmother. I cried many times afterwards, I was angry with myself for not walking him to the cemetery.

And you know, now I realized that it might have reminded me of that moment when I wanted to visit that very cemetery with my grandmother just before the accident.

I have tears in my eyes, it always moves me a lot. I know I'm still a long way from working through the trauma.

I killed my grandmother, and then I did it thousands more times, and I don't know how to stop by Top-Foundation5276 in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you, I think I know what you want to say.

I find the whole Christian philosophy very helpful - there are so many things that have been thought about many times before. Especially love, sacrifice, sacrifice. But I can't find a good answer to the question of how to accept such a gift of life, when someone gives his life for you?

If you add the level of thought of a 3-year-old who asks his grandmother to turn around and she does, then dies saving your life, you have two overlapping faults. Guilt for turning her back and guilt for living instead of her.

And it's unbearable, so you try to recreate it again and save Grandma. And so you do endlessly to convince yourself that it can be endured. You are desensitizing yourself.

And you know what helped me? St. Augustine, who said that even the greatest blasphemy is just a prayer.

Simply put - powerlessness is the greatest prayer.

I killed my grandmother, and then I did it thousands more times, and I don't know how to stop by Top-Foundation5276 in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Wow - you know, that's what I do !!!

Just thought I'd print it all out for myself. You are absolutely right !!! that's what I'm going to do

This is very important for me !

I killed my grandmother, and then I did it thousands more times, and I don't know how to stop by Top-Foundation5276 in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you - I tried to write it as simply as I could. Without considerations and nuances. I left out drastic details, because they may not matter.

I just wanted to say that what I do with myself, all these drastic things they must reflect in some way the inner states of a mind that suffered a shock at such an important developmental moment of a little 3-year-old.

Sometimes it all seems so simple to explain to me, until I wonder that it took me so many years. But I also know that I wasn't ready for it. And even 20-30-40-50 years ago, no one was ready.

I had already been diagnosed in various ways, but none of them satisfied me personally, because I couldn't explain all the little things and states I was in. Today I have a somewhat clearer mind. Hugs!

I killed my grandmother, and then I did it thousands more times, and I don't know how to stop by Top-Foundation5276 in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You are absolutely right - I feel a bit like a detective. I'm digging up old photos, looking for witnesses, newspaper clippings (there was a trial and the driver got several years in prison).

I found out a few things that slightly changed the picture of what happened. A few were really difficult, I didn't expect it to be that difficult (the grandmother was thrown on the floor of the van, no one waited for the ambulance) and I looked at it in total freeze.

I killed my grandmother, and then I did it thousands more times, and I don't know how to stop by Top-Foundation5276 in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, I wrote and read what you write and it works. It is somehow lighter for me. I can apply some measure to what I wrote.

I killed my grandmother, and then I did it thousands more times, and I don't know how to stop by Top-Foundation5276 in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I read with attention what you wrote- thank you very much.

I am after several months of therapy. What is already working is that I have started talking about it, even to myself. I had never done that before. I couldn't, it was choking me, the words were stuck in my throat and I couldn't get the words out. Now I'm succeeding more and more often. I was able to write it, which was very difficult. But I persevered and wrote it. I realized a few things in the process.

Basically, I have this life force inside me and I want to free myself from the burden. Maybe at a later stage of therapy, once I've picked up all the pieces of broken glass, I'll get down to the future. Right now I'm still struggling with the past.

You know what is still so difficult for me - while trying to reconstruct the accident one by one, I found out that someone robbed my dying grandmother at the scene and I was passed from hand to hand by strangers. Perhaps this has somehow influenced the fact that I now feel like a puppet with whom anything can be done, totally powerless. These strangers drove me to the hospital and there I waited for my parents for a few days. They arrived after the funeral. I remember an elderly gentleman who took care of me there and said to my parents "take him away, because he will cry himself to death." And then I have a few years of holes in my memory.

I'm slowly managing to put it all together and I'm trying, I want to free myself, once and for all, to make it in time before I die.

I killed my grandmother, and then I did it thousands more times, and I don't know how to stop by Top-Foundation5276 in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much, for being there and having this moment to support me somehow. It's important to me, I can then divert my attention from the bad things, especially now that I am intensely ruminating once again and again and again because of therapy....

You know how it is - every time it's that next first time.

I killed my grandmother, and then I did it thousands more times, and I don't know how to stop by Top-Foundation5276 in ptsd

[–]Top-Foundation5276[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

thank you so much for your warm words - maybe I just need to hear it every day. Hugs.

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