A Constant Battle with Symptoms

Another day of fighting symptoms and dissociating. Our tolerance for an acidic diet is gone. Avoid salt and sugar as much as possible. Also salt, which is another stimulant.

Burnout never goes away. But you do your best to protect yourself.

More appointments coming up.

Trying Not to Dissociate

Almost no sleep last night. Today, it's been trying to focus and to not black out. You have flashbacks to abandonment, pain and how scary your trauma history has been and continues to be. But no matter what, don't dissociate. Don't fall apart and have no idea where you are.

Some days you have no noise. You just want peace and quiet. You don't want to be bombarded with pain. You have to face your history as best you can, as long as it doesn't endanger you in some way.  You want to feel safe.

I'm Not Crazy

Another night of nightmares and no sleep. I got hit by a car. But then, I'm not sure. Am I dead? Or, am I still alive? People still attack me and try to kill me. Everybody's armed, and you have to fight back. You can't just sit back and do nothing.

When was the last time I got some sleep? I can't remember.

Everything has to be screened. On bad days, I can't watch TV. I can't listen to anything online. I just sit and say, I just want peace and quiet. I don't want to be assaulted by pain. As much as possible, don't dissociate. Do something else.

The severity of your symptoms is equal to the severity of your trauma history.

I'm not crazy.
I'm not crazy.
I'm not crazy.

How do you cope with your fear?

Processing Trauma

Just when you think you're getting a break, nightmares still happen. You have to fight your way out of a horrible place, and nobody will help you. Then you end up not getting any sleep at all. How are you dealing with your symptoms?

A former therapist told me that as horrible as nightmares can be, that's one way for your system to process the trauma that happened to you. How do you fight to keep some sense of being grounded, and not just falling apart? Sometimes you open your eyes, and you don't know where you are. For me, it usually means turning on the lights and checking all over my apartment to make sure that nobody else is here.

As much as possible, don't dissociate. You have bad days where you're barely holding onto reality. It's like you're being assaulted all over again. How do you fight to hold onto some sense of reality?

You have at times thoughts about death. It's like you're literally at the end of your life, and you can feel what happens as you slowly slip away. You have to fight hard to not feel trapped in that vision. Otherwise you'll just dissolve into a million different pieces.

How do you deal with flashbacks? Do you ever feel like you're losing your sense of reality? Stay safe.

Burnout Part 2

No sleep last night. Today, burnout and just stay home. Try to rest, and no saving the world.

Burnout

We start with one new main doctor soon. In the meantime, it feels like I have severe adrenal burnout:

Always run down
Put on an enormous amount of weight in one day
No insulin/glucose balance
Constantly feeling battered
When you're constantly fighting to survive, sex becomes a low priority

We don't have a death wish. But you're constantly fighting to not fall apart. Almost no sleep at night. Nightmares are still there.

What's next?

How's Your Balance?

 Kind of a careful day. Careful in the sense of trying to keep a sense of being grounded. Despite that, I still open my eyes and have to really focus hard to try and wake up and not feel like I'm dissociating. Then, how do I get out of bed and walk to my kitchen without adrenalin surges and hallucinations happening? You scream and desperately hold onto solid things.

Then in the kitchen, drink something to help you focus. Nothing with sugar, because that makes it worse. Now, how do I make breakfast without blacking out? After that, you sit and watch non threatening content on TV, and hold onto solid things. On some days, you just stay home and focus on trying to be grounded. By the end of the day, you're so wiped out you can't do anything.

Now, imagine this a daily routine with no break. Ever.

At times, we're really scared. But what else can you do?

One Way to Cope

It's a  long weekend of fighting to not dissociate and black out. Much of the past two days has been just lying down and resting. You feel like you have literally no energy at all, but you can't let up for a second. If you do, you feel like you have no control.

In a few days I go to my psychiatrist appt. Like any normal person who's a trauma survivor, I want to be in the best place overall to get the treatment that I know that I need. I don't know what treatment is like in many other countries. However, here (for whatever reasons), many either don't want to hear about guy rape survivors or just don't take you seriously. It's the old "he's making this up to smear somebody" mentality.

I just set that aside and keep going. Also, have as many options as possible. If one place doesn't work, go elsewhere. If it means moving to get the proper treatment, how do I do that and pay for it?

Not all but many doctors and therapists here (in the "greatest medical system in the world") want nothing to do with health coverage or sliding scale fees. Many employers want to move people down to part-time from full-time because they hate Obama and "Obamacare". Generally, holistic treatments are twice as expensive as traditional ones.

Since I don't want bullies who use money as a weapon to control people to have power over myself and my treatment, how do I pay for this? I'm trying to come up with a low stress home business/job that will let me cover all my expenses.

I can't get any victim compensation because the statute of limitations in my case have run out. You have to prove to prosecutors that it's not a waste of their time to go after the possibly one remaining pedophile who might be alive.

I'm trying to space out more medical tests and other expenses while at the same time not feeling like I can't do anything else. At the moment, I'm living on practically no money.

I feel like all of my symptoms and backed up trauma is flooding out all at once. All of the junk food and other triggering stuff that I used to do is also catching up with me?

How long does it take to heal from all of this? I have no idea.

When dissociating is violent, I don't know where I am. Even if you ground yourself, many times that doesn't work.

What do you do then?

All of this is a normal survival response.