Cover Your Bases

Another day of covering bases and trying to keep a sense of balance as best you can. We still have PTSD symptoms and explicit body pain from being raped. Despite that, I've had almost no chest pain since I got out of the hospital.

I hope to have a referral from my GP in February to go to a psychiatrist who I've heard has experience in dealing with complex PTSD cases like mine. One concern I have is how lots of traumatic events can build up and make your symptoms worse.

How do you deal with this? Everybody's different. I've found that just going with your feelings doesn't work. It then feels like everyone who ever treated you like crap is ganging up on you.

Maybe one answer is it's not your fault. Another is as long as you're telling the truth, that's all that matters.

What Helps You?

A nice lunch, some iced tea and rest have helped somewhat to keep a better sense of balance today. Having said that though, you still struggle at times and feel exhausted fighting to not fall apart. Since you got raped, you've never had one day free of symptoms. You've never had a day where you weren't fighting to fall apart.

What else can you do? You just can't go with your feelings. If that helps someone else, good for them. I'm just talking about myself.

I don't want to go back to violently dissociating and thinking that you can escape pain, when it makes things worse. Kind of like a binging alcoholic.

Time to get out for a while.

Dealing with Emptiness

How's your healing these days? It's really true that there are a million different stories of survivors. Everyone has their own trauna history, and now how they struggle to cope with PTSD and other symptoms. In my case, add heart disease and at times crippling feelings of abandonment.

Another thing to struggle with is violent flashbacks to being raped. Do they ever completely go away? I don't know. The body pain and nightmares are still there. It's trapped energy in different parts of your body. You try and keep a sense of balance as best you can. But it's still there.

How do you cope?

Try for Balance

Roughly two weeks  ow out of the hospital, and almost no chest pain. Occasionally some shortness of breath as I climb some stairs. But nothing paralyzing.

Right now, it's a mix of rest, exercise and occasional doctor appointments.As far as what caused this relapse of heart disease, I'm not sure. The min thing is to try and keep my stress down as best I can, and to co er legal bases (a will and a power of attorney form). The last thing I want to do is to leave lots of stress added to an already sad time.

It's  not my fault.

Pacing Is a Big Part of It

Slept in, and tried to pace myself today as I got around. So far, luckily no chest pain or shortness of breath. Instead, just taking lots of breaks as you get tired.

It's not my fault. Just trying to keep a balance as best I can. Also, to deal with legal stuff (power of attorney and more). Regardless of your situation, always good to cover your bases, just in case.

A Late Happy New Year's

Sorry to be away for a while. A lot 's happened in a short time.

One minute, despite struggling with symptoms and more, I felt like I could function. Then, I had a shortness of breath that got worse and worse. Then, I had to get someone to give me a ride to an ER. My brother was helping me to try and walk in,  but I collapsed and needed a wheelchair. AN ER team then relatively stabilized Now, I've been out for almost a week, I'm in a first floor apartment, and I finally have net access again.

Like any trauma survivor that has had long term untreated PTSD stress, you ask questions:

Did I inadvertently give myself heart disease?
Did my past alcoholism and poor diet play a role in this?

I don't think that I made myself sick. Maybe though at times I didn't separate my pain from the pain of everyone  eels. You can't solve all the problems in the world overnight. Now though,  as long as I pace myself, move smart and don't do anything ultra stressful, I can do anything. I don't need to be on a strict 24/7 recovery program and have a live-in caregiver. Just keep in mind that it's both physical and mental. Being too tough on yourself will actually hurt you physically.

Any thoughts on this?

What Do I Have?

An early Happy Xmas. Sorry to be away for a while. But the past week has been a struggle with symptoms, the holidays, and feeling like all of my backed up trauma is flooding out.

I rarely get any sleep at night. I can barely get out of bed in the morning. When I can, I can slowly take a shower and get dressed. But when I standup and walk, I have to go extremely slowly because I feel like I have literally no energy. My appetite is down, and anything acidic I really can't handle.

What is it?:

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Fibromyalgia
MS
or something else?

I'm not sure. I will go to my doctor after Xmas to find out more. I think right now it's backed up trauma flooding out (mainly in exhaustion). But at times I really have to focus on breathing, because it's hard to do.

What is this? I'm not sure.