lillamy

because I know people with PTSD from war -- and what I deal with doesn't even begin to compare on the same day. But I have flashbacks. And they're triggered by things I don't even think about on an every-day basis.

Came in to the office today and because there was another meeting in our conference room, we sat in a smaller meeting room for our morning meeting. And the coworker who sat down next to me, as soon as he opened his mouth, I could smell the old booze on his breath.

I had a difficult time even sitting through the meeting. The stench just instantaneously moved me right back to living with AXH. Ugh. Now I'm fighting anxiety that I have no need to deal with because it's not real, it's anxiety-over-something-that-happened-more-than-five-years-ago but it still feels like it is totally present. I wish I could talk some sense to my body and brain.

hopeful4

Ugh, I am so sorry. I have the same reaction when I smell booze. The other day my daughter used hand sanitizer in the car and it gave me that smell a bit and even that threw me off.

Tight Hugs.

Refiner

Big trigger for you. I'm sorry.

ShootingStar1

Lillamy, your having PTSD is not devalued because it didn't happen in a war zone. It happened, happens to you, and it impacts your life, and that is a valid and important truth.

There is a new book out about PTSD by a veteran MD named Bessel van der Kolk called The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma that I just got which is supposed to be fantastic.

ShootingStar1

LifeRecovery

I am with ShootingStar

I did better when I realized that I had PTSD, and those coming home from war had a level of it I could not understand. I also did better when I said I have trauma and there are two types little t and big T, both impacted me significantly though.

I got a lot out of WAking the Tiger by Peter Levine on trauma...it helped me to normalize it.

lillamy

Star -- let me know what you think about that book! I'd be curious to read it!

RollTide

I totally get it. I had a special ring tone for my XAH on my cell phone. He called me so many times plastered that to this day if I hear that sound from anyone's phone I go into a kind of panic mode.

maia1234

You talk about smells on peoples breath.

Now my DD's are 21 and 22, but I remember their elementary principal would always smell like alcohol during evening meetings. That was 15 years ago and I can still picture her face and breath. Not sure why this affected me, but still can remember it, wondering why she would have dinner with alcohol and come back to school for meetings... what ever.....

Duckygirl1

I am a vet and I can tell you from personal experience and from others I've known, you most definitely can have PTSD and never been a war. I'm a chef and the first day on my new job the owner was drunk and ranting at the whole staff at 11:30 in the morning. This is not unusual in the industry. He screamed at me to come taste some dish that he made. He asked me what I thought and i guess didn't answer loud enough. He yelled "speak up dam it!" I stood there with a spoon in my hand and stared him down to the point he must have thought "this chick looks like she might be a little crazy" Took me right back to my childhood. Only I don't cringe anymore. I'm not sure where it would have gone if he kept up his drunken yelling, but it touched something deep rooted in me for sure.

Sotiredofitall

Yeah, I'm beginning to have anxiety attacks from any perceived *anger* and its a flashback to the tirades my dad used to make. Not ptsd, but sure triggers the flight/fight response and strong reactions to it. Just began happening a couple months ago and still trying to understand the dynamics. That response actually sent me to therapy and thats been good for me. Hugs.

ladyscribbler

PTSD is PTSD. I sometimes feel unworthy of the diagnosis. I went to a PTSD support group at the VA once. It was a bunch of guys who had been at D Day, or in Korea, or who had survived the Tet offensive and Ia Drang Valley. Then there was me. To say I felt spectacularly unworthy and out of place is an understatement.
I never went back because the support group made me feel worse than I already did. Part of my healing is to work through those feelings of unworthiness.
I heard an interesting story on NPR a couple of weeks ago relating to PTSD and how things like DV or sexual assault compared to war-related PTSD. The research actually found that the DV and sexual assault survivors actually had "worse" PTSD in many cases than soldiers- both symptom-wise and in terms of healing time. The hypothesis was that the more helpless a survivor felt during the traumatic experience, the worse their symptoms and the slower their recovery was. A lot of times soldiers have at least some opportunity to fight back, whereas survivors of DV and sexual assault do not.

http://www.npr.org/2015/01/20/378586...ggle-with-ptsd

LeeJane

That stink triggers me too, Lillamy. Sick in the stomach and cold sweat.

ajarlson

I was diagnosed with PTSD from an AXH and an acoholic mom. I don't think it matters what triggers it or how bad it is, it's still PTSD. I get a pit in my stomach, can't sleep - I removed the AXH trigger, working on removing the alcoholic mother trigger but it still happens sometimes. That irrational stomach clenching fear. I wrote over in ACoA that it's the fear of the addiction for me, the fear of the unknown. Will they be drunk/high this time? Will they be calling to tell me they hurt themselves? Someone else? It may not have been a war zone but it felt like it to me. So it's real. Don't underestimate the power of the mind to place us right back in situations that are far removed from us now.

zoso77

Lillamy...

Emotional trauma is emotional trauma. It doesn't matter how it happens, and once you're triggered, it brings all of the old hurt and anxiety back.

In time, you will be able to reign in those feelings when something triggers you. Be patient with yourself, OK?

Thumper

That smell triggers me too. I don't have PTSD but it is such overwhelming sadness I feel. It is unexpected and I'm not ready for it. Most recently I smelled it at my kids' music concert a couple months ago and I thought I was going to cry right there if I couldn't get away. They say that of all the senses, smell is the most closely linked to memory and emotions, and I believe it.

lillamy

RollTide, I used the theme from Jaws for AXH...

Now that you say that, LadyScribbler, I have heard that before -- but it was in reference to one of my kids who actually has a PTSD diagnosis....

Hammer

Yeah, the whole mess is a bigger mess than it seems.

Turns out on the deep research military studies -- folks most likely to get PTSD . . . were folks already more likely to get PTSD. You follow what I am saying? Prior problems in life. Not that the military experience did not aggravate, or often severely aggravate it.

But the prior lifetime experiences -- and the coping mechanisms (self-isolation, emotional separation, denial, on and on) picked up PRIOR, all tend to make it MUCH worse. So when the Next Big Trauma occurs -- with those prior coping skills compound -- and those tend to be the deep ones.

After figuring that out, and even finding the hard matched relationships . . . the VA / Military consensus was to just treat the folks that need help, and do what good could be done. Not so much dig up or blame the past experience (Good on US Military for THAT move).

So that YOUR prior life Traumas are what are bothering you now -- you may have more in common with military cases than anyone would care to mention.

So. Short deal -- Get over yourself, admit you need help and get help. Looked at EMDR? Dunno about it, but have heard well of it. Came out a bit after my time.

pixilation

I've been on my own now for 3 1/2 years. I still can't have my phone ringtone turned up. Even vibrate, it causes me severe anxiety. The phone stays on silent unless i know i have a call coming(not very often)

LemonGirl

Oh poor thing... I used to suffer from anxiety and had panic attacks. I eventually realized that they were related to my first husband. The things that get me going are being too hot and unable to breathfesh air, being a passenger in someone's car when they are driving too fast, and too much caffiene. The mind creates physical ailments akin to whatever the stress is. I had to actively place my mind in a calming state when I felt triggered. Literally, I imagined myself laying in a hammock somewhere serene, feeling a cool breeze on a warm day where I was enjoying being lazy without a care in the world. Eventually this brain exercise helped me take control and I rarely have panic attacks anymore.

An interesting study was done by Pavlov where he could get a dog to salivate based on an experience that the dog was previously exposed to coinciding a treat. The idea is that our minds correlate normally unrelated events to ones that were traumatic. And the cure is to do this process again, only backwards.

lillamy

Oh, I'm over myself, Hammer. And I will get help when circumstances allow. Until then, I shall just avoid sitting close to said coworker.

The really sad part is that he was a raving alcoholic five years ago. Supposedly in recovery these days. *sigh*