PTSD treatment?

[RubyRose30]

Hi everyone-
I am new here, and i wanted to ask a question.  In my late teens, I was diagnosed with PTSD but never took the diagnosis seriously because I was being diagnosed with so many other things that turned out to not be accurate.  I abused heroin for about two years in my late teens, so when I started trying to get clean, docs at rehabs and private psychiatrists evaluated me many times and gave me every mental healthy diagnosis under the sun- I was trying to quit heroin, so of course I seemed crazy!  Anyway, after about ten years away from heroin, I now know which diagnoses were real and which were just caused by the turmoil of getting clean.  I definitely have panic disorder w/agoraphobia and social anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder.  Recently, however, I hit a wall in making progress in dealing with my anxiety... and I felt like some of my symptoms weren't just "normal" anxiety disorder stuff- like jumping out of my skin when I hear a loud noise or the neverending nightmares where someone is trying to chase me, get me, kill me, etc.  Then I started to remember that I was repeatedly diagnosed with PTSD when I was younger.  I brought it up to my therapist who evaluated my symptoms with a diagnostic worksheet and some other diagnostic tool and she told me I have severe trauma, whatever that means.  I always felt like I couldn't have PTSD because my traumas weren't serious enough- like I thought, well, I wasn't attacked and raped by a stranger and I haven't been to war.  But I guess a series of smaller traumas, from childhood and adulthood, are enough to cause PTSD... do you guys think that's true?  Childhood physical and emotional abuse and a few violent attacks could be enough?  At the time, I didn't think anything of some of these things... I was robbed at gunpoint one day when I was just walking down the street... and I never panicked about it, not even while it was happening.  I was kind of stunned at first, and then I just laughed it off and never really mentioned it to anyone again.  Do you think that's WHY certain people develop PTSD and others don't?  Because some people deal with it and talk about and process an incident while others just act like it never happened?

Anyway, I'm sorry to ramble on and on about this, but it's all I've been able to think about since I spoke to my therapist about it.  My main question is what is the best treatment for PTSD?  My counselor is certified in a certain type of treatment and she says it is the only "real" treatment for PTSD, the only that is a true "cure."  I believe she calls it "repeated exposure therapy."  Has anyone here heard of this and does anyone have any thoughts on this?  She showed me a video of a woman who underwent this therapy, and it was TERRIBLE, I was shaking just watching it.  She had to go to therapy multiple times a week and just go over every detail of her trauma repeatedly... over and over and over... and then, at home, she had to listen to the tapes of her sessions, of herself crying and shaking and telling her story of being raped in her own home.  Then she also had to do exercises like exposing herself to trigerring situations and places and people over and over.  I believe she had to do this until it no longer affected her, until she understood that she was safe, that it wasn't going to happen again (that's how it was explained to me).  But for me, watching this just seemed awful, nevermind going through it!  My therapist thinks I need to do it so I can move forward in my life.  She thinks I will be stuck until I am "cured" of PTSD (they actually call this a cure, they use that word).  She told me there is no other way to treat PTSD that will actually help.  
So I've had to think about this and now I will see her again tomorrow, but I don't think I want to to do this treatment, not at all. Just thinking about it, my symptoms have gotten worse over the past two weeks.  
I was hoping to get some feedback about this... is she right? Do I have no other options?  Thank you SO MUCH for any thoughts.  I really appreciate it.  :)

Jennifer

[drifter0213]

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[MYoungAtHeart]

I was held hostage by a crazy gunman as a child and it took a few years to be diagnosed with PTSD, but it was called shell shock at the time, and unless you were in the military, very little help was available to the civilian who suffered from it.

PTSD is like that energizer bunny  that just keeps on going and going and going...It colors everything about our lives in a dark haze of self hate, self doubt, and the inability to see the good that does surround us...

I did get into treatment as a young adult, and it made all the difference in the world to me and to my life.  I was very fortunate, I was in a womans group, and there was nothing that couldn't be talked about...Therapy made the difference between me feeling like a victim to feeling and acting like a winner, a survivor, a person who was put here on this earth for a reason, and it became time to find out what that reason was and is...

I am so sorry that you had this horrible experience but with therapy and honesty and alot of hard work, you can come out on the other side of this
and turn your life around...

Only you can determine whether you feel you deserve the very best that this life has to offer you, and then go out and get it...One day at a time, one step at a time, sometimes, even one minute at a time...

Best of luck to you, and I wish you the very best that this life has to offer you...

M

[brice1967]

Sorry you are going through this right now, but congratulations on getting clean!

I'd like to start off by saying that I am not a doctor and am relaying information I got through my own treatment.  Your situation might be similar, different... I don't know, but it is best to rely upon the professionals.

I was diagnosed with PTSD at the age of 43.  I had a lot of things happen to me during my life (that I can recall).  Some things happened later in life, but the one constant was that I repressed all of my feelings about those things.  After all, I am a big strong dude and I have to remain a big strong dude.  (I got real good about not letting anything outwardly bother me, but they were eating me up on the inside.)

Anyhow, one day while going over my life story for about the 3rd time in the first 3 visits to my therapist, she stopped me in mid sentence.  She said the following things.... (she named all of the things that have affected me through the years that I had repressed) "Those things happened to you and they are really real.  They have affected you and it is obvious while watching you tell the individual stories.  You express such emotion, but in a stereotypical male fashion, you've repressed those things... you minimized those things.  You think that you are supposed to not be affected by those things, but who wouldn't be affected by those things?"

I sat there for a second and just looked at her.  She looked me in the eye and said, "Some of those things would have crushed me.  I have been through a lot of things in my life, you have too and so have so many of the people around us.  What affected me might be a walk in the park for you or what affected you might be a walk in the park for someone else.  These are things that did affect you and you are justified to be hurt and affected by them...."

Something in my head kind of clicked.  It wasn't like an epiphany, but it clicked in the inner workings in my mind.  We talked about some situations that were in a publication.  Most kind of were something that would not really affect me, but some were exactly the kind of things that affected me.  The therapist told me, "I have dealt with guys bigger than you are who have been affected by what seems like less in an on paper comparison.  But we are talking about individuals here.  What affected each of these people is the real deal, and so is yours.  You have every right to be mad that this happened.  It has taken time from your life, it has caused you misery and eventually brought you to the point where you came looking for help...  Its all valid."

Now I had that epiphany.  We took time going through each event that I brought to her attention during the next few meetings.  What I began to see is I had every right to be affected.  I was validated.  It was an outside validation that kind of made the difference to me.

I look back sometimes and my ego still sometimes tries to get in the way again.  It tries to tell me that the things I had dealt with and the things I will deal with are little, miniscule things that don't need to be dealt with.  The difference now is, I know they do and I have the ability to do so.

PTSD is a trip.  It never really goes away, so to speak, but you can learn to deal with it and everything that goes with it.  You get to hold the people or events that took place accountable, and you get to know that you are strong enough to move on.  I am miles and miles away from where I was, and when I finally unloaded all of this garbage, it was like a ton of weight was taken from my shoulders.... I had been packing all of that stuff around, needlessly.

Keep talking with your therapist.  Be open, wide open about the events and listen to what is being said.  (I think there is a difference between listening and hearing.  Hearing is hearing the words and listening is understand those words and reading between the lines.)  Most of all, try to relax a bit.  You've been through a ton and it is okay to have had a rough go.  Know that and you can get further down the line.

I hope that helps.