Intense Anxiety from PTSD

Post Reply New Topic

It is consuming my mind and I just need to get it out. I apologize to anyone who may be affected. I was a victim of rape. I had the memories suppressed for years but the full effect has hit me over the last year. I am usually good at locking it away but now any time there is any mention of the subject or if I see anything that may be related in any way it brings me back. I'm talking about it now because something on the T.V. had brought me back and I am now consumed with anxiety because of it. I was supposed to be concentrating on college work but as that required intense concentration coupled with the anxiety I have a thumping headache so now I'm in bed feeling like crap.
I did try breathing and that did get rid of the immediate panic but the anxiety is still intense. I feel weak and powerless. I just want it to stop. I wish the memories would go away.

As it happens, I know a thing or three about contesting with one's own mind over the influence of memories. I just wrote it down in another section, but I'll keep both tabs open if you'd like me to reiterate anything. Please feel welcome to PM me as well, if you decide to keep your thoughts off the public board.

[LINK]

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

I don't mind keeping it on the board. I think people only call it a disorder because of the extent that these instinctive responses can effect a person. I did have some specialized help but couldn't keep it up but what they said was that when you are brought back, it's not only memories that come back but you are re living it as if you were experiencing it now.
So I am trying to distract myself. Talking about it without actually going into details is one way that I know of.

I should add that apologizing for one's tone on this forum is a forgone conclusion - most of us here are pretty difficult to shake up.

My opinion on the nature of memory is that it requires prompting; one's own line of reasoning can do this occasionaly, but ordinarily it relates back to external stimuli. In my experience, I don't relive my tougher memories in the same manner as present events, but a bit more like hallucinations. I don't forget where I am or why, it's only my perceptual thinking that goes anywhere else. I wouldn't admit it in hardly any other instances, but hallucinations, self-imposed or not, have never kept me from my studies. It takes a lot of tricky circumstance or impairment before I can truly be distracted, if the subject matter is relevant to my knowledge. I think, if they've experienced it before, people ordinarily expect hallucination not to resemble reality, the hardest part can be hallucinating something that really happened; when I program for a week, perhaps I'll see visual algorithms imposed on my perception. When someone or something unfortunate gets me pondering the nature of my inabilities, it can lead to a compound-sensory experience of surroundings that don't line up with my real ones.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos