Considering anti-depresants

[Drawing_boundaries]

Hi All,
I have been having a terrible time with loneliness, grieving the loss of my enabling father and recalling painful memories. My therapist has hinted that I am going through the trauma now that I am safe. ptsd possibly ?

I may have reached my emotional limit today. I left work early because I couldn't stop crying.... This is a line for me. I dont want my horrible personal life to infiltrate my work place which is actually great.

I don't want to be like this any longer and am seriously considering going back on anti depressants. The ones I have been on previously successfully numbed my pain which is what I want right now but long term I want to heal myself from all this trauma.... last time I was on anti depressants I was able to forget all the PD & hellscape that was my life because I was NC & emotionally numb. This time I would like to heal the pain without it completely crippling me in the process.

Has anybody been here? I would really value your feedback .

So grateful

[xredshoesx]

*raises hand*

you are not alone.  i live with anxiety.  when it gets really really bad, it manifests in OCD in the form of repetitive checking, sorting and listing.  i dealt with a horrific boss situation that not only triggered the OCD, i was waking up screaming and having panic attacks to the point where my husband was driving me back/ forth to work (to get me out of the house b/c i'd be checking checking checking over and over in my rituals).  i called my GP and she got me a fast track referral to get a script for an anti anxiety/ depression med and it CHANGED MY LIFE.

after the boss got fired for what he did to me, other staff and the students i was able to be weaned off.  i was also in T during this time and my T helped me set better work boundaries as well as work through the underlying trauma that was triggered because of what had happened on the job.

i had a really stressful year last year but was able to cope without having to ritualize and stay in the present in the situation because of the tools i had learned 6 years ago (i posted a lot about it in the work section too so all y'all helped tremendously).

it doesn't have to be a forever thing- it's what helps you in the now and kudos to you for seeing that you are having a hard time coping on the day to day  in your  grieving process and may need some help.

[Drawing_boundaries]

*raises hand*

i had a really stressful year last year but was able to cope without having to ritualize and stay in the present in the situation because of the tools i had learned 6 years ago (i posted a lot about it in the work section too so all y'all helped tremendously).

This gives me hope. Thank you very much.

I have been off antidepressants for about 6 months. Before this I was on them for about 3 years and they worked beautifully. I came off them to improve my range of emotions... but this last couple of months have been really hard for me. I have not allowed it to get as bad as last time and have implemented some beautiful and loving self care rituals - that is something important for me to remember.

[1footouttadefog]

The constant and enduring stresses of being in an abusive relationship can change brain chemistry. 

You don't have to be in a military combat zone to have PTSD and there is a subset of PTSD called C-Ptsd  to consider.  Depression and anxiety and OCD behaviours are all common expressions of changes that can take place in brain chemistry. 

It's great that there are medications that can be used to treat the symptoms while dealing with trauma.

I hope you find what you need to reduce your symptoms while you heal your body mind and soul.

[all4peace]

I have not personally used them, but I would very much support the use of them for anyone who is struggling with anxiety or depression to the point that it is impacting their work life. That could snowball. I have a dear family member who went on medication just to be able to go through the process of therapy to face childhood trauma. I think we need to use any tool that we need to use, without shame.

Does your therapist have guidance for you on this?

[Drawing_boundaries]

Thank you all for your support

I am seeing my therapist tomorrow & am going to talk about medication and therapy that will complement my healing process. I would also like to investigate the traumatic responses I am having. Memories keep surfacing that have high emotional charge. Is this what people consider flash backs?
My memories just arrive - I am not being triggered by my surroundings as far as I can tell.

[1footouttadefog]

Sounds and sights and smells and familiar sensory stimuli as well as food and beverage can all serve to bring up memories, sometimes in subtle ways.  I'm occasionally surprised when some tiny detail brings on an onslaught of memories, sometimes good.

I would like to mention that it can sometimes take more than one try and even several tries to find a med that both works well, and has a low side effect profile.  If you life alone or without someone responsible you can trust in the home you might confide in one or more people that you are trying a medication and ask them to be aware of and inform you of any negative changes.  This way if you have a side effect or a strange swing in mood or behavior or health that you are not self aware of, or are attributing to trauma, they can gently remind you to speak to your doc about it. 

Stay vigilant of this potential yourself. A seeming worsening of your depression or anxiety may be an indicator of a mismatch.  I mention this not to add anxiety but so risk and anxiety might be reduced to start with. 

Both my mom and my p.d. spouse experienced a med that was not right for them and assigned blame for difficulties to circumstance(S),  and not the med.

[2_exhausted]

Hi-

I have needed to go on antidepressants three times in my life. They really helped me...not make me happy, but stopped me from ruminating over the same subject, which is something I do.

Best of luck!

[treesgrowslowly]

Hi,

How did your visit with yout T go?

I hear you about the lonely feelings and also the memories.

When I first started feeling like you describe, it was years ago, I had a T who was not trauma informed. At all. Now years later I have switched to a T who treats trauma, and I look back and I can give myself the advice i wish T number 1 had for me, back when I had the same questions you have: how to navigate the ptsd, loneliness and memories?

I did go on medication and found it didn't have much effect either way but we are each different in our brain chemistry so it is worth exploring. It can't alter your basic personality, and it can support the production of serotonin which is an important component of our healthy brain functioning. There's a lot of cortisol and adrenaline and epinephrine produced for some of us and sometimes meds can help with that? It depends on each person.

A person who hasn't processed ptsd or cptsd may never understand that when I was asking the same questions you are asking, going to a yoga class to "relax" actually increased my cortisol not lower it. My trauma response was powerful and my body was insistent on bringing these memories up, as you describe.

An interesting thing I read was that the left and right sides of the brain need to communicate in order to function optimally. I read that trauma disrupts this communication flow between left and right sides. What we refer to as healing, involves helping that functionality to recover in our brains.

When I get frustrated that "I don't want to recover from ptsd my entire life I want to just live my life!" I try to remind myself that recovery involves learning about our self more and more and learning how to "play to our strengths". There are times of day where my brain is not bringing these memories up for processing and times of the day where it wants to obsessively process the memories. Once I figured out some of the habits my brain had vis a vis the memories coming up I could change my daily schedule a bit. I still plan with this in kind. I play to my strengths. I now know which activities and places are better for me at different timss of the day. Sometimes I say no to invites simply because the event is at a time of day where I know my brain will want rest, not learn new information such as at a talk or presentation.

What is labeled as paradoxical by people who don't understand ptsd is that it can be the "fun" or "relaxing" things that can be hardest on us when we are at the phase where the memory consolidation stuff is happening. A spa day can bring on more lonely and somatic memories of loss, for me,  than a work day because of the way I've experience traumas.

The amygdala and hippocampus are amazing at doing their job of managing our responses to stimuli. They developed so that our species can physically survive and have a response to threats and predators. Without them we would not simply react 'instictively' to being at the edge of a cliff or standing where a tree branch is about to fall on us. I think it helps to see our amygdala for being so good at its job that it held on when something traumatic happened to us, and now we need to use therapeutic strategies to get ourselves out of fight flight freeze fawn mode.

Pete Walker's book describes the back and forth nature of recovering from C ptsd.

Those of us coming Out of the FOG need all the help and support we can find for ourselves as we work on this stuff.   

[Drawing_boundaries]

Hi Trees,
Thank you for your thoughtful response to me. It means a lot that you are sharing your experiences.
I can not comprehend the level of  psychological abuse I have endured across my lifetime. That it has in fact been my normal to be put down, gas light and be socialised into accepting psychological boundary violations - the memories are flooding back in. I have one person left who is currently attempting boundary violations and is escalating behaviour - it has taken all my energy for the past couple of months to manage the isolation and loneliness of my life, deal with the cascade of memories and maintain a grey rock/ medium chill with this person. I spend all my time on self soothing and even then I can feel my mental health slipping.

I talked all this through with my T. T asked what I needed to move through this period of my life & we talked about alternatives. The clear outcome of the conversation is the need to balance medication with talk therapy so I can build a bright new future for myself. I am going to return to medication that was working previously & start on a very low dose. It takes time to get the medication so I wont see the effects for a couple of weeks but there is at least some relief at the end of the tunnel.

I still cant comprehend the traumatic memories surfacing after almost 40 years of abuse... I hope the medication will make it possible to sit with the memories that are surfacing and examine them so I can understand them. At this point they are just flashing up and lacerating me.

[all4peace]

Trees gives such a great summary of this process.

One way I look at it is that maybe these memories come up when we're strong enough to process them, even though we may not feel strong enough at all. I learned in therapy to look at it like digestion. It moves through the system, it takes energy to process it, and then it moves back out.

I also think of it like breathing. We can take tight shallow breaths, and we can learn how to take long, slow deep breaths. Our systems can hold more and more as we get healthier and stronger. It can feel overwhelming, and then maybe it's time to take a break. Refocus our minds on the present, take time in nature, spend time with friends, whatever it is that allows us to become present and set aside the trauma processing for a while.

I literally have had to develop a daily self-care plan to deal with the trauma processing. Getting water, exercise and good food, as much sleep as my body allows (up to 8 hrs), have meaningful work to focus on, touch base with friends and healthy family, take time for reading, prayer, mindfulness. Whatever works for you. Then instead of trauma processing for most of every day, it's more like snorkeling in which I dip down below the surface for deep processing for as long as I can handle it, then come back up again and be present in daily life.

Hope this helps. It is hard, uncomfortable, painful. But you're not alone.

[2_exhausted]

Thanks Treesgrowingslowly,

I need a T versed in trauma. The best result I had with antidepressants was when I was in my 20's, and on Zoloft. It is so long ado, there were only 2 SSRIs on the market, Prozac & Zoloft. That depression was situational, and it stopped my ruminating. How? I do not know. Did my wonderful T, who specialized in children, whom identified I was still a child help? I am sure. When she stated she was retiring, I was devastated.

I know I previously posted I was on the antidepressants 3 times....the following two occasions, they did not help as much... I know I have to deal with my inner child & the trauma bonds.

I hope everyone is able to get to the point you are at with understanding our own brains.

[treesgrowslowly]

Hi 2_exhausted,

Learning about the parts of the brain helped me imagine what was going on when I was so upset. But it isn't necessary to learn the jargon. It helped me in the sense that i could also think aboit what my brain needed, and I have read that some researchers are considering trauma as a tyoe of injury which helps them understand us better.

Hang in there. Keep in mind that your brain is working to repair itself all. And like other organs it does this without us needing to be perfect with our habits and choices each day.

One thing that is coming to mind regarding this topic is that the emotions that you feel during an intrusive memory, you might find some relief in identifying which emotions are being felt and how you feel comfortable expressing those with your T. Anger is often expressed by us when we are scared. Grief is often unexpressed in this culture we live in.

Don't feel badly about using distractions for yourself at some times during each day as you wait for medications begin. Distracting yourself with a movie or tv show for an hour is not the same thing as ignoring your needs. It is a process and you need breaks from thinking about the stuff you're doing to help yourself via therapy, writing here, medication, etc.

[Drawing_boundaries]

One thing that is coming to mind regarding this topic is that the emotions that you feel during an intrusive memory, you might find some relief in identifying which emotions are being felt and how you feel comfortable expressing those with your T. Anger is often expressed by us when we are scared.

Once I learnt that anger is a secondary emotion I realised that I used anger as a buffer to provide me space in the PD home. In reality I am sad and hurt. Part of what I am feeling is a life times worth of sadness and hurt at being dismissed. The memories that are coming up are painful and reminding me in a visceral way of this pain. I dont know if my therapist has training in trauma but mentioned doing an attachment thing to understand my attachment style which I imagine would include discussing childhood trauma.

[treesgrowslowly]

Yes, I agree with you that it is likely that discussing your attachment style will tie into discussing about trauma. An emotionally unavailable parent or abusive parent cannot provide the secure attachment to their child.

Pete Walker's book discusses the earned attachment. It is an attachment that can occur in our adulthood and can reduce the way in which our original (avoidant or anxious) attachment affects us as we get Out of the FOG.

[Drawing_boundaries]

Thank you Trees - is the book you are referring to Complex PTSD: From Surviving To Thriving?

[Free2Bme]

Drawing boundaries,

Just wanted to say I am sorry for what you are contending with.  I think others have great input and 1footOOF makes these important points:

"... it can sometimes take more than one try and even several tries to find a med that both works well, and has a low side effect profile.  If you life alone or without someone responsible you can trust in the home you might confide in one or more people that you are trying a medication and ask them to be aware of and inform you of any negative changes.  This way if you have a side effect or a strange swing in mood or behavior or health that you are not self aware of, or are attributing to trauma, they can gently remind you to speak to your doc about it.
Stay vigilant of this potential yourself. A seeming worsening of your depression or anxiety may be an indicator of a mismatch.  I mention this not to add anxiety but so risk and anxiety might be reduced to start with." 

This would be a good rule of thumb for any person trying a new prescription for any condition. 

Thankfully, this is a place where one CAN be transparent, share struggles, and receive support.  Sending you encouragement to stay with the self care you have been doing, and know you are not alone .

[Drawing_boundaries]

Thank you everyone who posted on this thread.
You all helped me through a difficult period to make a healthy decision for myself, something I have always struggled with. I have started taking my antidepressants at a very low dose and have already seen a marked improvement in my mental space.
I am also able to release and enjoy my child. Something I wasn't capable of doing for the past 6 weeks (or more).

Thank you 

[treesgrowslowly]

Thank you Trees - is the book you are referring to Complex PTSD: From Surviving To Thriving?

Yes.