Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

[missd]

I already posted, but I'm posting again to plead for someone to reply to me. This is a nightmare. I am bewildered with the intensity of the situation I spoke of in the post titled

"extreme PTSD...getting worse...advice ????

Thanks

[cocacolocao]

Hello fellow sufferer of PTSD. It is hell, no question. I have been a sufferer of ptsd since 1997. I managed to repress the condition between 1999 and 2003 and then it just cleaved me open like a kipper. I have struggled to get the lid back on pandora's box, to get the 'genie back into the bottle' to no avail. I fsomeone would have told me that I was suffering PTSD i would have laughed in their face an denied it. Now I do not have that luxury. I developed PTSD in 1997. I repressed it until 2003. Since 2003 I barely recognise myself. I feel like a 'dead man walking', with only the adress to discover to end my life. I have horrendous flashbacks which i did not even recognise as such because they were like playback on a video. Super-real, where I would walk the same path, experience the same fear and terror, relive the same thing over and over again. I described this to a shrink and he diagnosed me as schizophreniform psychotic, paranoid and delusional. In short he diagnosed me as suffering anything but PTSD. I laughed at him, for all the good that that did me, and over a year later, after shrink 1 had scupperred my claim for workcover ( a solely political decision protecting the haves against the have-nots) I got a referral to an expert in ptsd. Thank God. Luckily I suppose and thanks to the extreme violence I suffered I was referred to Prof Sandy Mcfarlane, an australian expert in ptsd. He was my angel, without his intervention I might have been dead, or much much worse, sectioned under the mental health act for an illness I just dont have. I am really interested in other peoples experence with ptsd due to the severity of my own, not because of some morbid curiosity, but because I actually care that fellow sufferers get the treatment they deserve. Today i thought of ending it all! I had had enough. I continue to receive death threats which makes it difficult to deal with my ptsd. Real threats mean I am not suffering PTSD, yet the ongoing threats, perceived or imagined, or fundametally real complicate the issue for me and my treating psychiatrist. It is a nightamre that is never ending, and people have deliberately sought to exacerbate my symptoms and have me diagnosed as paranoid and delusional. My heart goes out to fellow sufferers whose condition is constantly changing, particularly in view of other peoples sadism.
Hey get real, 60% of the population when given an opportunity to violate someone elses rights will do so unchecked "
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Anyway, so I too have extreme ptsd, that is to say chronic and sever ptsd which has all but destroyed my life. No It has destroyed my life. I used to be such a go getter, unstoppable in the face of adversity, a chef who could do the impossible under the most extreme duress, producing 1st rate food under conditions which were inhuman. I worked 150 days in a row, producing the best food, under the most extreme conditions and turning a workplace around from losing money to making an extra 90,000 bucks a year. Somewhere between the psychiatric injury and my self belief I managed to rise above the conditions to produce the goods. But it killed me. It changed me. It turned me into a monster, all to serve the bottom line, in an environment where the socialisation of boys to be good soldiers got in the way of common sense.
Listen one of the things that was really awful for me, was CBT. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. It is meant to be really good at lowering the reactions to the various triggers which make PTSD such a nightmare. Instead all it did was put me back on a war-footing, ready to do battle with anyone of Irish extraction, (I was on IRA death-list) which I believe folowed me hereto australia, not that anyone is admitting it. I am still on certain peoples radar, going back 14 years and my life will never be normal. Listen I am just on a ramble now but would dearly love to make my correspondence more personal, so if you are cool about it, please contact me at [moderator note: e-mail address has been removed] I know what severe ptsd is like and would like to have an open dialogue with you about what goes on for you. I am your brother at arms, your considerate and supportive ally. Please contact me direct. I think it would be so much more helpful for us to have a session discussing your stuff and mine. Anyway, Always your brother, Leslie (severe and chronic ptsd since 97, guns and death threats, and beatings. I should be dead and sometimes, no frequently, wish I were dead.
Please contact me direct i think it could be really useful. I am where you are. God bless and be kind to yourself. Dont let the bastards grind you down!, les xoxox