Facing My Demons

After 10 years of trying to pretend like I don't have a problem, I have made the difficult decision to begin tackling my CPTSD. I also have fairly severe bipolar 1. It's a tough combo for me. Lotta psychosis for me. All the time.

So, I am just here to see if folks have suggestions of things that have worked a little or a lot for them and maybe try to incorporate. I am pretty good with CBT and it does help. But I am looking for other ideas. Any suggestions anyone might have are welcomed and greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!!!

Hey bpcyclist I think it's fantastic that you are ready to tackle your C-PTSD now. I'm sorry that you've been burdened with that and with your bipolar 1 with psychosis. But I think you are very intelligent and of strong character, so whatever you do, don't give up.

Since you are a cycler, I was going to ask if you ever found swimming laps therapeutic or meditative?

I would try to find a therapist or a support group where trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy is practiced. Trauma-focused therapy follows a phase-based treatment. It adds various activities one at a time. It's designed to help you face your anxiety around your C-PTSD and flashbacks. It helps you recall and process your C-PTSD. It will also include activities that shut down hyperarousal or hypervigilance. Since you cycle 100 miles a day or close to that, would you say that shuts down those two stress responses? Maybe find a meditation center or find out if you can go to a public pool and do some swim-walking where you walk laps in the shallow end. There's also water yoga and water aerobics. Trauma-focused therapy also measures your tolerance of your negative affective states and uses mindfulness activities to counter any intolerance. MBST - mindfulness based stress reduction breathing and meditation and other related calming activities.

Trauma-based therapy uses PRAC skills. It uses the CBT model of the Cognitive triangle: relationship between thoughts, feelings and behavior. It teaches you how to normalize conflicting feelings -- esp. when you have multiple conflicting feelings happening at the same time. It teaches you how to identify feelings associated with the C-PTSD and then how to regulate those feelings to get to a state of calm. It helps you identify false or inaccurate trauma-related thoughts (I shouldn't have... or they/he/she shouldn't have...) and altered core views of yourself (I'm a bad person because...) and how you view other people (people can't be trusted...) and the world (the world is an unsafe place...). The therapist will rank the order of the trauma (s) involved from worst to least

Art and music also heal. Since you are a writer, keep working on your memoir. Also, coloring is extremely relaxing. I do it and I'm 49. That will sound crazy but it helps me. Also, this will sound silly, but create your own "feelings survival kit." Activities that you can alternate that help you calm down that involve some kind of activity; cycling, taking a warm bath, watching a tv show, drumming, coloring with crayons or markers, reading...whatever those activities are for you.

I would HIGHLY recommend that you join a drum circle, bpcyclist. Music is healing and there are legitimate medical journal articles written about the positive benefits on the body and mind from vibrational music such as percussion. Don't spend money. Find a drum circle that meets for free. For instance, fliers in music shops, coffee shops, at colleges or universities, or even nonprofit places. Like in my city, we have Pathways and that's where I first did a drum circle.

I found a couple of places you can start in your city. They both have public drum circles. You don't have to pay to attend them, I believe. I would call or email to verify that. But I guarantee a drum circle will change your life. And people from all walks of life join drum circles. You'd be surprised. I was with my drum circle for 5 years. We even performed in public and got paid for it.

Dream - Home

Drum Lessons Portland

And after my brain injury, when I resumed my drumming, that literally sped up my healing from my physical and mental injuries. It aligned my lopsided gait, helped my breathing return to normal, lowered my blood pressure, put me in a meditative state and I always, ALWAYS slept like a rock for days after drumming with my drum circle. So, a drum circle would definitely help you with your insomnia hell, I think. Call music shops, ask them if they have any that are open to the public. Call music departments of your local community colleges, universities or colleges and ask them about drum circles. Or, nonprofit healing centers will offer them for free, like Pathways here does.

Wow that was long. Hope it was helpful!

Thanks for this, Blanche. Very, very appreciative of all your help and support. I don't presently have access to a pool, but I do love the water. I will look into PRAC and those groups, but the problem is, they all cost money and money is insanely tight right now, for reasons I am still trying to sort out. But I will, and then, maybe I can look into taking one of those.

I am actually a fairly accomplished guitarist. I have not picked up any of my guitars in three years. Zero interest. Maybe should force myself.

I am hearbroken about your accident and TBI. So glad you found the drumming therapeutic and that you are better!! I am looking at some of these here. Given how yoga/progressive/woo woo Portland is, there is probably a drum circle somewhere for me. I'll look into those you listed, Dream and the other one. Funny, I lived in NashVegas for almost ten years, but could not take advantage of the music scene becuase I was always at the hospital. Married a girl who worked in the business, though. She turned out not to have been a very good choice. Maybe now I can do some online Nashville drumming.

Looking back, I see three areas I focused on that have brought me the furthest in my recovery journey.

They are gratitude, acceptance, and self-awareness. I can't remember which one I started with, but they are interconnected.

As I practiced gratitude daily, I began to see what I wanted to change and what I had to accept because of what I could not change.

With every passing day, I followed my thoughts and realized they gave me the map I needed to reach the relief I craved.

Dig around and see what you can find with community resources and county resources. All the support groups I found were free to attend and didn't need insurance to cover the cost. Walk-in counselors may not be licensed and may just be grad students, but still a possibility. Not sure.

I definitely think you should pick up . your guitars again! Music heals. It always heals. Esp. when you play an instrument. Doesn't matter what level proficiency you are either. I just know from my own experience, when I was recovering from my TBI, my drum circle weekly sessions definitely contributed to my healing journey. Thank you for your compassion, too. That means a lot.

People in the music biz can be narcissistic and arrogant. Sorry to hear that your partner wasn't supportive of you while you struggled with those hospital stays and everything. You deserve better!

I dated a double bass player right before my TBI accident and the douche canoe dumped me while I was recovering in the hospital. I still run into him when he comes through town to play a gig (we know mutual people) and he's still a douche canoe. Just 20 years older. But he's afraid of me now that I see through his facade and have very rigid boundaries with him. Narcissists hate it when their victims "grey rock" them.

Give your guitar a dust-off and see how you feel playing it again. And definitely check out the drum circle scene there in your city. I have a feeling you'd really enjoy it and feel its healing effects.

Your ex's behavior makes me want to puke. What a POS. So sorry.

Yeah, I just cannot get motivated to go anywhere near my guitars. Zero interest. But I will try. It was a pretty big part of my life at one point. I almost went to music school instead of college, but I chickened out.

There are often free support groups available. I go to Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance groups. You can check them out at dbsalliance.org. There is also the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) at nami.org.

And there are probably trauma support groups too.

I thought you had to pay for DBSA groups?

I never would have believed it, but sand tray therapy is genuinely helpful for my trauma experiences.

Let me ask you this:

What is one small choice you can make today that will move you towards your long term goal?

What tiny change can you make? Is there something simple you can do differently?

One simple thing you can do better today than yesterday?

One small thing I try to do is every time I go into my kitchen, I wash something or put something away, or sweep. I can't do it all at once; I get overwhelmed. So, I do a tiny bit at a time. That helps me and it is better than I did yesterday.

Really good advice Happy. I remember when I started practicing gratitude all I could think of was being grateful for my morning cup of tea. Now I've can see a lot of things to be grateful for and it's been one of the most powerful tools in my recovery.

Obviously I can't force you to pick up the guitar. But do you think there's a reason why you say you have zero interest in picking it up again?

I know that for myself there are reasons why I don't pick up the guitar (I'm a musician as well). Those reasons can be a myriad of things.

As of a couple weeks ago my reason for not picking up music or things I like was too much medicine on board. (Not saying this is necessarily the case for you).

Now, after having gone down a little bit on the meds, I am interested in music (albeit slightly) again.


So, there can be lots of reasons why you don't want to do things, I guess. Just try to delve into why you don't want to do certain things and maybe that'll help.

I encourage support groups, too. All NAMI groups are free, and there are so many others that are free, too.

Thanks for this. Yeah, I think it is probably triggering old issues I don't want to deal with. Likie why I didn't go to musci school and instead had to go into medicine. Lotta old stuff there.

[QUOTE=bpcyclist;6762127]I thought you had to pay for DBSA groups?
Never heard a charge for a dbsa group.
If you are comfortable telling what caused your trauma, that might help people make suggestions.

Well, I was watching an episode of Tommy last night and the woman on the show was being charged with a murder. She refused to discuss details of what had happened because noone had believed her prior rape allegations. Or any of the other women's. In my experience, noone ever believes people who claim abuse by powerful people. Noone.

That said, I was abused and tortured for two years by my local police department who, for some reason, very badly wished me to commit a crime that I never had and never did commit. They became extremely and increasingly frustrated at their lack of progress over time and, I presume, at the amount of money they had spent on all this (I estimate they likey spent about $500,000 investigating me) ratcheted up the abuse and torture, rather than walking away. They illegally opened my mail, searched my medical records illegally, recorded meetings between myself and my lawyer and pdoc, repeatedly broke into multiple residences, tapped my phone and puters, pressured everyone around me, including children, and stole my medication to make me look psychotic. I could go on. On and on and on. I actually video and audio recorded some of it, since noone would believe me.

In short, they carried out a campaign custom-designed for my own specific mental illness to make me look psychotic when I cried out that I was being abused, therefore, causing everyone to believe I was just symptomatic. Brilliant strategy. Evil. They put me in the hospital twice with all this, once for 4 1/2 years.

That's the short version.

I watch a lot of police drama. My brother is an attorney.
It costs a ton of money in terms of person hours to do this to someone,and I’m absolutely not saying they weren’t doing it. 3 people I’m very close to were harassed because they were very close to collecting their pensions. How did this waste of public resources benefit them?
So sorry bicyclist. I want my friend w PTSD from Afghanistan to try the stellate ganglion injectionSGB they are starting to have good results from for ptsd. Have you been reading about that? There is a woman on the forum who had it recently and she said it worked. Very pricey tho. Huge hugs!

The number of people used in the surveillance alone was staggering, so, yes, as I say, the cost was insane. I do know how all this sounds, which is why I never bother dicussing it with anyone. It doesn't matter. Noone believes me. Except my lawyer, for whom I played some of the tapes. He has those--had those, he died, sadly.

You would of course have to ask them why they were so devoted to this investigation. I will say that the charges they seemed to be seeking could most certainly put me away for the rest of my natural life, no question about it. Extremely serious. At the risk of sounding a bit pompous, which I really do not believe I am, I would have been a relatively high-profile individual in the community to bring down this way. There likely would have been a lot of press for this guy's unit, which is just completely lawless and corrupt. He was somehow able to continue to convince his bosses to fund this thing for two years without an arrest. Not sure how. Crazy.

This police department currently has an in-force agreement with the USDOJ supervised by a federal judge because of its systematic mistreatment and excessive use of force--including multiple kilings--of many of my city's mentally ill people. It is well-know. Common knowledge. My case is slightly different, but really, just part of an overall pattern.

I have read about the stellate ganglion stuff. No idea about the cost. I will look into it more. Thanks for reminding me and thank you for the feedback!!!!

You know the saying, when you get lemons, make lemonade? It sounds like your book is going to be fantastic. You will be forcing them to do reforms at that hospital if it’s still open. Regardless, I’m sure you will bring to light the amazing bigotry people have against people w mental illness. Some people think they are so enlightened about depression because so many celebrities talk about it,but they think everyone with certain disorders are a threat.NAMI could start a speakers bureau of people w mental illness going to schools to talk about their challenges and the amazing things they have done in their lives.

Thank you for the support, luvyrself--I really appreciate it.