Update: Seeing a new psychiatrist Monday.
After this last family trip to NASA, I think my mom got a chance to see up close and personal what a difficult time I have with PTSD and panic attacks.
Over this past summer I tried to go off my medication to no success, because of how severe my issues surrounding PTSD, anxiety and depression are when simultaneously present. It's unmanageable without meds, and dangerous. I can slip into dissociative suicidality during a sever panic attack, and the panic attacks themselves can last days on end. To the point that it's completely debilitating.
The meds are a little heavy is why I tried to go off of them. I told my mom I was doing great, but then at the one month no meds mark hit, a trigger popped up and sent me for a tumble. I waited to cave in and take the meds, thinking I could stick it out and it would pass. But it only worsened, to a point I really had no choice- and quite honestly *wanted* to take the meds just to *make it fucking stop*
So obviously I did end up telling my mom about this whole thing that happened, and how I was back on the meds at the full dose again.
So I think just my accounts of what I went through there, and also her watching me struggle with it during our family trip to NASA. It's led her to question, what is causing these panic attacks that are so severe they push me to suicide.
She's witnessed them on multiple other occasions as well, as well as dissociative moments.
I think naturally after seeing it enough times, you're going to start to wonder, what the fuck is causing them. But whenever she asks me, "why are these happening, what triggers them, why are these your triggers?"
I just say, "I don't know."
And while that seems like, a stopping point. For someone digging into my psyche. It's actually the sign of a huge problem, that I was completely blind to.
Which is, memory repression. Another common thing that happens with PTSD. No dur.
I don't know why it didn't occur to me until now.
But, basically my mom called me into the living room the other day. (I'm living at home temporarily while I rent my apartment out to people). And she started talking to me about EMDR therapists.
And she's like, "I found this thing on facebook called EMDR and it says it's for anxiety panic attacks depression and PTSD. It seems really amazing. You should try it!"
And I'm like (lol) I already did EMDR. But, she said, "Did you do x amount of sessions?" And I was like no, I only did one. And she's like, "ah yeah that's why you're still having panic attacks. This person here (the author of the article I suppose that she was reading on her phone) says that anxiety panic attacks aren't something you should have to learn to live with, you can get rid of them completely. You just need to do more sessions and complete the process."
And I was like oh. No one ever told me that... (including my fucking EMDR specialist... smh).
And she was like, reading about how EMDR works around your specific PTSD triggers and trauma, and she was like, "But you don't know what your specific triggers are from or why they're there." And I'm like, "nope."
And she's like.... well... and she started doing the math and like connecting, events in my life, traumatic events- to, the tirggers. And proposing why they are triggers essentially and what trauma's they're linked to.
But here's the thing. These trauma's she brought up, I had repressed. I had completely forgotten them, they were literally shredded and dumped out of my mind. Forget they ever happened.
If you asked me to tell a story of my life, I thought I had a good idea of the chronological events that happened, but then as she was talking to me I realized, that map of my life I had in my head was super inaccurate and had like tons and tons of huge, gaping holes in it.
I just was like, "oh, yeah I hadn't thought of it that way before. I guess that makes sense. I had totally forgot those things happened." And my mom was like, "like... repressed... memories?" And I'm like... "shit, I guess I did repress some shit."
Internally i'm like, lowkey having an epiphany and all these emotions i'm feeling connected to these events I hadn't viewed in a long time. emotions that I didn't know I felt or forgot how to feel. It was mind blowing. When repressed memories come to the surface like that... it just feels like, something in my head came out of the shadows... or like looking at a vintage picture from childhood for the first time, that was taken in a far away place you kind of forgot about... forgot that day even happened. You know. Everything comes flooding back from another time and place that was, gone from your mind.
But mine weren't just, old memories. They were uh... inaccessible. Locked behind doors. Mind shut them out completely, without me even *knowing* it.
So then she was like, you should go to this EMDR therapist and like work on those panic attacks to get rid of them forever and shit!!! And I was like ok sounds good lol
But knowing how EMDR works, I was like. How am I going to... talk about the memory if I don't know it's there. And so she called the psychiatrist and asked, and they were like, "oh ok we can work in just a normal therapy setting first to help you like discover the repressed memories essentially and then do EMDR for them after that point."
The psychiatrist said this process is fragile because it can be really jarring for people, bringing up a memory they totally forgot is more frightening that working through a PTSD memory they already knew they had. So it's going to take some time.
I've wanted to understand for so long, what happened during these gaps in my mind. And I've tried really hard to uncover and remember things, I think it would help me to feel, complete.
When my mom reminded me of these memories, of course they were emotional to remember for me but. It also made me feel more complete. Like, less, shattered identity. I felt more whole. Grounded. Like, I knew what the fuck was going on.
It was a good feeling, hard to describe but. I would like to feel whole all the time. So I suppose we can work toward that with my new psychiatrist.
And, here's the face palm moment. We are exactly where we left off essentially with my last therapist. Who I stopped seeing.
Because of the fact I had repressed memory, but wasn't aware of the fact that I even had DONE that in the first place- I hit a brick wall with my last therapist.
We were talking about my feelings of like, identity confusion I guess and just not knowing who the fuck I am sometimes? And feeling really "blank" and empty... like all personality and identity was just wiped. And she was like, "you lost touch with who you were before the trauma that happened as a child and so let's go back and find her."
Saying that like, that "little girl" was deep inside there somewhere but was just lost.
And I literally said back to her, "There's nothing there to find." Because I felt like nothing at the time I suppose. (happens to me sometimes). Hard to explain what it feels like lol.
No I think I said, "you won't find anything but sure"
or something like that.
And she should of taken that as a hint, I obviously was repressing a lot of shit. But she didn't directly tell me that. She just made it seem like we were going to find my true self in there, and I felt like, so much had happened and I was so irreparably damaged from it, I could never be the same again *anyways* so it was a futile effort and pointless.
And I literally, never returned to that office again after that day because I suppose, I genuinely had no hopes of finding anything, because how the fuck can you see that as possible when everything is repressed and you don't even know it's been blacked out but it is. And you're like "dude idk what ur talking abut, it's all black" and they're like "lol look at ur childhood!" and im like "what.... all I see is a dark room dude, this isn't possible I can't see shit!"
lol so a lot of stuff is making sense now. and I guess the "break" I took on making any serious progress, the pause. Is coming to an end, unexpectedly. Due to recent breakthroughs lol.
It was also very like, enlightening what my mom related the triggers to trauma wise. I was like... ohhh... that's why I freak out when I feel lost... that's why I freak out when I'm surrounded by trees in the middle of no where for no reason. That's why I do this, that's why I do that. That's why I feel like this, all the time. The incompleteness and identity confusion.
And that whole identity confusion, blankness issue has been at the core of my PTSD related issues for years and I've been trying to get the bottom of it but, I literally gave up because despite bringing it to people's attention countless times in mental hospitals, psychiatrists, therapists- no one *helped me* no one *listened* to what that meant or understood.
