Lil Enslaved Kitten
reading over this it made me think of things i still have trouble with. i still can not take a bath in a tub cause its like i'm in that night all over again. and all it takes is loud wind outside and in my head its time to take cover and hide and find a way to keep the people around me safe
never really learned anything other to lay and cry then write in a journal. the therapist i use to see thinks that alot of what causes my flashbacks is whats known as repressed memories i don't knowingly remember some things from that night but when something sets me off it all just kinda floods back in for anywhere from a few mins to a couple hours
I didn't want to think about the things that triggered me for a long long time. I still don't like thinking about it. Making this thread, and answering with my own stories, makes me confront things. But I find that the more I confront those things, the less I am power they have to control my life.
I have flashbacks too. I don't think mine are triggered by repressed memories and I imagine it's difficult to have them be triggered by things you can't even identify. I can say, that guy who has long stringy brown hair and blue eyes is making me have a flashback because that's what the shooter looked like. I can then say I'm going to go try to look at guys who look like that so I don't get as scared next time. But if I just saw something and it freaked me out and I couldn't identify why there is no way I could deal with it.
So you write in a journal? Does that help? What other things do you do to try to make living with PTSD better?