If you have PTSD, please be aware that ‘talking’ about what happened to you, can trigger you. PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) is caused when you are in a situation that is so terrifying that you think you will die. When you are unable to either fight or flight. You cannot escape. When you witness something that is beyond the normal human ability to cope.

Symptoms of PTSD

– Insomnia
– Nightmares
– Triggers when reminded of the events
– Panic attacks

– Avoidance of places and people that remind you of the event

– Going over and over what happened in your head, like a film replay
– Living in ‘small’ world. Only spending time with very immediate family/friends – or isolating yourself (not forced isolation by the sociopath)
– Feeling like you are living behind a glass wall and other people are on the other side
– Being ‘lost’ in what happened
– Emotional detachment
– Slowness in cognitive processing of the brain
– Poor short term memory
– Disassociation
– Feeling hyper vigilant – jumping at loud noises
– Feeling ‘surreal’
– Reminders of the event feeling like you are right back there

– When ‘triggered’ I felt a slight pressure at the front top of my head, where the cerebral cortex is. like someone was pressing down on top of my head

My PTSD was not caused by a relationship. So I can talk about it. In the last week, I have faced having to contact my daughters father for a witness statement for what happened in the hospital. I had a huge panic attack. I couldn’t do it. Not because he caused the PTSD, but because he was there when it was happening.

Yesterday I talked to a friend I hadn’t seen since 2010, and discussed events that I do not usually talk about. It made me feel awful.

If you recognise yourself in the symptoms raised in this post, please seek professional help. I did EMDR therapy, but this isn’t for everyone, as it forces you to go through what happened to you, over and over again, until your brain processes it in a different way.

If you are unsure, here is an online test that you can dohttp://www.healthyplace.com/psychological-tests/ptsd-test/ if you score very high, perhaps take the results to a medical professional and ask for help.

There is help for those with PTSD. But – sometimes talking about it CAN re- traumatise you, and it needs specialist help and therapy. Talking about it, can make you feel worse – not better. You might wonder why? This could be because you have PTSD.

The above are the symptoms that I have experienced with PTSD. I was diagnosed severe chronic. After an event where I was trapped and unable to escape, I witnessed death, and thought I would die too. What happens, is that the brain to cope, disassociates, and goes into ‘shock’. Whenever you are reminded of the event, your brain automatically goes to ‘safe’ mode, this is the mode of brain that coped through the trauma. Talking about it, can re-traumatise. If you score high on the online test, it might be useful to print off your test results and take to a medical professional for help.