Troubling Times

[Starlight321]

Hello, I'm writing here because I need some advice and inspiration. Also to write here a little bit about me because I'm intent to be more involved in the personal developement and dating section and it's better to write my troubles somewhere if people need some context and I hopefully won't need to repeat myself too much. I also think talking a bit about my situation for relieve and other opinions also plays a part.

I'm 33 years old and I have several issues I'm working on at the same time. First is I've had an accident 4 years ago where I was on the brink of dying and got a crazy near death experience. I shattered my feet, broke my neck and elbow and spent 11 months in a wheel chair and more than 2 years and 7 operations to fix my feet to the point where I can almost live a mostly normal live. It was really tough because I increased my feet situation bit by bit, from 1/2 mile a day walking to 3,4 over years. The only thing I can't do is jump or run or hike or stand more than 4-5 hours without pause, which isn't that big of an issue. But it is expected that I will need a few more operations because some parts in my feet aren't functioning and are causing arthrosis. But when that will happen, I don't know... might be next year or in 7-8 year.

But as you might assume that got me really traumatized and I got more ptsd as I already had. But I made a lot of progress over the years and processed in therapy a lot of childhood of childhood and early adulthood trauma. I survived a shooting where my father was killed when I was 8 and when I was 19 at a party my drug addicted cousin tried to stab me because I tackled him when he went mad on speed and tried to hurt people.

After that I had constant arousal and axiety attackes and didn't even know that I had ptsd. I worked for a while as lab technician, then I went to night school and made up for my degree as the 4th best to get access to university and started to study biomolecular engineering but in the first semester had to abort because of the accident. 

So until april or so last year things had improved considerably. I was able to do sports again like juggling in an artistic meet up, did regularly kriya yoga, spent sometimes some days and  nights in a buddhist monastry, bike riding, swimming etc and was socialising a lot and just talking to people and approaching girls and dancing a little. I also restarted university but this time process engineering because this one I can do in parttime. I also set my diet right.

It also looks as if I could stop taking medics and start a part time job by the end of the year. The only thing that bothered me was the nightmare of being chased and killed me and sleep paralysis which both occured in phases and I've got some resistence to falling asleep.

So what happened 8 months ago was that my therapist who was exceptionally good concluded the sesions after two years because she changed location and does only private sessions from then on During the end it also looked like as if I wouldn't need more therapy because I was quite stable and my life good and I lived in the now and was quite happy and my consciousness was expanding.

But I under estimated which stabilizing part she played to calm me down and reminded me to be loving and that everything was quite well and that I had to check the facts so I don't worry so much. 

Then I tried hypnosis with binaural beats and it fucked my brain waves up and triggered my ptsd. That caused me to not sleeping a few days which caused more stress and more tension and put me more in survival mode and that went so far that I hadn't slept for 2 weeks and got a panick attack that I'd get a psychosis from that and I was for a big time in survival mode. But also from hypnosis I never got to sleep, only to a trance and that went on the whole summer and I got really depressed and restarted unhealthy coping mechanisms because I was for a big part in automatic mode and got hooked up on sleeping pills which didn't worked after some time. 

So I thought I could do some holiday in a remote buddhist monastry and there I hurt my knee on a stair and since then I've got both knees inflamed and haven't been able to be active again and can only walk small distances and I'm not able to stand for longer periods. 

The doctors said that it will heal on it's own probably but it might take another 6-12 months probably and I have to do physical therapy and if that doesn't work an operation comes in consideration. But this is very taxing because I can't do a lot of things and I'm de facto disabled again and when my knees hurt more I my ptsd gets triggered which brings me in to survival mode. 

But in spite of that and the tiredness I still go to university and do that because I like it and it gives me meaning and structure, even though I'd be more fulfilling to do something where I could be more of service.

So right now my sleep got better and I have only one or 2 sleepless nights a week on everage and even sometimes I sleep my 7 or 8 hours (mostly 5-6h)

Maybe you guys have an idea what might help me to calm down and get me some stability and bring my sleep in order. Right now I don't take sleeping pills but some medication that's supposed to make me tired but doesn't because of the arousal they don't work properly. 

Sometimes I feel that I don't do enough and feel bad about it or I feel extremely stressed out because so much doesn't go according to my plans and I can't relax. It's hard to accept that and the lot I've drawn in the lottery of life. It also sucks to have lost contact to love and being in pain and being trapped in a very dense unaware ego state.

My plan is to get a new therapist and process some of the emotions because in trauma mode I lose access to them and they accumulate over time put me under pressure.

What do you think? should I just settle for a mediocre therapist and get not so good therapy but better then none or look for a good one, which might take longer? 

Or is it better to talk to depressed friends because they understand my situation better or look for new people? I'm afraid that my depressed and hopeless vibe turns other people of. As they say the vibe attracts the tribe.

I'm also considering taking a few times a medium dose of psychedelics to process some emotions and to reintegrate some parts so that the pressure is lessened.

A week ago I had a test and it went better as I expected and I was able to relax for 4 days and sleep better and learn productively. I know that I have to take care and assess each time.

 

[Tyler Robinson]

First is to have patience with yourself. I've ptsd and I know from first hand account that ptsd takes a very long time to heal. Give it some air, space and time.. Distraction can help. 

Don't pressure yourself for productivity. Don't beat yourself up if you're slow. I can detect some depression coming out of the knee situation. It could be the anxiety of the situation making you depressed. Relax. Whatever physical is going on, it will find a way to heal. 

I'd recommend doing basic blood work just to rule out hidden medical diagnoses because of the fact that you suffered inflammation could mean a lot of things. 

Do not focus on friendship. Now is not the time. Just give yourself enough emotional space. 

The reason you're not able to integrate emotions is because you're not giving yourself space to confront your emotions regularly. 

You need tons of meditation and self inquiry. Do journaling, it's a must for ptsd. When you do hours of meditation and self inquiry on the regular, you will get thoughts that will automatically travel to your subconscious and bring out your hidden emotions. 

Hope this helps. 

 

[flowboy]

@Starlight321  Just made a video (linked below) on what to look for in a therapist, you might want to check it out.

Basically, if you can afford to pick your own therapist: find one that does regression sessions.

Without hypnosis.

Real tears about past hurt are what calms the system down and improves trauma symptoms long term.

Mindfucking techniques like binaural beats and subliminals will just agitate you more.

Additionally, for calming down, people get really good results with the "active meditations" from Osho, especially the Dynamic.

Yoga is also great and easy to implement. I would definitely incorporate that.