r/ptsd • u/FranzKafka_irl • 16h ago
Advice On the verge of a flashback all day
How do i get this to stop? I cant have one and now im not going to bed because I'm scared if i do I'll have one when I'm trying to sleep but i have to sleep
r/ptsd • u/FranzKafka_irl • 16h ago
How do i get this to stop? I cant have one and now im not going to bed because I'm scared if i do I'll have one when I'm trying to sleep but i have to sleep
r/ptsd • u/shrimpdude647 • 4h ago
Hi folks, first-time redditor here.
This is a bit specific, but I’m looking to hear other perspectives and experiences with medication for PTSD and persistent depressive disorder. I’ve also been diagnosed with inattentive type ADHD, but I have wondered if the ADHD problems are symptoms of the other conditions rather than an additional disorder.
Before continuing, I am working closely with my psychiatrist to find the correct medication(s) for my mind and body, and I’m not doing anything without their supervision/knowledge. I’m simply looking to hear other experiences.
Depression is my primary “complaint,” so antidepressants have been necessary. I have a high susceptibility to SSRIs flaring up severe gastritis and other GI concerns, so Wellbutrin was recommended, as it is an NDRI with few gastro side effects rather than an SSRI. The ADHD symptoms have been treated with Concerta. This combo helps me get out of bed, take care of myself, and focus, but it gives me terrible anxiety and absolutely does not help when my PTSD is activated. We have previously added Buspar to the mix to help the anxiety, but I am wondering if I just need to kick the stimulant and go a different route to treat the depression and ADHD symptoms with the PTSD and anxiety in mind.
Basically, how are we managing our depression and ADHD without activating our PTSD and anxiety? Is there a solution? Thanks for your support.
r/ptsd • u/Prestigious_Pear8914 • 6h ago
i just literally cant take it anymore everything is so fucking overwhelming
im in a "relationship????" with a man who rapes me cuz he threatens to do it to other people and he says i deserve it cuz im ugly and self harm anyways and anyone he hurts is just a poor girl who wont deserve it. he's sent me a recording of him raping people and tbh its my fault im in this situation. my parents drive me crazy because one day theyre evil the next day they're buying me my skincare, my self esteem is shit, and i've just fully become numb. i had let this man do whatever to me bc i wanted to numb the part of me that ever sought out love and well it finally worked. university applications r in the fall. if i get into my dream school will it even matter???
i have friends
why do i crave romantic love this badly
r/ptsd • u/Lunejulliard • 15h ago
I’ve been struggling with ptsd for around 7- 8 years and I go to therapy every week and constantly try to work it but lately I get stuck and cannot be with my partner, it’s been almost three years since we got together and I love him but idk sometimes I cannot love him because I’m scared if literally nothing, and get mad and he has helped me a lot with getting therapy and stuff but I hate myself for not being able to give him a normal relationship
r/ptsd • u/New-Teaching9061 • 19h ago
Nothing changed , same shitty life same everything. I remember when the psychiatrist prescribed it to me he said :, don’t worry you will feel suicidal for the first 2 days and on the third day you are going to love life and wake up like a whole new person. I bought it i really did and i think the only thing that kept me from harming myself or killing myself was that i took benzos alongside and sleeping 16hrs+ a day. I left that body long time ago and I don’t recognise myself anymore. If reaching for help did that i can’t imagine what not reaching would have done because i am so miserable and i can’t talk and i can’t do anything and nobody is aware. I am somewhere else and there’s nothing to do because i fought and i fought and i lost.
r/ptsd • u/k1tty_grace • 5h ago
I’m starting EMDR reprocessing for my PTSD. I’m scared and reluctant to start. I’ve been doing a lot of self reflection on why these feelings are coming up. I didn’t feel this during the first steps of EMDR. I was honestly relieved and hopefully of “feeling better”. My PSTD had infected every part of my life and I feel like my life has been on hold. But not starting feels scary and risky.
At first I think I thought if I got better that was me “forgiving” the person who hurt me. But the more I’ve sat and journaled about these feelings I’m realizing something worse. I don’t forgive myself for what I let happen to me. In a fucked up way, subconsciously this is the consequences/punishment for not getting out sooner.
I know it’s messed up and I wish I didn’t feel like this.
r/ptsd • u/Sodacat27 • 15h ago
Tw: grooming mention
Recently I was online and saw a post regarding grooming and stuff. I dont even remember everything but it was regarding grooming online and basically victim blaming. I know its a dumb online thing and I've been trying to dismiss it but it's been buzzing in my head.
I was groomed online a few years ago. I STILL carry heavy amounts of guilt from that and the shit I've seen/heard combined with my irl experience wich influenced that one. Ive had therapist and medical professionals tell me it wasn't my fault but I cant belive it. And that just confirmed something in me.
I haven't even cried or felt much towards talking about it in a few years and here I am actually tearing up over it. I know I fucked up I'm still trying to make up for it but i genuinely dont know how many times I have to apolgize until it leaves me alone. It just will not go away.
Before anyone tells me to take a break off the internet. Don't worry I planned to change tiktok accounts to start over to fix my algorithm and I'll be staying on my safe platform wich is youtube.
I'll have my twin help a bit (He's not entirely real, but idk). This entire thing is just really bad. Feel free to think of me however you want. I've probably heard worse.
r/ptsd • u/TsarSozott • 18h ago
I am so tired. I can't sleep anymore. I can't confide in my best friend anymore. I've been beating myself. Driving with my eyes closed. Writing poetry doesn't give me any relief or closure anymore. Simply hearing my mother snore, or someone talk about a visit to the doctors sends me into a crying puddle. My therapist encourages me to see the long term benefits of my treatment, but I feel so miserable in the moment I can't even consider being in a better place. I feel so emotionally sick that I want to vomit but I can't. My therapist asked me to think if good things I can do for myself but I can't think of anything. Everything just prolongs the hurt. My meds helped at first but now I'm back to ruminating, running the treadmill of my trauma over and over.
r/ptsd • u/Prestigious_Pear8914 • 22h ago
hello
im 16f and honestly i havent been able to read romance novels in a year
my parents have been emotionally and physically abusive for years tho not as physically abusive after CPS was called when i was 12 and during periods wehre i am super super docile?????? idk its confusing
anyways reading romance novels opens this super big pit in my heart and i want to start crying and idk what it is that i crve. ive been dreaming of protective romantic bf since i was rly little but now it just hurts? esp when i read novels when someone is avenged or protected or just simply loved, ygm. idk
the pit hurts so much i start seeking abusive relationships cuz like the pain cancels out the other pain. eded up in a pseudo-relationship w a 41 year old serial rapist who threatens me by threatening to rape others if i dont comply. my friend thinks im out but im not cuz im in so much misery its just easier to stay and be hurt so i dont dream of being loved
i hope to be loved the way they love in books but i just feel so hopeless :((
r/ptsd • u/WeebTherapist3252 • 1h ago
i have been doing trauma work for several years now on memories of abuse, feelings of rejection, and abandonment from friends and family members. A month ago, I got into an argument with my step dad who I’ve been at odds with (he is a narcissist) and since then I’ve been getting flooded with huge chunks of memories from my childhood that I had completely repressed. Additionally, i get “fragments” or “little pieces” of memories that don’t inherently seem traumatic come back but to my nervous system feel tremendously upsetting and scary for reasons I don’t understand.
I’ve always had nightmares, emotional flashbacks where I felt extremely rage, but my emotional flashbacks have gotten SIGNIFICANTLY worse and are debilitating to where I cannot go to work when it happens and sometimes the morning after I still need time to recover from the exhaustion. I’m really questioning my childhood.
yesterday, I had an emotional flashback and ended up screaming at my spouse for over an hour (this is incredibly abnormal for our relationship). I’m assuming this is PTSD, but why is it worsening, and why am I regaining these terrible memories all of a sudden?
r/ptsd • u/Ill-Resident36 • 1h ago
( might be rambly )
So recently I worked at a place where I realized this guy had been making me do a certain task for a certain view and I don’t think I can walk back into that place without having a panic attack after I realized how much this guy was getting out of training me and making me do tasks and then crying wolf for me to our boss so I couldn’t even talk to him about anything after I got to the point where i genuinely start shaking and wanting to cry when I think of going back and every now and then I start straight up panicking and I’m battling these thoughts of “ I’m overdramatic and this is all my fault “
it feels like this internal dialogue I was training to love me has turned on me and I don’t know what to do. I haven’t felt this much anxiety in a really long time and I have been forced to walk on glass , I have been isolated, I have had all of autonomy stripped from me and I have somehow walked out of all that and said I’m gonna be okay but i regress the moment something new pops up and I have been working so hard on myself and I’m so scared of falling into a deep mania or depression I feel like it’s already happening and I’m so scared I’m tired I feel like no matter how hard I try I can never really catch a break like life never stops torturing me , I feel like something that wasn’t meant to be here. like I’m some universal mistake that was meant to be eradicated.
I meet people and someone they knew for years suddenly becomes evil I saw someone recently say they feel like a good luck charm the moment they come into someone’s lives they have good things happen I feel like I’m straight up just karma and I hate it I don’t care if they were evil and deserve it . why does it have to be me why do I always have to be around when it happens it has happened my whole life and I can’t explain why I mean put me up with the celebrities I’ll fix Hollywood real fast lmao. sorry but no seriously someone can seem good and it’s almost as if my existence makes them angry and they just go ham on me and then it became so obvious to others and I’m just like cool can I stop being involved tho .
And then people sit here and go thank you for that like I helped them , you years worth of friendship or whatever ended because I just existed I feel horrible. what do you mean and not that this recently happened like that but deadass I again dealt with someone who everyone is like oh they seem good and bros starts sexually harassing me and then I have victims guilt and because of whatever karma curse I have I feel horrible but at the same time I’m so angry and sad and I feel so violated in such a way I have no idea like this somehow feels worse I’m so confused and emotional btw I forgot cause I rambled I already have ptsd I just am wondering how this might affect my current condition if it might make it worse or if it might create a whole new world of mental shit to work with
r/ptsd • u/agent-keen • 1h ago
I am 19F from Asia, and I feel like I have spent so long surviving that I no longer know who I would be without trauma.
I grew up in a controlling environment with almost no privacy or freedom. Important educational opportunities were taken away from me because my family would not support me, complete documents, or allow me to pursue them. I now feel trapped in a university and life I never properly chose while watching everyone else move forward.
I also experienced sexual trauma during childhood. My memories and feelings about it are complicated. I remember physical pleasure, curiosity, and sometimes returning, which makes me question whether I am allowed to call it abuse.
Intellectually, I understand that a child’s physical response does not equal informed consent. Emotionally, I still accuse myself of exaggerating everything so I can avoid accepting responsibility for how my life turned out.
My mind is constantly busy. I replay old situations, imagine different lives, analyse people, predict rejection, rehearse arguments, and create entire future disasters from one small event.
A friend moving away becomes proof that I will be abandoned.
One academic failure becomes proof that I have destroyed my future.
Weight gain becomes proof that I am ugly, unhealthy, and unlovable.
A relationship problem becomes proof that the entire relationship was fake.
I do not know whether this is anxiety, PTSD, shame, or simply the way I have trained myself to think.
I also have a darker side that I do not want people to romanticise.
Sometimes I manipulate people.
I have acted more distressed than I actually was so someone would comfort me instead of holding me accountable. I have used silence, emotional intensity, cruelty, or threats of leaving to control a relationship.
I become attached to emotionally struggling people because helping them makes me feel powerful and necessary. I like believing that I can improve them, change their thinking, repair their confidence, or become the most important person in their life.
Then I become resentful when they do not change enough.
I start feeling superior.
I emotionally detach and imagine leaving before they can leave me.
I keep track of every gift, bill, favour, sacrifice, and piece of advice. Relationships begin to feel like a private accounting system where I calculate who benefited more and who deserves to feel guilty.
I sometimes call myself “dark,” but I think that word is partly an excuse. It sounds more interesting than saying I am deeply afraid of rejection, powerlessness, accountability, and being fully known.
If I describe myself as a calculated villain, I do not have to admit that I am frightened and insecure.
I also struggle with identity. Around different people, I become different versions of myself. I can be caring, ambitious, strategic, sexual, helpless, cold, arrogant, or extremely self-aware.
Each version feels real while I am inside it.
Later, I look back and feel like I was performing.
I do not know whether I genuinely love people or love being needed by them. I do not know whether my self-awareness is real growth or another performance that lets me sound intelligent without actually changing.
I can explain my patterns beautifully. I can identify the exact reason behind my behaviour. Then I repeat it anyway.
That is what scares me most.
I am not looking for a diagnosis from strangers, and I do not need to be told that trauma automatically makes me innocent. I know that being hurt does not give me permission to hurt other people.
I want to understand:
How do you separate trauma responses from your actual personality?
Can PTSD or complex trauma cause this level of identity confusion, control, shame, emotional detachment, and obsessive self-analysis?
How do you stop using self-awareness as another way to punish yourself?
How do you take responsibility without deciding that you are permanently damaged or evil?
And how do you learn to form relationships without needing to rescue, control, impress, or transform the other person?
Please be honest. I do not need reassurance for the sake of reassurance, but I also do not want my worst behaviour treated as my entire identity.
r/ptsd • u/Next-Consequence8972 • 15h ago
14M has ptsd and depression Sometimes post on r/depression just Sopourt me in any way Im Really Depressed rn3
r/ptsd • u/tHeWiLsOnDoN • 21h ago
I have become acquainted with survival
the way old men become acquainted with silence.
Not because I chose it.
Because it chose me.
There was a time
when every room had to be measured,
every voice interpreted,
every face read
before I could decide
whether I belonged.
Children should not have to learn
that kind of mathematics.
But some of us do.
So I learned to disappear
without ever leaving.
I learned to smile
without resting.
To achieve
without arriving.
To love
while wondering
why I never quite felt worthy
of being loved back.
Years passed.
I became the man
everyone said I would become.
Dependable.
Successful.
Respected.
A husband.
A father.
Yet every accomplishment
felt like another photograph
of someone I couldn’t quite remember being
People congratulated the life I’d built.
Only I knew
how much of it
had been built by a frightened little boy
trying to make sure
no one could ever call him
worthless again.
Survival is a remarkable craftsman.
It can build careers.
It can build families.
It can build reputations.
It can even build faith.
But it cannot teach a man
how to rest.
It cannot teach him
that love does not have to be earned.
It cannot convince him
that he belongs
before he performs.
So he keeps climbing.
Not because he wants the mountain.
Because somewhere inside him
a child still believes
the view from the top
might finally feel like home.
But every summit
is strangely quiet.
Every victory
echoes.
Every dream fulfilled
asks the same question:
“Is this all there is?”
No.
It isn’t.
The tragedy
was never that I suffered.
The tragedy
was believing
that suffering
was the only way
I knew how to exist.
And yet…
Somewhere beneath the fear…
beneath the striving…
beneath the endless becoming…
there is still a soul
that remembers
it was not created
to survive.
It was created
to be fully alive.
So now my prayer
is no longer
to become someone else.
It is simply this:
To remain present
long enough
to meet the man
I have been
my whole life
waiting to become.
r/ptsd • u/x3arisaaa • 23h ago
so recently i have some kind of trauma idk like 2 months ago i THINK i got bitten by something maybe, maybe not.. and have been getting weird symptoms around me started with rashes> muscles twitching. stinging sensations around the whole body. went for a bloodtest everything is ok.. but i feel restless and cant concentrate, feels like my brain turned slower cant rmb some words etc... the sensations are still there just lesser .. however im worried something is happening inside my brain. i get like 1 second of intense ''awareness''. if it make sense...