Answered questions(7)
Emotional change after an accident
My boyfriend and I were in a terrible car accident a couple of weeks ago. I was not badly injured but Tony was. He was driving a vintage VW bug and we got hit hard by a truck running a red light and his leg was crushed and trapped in the frame and there was a lot of blood all over his head and he was in such a lot of pain. They had to use the jaws of life to get him out and I thought for sure he was going to die. He is going to be OK and will probably even walk normally again in time, but I am now left to care for him during his recovery. We have been living together for years and I love him so we are basically married and so taking care of him should be no big deal. But now I find that I am just so irritated by everything he does and I just feel no love for him anymore. I know this is terrible, because he is doing nothing wrong and is actually a very considerate patient. I try to hide how I am feeling but he can see it in my eyes so I am not doing a very god job of it. Why am I feeling like this? I feel like I am such a terrible person, after all, I got out with scratches and bruises and he is so badly injured and now I’m so testy with him all the time. Is the way I am feeling going to go away?
Read answer →Improving concentration after PTSD treatment
I am an Afghan war vet with PTSD who has gone through some exposure therapy and CBT. I have found the therapy to be very helpful and my symptoms are pretty under control. However, I am studying for an economics degree now and I find that my concentration levels are not always up to the task at hand. They are noticeably worse than they were pre PTSD. Is there anything I can do to improve my ability to concentrate? I do not find the course work here all that difficult…that is when I am able to pay attention for sustained periods to what I am doing!
Read answer →Life changes after a near death experience
I was in a bad car accident a couple of months ago and I am still recovering physically from my injuries. At one point, in the early days, my sister told me that the doctors weren’t sure that I would live. I’ve been thinking a lot about my life since I’ve been laid up in bed and I am worried that I am wasting it. I am already middle aged and I have yet to live any of my dreams. My life has become a terrible suburban boring cliché. Once I am physically able I want to pull the kids from school( aged 9 and 11) get rid of the house and the life-sucking mortgage and see the world as a family for as long as the money will last. I feel like my eyes have been opened and the world is there for the taking and I am more excited about his than I have been about anything for a long time. My wife, however, is not so sure my suggestion is the best thing to do and she is more in favor of baby steps. She says my whole plan is just a reaction to the trauma I’ve experienced – and she’s right! But I don’t see this as a bad thing and I feel like if we don’t really go for it whole-hog we’ll just get dragged back into our everyday life and responsibilities and we’ll miss this window of opportunity to do something great for once in our adult lives. Anyway, this is obviously something for us to sort through as a couple, but what I would like your expertise on is, in your experience, are the life changes people make after a near-death experience usually a mistake, or more normally a case of people finally seizing life by the throat and living it as it should be lived!?
Read answer →Should I Forgive My Dying Mother?
I grew up in a very sick family home. Both my mother and father were very emotionally and physically abusive. I don’t want to get into the details about what they did but it was pretty bad and I have the scars and broken bone pains still to remind me of what they did. I left home at 17 and I’ve never been back, even though they only live a couple of hours away. I am 25 now. I have maintained civil relationships with my extended family and will get together with my aunts sometimes for meals. They know that things were really bad for me but it’s like that with time they are all sort of forgetting the bad and trying to push for reconciliation. My mother has cancer now and I guess she has been moaning about missing me and they are all trying to make her dying wishes come true. She told me so many times that she wished I had never been born as she beat me that it is hard for me to get my head around her wanting to resume a relationship with me now. I have no interest in doing so and I would be happy if I never had to think about these people again for the rest of my life because every time I get sucked into thinking or talking about them I just get so consumed with rage and shame and a bunch of black and red feelings that are hard to explain… But now that everyone is trying to get me to go back home to see them again why am I all of a sudden the bad person here when I won’t go? Why is that every time someone asks me to forgive my parents for the past and move forward I almost lose my mind with anger and frustration? Why do I have to start crying and pull out humiliating examples from the past before they’ll back off and accept that I am serious about not wanting to go back home? They made my life hell for 17 years and I won’t let them do it anymore. Why can’t people accept this? Am I really being SELFISH for never wanting to see them again?
Read answer →Too scared for therapy, and sinking in drinking.
I was sexually molested as a child. I have never told anyone about it in real life. Not even my parents know about what happened. I don’t know how to talk about what happened. Now I am 24 and I have real problems with depression and anxiety and drinking. My doctor is recommending antidepressants but I feel like if the way I am feeling now is all caused by the shit I went through as a kid how is taking a pill everyday going to make that all disappear? I feel like if I could get rid of some of the rage and shame I have I wouldn’t need to drink to pass out every night and I wouldn’t feel so scared to fucking talk to another person that I don’t know. How do I get free from this so I won’t need drugs just to feel OK?
Read answer →Can "Ecstacy" help trauma victims?
What do you think about the practice of using MDMA therapeutically for PTSD? I am in Toronto and they are doing a lot of experiments with it here.
Read answer →How can a severely traumatized child recover?
How likely is it that a child with complex PTSD from some really bad traumatic abuse for the first 7 years of his life can make a full recovery (to about 90%) or so by the time he is an adult? This is regarding a fostering and adoption scenario and regarding making reasonable expectations. It wont’ change that we love him and will raise him anyway.
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