How PTSD Affects The Brain

You are so very right and spot on... It seems that it can damage a person for life.

My friend, don't lose because The Lindner Center of Hope in Cinti, oh is One The Nations Behavioral Hospitals. I had nearly 100 percent of your diagnosis, except the sexual abuse. Go to the website and review the entire website at least three times that you understand to the degree of comprehensive care they give of which the first step is getting properly diagnosed because I suspect that you haven't been diagnosed correctly because some of your symptoms and diagnoses are complex they're multi-factorial and therapists unless you're out in the east it is rare that somebody in the midwest except for lender can I identify these problems thus present treatable Solutions. Then they have some of the world's best specialist including Dr Peck who is more published than virtually anyone in the world with regard to bipolarity disorders look him up moreover there are very few Healthcare institutions that effectively treat obsessive compulsive personality disorder not obsessive compulsive disorder where you want to align your Soup cans outward by subject matter ocpd is when you have the perfectionist syndrome where you have to be at 10 and everything you do to the point where you become paralyzed analysis paralysis and get into the circle of becoming frustrated fatigued depressed you lose interest in everything else is sleep it's a horrible horrible thing to have Leonard uses Innovative therapies like rapid open DBT therapy not your standard DBT or CBT therapy rodbt is for those where meds nor CBT or DBT have worked effectively and believe it or not within 6 months the outcome results show upwards of 60 to 80% Improvement I'll take 10 all day long also along with those CD I have bipolarity matters both of which in addition to depression date back to the 1870s believe it or not the lender Center of Hope Has Affiliates around the world including the Mayo Clinic Johns Hopkins Harvard McLaren which is the best or one of the best in America for mental health care treatment and others I was allowed to participate in a bipolarity study for Mayo Clinic and when you're affiliated with the types of organizations like mayo or others around the world that's how good you are and obviously the PTSD that you're describing right now I am at def com one level to where it is severe I'm having panic attacks all the time I can't breathe my anxiety level severity is borderline severe it PTSD screws with your cognitive and memory functions affects your hippocampus your frontal lobe your parietal lobe all involved in cognitive thinking and emotions look at the dissection of a brain and what each does the parietal lobe gets involved with things like your ability to do math your ability to write your frontal lobe has everything to do with memory and personality concentration and your hippocampus some of that as well and if you drink or do drugs it makes it even more complex but again if you take the time to invest look at the website University of Illinois Chicago Rush Memorial Hospital the Cleveland Clinic if you're out east Johns Hopkins McLane and some in New York City but I would certainly recommend Ro DBT as part of your requirements list it was developed by Dr Marsh from the UK 20 years ago and that's where the experts from the United States look to curing many of these disorders we have good luck and I know you can do it my optimism a year ago was level 2 of 10 now it's an eight because I have a plan I found the right people to do it whereas most and I mean 98% of the sufferers just go to some online program or the mental health facilities out there that ain't going to work

As a child and an adult I suffered extreme traumas. Everything you describe points to me suggesting that you look into C P T S D or complex post traumatic stress disorder. I commend you for doing the work you are doing as with time you will benefit from it. I hope that you can get counseling and any treatment available to help you on your path.

Wow, sounds like a tough childhood. Let me say I'm very sorry you had to experience any of that. Being young doesn't mean you can't have trauma. Continue to address it. Good luck and God bless.

I am ancient and was secually assaulted three years ago. Fortunately, I have a background in education and I love learning brain information. The big thing I learned is that you can retrain your brain. Just like parents train a child and shape their behavior, you can do the same with your brain. I would wake up panicking at every little noise. But I would talk out loud to my brain. "Good brain. You are alert and protecting me. However it is just the cat (or the neighbor gardening at midnight or the house making a house noise...) Go back to sleep. All is well." I did that enough times, that I kind of woke up one night because the cats were making noise, and caught myself automatically thinking, "Go back to sleep. It is just the cats." I wish you well. As you heal, you will find out that you will be able to recognize and help people who have had similar experiences. No child should ever have to go through what you went through, but much good can come from what was meant for evil.

Try EMDR. Look it up on you tube. Helped me alot!! Reconnects the brain.

medicine is not always the answer...i have nightmares of screws,nails...any projectile you can imagine being rained down on me after significant other was paralyzed on the job... this is what i call work related stress...one of the first things i learned was that most people go into shock, when for e is was fight or flight..taking the ton of oak boards off of her..but doing the right thing set me deeper into doing wrong things

Stay Strong Sir there’s always hope.

https://med.nyu.edu/departments-institutes/population-health/divisions-s...

Please find EMDR therapy- it is with eye movements and reprocessing the experince in the brain

Hello Jerry. I came across your question and, despite the time that has lapsed since you first posted it, I would like to offer my response in hopes that it is helpful in some way. I was diagnosed with PTSD back in 2006 after returning from my second Army deployment to the Middle East as a combat medic (Bagram in 2002 and Mosul in 2004). I struggled with PTSD for many years before I knew or accepted I have it, but it got through eventually. Accepting that you have it is the first step, but even more important is understanding that it is normal and there is nothing "wrong with you". Experiencing trauma comes in many forms and impact each person differently. The first thing that really helped was accepting it and learning to discuss my thoughts and feelings so that they don't get buried and smothered by "what-if" scenarios. Sometimes (most times) the fear and perceptions in my head are 1000% worse than what they are in real life and person-to-person conversations about our feelings are the only way to understand that. My healing accelerated significantly when I took on a hobby (leather craft) and spent time focusing my mind and hands on constructive and creative activities that gave me peace and joy. During this time, I found that my brain was able to relax and process thoughts and feelings on more of a subconscious level. Over time, this helped me accept and resolve a lot of bottled-up emotions about many events (going back to early childhood).
Eventually, I came to understand that I was disassociating from my life and the world by hiding in "fantasy land" and I had lost perspective of my place in "the moment" or the here-and-now. I had to force myself to remain aware of the moment and not drift off to fantasy land by verbally narrating my daily activities to myself. eventually I could do the narration in my head, but the verbal narration kept me focused on the tasks I was performing and kept my mind from drifting. After a while I became more aware of the moments so that, when I came to a decision-making point, I could think back to the moments that lead to it, and was able to make decisions based on a thorough assessment of preceding events, and eliminate chance as much as possible. this resulted in more effective decisions and outcomes and (virtually) eliminated the unfavorable or inconvenient outcomes. This built my confidence and helped me make short-term and long-term goals with less fear of failure and more assurance that I could not just survive on my own but thrive.
I would not say there is ever going to be a cure. It's more like developing a better strategy for managing stress responses by developing a mindfulness and awareness using good coping mechanisms. You will have to deal with this for the rest of your life but, as far as I have seen in my own life, the more you manage it effectively, the faster it becomes an automated process like breathing and blinking. I have been managing my own PTSD for the better part of 17 years now and am feeling stronger and more capable every day. I have lapses and I had to learn to accept them as normal as well. I had to learn to forgive myself for my fallibility and weakness and keep moving forward knowing that my intentions are good and so is my effort. That has to be enough. Anymore expectation than that is a recipe for disappointment.
I am sorry you had to wait a year for a response to your questions, but I hope this offers you some hope and perspective. Sometimes that is all we need. Take care and best wishes in your journey.

I am not in the military or have been, but this explained brain injury and PTSD so well and I've endured enough trauma for two lifetimes. My trauma and neglect started at age 4 after my mother died and my dad married a foreign woman by catalog and left us with her in her country. She was nuts and she only hurt me and not my brother. I faced the price of taking my childhood trauma with added abusive relationships the rest of my adult life, then when I thought I was in the clear I spent 13 years locked away from society and suffered psychological abuse by my past husband. For 20 years I was in therapy, had a psychologist for a while, and now am being seen by a renowned psychiatrist. I tried many treatments for PTSD and was hospitalized 7 times for it and have been in outpatient treatment on and off since 2011. I have been on a med I receive as an injection; Invega and finally something that helps, I'm also on the highest dose of Lamotrigine and Lithium, and Adderall to keep me focused on the here and now. I tried EMDR and I got worse, DBT and even though the skills helped after I finished a 2-year stint (once a week), I would relapse. But now my toughest symptom is memory loss for recent things. I do things that either I or someone else notices of which I have no memory of doing or I forget things that don't seem as difficult for others. I started doing some things on my own to treat myself and that is filling my mind with positive memories as a child and young adult, the rest is so horrible there are no finding positive thoughts. As a child, I'll remember laying on a grassy slope watching the clouds and believing my mom is in them, stuff like that. I have very little memory of abuses but do have the emotions and physical scarring. Since therapy, I have bodily aches and pains when I have a repressed trigger with the worst being tremors/shakes. The rage is gone and I'm calmer. I still don't experience true laughter but do giggle on occasion. So, my best reason for settling down is Invega, I really believe this, although I can't help thinking when will the side effects hit? Then I may have to go off of it, or how long will my ins. cover it? It cost more than $1900.00 for each injection once a month! I hope you find the avenues that will work for you before you're much older like me I'm 65.