Hi, OP, I don't have an answer but just expressing sympathy. After a sexual assault in college, I had about a 6-month period when I could barely think because my mind constantly reverted to playing the same movie again and again. I just wanted it to stop. It was consuming. For me, it took time and talk therapy. In that initial phase, all I could do was try to find distractions. After that, things calmed down enough for me to think and actually start to move on. |
Exactly. These meds really can’t guarantee anything. That’s why they’re experimental. |
I know this sounds strange, but acupuncture, specifically for anxiety, reduced my nighttime rumination (and it can be strangely only at night and for hours). |
There have never been guarantees with any medicine every made. I don't know which medications you're calling 'experimental' but there are some excellent anti-anxiety/anti-depressants that have been around for a very long time, are very well studied and available as generics so they're fairly inexpensive if you have insurance. Prozac - 1987 Zoloft - 1991 Lexapro - 2002 |
Not OP. But thanks for this suggestion. |
PTSD absolutely is a mental illness. It may arise from a trauma response to the level of mental illness when the symptoms become clinically significant. It's right there in the DSM-5 which, in case you don't know, stands for The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition and is published by the American Psychiatric Association. When submitting insurance claims for PTSD treatment, the DSM-5 code for PTSD must be included. Those who can manage their PTSD without medication are lucky. It's unfortunate there's such a stigma regarding it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519704/table/ch3.t14/ |
Grounding techniques help me. I ask myself the following, to help bring me back to the present:
Where am I? Am I in a safe place? What do I see? What do I hear? What can I smell? What do I feel (physically)? This helps a lot to break me out of spiraling ruminating thoughts. I suffer from anxiety. |
Guided meditation helps me a lot, along with Zoloft. |