It's a combination of CBT and talking books. I can't move because the mental pain is sometimes constant and unbearable, but having to follow a story, a life, facts, can keep things damped down. This condition does NOT get better as you age. We die, we take our own lives, we give up on there being any help, so we don't show any more. But we are still here and still going through this every single day. This has - merciful God - only happened once, but once makes me dread 'again'. My friend was here, she's a nurse, and we were tslking, but suddenly, l wasn't. I couldn't speak at all. I wasn't having a stroke, l simply couldn't speak. I could shake my head or nod, but no more. I couldn't write either. Interestingly, l could type. It was quite terrifying. Lucky it happeened at home. If it had happened outside? Phew! But it stayed with me for days. I could read, so l read. But l couldn't call for help. A scan revealed that no, l hadn't had a stroke. But something had happened. A harmless message from my brother's wife asking how l was, as she knows of my condition. Blameless and never caused me harm. The only thing therapist and GP thought was that my trauma was so bad that even such a tenuous contact drove me into - what happened. I have no contact at all now.
It is agonising pain. There is no treatment. At 66 l've been through an alphabet soup of medication, and all the additional agony of tapering off the worst ones. In my experience, love is the only treatment. Care. Kindness. That's the treatment.
Oh, yes, people fall to heroin, alcohol, all manner of drugs, but the best treatment is to know that someone really cares about you, and like everything else, even that's touch and go.