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How can I defeat my anxiety about medical tests and surgery?
Just Want to Talk | Last Active: Nov 20, 2023 | Replies (35)Comment receiving replies
@mguspixi25 You have quite a list of events that certainly cause fear, and having PTSD is a record of that. There are therapists who treat PTSD as there is a fear memory that it is linked with. Have you sought help for this?
It is possible to treat PTSD, and a friend of mine works with military combat veterans on their PTSD because of combat. He does this through music therapy, and working with counselors, and then songwriters who sit down with the veteran and write a song together about their life. It retrains the brain. PTSD kind of rewires the brain to be reactive. By doing all of this, these soldiers finally feel that they have been heard by people who understand, and then they can process the feelings and begin reinventing themselves by learning to play guitar. They are given a new guitar when they start this therapy which they will keep after they complete the workshops.
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That’s nice of your friend to help veterans 🌺
There’s no such thing in Au, and women with non-combat PTSD are stigmatised significantly. I’ve not been able to obtain help over the last 40 years that I’ve been trying to get help here. The usual response is “stop; I cannot hear any more - it’s too traumatic and I do not want to know” = end of therapist involvement.
So, I keep it to myself, and know these events stop with me, going no further.
I tried music, but part of what I’ve been through contained types of music played for days, so I tend to always avoid that when I hear anything similar because it feels like I’m back there. But I don’t feel fear - I wasn’t that frightened by the ‘trauma’ - it’s just the inevitability that there’s absolutely nothing you can do for yourself or the little people around you. And that is what is somewhat bothersome.
Anyway, while I live in Au, I know I’ll never have anyone brave enough to unpack the stuff I’ve experienced simply based on the multiple therapist walk-outs after the first 5-10mins of starting with the ‘light’ stuff.
When I was in England I happened to be staying in a housing location where injured special ops troops were staying after injury of trauma ended their career and they were transitioning back into the community (they had various interventions there). I was invited to sit in and listen to their group sessions about how their missions impacted them, and there was some of what they talked about that I related to. However as an outsider, I never spoke - I was there because the lads were being polite and respectful not to appear like they were ignoring ‘that odd young truck driver who was renting a room every now and again’. In fact, I was actually working many interesting jobs while trying to locate my living relatives..but that’s another story 🙂