Started a new Book on Trauma and I'm shook...

[FirstLight]

Very good friend on a similar journey of healing turned me on to
"The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma"by Sean Pratt

It goes really deep into the trauma response physically and neurologically and I'm on Chapter 4 so far...

I'm driving on the freeway listening and got hit hard by realizations, triggers, and wounds I didnt even realize I had been acting o0ut of for 20-30 years...
And the guilt and shame of subjecting my kids to those outbursts from unresolved issues...dammitt.

Hopefully healinig myself now can have a trickle down effect of some kind. I have cut the kids off for at least 6 months so hopefully we can come back and have a different relationship.
I'm 9 months sober and this is huge work of healing abuse from their dad and abandonment over and over and my dad's and mom's stuff that I bburied too...and after they just passed in the last 2 years even more grief has been uncovered...

So tonight I'm still on the road, in a hotel and staying put for the next couple days, good cuz I need to sit by the pool and process all this!
I start a new therapist on Monday to dig deep.

[brewens]

1. Good luck. I've had depression problems and am on Celexa which works well for me. I'm cut off on the alcohol

because of it. I wasn't drinking very often anyway in recent years. My thing was "alcoholic for a week" three or four times a year. That's what I called it.

I'd get the urge and get drunk three or four times in a week or ten days. About then a hangover would be bad enough that I'd be cured again. It didn't seem like much harm.

They also prescribe Celexa for alcoholism. That's not why I'm on it but I'm way, way past my usual urge to drink thing and that must be why.

[FirstLight]

2. pretty sure I started drinking more when I left my ex in 2005

and then it really escalated as the kids hit the teen years and I had more health issues. (duh, and alcohol was not helping!)

The last 5 years were really the worst. I was a "functional"alcoholic...i hid it well for the most part but waiting till 5 every day to get drunk for the evening wasn't good.

So yeah, drunk me wasn't very present, and sober me is now seeing what 20 years of buried emotional trauma feels like

[Mister Ed]

3. I'm reading that book too.

It was recommended to me by a guy I know who's a combat veteran with PTSD. He says it's the must-read book on the topic.

[multigraincracker]

4. For me, my addiction was self medicating.

Had a great psychiatrist that pointed out my ADHD and PTSD. That explained everything. Never hungered for a drug or took any for 34 years once I learned what was going on. A few years later I got off of antidepressants after I developed tremors from them. Now it’s exercise and a healthy diet.