Traumatic Events

[cw1000]

I hope this thread is in the appropriate place, the title is broad but I'm hoping others can relate to my situation and provide some support.

To make a long story short, I have been clean for about 6 months now after doing a 4 month rehab program, and things have been going pretty well in my life I guess you could say. Well my friend that I met in the rehab decided to quit his job and needed a place to stay for a bit while he prepares to move back home where his family is (he had come to the rehab from out of state and was working there).

So the other night we invited a couple friends we had met in the program as well that live in the area. Unfortunately, one of them had relapsed hard and brought a variety of drugs to my place. The friend that is staying with me decided to shoot some heroin...for the first time in 12 months. I wasn't paying attention to much then I look up and his face is blue, eyes closed, not responding. I will cut out the crazy details, but basically he overdosed by a LOT, and the paramedics told me I saved his life.

At first, I was just glad he lived and I was a bit proud that I was able to to something like that in a moment of panic due to the fact I was sober, but then reality set in. I used to see a doc for bad anxiety issues but have been off all meds for over 6 months. Watching my friend almost die and having to deal with all of the drama that night is overload for me. For some people I'm sure they have been through this with friends but this is the first time anything like it has happened to me and to be honest it scared the living shit out of me. I have horrible anxiety over the situation and it has been replaying in my mind for the past several days. When I lay in bed at night the memory replays of me noticing my friend looking dead in his chair and the events that followed that night.

I have horrible flashbacks and it is just haunting me. Have any of you ever gone through something like this? (Obviously I could imagine anyone who grieves a loss of a loved one to have these feelings, but I'm gearing more towards those of you that have had to witness/be part of an OD like this). It is tearing me apart and I need a way to deal with this without having to see a doctor, because I fear that I would just get hooked on a benzo and make things worse.

Thanks ahead of time to those that read and respond, I appreciate it.

 

[badfish45]

Sounds like you've been through a lot lately. This was very traumatic, but think of how it could have ended if you HADN'T noticed. Maybe that itself counts for something, consider how lucky your friend is. If you go to a doctor, you wouldn't necessarily be prescribed, just tell him you aren't interested in taking benzos or anything else of the sort. He could probably suggest some alternatives, and if anything at least go see a counselor. You shouldn't have to suffer through this, you don't deserve it.

 

[Dave]

I would really recommend seeing a psychologist rather than a GP or psychiatrist. The latter two tend to treat more with pills than anything else, and while that may be effective in many cases, I don't know that it would be effective in yours. The former, however, will have a whole stable of non-pharmaceutical tools available to their disposal to help you out. From my experience, a treatment called EMDR works very well for working past traumatic events, especially when coupled with general talk therapy for the day-to day stuff, and CBT as a great life skill for anyone to have.

I don't know where you're located, but a quick Google search should help you find a licensed practitioner near you. Look into what's available through your recovery program as well, as they may have options for you as well.

If you're curious about EMDR, please don't hesitate to drop me a line via PM.

 

[herbavore]

OP, I can definitely relate. I have had two traumatic experiences, one many years ago and one recently that have caused me to have intense and terrifying flashbacks. What I finally did years ago was just to stop trying to make the image go away. Instead, I let the whole horror movie play out over and over again until it literally lost its power over me. I think that because this experience (the flashback) is so overwhelming both physically and mentally, our obvious response is to run from it. I finally got to the point of actually inviting it--sort of like turning to face an attacker. It did work back then and I am trying to go through a similar process now.

In addition, I am looking into what Dave has suggested above and have had one session of hypnotherapy that was powerful at the time so I am hopeful that it will help in the long run. Good luck

 

[swmo]

Trauma? I know about trauma! I know about drama, too. Life's full of them. If you believe that God doesn't give you more than together you can't deal with, you've already won.

 

[cw1000]

Thanks for the advice guys. I will have to look into that EMDR it sounds interesting.

 

[footscrazy]

The best way I'd found to deal with memories, events, things, whatever - that hold an intense amount of anxiety, is by disassociating them with anxiety. This is actually easier than it sounds. If you've never meditated before, start now After 20 minutes of meditation, when your breathing is slow and you're feeling relaxed, bring in the traumatic thought. The first few times, you're likely to get anxious as fuck - that's normal. When you get anxious, stop the exercise and go on about your day as usual. Do this every day for as long as it takes for your brain to start associating the thought not with anxiety, but with calmness.

Extremely emotional events are always more salient in our memory that other ones. Think about driving to work and seeing a horrible car crash - you're going to remember this drive to work, but none of the usual, boring run of the mill drives to work. It's because of the emotional impact of seeing something terrible like that. It becomes like a short circuit in your brain where the memory and the feeling are so tightly linked you can't have one without the other, and your brain places a lot of importance on emotional intensity, so it'll keep reminding you of it. The meditation trick I explained above is a really useful way to break that link. It has worked wonders for me in the past, for really deep set and life altering anxieties I held for years.

 

[PendulumAM]

I just got off of opiates a few months ago and have had my anxiety get worse, too (although most of my stress was/is from legal crap I'm facing caused by my addiction). I've been seeing a therapist and one of the things he told me was, when you get really anxious about something, just think: what is the worst possible future outcome from this situation? And will that really be an end-all to your life? I also tend to dwell a lot on stupid or reckless things I've done on the past, and he said, "what is worrying about that going to do for you? what will happen if you try not thinking about it for a while?" just a little bit of help, and just remember that it is only thoughts in your head and you are a stronger person for going through what you did.

 

[Syrax]

A lot of good suggestions already in this thread. I would just add that, since it seems like this happened recently, you should plan to deal with those flashbacks etc for at least a short period of time. It's unrealistic to go through something so insane like that and be able to snap back to normal in a short period of time. Even more so if you're especially sensitive to anxiety provoking situations. For me personally, even experiencing some basic day-to-day anxieties end up running through my head over and over. Like maybe you said something you shouldn't have during the day or whatever and the situation plays over and over in your head. But by the next day you're over it. And since what happened to you is a million times more anxiety provoking it's going to fuck you up. It would really fuck me up.

All I'm saying is that if this just happened recently, to give it some time and your mind may adjust to it to some degree. And if it's still bothering you after some time you can deal with, perhaps more easily since you'll be farther away from the experience. And for your sake, I really hope you get as fucking far away from the drama associated with those people you met in rehab as you can. I mean I definitely hope that your friend is okay. But after something like that you really have to keep your exposure to stress to a minimum. The way you're body is reacting seems completely normal. My advice would be to sit with it for a period of time and see how your body adjusts and then visit a psychologist (not psychiatrist) perhaps if it's still an issue. Getting benzos for this is likely a terrible idea. Even though it's more painful to not use benzos, it'll be better for you in the long run. BTW it fucking sucks that this happened to you and triggered such anxiety. I mean it's a really awful event. But you have to be very much relieved that he survived, not just for his sake though. I mean, if someone were to OD, die and you were in the area and for some reason you weren't able to help him... I bet your mental state would be many many times more awful. Things could've been so much worse for him, obviously, but also for you. You could be dealing with the trauma of having someone OD and die in your presence.

Anyways, give your mind at least some period of time to adjust to this event. Bouncing back immediately when you're particularly sensitive to anxiety just seems really unrealistic. When people experience things like that it takes time to get over, there's really no way around it. Maybe if you're some psycho with no fear response, or you take a bunch of pills. But anyone else is going to be dramatically affected by such an event. And will need time to get over it.