When you have flashbacks, the last thing you want to do is to trust your feelings. Because you KNOW, you KNOW for a fact nobody else feels this way, and you "KNOW" that what you are feeling is "wrong." It's too much, too over the top, and you judge yourself, and you make fun of yourself, and you berate yourself for feeling SO MUCH. You push HARD to just get through the feelings, and to push them behind, down, out, somewhere, anywhere, and you just try to make them go away.
Because something bad just happened now in the present, and you have got to deal with it. And yet? You are feeling so much terror, and pain, and humiliation, and anger, impotent anger in my case, that you are emotionally hijacked, and there is NO CONTROL. So you fight! You fight HARD! Against what you are feeling and you tell yourself you are wrong to feel this way. You tell yourself that you are weak, and just like they say, just too sensitive. And you DON'T trust your feelings. You rebel against them, and you feel so ashamed of yourself for being so freaking weak, AGAIN. And you try to find your brain, and you try to STOP feeling, and start thinking again. But you can't find your brain, it's been hijacked too.
But it's wrong, it's the wrong thing to do to fight it and argue with it. Instead, if you for once, just once, accept it and say: Okay, if I feel this way? Then there is a reason. Just saying that one thing, just that one thing, and giving yourself permission to feel what you feel, for once, however awful and bad it is. So you just say to yourself, "It's okay, I am giving me permission for once to actually feel as bad as I actually do."
Well then? That is: The turning point. From that day forward you start feeling again, and you start regaining a relationship with your own feelings.
And from that point on as you build a relationship with yourself, and allow yourself to feel your own feelings, and instead of fighting them, and trying to squash them or bury them or just get rid of them, and instead you fight back and say NO! If I FEEL this way, there must be a reason? From that day forward you start becoming your own friend and champion. And you slowly learn to trust your own feelings instead of stuffing them when they are painful, awful and paralyzing. You keep saying to yourself, like a whispered prayer, there's got to be a reason, there's got to be a reason.
And there is, there really is a reason you feel this way. You're not too freaking sensitive, you're not a basket case, and you're not a crazy person. Your feelings are SCREAMING for you to LISTEN. And the only way they could get through to you after all of the awful years of stuffing? Is CPTSD.
Your manifestation of CPTSD is caused from forced feeling stuffing and trying to make yourself numb and into a robot who feels nothing and it doesn't work. They are still there. They've never been let out of their cage, and the more you stuff them, the bigger the manifestation of CPTSD.
But it's not your fault. You don't know anything else! This is the way you were brought up. Your feelings were NOT allowed! Ever! And so you were forced to get rid of them. And now there is a hole inside of you where your own feelings are supposed to be. But it gets worse, it's much worse than that. Not only were you not allowed to have your own feelings, you were TRAINED, TAUGHT, and FORCED to allow their feelings, your parent's feelings inside of yourself, and to allow their feelings to take precedence over your own. You were forced to allow their feelings inside of you, and to tell you what to feel. You were not allowed to feel on your own. Ever.
And now you know, now you see it, and you know it's wrong. And now you know. You have re-train yourself except hahahaha! It's not even re-training, it's learning from scratch blindly through trial and error, because you've never even known, or allowed, or been allowed to have your own feelings!
All your life, you have had your mind, which is a pretty useless piece of equipment without feelings. Sometimes you had your body when you weren't depersonalized or derealized. And that's all you had. And the rest of the gap? The feeling gap? You filled it in with other's feelings. And worst of all? You gravitated towards people who would treat you in a familiar way. Disordered people. People like your family.
It's very HARD to train our brain. Very, very hard. If you train your brain to pay attention to your own feelings will you never have another flashback? I don't know. But you will choose life. You will allow the third part of yourself to have a seat at the table of life, as it deserved all along.
These days I see myself as Three. Mind, body and spirit. And my spirit is where my feelings live. And to deny my spirit is to deny a whole part of me. All three are needed for my life. To deny one part leaves a hole. And when I left that hole? When I denied my own feelings? And tried to use logic alone? I still needed that hole filled. So I filled it in with other's thoughts, feelings and beliefs. Because it was all I knew! It is what I was forced to do! I allowed others inside of me to help run my life. And it was the worst betrayal I have ever experienced. Worse than any betrayal by a lover or a friend or a loved one. To turn my back on myself and to ALLOW, yes, ALLOW others who were not me to have a seat at the table of my life was the worst thing I have ever done to myself.
But I was trained to do so as a child. I was trained that this was the right thing to do. That I had no right to boundaries or to my own feelings, and that I MUST allow others feelings to take precedence over mine. And I was trained mine should not even exist...
But that is how I have lived most of my life and I am now 58. So now, belatedly, it seems the cure is believing in me, and allowing me, all of me, and my FEELINGS a seat at the table of my life. There will be No More allowing others to tell me what I feel, think, believe, know, or don't know. And if they insist? Then they are going to be bid adieu. These people are toxic, and they are the ones who eagerly helped to keep my own feelings enslaved, caged, forbidden and forgotten, And tried to force their own upon me, as they saw the hole in me as surely as if I had shined a powerful floodlight upon the gaping hole within myself. And they were all too eager to fill it.
I think survival as a child definitely required me stuffing my own feelings. But it doesn't explain the huge feelings I get nowadays when attacked does it? Yes I think it does. I think you go along acting like a robot, and thinking if I don't feel anything, and if I hide my feelings, and if I smile and act nice, then nothing bad is going to happen to me. But you still have that gaping blind hole within you, and you still allow TOO MUCH from other people inside of you. And the only people who want to get inside of you are Narcissists.
Most peace loving people DON'T try to get inside of you and manipulate your feelings. But the Narcissists do, they NEED to get inside of you. And because they are Narcissists they MUST have the explosion, the drama, the emotional reaction, and your CPTSD is PERFECT.
They "know" somehow that you have stuffed and refused and hidden those feelings, but they know it's in there. And once you let them in? Because you have been trained to let them in, because you've been trained that you are "supposed" to let them in with their bad ugly awful stuff? Well it's home free now! Now they can poke and prod and needle away until they get the explosion of YOUR pain that THEY need. Because as hard as you try to hide it and conceal it? It's still in there. And they find it, gleeful as children on Christmas morning when they find, open and provoke your emotional pain.
But not after you wake. Not after you decide you deserve and are entitled to your own feelings. And that nobody is going to manipulate you ever again. After you find and resuscitate and revive and encourage and support your own feelings? And start setting boundaries to keep the Narcissists out? The people who want to provoke you and manipulate you and cause you pain for their own pleasure? Well, it will never happen again. Or if it does, you will "see' it for what it is and you will LEARN to set the boundaries needed to deny them entry into your soul ever again.
And always remember, that real people? Who are not narcissists? Would never pull this crap in a million years. They want what you want. A happy peaceful coexistence. They have always seemed so boring to you, and they just didn't give you a buzz. Well the buzz is poison, so wake up, start feeling your own feelings, and seek true friendship with those who AREN'T looking to blow you up, root around in your soul and manipulate you into excruciating pain. And once you start having your own feelings? You won't need the buzz anymore. You will shun it like the plague. And welcome like minded souls.
Because something bad just happened now in the present, and you have got to deal with it. And yet? You are feeling so much terror, and pain, and humiliation, and anger, impotent anger in my case, that you are emotionally hijacked, and there is NO CONTROL. So you fight! You fight HARD! Against what you are feeling and you tell yourself you are wrong to feel this way. You tell yourself that you are weak, and just like they say, just too sensitive. And you DON'T trust your feelings. You rebel against them, and you feel so ashamed of yourself for being so freaking weak, AGAIN. And you try to find your brain, and you try to STOP feeling, and start thinking again. But you can't find your brain, it's been hijacked too.
But it's wrong, it's the wrong thing to do to fight it and argue with it. Instead, if you for once, just once, accept it and say: Okay, if I feel this way? Then there is a reason. Just saying that one thing, just that one thing, and giving yourself permission to feel what you feel, for once, however awful and bad it is. So you just say to yourself, "It's okay, I am giving me permission for once to actually feel as bad as I actually do."
Well then? That is: The turning point. From that day forward you start feeling again, and you start regaining a relationship with your own feelings.
And from that point on as you build a relationship with yourself, and allow yourself to feel your own feelings, and instead of fighting them, and trying to squash them or bury them or just get rid of them, and instead you fight back and say NO! If I FEEL this way, there must be a reason? From that day forward you start becoming your own friend and champion. And you slowly learn to trust your own feelings instead of stuffing them when they are painful, awful and paralyzing. You keep saying to yourself, like a whispered prayer, there's got to be a reason, there's got to be a reason.
And there is, there really is a reason you feel this way. You're not too freaking sensitive, you're not a basket case, and you're not a crazy person. Your feelings are SCREAMING for you to LISTEN. And the only way they could get through to you after all of the awful years of stuffing? Is CPTSD.
Your manifestation of CPTSD is caused from forced feeling stuffing and trying to make yourself numb and into a robot who feels nothing and it doesn't work. They are still there. They've never been let out of their cage, and the more you stuff them, the bigger the manifestation of CPTSD.
But it's not your fault. You don't know anything else! This is the way you were brought up. Your feelings were NOT allowed! Ever! And so you were forced to get rid of them. And now there is a hole inside of you where your own feelings are supposed to be. But it gets worse, it's much worse than that. Not only were you not allowed to have your own feelings, you were TRAINED, TAUGHT, and FORCED to allow their feelings, your parent's feelings inside of yourself, and to allow their feelings to take precedence over your own. You were forced to allow their feelings inside of you, and to tell you what to feel. You were not allowed to feel on your own. Ever.
And now you know, now you see it, and you know it's wrong. And now you know. You have re-train yourself except hahahaha! It's not even re-training, it's learning from scratch blindly through trial and error, because you've never even known, or allowed, or been allowed to have your own feelings!
All your life, you have had your mind, which is a pretty useless piece of equipment without feelings. Sometimes you had your body when you weren't depersonalized or derealized. And that's all you had. And the rest of the gap? The feeling gap? You filled it in with other's feelings. And worst of all? You gravitated towards people who would treat you in a familiar way. Disordered people. People like your family.
It's very HARD to train our brain. Very, very hard. If you train your brain to pay attention to your own feelings will you never have another flashback? I don't know. But you will choose life. You will allow the third part of yourself to have a seat at the table of life, as it deserved all along.
These days I see myself as Three. Mind, body and spirit. And my spirit is where my feelings live. And to deny my spirit is to deny a whole part of me. All three are needed for my life. To deny one part leaves a hole. And when I left that hole? When I denied my own feelings? And tried to use logic alone? I still needed that hole filled. So I filled it in with other's thoughts, feelings and beliefs. Because it was all I knew! It is what I was forced to do! I allowed others inside of me to help run my life. And it was the worst betrayal I have ever experienced. Worse than any betrayal by a lover or a friend or a loved one. To turn my back on myself and to ALLOW, yes, ALLOW others who were not me to have a seat at the table of my life was the worst thing I have ever done to myself.
But I was trained to do so as a child. I was trained that this was the right thing to do. That I had no right to boundaries or to my own feelings, and that I MUST allow others feelings to take precedence over mine. And I was trained mine should not even exist...
But that is how I have lived most of my life and I am now 58. So now, belatedly, it seems the cure is believing in me, and allowing me, all of me, and my FEELINGS a seat at the table of my life. There will be No More allowing others to tell me what I feel, think, believe, know, or don't know. And if they insist? Then they are going to be bid adieu. These people are toxic, and they are the ones who eagerly helped to keep my own feelings enslaved, caged, forbidden and forgotten, And tried to force their own upon me, as they saw the hole in me as surely as if I had shined a powerful floodlight upon the gaping hole within myself. And they were all too eager to fill it.
I think survival as a child definitely required me stuffing my own feelings. But it doesn't explain the huge feelings I get nowadays when attacked does it? Yes I think it does. I think you go along acting like a robot, and thinking if I don't feel anything, and if I hide my feelings, and if I smile and act nice, then nothing bad is going to happen to me. But you still have that gaping blind hole within you, and you still allow TOO MUCH from other people inside of you. And the only people who want to get inside of you are Narcissists.
Most peace loving people DON'T try to get inside of you and manipulate your feelings. But the Narcissists do, they NEED to get inside of you. And because they are Narcissists they MUST have the explosion, the drama, the emotional reaction, and your CPTSD is PERFECT.
They "know" somehow that you have stuffed and refused and hidden those feelings, but they know it's in there. And once you let them in? Because you have been trained to let them in, because you've been trained that you are "supposed" to let them in with their bad ugly awful stuff? Well it's home free now! Now they can poke and prod and needle away until they get the explosion of YOUR pain that THEY need. Because as hard as you try to hide it and conceal it? It's still in there. And they find it, gleeful as children on Christmas morning when they find, open and provoke your emotional pain.
But not after you wake. Not after you decide you deserve and are entitled to your own feelings. And that nobody is going to manipulate you ever again. After you find and resuscitate and revive and encourage and support your own feelings? And start setting boundaries to keep the Narcissists out? The people who want to provoke you and manipulate you and cause you pain for their own pleasure? Well, it will never happen again. Or if it does, you will "see' it for what it is and you will LEARN to set the boundaries needed to deny them entry into your soul ever again.
And always remember, that real people? Who are not narcissists? Would never pull this crap in a million years. They want what you want. A happy peaceful coexistence. They have always seemed so boring to you, and they just didn't give you a buzz. Well the buzz is poison, so wake up, start feeling your own feelings, and seek true friendship with those who AREN'T looking to blow you up, root around in your soul and manipulate you into excruciating pain. And once you start having your own feelings? You won't need the buzz anymore. You will shun it like the plague. And welcome like minded souls.