Messages

Aha, acceptance. Yes, that is what I strive for too, Candid. I also have self-destructive tendencies, like 'letting hygiene go (temporarily)'. I eat more than I can afford. Banging myself over the head about it doesn't help, though I still tend that way. Acceptance that's the way for me. (Self-)Love is still too high a goal for me.

In an answer I wrote a couple of minutes ago to somebody else's post I mentioned that I "fortunately" don't have much contact to my M (as in 'mother'). I noticed right away how I kind of seized up inside. Forgot to breathe briefly, tensed up, maybe even a quick freeze. That just shows me how deeply ingrained the FOO message is: no criticism of M allowed, removing myself from M not allowed, existing in my own right and feeling relieved that I now have a noticeable boundary is not allowed.

And as for expressing all of that, well it's still really hard. Partially I'm worried that somebody in FOO could read my post, although there's probably way less than 1% chance of any of my FOO members ending up here or on any other website for people healing from C-PTSD, and even if they did, they probably wouldn't have the self-awareness to recognise themselves and their behaviour. If they did have the self-awareness, then theoretically it would be good that they finally heard my side. Theoretically. But somehow it frightens me anyway, the idea of being found out. Ooops, yes, there's a memory. Not really a new one.

[not]

Absent, your childhood sounds terrible.  Feeding your child enough nourishing food is an absolute basic. Except in extenuating circumstances like war and famine, but even then most parents do try their absolute best to feed their children properly. Any way doesn't sound BTL as if these extenuating circumstances existed in your childhood.

I'm sure you did not overreact. We C-PTSDers tend to under-react and under-acknowledge our suffering past and present. Your post makes me very sad. I suppose I'm angry too and this comes out in my words "terrible childhood", I just don't feel the anger, but I think it's there. So I'll add 

Thanks for sharing. If you like,  from me.
Keep on posting when you feel ready.

Thanks for the quote, Three Roses. I know I'm a flight type, but didn't know OCD flight. Now I do. My T certainly does a lot of psychoeducation with me esp. "Gently and repetitively confronting denial and minimization about the costs of perfectionism".

Three Roses, I'm not quite that far yet either.

I can so relate with the difficulties of goal-setting. I remember as a child dreaming about finishing my homework i.e. the end result but not doing the steps to actually FINISH my homework. It would take hours. When I first realised this a couple of years ago, I did beat myself up over it. Like others here, I saw it as a character flaw. Not all together surprising since one FOO member often called me a loser (God, how that word still hurts even now) and the other FOO members didn't make any effort to contradict this or give any encouragement. Now however I realise I was one of those children who could have done with support. Children learn by imitating and if goal-setting is not done in your family, you may not learn it so well. My parents had dreams which were all-encompassing, constantly referred to and the opposing reality complained about and mourned, but no realistic work went into bringing those dreams about.

Of course as usual I focus on the negative. There were goals I set and attained, even major ones like move, study, get a job, long before I started any therapy.

But since being in recovery my goal-setting seems to have taken a nose-dive. Often that's because the goals turn out to be the wrong goals for me at that time, or I'm setting the goal too high, or demanding of myself that I attain the goal every day or that I reach too many goals at once. Or it's really somebody else's goal, e.g. FOO's  (lol, in a sad kind of way).

I've been learning to set small goals for myself and working step by little step.  Like I write goals down for the next 4-6 weeks as well as steps I can think of to attain these goals. I tick off the steps as I accomplish or do them (some of them are repetitive, like if I want to stay stable then a step would be taking my meds and another step would be getting out of bed in the morning).

Congratulations on figuring it out, hurtbeat     
and thanks for posting. It helps me realise I'm not alone in this.

Thanks for sharing, and not keeping everything to yourself. Way to go!

Just a quick reply for the moment, Candid.
Maybe you're being self-absorbed as much as everyone else on here as opposed to "everywhere else" in your life. I really believe that we need to be self-absorbed in some parts of our life in order to heal. Why not on a forum where we go to heal??? OK, we vent here too but that's part and parcel of our healing. And anyway you are not just self-absorbed here! You reply to other people's posts and not just in a self-absorbed way. The way you write shows you care about other people here, and you obviously do about people in your non-digital world, like your husband.

to you, Candid.

I can so relate to that, especially your examples in the second paragraph. I ended up not trusting anybody outside the family. Even minor points, like not being in other people's cars in case they'd had a drink too many though actually someone in my own FOO sometimes had a drink too many or would doze off at the wheel.

I was certainly taught to fear/distrust/dislike social workers and doctors, and later on especially psychiatrists as well as of course therapists and psychologists. I was even warned that they might make me believe things that had never happened. Because you see in FOO's opinion I was so 'gullible'. Especially abuser no. 1 accused me of that  for supposedly listening to other people's opinions on what was going on in our family. That wasn't even true, I had formed my own ideas on something feeling very amiss in my FOO. My most gullible action however was believing all the critical, hurtful comments that were spewed at me over the years when I was growing up. I see the irony there and don't actually accuse myself of gullibility.

Thank you for bringing this topic up, writetolife. Good on you for helping out at a youth group. It can be healing to be among people who act and think differently to the way things were in our FOO.

Hi Joyful,
I've been taught grounding basically the way Eyessoblue explains except that I may use all my senses: so smell, sound, touch and even taste. In my case particularly touch e.g. pushing off against the wall with my hands or stamping my feet on the ground.

What also occurs to me about your post (numbing, shoving feelings down) though is that you may be dissociating because your system is 'overloaded'. You may be trying to do too much, feel too much, go too fast. Of course, we all want to heal fast and get all this stuff over with and be normal etc etc, but recovery from this beast takes time, unfortunately. If this doesn't apply to you, then ignore.

I self-diagnosed a long time ago as SLAA anorexic. (This does exist in the SLAA literature.) I have been in SLAA meetings and wasn't the only anorexic. Anorexics may have quite a lot going on in their heads  but otherwise not too much. It was a pretty triggering topic for me though. Some of the time it was good to share, but I don't go to meetings of any type any more, generally. One a year maybe, then that's enough. I usually trigger other people with my anger and they trigger me with some comments or other. I find if people in a 12 Step group all tend to do one type of therapy (this is the case in my country) then the therapy 'wisdom' flows into the 12 Step group too and here it's somewhat contrary to trauma-based therapy. At least that's what I find. The way that postings on Out Of The Fog main forum can be triggering for us C-PTSD people.

Also as somebody else said, the trauma therapy is the focus now.

I've also done a lot of what might be called holding therapy or attachment therapy for adults (there's no sexual content) which has done wonders for reducing my need for physical contact. The need was never really sexual anyway in my case (see anorexia - I'm not saying this is a healty state to be in either) but the more addictive (as opposed to anorexic) problems I spoke up about in SLAA are much reduced.

Welcome TimeToShine 

Wise words from Three Roses.

I get cycles, too, have been doing for years. You describe it so aptly, Coco! I read it yesterday and thought "Yes! That's what has been going on the past little while". When I was in non-trauma therapy it was actually sometimes worse than in daily life beforehand. But there are people who say it gets worse before it gets better...
Now that I've been in trauma therapy for a couple of years my down phases are shorter and I don't fall quite as far.

Yes, Woodsgnome, I know all about the coping efforts that tire me out. I'm glad I'm not alone with this. That means it's a symptom, not a personal failure of Blueberry (yay!!).

Hi Coco,
I'm happy for you that you had such a good, nurturing, healing experience. I've been in therapeutic self-defense (for C-PTSD or just plain old PTSD patients) but I don't remember so much happening all in one session. So glad the guys doing your course were so attentive and perceptive.

I sometimes have trouble translating verbal directions into physical moves. I can figure out what to do (mostly) but it's slow-going and I have to talk myself through it: OK, take your right foot and put it behind.... Seems trauma-related in my case, maybe in yours too.

And yes, unfortunately, far-reaching consequences, multi-pronged layers. Good description!

I've also had to do a lot of practical activities and movements to heal from a sort of paralysis in day-to-day life. Some of it I did in occupational therapy.  Why am I frightened of doing this??? Why can't I even start? Then I would start and all these memories started coming up. So then I'd talk myself and my inner child(ren) through that and things were at least better.

But it sounds as if you've found your solution without needing a therapy setting.     

Welcome, Katie6!    I'm glad you found us and I hope you feel comfortable here.
This is a very supportive forum and not everybody has an official diagnosis. So don't worry about that.

I think some people post in the adult and child forums and you're certainly very welcome to read both. Then it may become clearer to you which is more applicable for you. This is also a very non-judgemental forum, so no worries if you happened to post in the wrong place, I guess a moderator would move the post.