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Messages - gongfy

#16
General Discussion / Why?
July 22, 2016, 03:22:44 PM
Here is my wondering.  Coming to this diagnosis of CPTSD has been a journey of about 30 years now - 30 years of therapy, self-help groups, workshops, and an entire library of books.

I will say I have made some huge gains in my ability to be functional.  My parenting improved (Thank God!).  I hopefully have not passed on the family curse of dysfunction and abuse.  I am watching my son and daughter in law raise my 9 month old grandson and am awed at what terrific parents they are. 

My ability to provide for myself financially has improved considerably.  I have a career that I love, doing work that I find worthy and fulfilling.

I am married to a wonderful man who is supportive and kind.

I am tremendously grateful for these things.

However, my ability to manage friendships, relationships with people I work with, and stress, have deteriorated.  My life has become much more narrow and isolated.  That is my wondering.  Why is this area of my life so much worse than before?

This is affecting my health, and is now beginning to affect my marriage and my workplace.   
#17
Friends / Friends - or lack thereof
July 18, 2016, 04:17:34 PM
The issue I have with friends is that I have so very few of them.  I will take responsibility for that.  My perfectionistic ways have led me to such a single-minded focus with my career that it has left little time to develop other interests or pursuits.  To be fair, it is also difficult because I am the primary caregiver for my adult developmentally disabled son.  I have had some people though who I have considered friends, but for some reason or another - they just drift away. 

I wish I could have a conversation with one of my friends who has distanced themselves from me and ask why - specifically what is it about me that is so difficult.  Too work focused?  Yes, but I see others who are very career focused and they have friends.  Too needy?  I have tried very hard not to be.  Have I tried to hard and it came off as distant? 

I find it rather odd.  In my younger days, before years of therapy - I had many more friendships.  I consider myself much more functional now - but considerably more lonely.   
#18
Friends / Re: My Friend
July 16, 2016, 10:02:44 PM
Thanks Three Roses,

I guess I am feeling a little vulnerable today.  I am working with a new therapist to try and heal some of the brain based issues caused by my CPTSD - the anxiety and emotional flashbacks.  Part of the process involves constructing a timeline, and then working with memories related to that timeline.  It is called Lifespan Integration Therapy.  Today I was working on the timeline and just the writing down of my messed up past rips the band-aid off yet again.  I have processed, and processed, and processed this stuff - but it still has amazing power over me.  It just makes me sad and tired - and lonely.  It reinforces the sense of separateness I feel - like I don't belong, and never will.  Hopefully, this new therapy will help to integrate that.  It is a heavy burden to live with for so long.
#19
Friends / Re: My Friend
July 16, 2016, 09:14:42 PM
I had a friend like that once - the kind that would bring things unexpectedly.  She brought me chicken soup when I was sick.  She has been my best friend for almost 20 years now.  All of the sudden, she has backed off.  When I asked her if I had done something to offend her or upset her - she blamed it on an issue with her daughter.  We always spend our birthday together - they are a day apart.  This year she decided to go camping instead.  Then, she cancelled the last two things she has invited me to do.  She knows a little about my FOO issues, but not about my recent diagnosis of CPTSD.  I was hoping to share it with her, but now I don't feel safe.  This not having anyone else to share it with except anonymous people at the other end of a keyboard (no slight intended) has me feeling very lonely indeed.
#20
General Discussion / Re: No contact
July 15, 2016, 03:29:48 AM
I had to go No Contact with all of my brothers and sisters - all six of them.  I tried to stay in contact with my nieces and nephews - but then they used them to get at me.  The text I received in May, laced with profanity, and a variety of other horrible names and accusations, yada yada, passed on through my niece, made me realize it was time to break contact with a few more.  Now out of 6 brothers and sisters, and 16 nieces and nephews - I have contact with 5.  My parents are both gone.  The crazy thing is - they have recently tried using a couple of long lost cousins to get in touch with me.  I know this was necessary - I want and need peace and sanity in my life.  But like I told my husband, it all makes me very sad.  It's just plain sad.
#21
Please Introduce Yourself Here / Re: Holy Cow
July 07, 2016, 02:45:21 AM
I have just started this - so I don't have much to relate.  This blurb briefly explains it:

Lifespan Integration relies on the innate ability of the body-mind to heal itself. LI is body-based, and combines active imagination, the juxtaposition of ego states in time, and a visual time line of memories to facilitate neural integration and rapid healing. During the integrating phase of the protocol, the client 'views' a memory image for each year of his or her life. The Lifespan Integration technique causes memories to surface spontaneously, and because of how memories are held neurologically, each memory which surfaces is related to the emotional theme or issue being targeted. The resulting panoramic view of the client's life gives the client new insights about lifelong patterns resultant from the past trauma.

It basically builds on brain research and the idea that trauma based memories are stored in the amygdala, frequently in feelings that are beyond the ability of the person who has experienced trauma to verbalize - especially when the trauma began very early.  The therapy is designed to "integrate" those feelings so that they can consciously be dealt with in a verbal way and are less apt to become triggers.  We will see how it goes.  It is fairly new - and there isn't a tremendous amount of research beyond it, but it does appear to be a promising practice.  I am definitely willing to give it a try.
#22
Please Introduce Yourself Here / Re: Holy Cow
July 07, 2016, 01:36:31 AM
Thanks everyone.  Coincidentally, I am also beginning Lifespan Integration Therapy.  Has anyone here had any experience with this?
#23
Please Introduce Yourself Here / Holy Cow
July 06, 2016, 04:33:26 PM
After years and years of therapy, self help groups, and self help books - I finally have a name for "it."  "It" is the compulsive states of shame and spirals of self abuse that I now understand to be emotional flashbacks.  While I have long suspected that I have some form of PTSD - as a result of a severely dysfunctional and chaotic childhood, characterized by years of emotional abuse, neglect, and parentification (6 brothers and sisters - five younger than me) by my substance abusing and mentally ill parents; I didn't know about Complex PTSD - until today.  Maybe I just wasn't ready.  This middle aged grandmother is tired of holding it all in.  I am grateful I found this site.