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[Flooding the Board]

Every once in a while the Mod Team will post about certain OOTS Guidelines as a reminder to members.  This reminder is about flooding.

Flooding the Board

"Flooding" refers to making an overabundance of posts in the forums (i.e., responding to most new posts, regularly making posts that are more than 2-3 paragraphs; starting numerous threads; being present online  for hours at a time; and, giving lots of advice to others and not focusing on one's own recovery). 

While we encourage members to post and find their voice in recovery (given that so many of us were silenced by our abusers), at the same time we each need to be cognizant of the fact that flooding may discourage other members from finding their voice. Further, it may be a symptom of a need for attention that goes beyond exploring our problems, and offering support and encouragement to others.

Thus, we encourage members to keep posts to reasonable length (1-3 paragraphs); to keep the daily number of posts to a reasonable level; and, to practice self-care and step away from the computer and to try out recovery strategies and successes in real life. While there currently is no limit to the number or length of posts, if the Moderation Team sees a pattern of flooding the member will be warned and possibly banned if the behaviour persists.

Hi CPTSDChild - It's a good thing to be careful, but I know what you're saying about being too careful.  I'm sure if you Google internet safety or something along those lines you'll find a lot of info about this (finding out if they're for real or not; setting up a safe meeting, that kind of thing). 

Good luck and stay safe 

That's wonderful Salsera  Yay    It's amazing what some distance from our abusers can do isn't it? Time and space to breath finally as BSSR suggests.

I'm also not getting that loneliness, sadness or longing feeling any more when other people talk about family. It was a very long time coming though, but I'm not complaining.    I'd rather be here and look at things straight on than push them down.  It was tough feeling the longing and the anger but it's sure better than where I was. 

 

You're not crazy, you definitely have a right to your feelings and you are very welcome here! 

You have hit the nail right smack on the head when you describe living with abusers (in my case personality disordered family) as being brainwashed.  If they can get us to bear the burden of being the crazy, abuse-deserving child/adult then it's an open door for them. 

Pete Walker's book is great although many of us find we have to take it in small chunks as we adjust to the idea that we have CPTSD. He also has a web site if you haven't already seen it - http://www.pete-walker.com/.

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask, otherwise please feel free to have a look around and post in any of the forums that seem relevant to you.

Welcome to OOTS Southbound. 

Like many of us here I see you come from a PD FOO and from the sounds of it developed CPTSD as a result.  You are in good company here in that regard     Have you been to our sister site Out of the Fog?  I ask because it helped me enormously and others here too, so if you haven't you may want to have a look as there's a wealth of info and support there for identifying and managing PD behaviour

Here our focus is on our recovery and what we are dealing with so you'll see a lot on various symptoms such as emotional flashbacks and dissociation, and strategies for self-care.  There's a glossary at the top of the page along with a list of acronyms that is helpful for figuring the lingo and terms relating to CPTSD.  You seem to have a good grasp of those relating to PD which is great given a lot of us here deal with the "gifts" of PD FOO.

Anyway, glad you found your way here and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. 

We've missed you around here Anne    but so glad to hear you're doing well 

Hi WG - I know MaryContrary does therapy by telephone and when I asked her about it (I was thinking of it because then I lived rurally but my insurance wouldn't go for it), she was very positive.  She hasn't been active here for a bit but you could try PMing her and see if she responds.

I think Pete Walker actually does some therapy or at least consultations by phone so you might want to try him as if anyone knows about freezing it's him   

Good luck and let us know if/when you do try it, always good to get some feedback about options like this one. 

I think a safe word might be a good idea   

JK, that's great you are setting boundaries with her - so important to recovery I'm finding.  MY PD FOO would talk over top of me and I hated it. Best day ever was when I had 'the talk' with my NPDM about not doing that any more and about conversation being a two-way street. She may not have understood it but she learned to abide by it.And iIt didn't mean she was able to be part of any reciprocal conversation in any meaningful way, but at least I didn't feel exhausted by her ongoing stream of consciousness talking.    It was kind of like a feeling of drowning now that I think of it. 

Tks JDog 

Thansk for this WG, it reached right inside me too.  I could not have read this even six months ago without breaking down into tears, but today I thought "How incredibly sad it is for all of us who did not have the mother (parents) we deserved" and was able to sit with that, look right at it and feel the sadness.  I guess that's recovery - when we don't have to stuff down the reality of being abandoned and the incredible longing that is almost too much to bear and instead we acknowledge all the pain to ourselves. And when we do we see that we can go on because we have the courage and strength to do so. 

  to all of us who long to be rocked to sleep.

Thank you so much for sharing in your recovery with us in your posts, for being such a warm and caring host, and now for being such a great role model regarding self-care in recovery.

Sending lots of hugs and gratitude  your way. Be well  .   

Yay indeed!   Great self-care JDog 

I think that sense of emptiness, of being lost or rudderless makes perfect sense given we were so focused on surviving for so long.  We can't know at first how to fill up all the space that took, because it really is new for many of us. 

That emptiness scared me as well so I started trying to get my IC to come out and have some fun to see if I could fill the space up a bit.  It seems to be working.  I don't feel that empty space with the same kind dread as I once did, instead it's like a whole new area of me to pile in some of the good stuff I missed.  It took time to see it that way though, my IC was really cautious and we didn't quite know what was fun so it was trial and error and reassurance until it started to kick in.

So FWIW, enticing your IC out with the promise of some fun might help.   

Hi Danice and welcome to OOTS.  I am truly sorry that you were assaulted and are now dealing with PTSD and all of the legal and psychological issues surrounding your trauma.   

VeryFoggy has made some good suggestions and  I would add that there is a forum dedicated to PTSD that may have additional and specific information and support.  It's called MyPTSD and the link is https://www.myptsd.com/.   While some of our members suffer from PTSD because they experienced assault or something else that was very traumatic, most people here are trying to recover from ongoing or long term abuse (emotional, physical, sexual) which has led to the development of Complex PTSD and is somewhat different than PTSD.  There isn't likely to be much specific information for you at OOTS whereas I'm fairly certain there would be at MyPTSD.  I'm not trying to chase you away or anything, you are most welcome here but I just wanted you to know about the other site so you are in the best place to find the info/answers you're looking for 

Yes welcome to OOTS Gritstone.   You may get a few more replies in this board as BeHea1thy has suggested. 

I'm so sorry to hear that your wife left and that you are struggling.  It would be difficult for anyone but for those of us with CPTSD, it can be doubly so because often this type of situation triggers a lot of past trauma so you have the past and the present, an overwhelming melange of feelings  as Pete Walker describes an EF.  There is a good list of grounding techniques on his site here http://www.pete-walker.com/ - just go to "Emotional Flashback Management."  Once I knew what an EF was and had some ideas for soothing or calming myself, the EFs were much less debilitating.  And coming here and therapy are helping me to process my childhood trauma bit by bit so I'm not triggering as often or as intensely.

I also wanted to mention that there is forum for our relationships with others that you may find helpful. In particular Bluevermonter is a member who has been dealing with a situation very similar to yours. Also, there is a "Search" function on the top right side of the page and if you search "abandonment" you will bring up any posts dealing with this.  There should be lots as unfortunately it's a core issue in CPTSD.

Glad you find your way here to us