Messages

Hey Marzipan,
I think I get it.
I have some sort of dulling of the senses bubble surrounding me at all times. Not so much a bubble maybe, but a protective layer that's loosely wrapped around my vicinity. I don't like it but I don't know how to get out of it. I know it's trying to protect me but it's making me partially deaf and partially sighted. I identify strongly with your permeable material. That's derealization and depersonalisation.

I experience the world from my own personally cultural (saluki culture haha) identity. I feel like a stranger in a strange land.

I don't know if this is similar, but there are certain types of foods/interests/books I cycle through too as a coping mechanism. I kind of know why though and it relates to avoiding the cultural foods of my abusers and finding new ones of my own.

I took DES II test online (the same one they assessed me with 3 times) a few times and it comes up with "Other specified dissociative disorders" for my "score" as well as CPTSD. I don't know if I'm allowed to post links here as I'm new, but it's available online and you'll probably recognise the questions if you don't recognise the questionnaire, and I don't know if you still post here, but I kind of understand what you are talking about, so thought I would let you know you're not alone.

Our brains are so good at protecting us: too good I reckon! I am desperate to break out of the bubble but don't know if I'd cope with the noise and the colours as I've been like this for years (everything seems dulled down)

Wow, thank you Bermuda.

I very much appreciate your words. It's good to be understood. Not many do.
That immense pressure to be okay is overwhelming. I can't do it any more.
I have been off disability for 6 years now, desperately trying to be okay and failing miserably. I wanted to prove to people that I could succeed at life but in reality I just ended up in poverty because I can barely afford to pay the rent. In the process of applying for PIP at the moment and feeling like an imposter even though I'm barely functioning. I feel like a robot trying to go through the motions. Hearing that really helped. Thank you.

Thank you Armee

Something I want therapists and govt/private health care funders to know is few professionals and funders provide enough or specific treatment for CPTSD/Relational Trauma. Given CPTSD is the result of ongoing relational trauma we need relational trauma strategies (among others) to recover. This requires more time and commitment than 8 sessions of CBT so more funding needed!

Something I want my mother and her toxic family to know is that I was never "pretending to be disabled". I couldn't "just get a job" because I already had CPTSD from their abuse and neglect, but due to having insufficient help or therapy for my needs I ended up in another violent abusive relationship that further traumatised me.

I didn't become addicted to substances for FUN! It was a trauma response and a coping mechanism.

No one grows up with the childhood dream of becoming an IV addict.

I couldn't have "just got a job". I wasn't "taking the money from real disabled people who needed it".

I was, and still am incapacitated by the long term effects of CSA, SA, child neglect, child abuse, DV...

And just because I refuse to be a victim doesn't mean I can heal on my own.

And just because I got help for my addiction doesn't mean I'm okay now.

And just because I had an addiction doesn't make me an untouchable.

(Damn, I knew I was angry, but I only came to say "Exactly "!

Thanks Armee! I like that: "vibrant inner world". I will try to remember that 🙂

Forced to do things I didn't want to from an early age (CSA)(person groomed my parents in order to abuse me. Went on for years). My ex forced me to do things I didn't want to do too. Coercive control/SA. DV.

I don't understand why years later I'm still stuck dissociating, flashbacks, insomnia, exhaustion. Why I still go off into a childish fantasy land in my head with these characters.

I don't suppose it's a bad thing.

Exactly that: I wasn't allowed to be myself. I was punished for being me. Wasn't allowed to do anything my mother (then later my abusive ex) didn't decide I could/should do. My boundaries were completely trampled over. I was also scapegoated/shunned by my mother and her family.

Ugh.

It's weird that I enjoy doing the voices. Not that I'm upset that I enjoy it: it's just weird is all. I get completely involved in the drama of it, to the point where I can see what the characters look like in my mind.

I was an only child too. I had imaginary friends who I could actually see when I was little. They disappeared when I got bigger. I missed them.

Thank you Bermuda 🌞

It usually just goes on and on and round and round in circles! The beaten down characters don't give up though...

I'm new too. Welcome 🌞

Thanks Blue Sky. I got a notification! Yay! 🙂

Here's an example: (I do different voices/accents for the characters)

"Henry, you're wearing that ridiculous hat again. Take it off and put on something sensible. What about that nice woolly one I bought you from the jumble sale?"
"Frieda, I'm comfortable in this hat. It's nice and warm."
"You will take it off now, Henry. You let everything I buy you go to waste. I don't know why I bother: I really don't. Come on, hand it over. You look like one of those criminals you see on crimewatch. I don't like it, I really don't. You're an embarrassment is what you are, Henry. An absolute embarrassment."
"I'm going out now love. Do you want me to fetch anything from the shops?"
"You will not be going out in that stupid hat. Give it here and stop changing the subject."
"Eh, get off me. I told you it's comfortable."
"What is it supposed to be, anyway? Something to keep your brains from falling out?"

You get the idea!

I don't know what to make of it, why I do it, or if it's good or bad or neither.

It's not like I'm writing it down... maybe I should?!

Me too. I have tinnitus all the time and am dissociated (derealization/depersonalisation) all the time. But when I'm thinking about/talking about/reading about difficult/triggering things, I hear my blood pumping loudly in my right ear, like a fuzzy heartbeat and it makes me worry about my blood pressure. Thanks for this conversation.

Since I was a little kid I have had a coping mechanism that involves making up characters and a world(s)and "talking" them. I think it's normal for kids to do more often maybe with a friend or sibling but I did it mostly on my own. It was how I kept myself company especially when I couldn't sleep (which was/is still normal).
If I couldn't do the voices out loud, for example, I was in a lesson at school, I would "stare into space" as the teachers used to shout at me and write in school reports.
Thing is, I still do it. I talk the voices out.
They're often voices of an overbearing older female bossing her exhausted husband about and prohibiting him from doing anything he enjoys (a common childhood experience). The women in my family were outrageously controlling, esp. my mother and her aunty (my grandma's sister). My mother was very controlling and hyper critical of her mother, me, my dad.
I don't understand why I disappear into this quite hideous inner world, or more, why I enjoy it so much!
It's like I'm creating my own radio show.
Then I read about "maladaptive daydreaming" and wondered if this is what it is?
Is it a CPTSD thing?
Anyone else have such an odd coping mechanism?

Thank you! I only just saw your replies (nothing popped up in my notifications). I will have to see if I can figure them out.