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With genuine respect, SweetFreedom, who's experiences are you describing here?
Not intending to offend, I've been guilty of this kind of thing myself

To some degree, I was describing all of our experiences. Or at least attempting to. What I described is pretty much exactly what Pete Walker says in Complex PTSD, along with a couple references from John Bradshaw's Homecoming and Healing the Shame that Binds you. This is what they as experts have to say about the Self-Judgements that we go through. Perhaps I was being a bit too focused on Dee and it may have come off as personal, when what I was sharing was actually something that is common to everybody who deals with this 'disorder'.

I recognize that we are all at different places in our healing Journey, and that for some of us, all we want is to be Validated and met with unconditional acceptance. For others of us, there is a need for understanding, awareness, and distinction that makes the healing journey possible. Kind of a Yin and Yang of recovery. And I've gotten a lot of value out of learning the 'structure' of what happens for people with CPTSD. Even though we all have different stories and experiences, there is a common underlying structure to what we go through. Understanding that side of things has sped up my healing and helped me get out of Flashbacks many times. Naming what is happening is key. And so, thats what I was aiming to offer in this thread; a little 'yang' of knowledge to the 'yin' of feelings, as clearly, there's a lot of emotional support here <3

Dee, my sincere apologies to you if my enthusiasm in sharing crossed any lines for you. I know that when Im dealing with my own Shame, that it can be hard to have something pointed out about me. So if I added to your pain, then I really apologize to you. My intent was genuinely to help. Wishing you all the best.

Happy to hear you're getting back on track! Thanks for the well wishes, you as well 

[is a reaction to a map in your head]

Sounds like a mix of Hypervigilance, Amygdala Hijacking, & the Outer Critic in a lovely little cascade of state-crashing. Super familiar to me.

Basically, for people who are traumatized, we often experience a low-level 'refrigerator hum' of anxiety in the background. Our amygdala (which recognizes threat in the world) is kind of stuck in the "on" position all the time.

This then becomes manifest as a sort of "hyper-vigilance", where we are constantly scanning our surroundings, or our lives in general, thinking about what possible threats exist around us; we'll even see threats where there are none. We'll misinterpret people as being threats when they're not. A 'threat' in this case doesn't have to be physical; it could be a social threat, or a psychological threat too. Anyone who seems to be 'not right' or 'irritating', etc. We focus on what we don't like, don't trust, and allow it to take up way too much space in our attention.

From there, it quickly escalates to letting our 'Outer Critic' get carried away with nit-picking, judging, character assasinating, etc., as a way to protect ourselves. Usually all this is a pre-emptive way for your brain to know if it needs to use your 4F strategy.

Or it devolves into inner-critic worrying and catastrophizing, dramatizing, and exaggerating issues out of proportion.

As you guys have said above, this is a normal brain function-- the internal narrator-- gone on Over-drive. Super normal for traumatized people. The important thing to notice here is that this is a reaction to a map in your head, not to reality. Everybody has a map of reality in our heads. Our interpretations of the world. And that map is never, ever 100% accurate.

Dysfunction lives by our reacting to the map instead of responding to what's actually happening. The moment we begin to accurately track whats happening and use that as a basis to respond to, we "come back down to earth". The problem you're describing is a problem of the map. Which means that you could use some updating of your map, and to keep making sure your map is accurate before you go responding to it

And if you unpack this even deeper, you may find that this is your brain's way of keeping you distracted from what *really* matters, and what real pain may be buried underneath all this. It can be an active form of self-distraction.

This can absolutely turn into a spiral of escalating anxiety and nerves. While not necessarily the end of the world, it's not exactly fun either!

Personally, I find mindfulness meditation to be an absolute MUST to help with this. It may not stop the arguing in your head right away, but it WILL help you with not getting caught up in it, and taking a kind of impartial stance toward it when it happens. Over time, mindfulness is great for helping the amygdala to regulate better and stop doing into overdrive too. For mindfulness, I really like the "headspace" app for iOS & Android. It's free, only takes 10 minutes a day, and is done really well.

It's probably worth reading about Emotional Flashbacks as Pete Walker describes them::

http://pete-walker.com/flashbackManagement.htm

http://www.pete-walker.com/13StepsManageFlashbacks.htm

Although it's not said explicitly, it's been my experience that Emotional Flashbacks often happen more when I'm stressed and you can probably consider them, and the 4F response that follows, a form of Stress Response.

Lately I am struggling because I think my therapist is so much of a better person than I am.  She is about my age and is everything I think I should be.  I wouldn't want a therapist who didn't have it together, but I just feel so inferior to her.  She has a successful career; I am on disability.  She is a great mother and has a good marriage.  I did not do well at all, with any relationships.  I let my ex control me in every way.  I am not the mother I think I should be, I get overwhelmed.  I have self-harmed and I feel so horrible to think I could go so low.  I can't imagine she would ever stoop so low.  I sometimes drink too much as well.  I feel worthless.  She validates me and doesn't judge.  She has empathy for me.   It's stupid, I should be thrilled she is so grounded and able to be fully engaged in my treatment.  The truth is, I think I keep feeling worse about myself when making comparisons I should not make.  I don't feel my past is an excuse.

With all due respect for all that you have been through and all that you want for yourself, I wish to remind you that this is your Inner Critic talking. Your inner critic is not your true self. It's just a 'toxic map', given to you by your caretakers, and turned inward on yourself. It's composed of shame that does not originally belong to you, that you have adopted and turned into the voice in your head. I say this to remind you that you are not the Inner Critic, even if you have been used to identifying with it and using it as a tool against yourself for a very long time.

While it may be true that your Therapist is an example of all you wish to have for yourself, and while you may be well intentioned in reminding yourself what is possible in life, or trying to motivate yourself to grow past your pain, all this kind of talk does ultimately is reinforce and further entrench you in more pain, which can create more reason to criticize yourself, in a self destructive loop of pain and shame. No fun at all.

And as others have pointed out, it might be useful to pop the bubble of the illusion of your Therapist's "perfect life" by asking her about her own shortcomings; Don't let yourself get too 'Black & White' in your thinking about this. The truth is likely much more nuanced than that.

You are most likely dealing with an Emotional Flashback, and you'll begin to feel better as soon as you can become aware of it. I feel for you and this dynamic of comparison. I've been there so many times myself. It's so painful. All it's ever gotten me is anxiety, neurosis, exhaustion, and depression. And yet, I kept going back there because I thought this I needed to be stronger, or that because this is the way society pressures us, that it was "right". It's not though. Self Hatred is not, and never was the answer. The way you feel is normal for somebody who has been through what you've been through. Your Therapist is demonstrating unconditional love and acceptance of you, just as you are, so that your unconscious mind has an example of it. By watching it and interacting with it, you too can learn how to feel it and be that way as well. It may take time and work, but you can heal if you keep at it.

Have you read Pete Walker's Complex PTSD book yet? If not, DO SO a.s.a.p.! It will help a lot. He illuminates this dynamic very, very clearly.  Sending you love as you deal with all this. I think most of us have been there too

[I am more than just the messed up parts of me]

for much of my life i've felt 'floaty', like i floated through life just seeing what was coming next, taking part, not planning anything, very spur of the moment, flying by the seat of my pants.  this makes so much sense now.  without a functioning root chakra, how could i possibly feel grounded?  know who i am?  know what i want?  anything that pertains to self-knowledge at all?

Great questions. I can totally relate. This has been a decades-long inquiry for me. Particularly about the root chakra. And I used to be SUPER floaty. Still am in many ways, but much more grounded and balanced through years of working on it. Eating meat, martial arts, yoga, exercise, walking on the earth, doing physical things have all helped.

One thought though: These concepts are just a model, a map of reality, but may not be 100% accurate. I feel it's very important to not get too caught up in these maps as if they are the capital-T 'Truth'. Be very careful that you are not using this as fuel to shame yourself further and get carried away with adding more to your narrative of seeing yourself as broken. Please.

i began doing the meditation described at the eclectic energies site, focusing on my root chakra.  when it said that it should be akin to a transparent clear red color, in my mind's eye i saw mine as being the color and opaqueness of dried blood.  whew!  this is an awful feeling just writing about it.  i want to weep for my little girl-me. 

I've heard it said from other teachers that the root can occur as rusty, deep brown, or even black, the color of deep & rich soil, the color of the earth, which is the root's element. The color of 'Yin' in Chinese medicine & Taoism. This may not be a sign that anything is wrong per se. Use this stuff to simply be aware of where youre at "now". You may check in a week from now to find a totally different energy or pattern. In other words, don't take it too personally.

I once had a psychic tell me that "everybody's root chakras are messed up" when I shared with her that I saw mine in a similar way. This might just be part of the condition of our times & people

i just feel so bad that i'm such a mess in ways i'd never have guessed.  so sad, so weary that there's even more work to do, more areas to focus on.  glad for the explanations, but i'm also feeling like i'm too old for this sh*t!!!  dang!  i f***ing hate all those people who did this to me!  and who have gotten away with it, living their little lives with no frickin' justice!   aaaargh!  pisses me off!

ok, that came out of nowhere!  just more anger triggered by new information.  i hate this sh*t!

I feel ya! It sucks, for sure. And it's good to be angry about this. You are right to hate it!

If it's any consolation to you, I like to remind myself that *if I am aware of how 'messed up' I am, then that means there is some part of me that is bigger than the messed up part that is able to see it, which means that I am more than just the messed up parts of me, which means I can heal it*

Sending good energy to you and your healing process 

some great ideas in this thread. I do think that sometimes our social obligations can maintain an 'abusive system' around us, even when we might otherwise have the ability to take a bit more space from toxic personalities we have to deal with.

Some more thoughts on protecting yourself....

Just in case it's not been clear in your learning about trauma, the 'bottom of the barrel' of abuse is a kind of 'toxic shame' that has been put on us early in life, There are many ways this can happen, but however it happens, the "key" to all abuse is shame-- that sense that we are somehow 'not enough' or 'broken' or 'wrong'.

The interesting thing about shame is that IT'S NOT YOURS. It's a belief system that was projected onto you, that you accepted and internalized as a child. That's what the inner & outer critic are-- our own internalization of this toxic shame we were taught to accept. It's our caregivers' toxic agenda, or our culture's toxic agenda masquerading as our own voice in our head. Pretty twisted stuff.

According to Pia Mellody & John Bradshaw, you know if the shame is actually yours if it does not upset you, and if it feels more like a humility or a humble awareness of your shortcomings than it does a painful trigger. Any time you are experiencing a painful trigger, it's because the belief is NOT originally coming from you, or from your deepest values.

So I think step #1 would be to become more aware of who's shame it is! If it's a painful trigger, then SEND IT BACK TO WHO IT BELONGS TO. I usually do this in my own head, by becoming super, super clear that if it hurts, then it's not mine. It's their shame that they are unwilling to own and deal with. Say "NO!" inside your head, and refuse to accept it! Often times, verbally giving it back to the person will obviously result in conflict. Abusers like to use social pressure as a way to hurt us, so by being clear about the shame that is not yours, you neutralize their ability to wound you with social conditioning & pressure. So I usually 'give it back' by just never taking ownership of an idea about me that is not mine.

Step #2 is related to step #1, and that's to keep working on your sense of Boundaries. Make sure that you're clear that other people's thoughts, feelings, and opinions, do not exist in your body, but in theirs.  Strengthen that sense of "ME" until you are very clear about it. When boundaries are strong, people can say all they want without it really cutting us to the core. Strong boundaries also mean that we are willing to assert ourselves if necessary, remind people of when they are over the line, and what is actually theirs so that they know that you see what's going on.

my little trick to know where the boundaries are is this: If it's them trying to have a say about ME or control me in any way, then that's them crossing my boundaries. And that goes both ways People get to control themselves, not each other. The codependent controls the other to feel okay in themselves. In a healthy relationship, when we have the courage to be ourselves, we say things like "I feel..." or "I would like...." rather than trying to control the other. So if I'm trying to control somebody, it's clear as soon as I start talking about them instead of my own experience. And vice versa. I will often remind people that their feelings are theirs, their opinions are theirs, etc, and by doing so, make it clear that my feelings are my own.

Step #3 would be to educate yourself about the tactics that narcissists employ: Gaslighting, Love Bombing, Push-pull communication, back-handed compliments, making the conversation appear like either one of you is 'one up' on the other, etc. There's tons of Youtube videos on the "red flags" of narcissist communication, so I'd start there.

Likewise, I'd also learn about logical fallacies in arguments, which are great for understanding clear thinking in debates and arguments. I'd also learn about Cognitive Biases so that you know more about the "blind spots" in the human mind, and how they can be exploited by the personality types that do this sort of thing. I know that sounds like a lot of learning, and it is! But, it'll keep you empowered and much more able to spot the toxic 'poison drip' of the narcissist and deal with it.

It can also be helpful to reframe Narcissists around you as ridiculous in your mind, as that's what they really are!  See them for the strange, silly, bizarre personalities they are. Don't take it personal that they can't treat you right-- they're the ones that have it all twisted. They've never been able to treat anyone right, and that's not your fault.

Another big one for me is to remind myself that Narcissists use a Double Bind to mess with you. A Double Bind is: "damned if you do, damned if you don't" type of situation or logic. So I will ask myself-- even if I did exactly what this person keeps pressuring me to do, is it likely that they'd all of a sudden be warm and kind and show me acceptance? And if they did, would it be genuine? Obviously the answer to this is: NO! ....which means that there's NO WAY YOU COULD EVER MAKE THEM HAPPY, so why drive yourself crazy with trying to?   

For example: If you don't lose the weight, you'll be shamed for it-- even if subtly. If you lose the weight, you're still not likely to be accepted or acknowledged for it. And if you were, it would likely be a hollow praise. So why allow yourself to be caught up in it? There was never a way that you were going to come out okay in this dynamic. It's inherently unfair.

I hope that helps a bit. Dealing with Narcs can be tricky stuff. They use that charm and charisma so well, it can seem like they're right all of the time. But they're not. Obviously, distance is best. But if you can't have distance, hopefully some of these ideas will be useful. Best of luck 

It almost seems to me that this is what Standup Comedians are. They take their Inner & Outer critics and find a way to deal with them by finding the dark humor in it all, and then use that talent to amuse the rest of us. So there's no reason we can't all be in touch with our own inner comedian

Way to catch it! I like your style! 

I too can really appreciate having a dark sense of humor, and find that it helps so much when it comes to my inner/outer critic attacks. I think learning to laugh at our sometimes ridiculous minds a great sign of health and progress

Movementforthebetter,

I'm curious, do you identify as the "flight" trauma type? Your comment about feeling overwhelm instead of numbness kind of implies that to me.

After reading your original post, and scanning the subsequent posts, it makes me think that experience was a Somatic (body intelligence) Release. It was your body's way of expressing to you what it had been through so you could integrate it. I would hope your therapist warned you beforehand that these kinds of releases can happen.

I subscribe to the idea that there is no such thing as "mind + body", but that' it's all one nervous system, the "bodymind". Sometimes our nervous system releases stuff via memories, or emotions, of sensations, or any combination of these experiences. At least, that's how it's been for me. I suspect that an Emotional Flashback is actually the body trying to communicate a 'stuck' state in the nervous system that it doesnt entirely know how to release, or perhaps when it might be inappropriate to feel that way, so it gives us these EF's at inappropriate times. We get triggers for no reason, or for situations that don't call for such a drastic response in the body.

I've found that my EF's and any releases I have after doing healing work tend to have the same 'feeling', 'vibe', and 'emotion' as the states I originally felt when I was traumatized, which makes complete sense. For example, if I'm healing an abandonment fear, I may have a feeling of being totally lonely even in the midst of a bunch of people after a session. And yes, I often shake, and feel rattled & overstimulated afterward. "Rung like a bell" comes to mind, lol. This is what animals do when they experience trauma-- they shake it out of their body, and then they are done with it. Best thing I've found to do is go ground out in nature, be extra gentle with myself for a little while, and breathe through it. Music helps. Movement helps (I love to walk or hike).

Usually after a little time like this, I feel great and much more centered and at peace, which is how I know it's working. Stuff like EMDR and EFT are intense, and can have this kind of effect, but I think it's a small price to pay to have a "fast track" to healing from these therapies. Hopefully your Therapist is encouraging you to trust yourself, trust your own body's intelligence, and trust the process even though its uncomfortable at times.

I'm newly exploring all this as well, and am not the well versed in various types of therapy, but I've found that having a consistent mindfulness meditation practice of at least 10 min a day to make a really big difference. Not that it eliminates the Inner Critic-- that's the work that takes a while-- but it helps to be aware of it, and not react to it. I feel like I've got a birds eye view of my IC and I find it much easier to note it, possibly even laugh at it, and carry on.

Another big one for me that goes hand in hand with mindfulness is labeling the inner critic when it starts-- saying in my head "there's the inner critic again"-- and labelling my emotional flashback as such so that i"m consciously aware that I'm having it. It makes it easier to stay more objective with it.

Another one I do is the NLP trick of imagining the inner critic as a picture and an internal dialogue in my head, and then pushing that picture further away in space, say 50 feet away or more, in my minds eye so that it's just a little picture waaaaay over there. I do the same thing with the voice where I imagine the sound of the critic getting quieter and quieter as it moves away. Sometimes I imagine that his voice becomes high pitched like mickey mouse as he moves away too. As strange as that sounds, it really works well.

I find it's also helpful to remember that the Inner/Outer Critic IS NOT YOU. It's not your voice, even thought it seems like it. It's YOUR CAREGIVERS toxic shame that you have internalized. For me, that's an important piece to remember. It's my parents talking in my head.

I have yet to try hypnotherapy for it, but that may be worth a shot as well. And exercise seems to reeeallly help keep my mood and internal dialogue in check too.

Hope that helps a bit. Best of luck. Please let us know if you find something really effective for you!

Beautiful

Posts like yours, sanmagic7, give me so much inspiration. Keep going! You are doing the right thing to heal yourself. Thanks for your share!

Hey, new member here...

"Am I being illogical..."?

I would say in a cheeky-friendly way that yes, there is a certain amount of logical inconsistency here

but..

As Caroline said, IT'S YOUR KITCHEN If your heart says no meat, then no meat it is I don't think that all choices need to be made logically to be valid, important, and to make sense in terms of our values. Honor Yourself, trust your heart, and don't over-extend past your boundaries unless it feels right to you to do so

Thanks! 

Thanks for the warm welcome, Sesame!

Yeah, I agree that there's definitely a socialized gender-role component to all this. Women definitely get taught to people-please and to have weaker boundaries. And men get taught to have overly-defined boundaries. Seems like this is why the classic Codependent-Narcissist dynamic skews Female and Male, respectively.

Vengeance Absolute, I'm really sorry to see all that you have gone through.

I can totally understand where you're coming from. Being traumatized is not a joke. And there is a lot of Cyber-Bullying out there fore sure. I see it a lot on many of the sites I'm on.

But I think it's also important to not take the internet personally, and to take it in context too. And to separate out all the "cuck" talk and general shaming (which is pretty obviously other people being abusive or venting online because they are wounded themselves)-- to separate all that from the rebuttal against the extremes of SJW rhetoric. I do think SJW's can be over the top, and having an angry rebuttal to that does kind of make sense.

To be honest, I often see it the other way around-- that many times, there are people who may not legitimately have PTSD who are hiding behind 'triggers' as a way to hide from difficult discourse. It becomes a shield they hide behind.  And that wouldn't be so bad if they were fair in their approach to talking out issues. But often, these "SJW's" become abusive themselves and lash out at ordinary people in the status quo for feeling or thinking the way they do. One peoples set of conditioning attacking another people's set of conditioning...  So the 'language' of PTSD becomes a tool for manipulation, and there are a lot of people who are on the receiving end of this kind of double-talk and abuse who are fed up with it, and rightly so. There is a significant chunk of SJW's who behave like abusive covert-narcissists. It's sad and counterproductive to any healthy dialog about collective change. I've lost friends who went off the deep end of SJWism and began to attack me just to prove their politics.

I think It's really easy for victims to become transgressors if they are not doing their healing work. That's how the cycle continues. Most transgressors were victimized too-- which isn't to say that lets have a pity party for those who harm people-- but rather, people who take a victim role can easily become tyrants that harm others. It's a very tempting thing to do when we are hurting, and there are a lot of SJW's out there that are clearly organized around feeling hurt, and demanding that the world adapts to THEM so that they do not have to feel pain. But that's insane. To the people who are not SJW's, this is offensive because everybody has pain. And yet the rest of the world does not demand that everybody stops and bends to their sensitivities. The world can be a tough place, and life wont' always adapt to our sensitivities.

To me, healing work is about becoming balanced and whole. And I think that means we must learn to be strong as well as vulnerable. I think it's part of the work of traumatized people that we learn to not take our pain out on the world, but become strong enough to deal with the world in a healthy, sane, balanced way. It's my goal to be in touch with my sensitivities and honor them-- to speak them when necessary, to take action to protect and honor myself-- but at the same time, own them as mine and not take them out on everybody around me. I think that when we do this, we become forces of healing out there in the world.

I think it's unconscious and disrespectful for SJW's to cling to PTSD language from a place of abusing the term. It minimizes the real thing. I think that anyone who does legitimately have PTSD should do our best to take ownership of that and not beat other people up with our own victimhood. We need to heal first. If SJW's want to engage in emotionally charged political conversations about Racism, Gender Politics, etc, then they need to be in a strong enough place to communicate from sanity, open mindedness, empathy, and vulnerability. And if they're not, then they shouldn't be in public discourse IMO. It's okay to be wounded. But it's not okay to take our wounds out on the world.

If all that were the case, I don't think there would be so much talk about "crybabies"-- if it were clear that these people were doing their best to be fair and strong, to be respectful of people who disagree with them.

And remember that it's part of the wounding to be caught up in what other people think and feel too much. That's the codependency creeping in. There will always be haters out there on the internet. People can be nasty (when they haven't healed themselves). And so we've got to be smart about what we allow in to impact us. And as we heal, these kinds of ridiculous things impact us less and less. It does hurt to see all the unnecessary emotional violence out there in the world. Anonymity is a blessing and curse.