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Hello guys

Thank you both for your replies I think it has a lot to do with a sense of that "bad person feeling". I wake up, and the sensation I have is like someone is about to storm in the room and shout at me for all the stuff I've done wrong, or for being late, or for being a POS generally. Just that sense of being really tense and scared and priming myself to have to fight back, potentially make things worse etc. Just like "I know that everyone hates me right now, and I need to know I am ok. I need them to let me feel I am ok". Thats why its so hard, somehow some part of my mind can never quite feel safe in that regard. I guess its not gonna be interested in learning... I dunno, say a foreign language, when just even that basic sense that people are about to unload on me, be disgusted, become aggressive etc. Once I get past that (some days I dont but I find propranolol helps a lot) I can function.

I guess the question for me is how to learn to really feel safe, without constantly feeling like I have to earn it all the time. I know how its meant to happen, in therapy, but it just never has.

Ehh just blathering really, thanks for listening

Hello

I suppose this is a bit of a "does anyone else get this" post. All my life I have struggled with what feels like an outside force that destroys my motivation and ability to function. All I could describe it as was pain which came up when I needed to do something - whether it was something I didn't want to do like a chore, or something I did want to do like learn a new skill. Of course I spent most my life thinking I was selfish, lazy and spoilt and just tended to whip myself continually to get stuff done. Unfortunately it turns out this is not a sustainable way to live, and I ran out of energy.

I only really figured out what it is recently. Its like every day, when I wake up, I need a certain amount of positive connection with others before I can function. I need to speak to people I like, get some kind of positive reinforcement. Daft stuff like they think I am funny or like something I made, or I can help them with some topic or other. Once the 'tank' is topped up, the pain goes away, the feeling of being strangled, and I can do things. Last night for example I got back to a project I had started and stopped on because I felt happy. Then today, I woke up, felt awful, back to being strangled. And I cant do anything. When I try: Pain. Have had many many types of therapy, meds and so on. None of them really ever seemed to understand it, beyond unhelpfully labeling it an approval addiction / offering advice that didnt work.

Its incredibly frustrating because I know how much I can do and how much I enjoy the creative process, but my body just cant do it until I get that feedback. And of course, the world isn't there to give that to me all the time, people have their lives to live. It makes me feel like a balloon with a hole which I keep trying to inflate but it needs constant input all the time. And when it happens at work ... yeah. Not good

Any thoughts, similar experiences, suggestions?

Hello

I like the Pete Walker books a lot, but over the years and many, many self help and therapy disciplines later, I feel a lot of doubt when I see "type" lists. I mean for sure, they are all possible responses I might experience at one time or another, so i can sort of recognise that, but I get into all sorts of trouble if I sort of get in the car with it and ride it all the way to Kansas Its easy to get stuck in and endless cycle of "am I this one or this one" and feeling like you cant get better till you nail it down. I had this problem with Schema Therapy, where I would at different times identify with most of the schemas. I also struggled with the "modes" approach, because one of my major symptoms was always an inability to know what I was feeling. That's why I found the mindfulness idea of letting everything be, combined with the approach of "focusing" (allowed me name feelings and states) more helpful than identifying one type.

In the book Pete does suggest putting aside anything he writes that's unhelpful though, so he does recognise that not everything will help everyone. That's another strength of the book IMHO - not getting hung up on it as a system. "No way as way" as some wise folk once said

I posted earlier in this thread, feeling like I wasn't recovering.  Looking back, that wasn't true.  I was in a hard spot.  The other day I told my son he could chose to reply to the numerous and irrational texts from his dad or he didn't have to.  The choice was his, he didn't even have to read them.  I also told him I am not telling him to not see his dad, but I want him to know it is a choice.  Then I stepped back and realized that a year ago I would have been in a panic feeling like I needed to please his dad, in fear of making him angry.  I would of also tried to get my son to do what his dad wanted, again in a panic mode.  I'm not doing that now, it is huge progress.

Biscuits - I laughed when I saw the comment on perfectionism and people pleasing.  The first time my therapist gave me a book to read, I read it twice in a week and made notes.  She explained that isn't what she wants.  I still try to please, but she sees through it.  In fact, she has worked with my dietitian to communicate they are not looking for a good student.  My dietitian now asks if I did something for me or to  please her.  I am doing a few months of IRT (image rehearsal therapy) and I was given a paper to write imagery of a safe place.  I of course typed it, reviewed it, edited and edited.  She read it and went on and on that it was very, very good.  She hasn't got the message yet   It will be nice when the day comes that I understand I don't have to prove myself.  I suspect that is going to be harder because that goes back to guilt and shame.

Lol aww I think thats cool they do that it sounds like your therapist really understands you, that's so awesome. I think one thing that helps with stopping it is exhausting yourself. Imma guy, and used to work for the oil industry. Its a place that either holds people up as utter perfection incarnate, or puts them on the floor as a piece of *. Its very weird like that, cutthroat I guess and very narcissistic.

If your face fits, you are more likely to get into the shiny group, but if it doesn't, you're never going to. I was the face doesn't fit type, and it was just so exhausting trying to be shiny, that in the end I just said "* it, I am out of energy for this". It was kind of liberating, I didn't have to try anymore. Its maybe harder when you are in an environment that rewards people pleasing because the good feelings it gives keeps you going back I guess. When the well is utterly dry, it forces you to go and look for sustenance somewhere else I suppose. Its just very very hard to find what that source is (or maybe, recognise when you've found it? Not sure).

Hello

I dont know if this will help anyone or not, but I think its useful to ignore the claims lots of therapies, and sometimes therapists, make about how long it should take to get better. Its something I've seen myself from experience, and which I was amazed (and slightly depressed) when I saw it in black and white in Pete Walker's book - recovery can take many many years, especially when we are all trying to recover in a system of treatment that is barely at the point of truly recognising it, still arguing over what it is and whether it exists.

I guess the following is a list of daft rabbit holes, stuff that's worked and things to avoid I wish I had known many years ago  May not apply to anyone else at all, maybe some of it, maybe all of it.. hope its helpful.

I have been having therapy and medications of different sorts since I was 21, and I am 38 now. Ive had three or four years of CBT, three years of Schema Therapy, 2.5 years of Client Centred Counselling and 2 years of Coherence Therapy (a trauma centred therapy which is a bit experimental and ironically, was meant to be "brief"  ). The biggest piece of advice I can give is to trust your gut on what it is you need to do. CBT is very "heady". Its all about thoughts - but with CPTSD and the disconnection from feelings, most of the time you may not know what you are thinking or feeling. So if you need to go down more into your body, follow that. Have the courage to tell your CBT therapist that working in thoughts and behaviours just is not working right now.

Client centred was very good, because it allowed me to just "be". Very validating, helped me to explore and deepen. No challenging, no behavioural plans which I had no clue how to connect to my emotions. Schema was an inbetween - a lot of stuff from the past, though ultimately we were working with a misdiagnosis of BPD, which I do not have. This caused more damage than it provided healing.

Coherence really ended up just being someone nice to talk to. Again there was more deepening, validation and allowing to be. Out of my own research I found "focusing" by Eugene Gendlin, which really, REALLY helped with making sense of all the nameless pain and emotion I had struggled for years with. Its like mindfulness, but does way more than mindfulness as it is more directed rather than all-accepting, which can ultimately be fruitless.

If you are feeling stuck, listen to your gut of where you think you need to go. It may be your body, not your head. It may be you need to go towards anger, not acceptance. You may need to rage, not meditate. Seeing all of this stuff validated in Pete's book was both validating and frustrating - things I had learned the hard way to be true. If you have not read it, I would highly recommend reading his book Surviving To Thriving. There's some bits of it that don't really work for me, and other bits that are extremely helpful.

At the moment I am stuck on fighting the inner critic in order to give way to grieving, as the critic part is just as fierce as ever. His recommendation just for this stage is essentially CBT type thought challenging, and thankfully as the other therapies have freed up emotions and the ability to name them, this step feels possible now.

Recovery is like a rubiks cube. If you feel like you keep twiddling the same face and are getting nowhere, switch tactics, and try to take as many paths at it as you can. And .. beware of panacea, beware of "5 step processes", beware of anything that claims its easy. There really isnt an easy way - there's only the combination that works for you.

Don't get attached to a therapy or approach. Its easy to find something that helps, and believe it is the One True Way, become evangelical about it. It helps with motivation to stick with it, but it can also make you ignore what's NOT working and become too invested in "selling" it to others, perhaps even make forays into becoming The Guru (looks at self in mirror :| )

Oh, and if you're a perfectionist or people pleaser - be careful not to try and be "good at therapy" and get an 'A' from your therapist Its the one place you really need to be emotionally honest, be free to screw up, be lazy, be whatever. One quote I remember reading - "therapy doesn't really begin until the client gets angry with the therapist". Worth bearing in mind

Hello

I have always been rather meek and terrified of standing up for myself, with a lot of resentment that would build up and fester. Then something small would happen, the straw and the camels back, and I would shock myself so much I would run back under my shame rock.

Over the last five years or so, the industry I have worked in has exposed me to a lot of 'tough nuts', and TBH really didnt allow me to be passive anymore, I had to toughen up. But that was super hard and its been a long, long process. But I feel like I have gradually got more comfy with protecting boundaries, and not being afraid to say "piss off" when I need to even if it makes me feel tense as * and unpleasant for some time after.

case in point, today one of those annoying people who try to sell you things on the street came up to me. I said "No thank you I have an appointment", which is my standard line as I never want to buy anything, but dont like to be rude. This time though the guy looked at me and in a pretty condescending, teacherly tone said "who with?". In the past I would have made some weak * joke and felt like an idiot, but instead said "None of your bloody business!" and said a swear under my breath. A bunch of people turned round and looked at him. Was quite fun.

Its only small and probably something most people don't even think about, but that is so far from "me" that it really felt like progress. Not having to put up with people who don't respect boundaries, being able to tolerate the discomfort of standing up for myself. I still feel like someone is strangling my insides for an hour after, but at least I am doing it 

Biscuits

Maybe you have narcissist radar! I get reactions to people too, but the one I really listen to is my dog.

Haha totally, at university my friend called it my Psycho-Dar.

Yeh doggies defo have that 6th sense going on.

Hello

Do others relate to this, or have any experience working with it?

I have been reading Pete Walker's book and can really relate to his idea of needing to be "shiny" - that sense that you can only be loveable, of any value, if you are achieving or doing something incredible, due to growing up with the sense that just being normal somehow did not merit value. He also talks about the salvation fantasy, the idea of miraculously attaining this state where you are suddenly perfectly shiny all the time. In the absence of it is a profound sense of sadness, worthlessness and emptiness and a constant gnawing drive to fix yourself.

I know this has been a lifelong pattern for me, one which I feel intense shame and guilt over, even repress, but which is always there. Like a double layer of infection. The hardest part is knowing where to even start, or knowing what it would feel like for things to be different when its all youve ever known.

Worth pointing out at this point, I have had about 10 years of therapy and meds of all different kinds.

EDIT: I missed off the question oops

Biscuits

Just wondered if others experience this?

I seem to have a sixth sense for people who are dangerous or manipulative. Its like I meet them and there's that "tense violins in movies when the bad guy comes in" sound goes off in my head, its kind of paralysing, like a freeze effect. I've lost count of the amount of times now where I know immediately there is something wrong with a person, but when I tell others all they see is the charm, the confidence. This person is often a leader, a manager, a new addition to a group of friends or perhaps a boyfriend or girlfriend. When you voice your concern, friends or colleagues tell you that you are being paranoid or stupid. The last time it happened was a manager at work, who everyone thought was awesome, but turned out to be both lazy, manipulative and a fraud. I knew it immediately, but it took a year and half, and a number of destroyed client contracts and the steady breaking of trust with more and more people, before others would see it. Again, I was told I was paranoid when I said it.

You have to sit back and watch them begin to erode things around your friends, family or work colleagues and 6 months to a year later, they all start saying what a snake in the grass this person is. Is this something common in CPTSD or similar conditions?

Cheers for reading

Biscuits

Thank you sanmagic7

Sorry it has taken me so long to reply, but thank you for your thoughts and comments.

Biscuits

Hello and welcome, biscuits!

It sounds like your sister may fit the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder. You can search this site for NPD, as well as "gaslighting". Should be some answers there for you.

Richard Grannon has excellent videos on youtube on the subject of dealing with narcissists.

Also, I totally want to validate you for the pain you feel at others' inability to understand the pain this had caused you. This is sometimes referred to as "secondary wounding".

Here's a topic we discussed a while back... http://outofthefog.net/C-PTSD/forum/index.php?topic=4156.0

But anyhow, we're glad you're here! Thanks for joining

Hello there

Thank you for the welcome and suggestions, I will have a look at that thread you posted.

Yes validation has always been a huge issue. Chasing after it, looking for it in the wrong places etc. Always trying to make the world listen lol

Welcome, Biscuits! 

Sorry that you have had such a tough time. But I'm glad that you've recently found some "mh" professionals who can see that the problem hasn't been a "personality disorder" on your part. I know what you mean about people not understanding. Luckily, there are many people here who do understand. I hope that you find this site helpful!

Hi mourningdove

Sorry for the delay in replying and thank you for your kind welcome 

Hello

Sorry for wall of text, I have tried to find a way to make it short and to the point but I feel I need to get this all in

I am new to the forum, hi to everyone. Quick rundown - I am late 30's, male, and like many I have had many diagnoses and years of therapy / meds. Recently a psychiatrist said complex trauma was a distinct possibility. I looked into it and it really fit for me. Broadly mine came from physical abuse, an emotionally corrosive environment, and later on compounded by divorce, bullying, assaults, accidents.

Therapy has helped a lot, but there is one issue that no matter who I talk to they cannot understand it, and in fact it usually makes people angry, dismissive and look down on me.

Background - in my family, sarcasm, criticism, shaming and public put downs were regular, and of course it was denied. When my sister did it to my mother, she looked destroyed and angry. If anyone did it to my dad, he would go quiet and simmer (against the background of being unpredictably explosive with hitting etc). If anyone did it to my sister, similarly it upset her but she had by far and away the most acidic tongue in the family. So, NO ONE in my family liked it, and definitely did not think it was fun. It was never just jolly, toughen-you-up banter.

I was the youngest. When it was done to me, I would get angry like kids do. But anger was, as Pete Walker says, the one thing for which the very worst punishments were reserved. If it wasn't a freak out or explosion, it was demeaning, shaming, "oh for god's sake, learn to laugh at yourself", or sometimes with my mum, an emotional collapse. She was extremely fragile, and so I also grew up feeling that teasing people and sarcasm both always hurt, and that if I got angry, I was a horrible person. When my sister was in her teens, this got worse and it felt as though she honestly hated me. She would go through my cupboards, find things out about me and subtly threaten me with them, or just outright tell people in front of me. It just felt she would do anything to paint me as a piece of *. From my point of view, i was 4 years younger and just wanted her to like me. I didn't know what I was doing wrong. Again this was all denied by mum (father absent by this point). Everyone had to pretend life was rainbows and unicorns (except for the times she was upset, and then we were support / audience).

Then of course, real life happened. Teasing, banter and its dark cousin, bullying. When it happened, it would unlock that old well of pain, humiliation, and then that sense of despair that came from knowing I was angry. It became this strangling, suffocating mix of stuck anger, humiliation, shame and sadness (which you're not allowed to feel, that's wrong too). On some level it feels like a betrayal - this person knows they are hurting me, maybe even wants to, but everyone behaves as if I am the one who is out of line. It seems different for a guy - you are expected to just "take it like a man".

Its still with me now. But to other people, its interpreted as being conceited, or thin skinned, or over-sensitive. "Its just teasing, its just banter". Sometimes it is, and I know that. I want my emotions to really know the difference, see the spectrum. But still that age old sore spot sits there and as hard as I try to hide the reaction, laugh along, make jokes at myself, exaggerate, bite back, smack talk, ignore them, walk away, change the subject ... it always eventually seems to escalate and begin to set off that internal sense of being hurt, and having no right to do anything - even that being angry at all makes me a piece of *. I just stop trusting, feel more angry and hurt, and then leave.

I've not had a therapist yet that could understand it or offer any help. I have an entire bookcase of cbt, assertiveness, jokes, banter, psychology, self help, schema therapy, psychoanalysis...you name its there and I've tried it. But as is so often the case with Complex Trauma, it has a power all its own. Regular people who have tried to understand it just get sick of me. It comes between me and pretty much every relationship I have and interferes with work. This is all against the background of the other causes of my MH issues. It feels like not only am I the only person who seems to struggle with this, but that even psychotherapy, psychology and psychiatry do not understand it. For years I was dismissed as having "characterological" issues, personality disorder, dysthymia.. whatever it took to get me to go away. My most recent visit to a psychiatrist removed all that. He does not believe I have a PD. Three therapists over 6 years also feel I do not fit the bracket of personality disorder.

I guess I want to find out if there are other people who feel like this, who have found the same frustration?