Messages

Tricia,

I'm glad you got the service dog. The love and care they give is unequalled.

I once heard of an ancient saying that has warmed my heart for years: "Long, long ago, the gods created a chasm to divide humankind from animals, but just before that chasm became too wide, dog jumped across to be with us."

I hope you and your new friend have a long and happy time together.

Chart, Blueberry, Bach, Cascade,

Thanks for the kind words. I certainly can appreciate the difficulties between knowing about self-love and feeling it. I struggle with that also.

It's the trauma that blocks us from feeling it. It's not a rational sense, but it's real. Someone taught us to not feel it. But here, on the forum, we have a lot of compassion for each other. Know that you are deeply appreciated for your openness and sharing here on the forum. Folks like me and you and all the others who respond to each other and share are all in the same boat. Maybe our love for one another can help ease the sense of not being good at turning our own love inward toward ourselves.

We're in this together.

Slashy,

I'm VERY glad to hear that you're getting relief from the Panic Attacks! I hope today is a good day for you.

Slashy,

Thank you for sharing the documentary. I watched it. It was definitely heart wrenching. I guess Donna is on a mission to raise awareness for her cause so that's how she framed her point. I'm sorry she missed the mark for your little sister's needs as a person with C-PTSD.  One thing that brought a cheer from me was when your little sister said that she'd caught an x-boyfriend beating on her son, so she immediately ended the relationship so as to protect her son.  If the documentary was accurate about that fact, I cheer for Vikki and her kids.

Take care
-PC

Slashy,

You've been on my mind since this morning. There is some sense of safety around the fact that you've moved your wife and child across the country. Hopefully there's no chance that any of your family or former friends are going to bump into you in the store or are going to call you or email you or try to squeeze themselves into your life at this time.

One thing that my therapist has done many times for me is, when I'm in serious flashback mode, he leans in close to me for drama and says, "you know this is trauma, right? It's not a rational fear, it's a real fear, but it's of a memory of a threat that is long gone." 

It is not a cure for trauma, but does tend to slightly deescalate my emotional flashback to more manageable levels. When I go into my "almost" panic attacks, I picture him sitting across from me saying, "You know, this is trauma. It's not a physical threat. You are safe, you just don't feel like it, but you are. This is a trauma reaction to a bad memory."

Doing that does tend to take some of the edge off of the situation for me. But I know what trauma feels like and it's very real and very debilitating.

I've been in trauma therapy for close to 20 years, and I've gotten a lot better since the original diagnosis in 2005, but I'm still a long way from being immune to triggers. But when they happen, this is one of the tools I use to soften them a bit. I just remember, it FEELS real, but it's trauma. It's a memory that's igniting my neural pathways to relive the stressors of the past. It feels like the threat to my life is real, but the feeling is just the feeling. It deserves good trauma therapy, but it's not the same as having my family actually knocking down the door to humiliate me again like they used to many years ago.

I'm pulling for you,
PC.

StartingHealing,

Your stories about your awesome dad warm my heart, but then losing him at age 13 breaks my heart.

It sounds like you and I have some similar beliefs as far as our spirit and physical lives.

I personally believe that the only true purpose we have as we live as physical beings, is to find our way back to God by evolving from being narcisstic cavemen to one day becoming awakened beings of light. That being said, I believe that pain and misery are part of our physical world to keep motivating us to let go of the narcissistic world and embrace the spiritual world instead.

HOWEVER: I can't stop thinking that there is just WAYYYYY too much pain on the earth. And when people say that stupid phrase: "God will never give us more than we can handle" I respond with, "tell that to the millions of people who've killed themselves over the centuries."

I truly struggle with keeping my head up because I can't see the beauty without knowing that it's sitting in pain. I use the 80/20 rule a lot. In this case, I see, and have always seen, that life is 20% joy and 80% pain. No matter how happy I am, I'm always aware that the other shoe is about to drop.

My T and I talked about this just yesterday. He is a well-trained Parts Work therapist, and he says this is not my core self who is demotivated and depressed. He says it's one of my parts. A big one. Maybe the biggest one. And he experienced the world with me as a boy who was only rewarded for being what others wanted me to be, and who was given good things only when they were bait for an inevitable betrayal.

We didn't have enough time to truly work through this sad boy part, but my therapist's suggestion is enough to make me think about it.

Meanwhile I continue to read and write on the forum so that I can feel like, at least I'm not the only person who feels this way. Being connected with others that understand...priceless.

Hi Slashy,

I can feel the urgency in your posts. I'm not "triggered" by it but I'm alarmed. What you're going through is a legitimate crisis and you deserve help from wherever you can find it.

I just read your introductory post. You've been hospitalized for this a few times, so I can easily see that panic attacks are a recurring problem for you. I've come close, but have not had a full-blown Panic attack, so I'm not the wisest person to help work through them. I have no doubt there are people on this forum who have experiences more closely like yours. Hopefully someone will have some suggestions for you.

All I know how to ask is, do you have a decent Trauma-wise therapist now? Is the person who diagnosed you with CPTSD available to help any further? It sounds to me like you are well within your rights to ask a therapist to squeeze you into their schedule as you deal with these recurring panic attacks. The fact that your family's stories are going public should put some legitimate urgency to get someone to make a spot for you on their therapy schedule.

Meanwhile, I sincerely hope you stay connected with this forum. There are some pretty smart folks here who've helped me a lot over the years.

Sincerely,
PC.

Slashy

Welcome to the forum. I'm very glad you had the wherewithal to join this forum after only a week with the diagnosis.

Your story of how your Family of Origin (FOO) has been publicized in books and documentaries is truly a big deal. I feel for you. I know that just seeing documentaries about people who've been through similar things as me triggers me right back into my own abuse stories. I can imagine that what you're going through is the same thing I feel, but to a much higher degree of intensity.

Anytime I even see people who resemble my FOO I go into a triggered state for many days. I went No Contact (NC) with my FOO in 2010. Close calls with them, or anyone who looks like them, are painful.

I'm glad you are on the forum. I hope the forum is a place of safety and calm for you.  One thing I've noticed in the 2 1/2 years I've been on the forum, is that even though we all have different backstories, today we are so similar that we are very adept at comforting each other. Being alone with the pain is what makes the pain so lonely. Being in a group of people who understand and share in the pain is a big help as we deal with our own stories and our own triggers.

Welcome!

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Cascade, Chart, Bach, and everyone else who is dealing with this sense of unmotivated living:

I'm very sorry this is happening to us all, but I'm very glad to be a part of the conversation. The pain is far worse when I feel like I'm the only person with the affliction.

I can blame my lack of motivation on a lot of things. The two I fall back on the most often are:

1) I was only praised for doing things for others. When I did things for myself, I was called selfish and was shamed for it. Most of my family and friends are gone now. I'm alone most of the time. I have no one looking to me to do things for them, so I'm now "a servant without a master". How can I motivate myself to do things for myself that will only label me as selfish? 

2) I have lived through so many betrayals, that anytime I feel like life is going well, a voice in the back of my head says "wait for it..." knowing that every hour of fun has to be paid for with a month of suffering. I resort to the 80/20 rule. In this case, life is 80% pain and 20% beautiful. My family only treated me with respect when they were buttering me up to do something for them. Happiness was a trap. "Make him happy so we can pull the rug out from beneath him."  If I ever got excited about anything at all, they would laugh at me like I was an idiot. Being happy, excited, or motivated just opens up a thousand old wounds of when those were very dangerous emotions to feel.

The truth, I think, is just that this unmotivated depression is what Complex PTSD does to us. It's just what it does. This is it. This is the face of residual trauma.

I took this all to my therapist yesterday. He knows me to be a man of high energy who, over the past few years have fallen into this trench of unmotivated sadness. He is well versed in Parts Therapy. He took the stance yesterday that this depressed, unmotivated person I'm presenting is not my Self, but is, in fact, one of my bigger, more active parts. He had me sit with the part in an imaginary theater. Sadly, 55 minutes, every two weeks, isn't enough time to get too deep, but he did give me something to think about today. The idea that this demotivated sad boy is one of my parts who needs me to love him is sort of a tiny flame of hope (HEAVY on the word TINY) flickering off in the darkness that I can shoot for as I try to dig myself out of this unmotivated muck.

For now, I'm just accepting that he is not all of me. He's a part in need of my help, and I'll do my best to just love him for now while I work to keep my head up.

I'll let you know how it goes as I try to process this idea.

StartingHealing,

I'm blown away by the synchronicity of the beautiful souls on this forum. We seem to travel the same moods and issues at the same time.

I live where soul meets body. Both are real to me. Like an actor and a character. Same person. My eternal self and my temporary physical identity are existing simultaneously. Both are real. One does not negate the other. Every minute of every hour of every day I have a choice which "me" I choose to focus on. And on many days that choice isn't easy to make. Physical life can be very noisy which makes it damm near impossible to focus on spiritual values. The bills need to be paid. The attacks are happening. I can't just ignore my physical self. As much as I want to...it doesn't seem possible on most days.

Today is another one of those days. I am having what I call a period of melancholy. In centuries past, PTSD was called "Melancholy Disorder."  I see melancholy as an unhealthy connection to the past. I am currently being tortured by the voices of my past. It comes on me often during early Spring. This year is no exception.

I wish I knew how to help you, but I can't even help myself out of it. The best thing I have going for me is that I've finally learned this is a temporary condition that comes on my like bad weather. It stays until it's done with me and then it just...goes away.

I guess the reason I'm telling you this is from my belief that we are stronger when we share experiences. My motto in life is "We're stronger together." I feel so much the same as how you've described your mood today. I feel stronger when I feel like I'm not alone in my experience. I hope my sharing helps others in the same way.

All day long right now I feel like I'm on a sinking ship and I wonder why I would bother to make the beds, fluff the pillows and wash the windows while the ship is sinking. I have no motivation. I am fighting off the voices of my dad and my narcissistic siblings, whom I have not been in contact with since 2010.

I'm sorry you're going through this also. It hurts. But it helps me to know that I'm not alone in this feeling. I hope that somehow, my being in the lifeboat with you brings some sense of peace in return.  We're stronger together.

Cascade, I can relate also.

Motivation is simply gone for me. I sit around bored with a million things I could be doing. Including showering and vacuuming. I only wear cargo shorts and t-shirts. I look like a slob and I feel like one too. But I don't care enough to fix it.

I think of it like I'm on a sinking ship. Why would I bother to fluff the pillows on a sinking ship? If there's no lasting meaning to what I do, why do it?

This is a sign of chronic depression, but knowing that isn't helping me get past it.

I don't know how to fix this yet, but I just wanted to share that I feel what you and Bach feel all the time these days. Demotivated. You are not alone in this double-whammy. I'm in it too.

Hi Edna,

I'm so sorry to hear about how you broke down this morning.

I can really relate to what you say about how your M and others get into your head. I have a serious problem with that as well. I have to say that it started getting a lot better after I read two books, the best one being The Sociopath Next Door by Dr. Martha Stout. What I've personally learned about my own life is that the narcissists who raised and gaslighted me from birth figured out how to get into my head and they parked themselves there.

I believe it's a version of Hypervigilance, in that my brain now is always on high alert as I work to keep others out of my head. 

I'm reminded of the coolest teacher I ever had. He was my ninth grade Algebra teacher. His name was Lwanga. He had no last name. He was born and raised in the jungles of Africa, educated by the British, and immigrated to the US as an adult. He used to tell us stories of his time "in the bush" which is what he called the jungle. He said that he was always on alert, watching for snakes and predatory animals and dangerous insects. It had given him some superhuman powers in that he could be writing on the chalk board, facing his back to the classroom. And when one of us raised a hand, from far behind him, he would state our name and ask what we wanted. Like he had eyes on the back of his head. We were a bunch of 14-year-olds who would then go "whoa that is so cool!!!"  40 years later I learned the word Hypervigilance. I related it as my emotional version of Lwanga's physical life living in his world filled with dangers waiting to strike him at every moment.

I wasn't in a physical jungle, but my head was a jungle, and my family were the snakes and dangerous predators. I couldn't see someone raising a hand behind my back, but I am good at predicting how certain people will abuse me as soon as I get too close to them. I grew up knowing the rule: Everything I say can and will be used against me eventually by some twisted logic engineered by one of the narcissists in my life.

I spent my life running scripts in my head of what my narcissistic family was going to say next to or about me, trying to not say anything that they can twist and use against me. It's no wonder I live in oscillating states of anxiety and depression. I spent my life trying so hard to stay a step ahead of their lies and criticisms and insults that I just...went...mad. For many years, I numbed the voices with alcohol. But ten years ago, the alcohol became the bigger problem and I had to go into recovery. I then started spending--"retail therapy" they call it. I tried numbing with medications. Nothing really helped until I started reading books on how to deal with narcissists and sociopaths (Synonyms in my world).

Back before I read the books and began pushing narcissists out of my head, I used to hear their voices constantly. Not like I was schizophrenic, but like they were the voices of my many inner critics. I was just worn down always trying to stay one step ahead of them. I had to try and predict how they were going to hurt me every time I tried to find a way to talk with them.

It's crazy-making. These unintelligent manipulators very nearly drove me insane. They did drive me to suicide three times...all three times I was rescued at the last minute by someone from out of nowhere. And that's their intent. THAT IS THEIR INTENT. Not to interact with you, but to compete with you. To beat you. To win. They think that every sentence spoken is a competition that they need to win. You aren't allowed to be happy around them or they'll find your panic button and push it so that you'll become miserable again. They do it because it's fun for them to watch us squirm. They're much more horrible people than we give them credit for. We enable them by deciding to believe that they aren't as cold and uncaring as they really are.

As I learn more and more about what cold-hearted, simple narcissists really are, I have begun to gain a better and better ability to not let them into my head. Naturally it takes time, but that book was a massive revelation for me when I read it some 10 years ago or more. It opened my eyes to better understand how the simplistic mind of a narcissist really works. They're all the same. Exactly the same. They want what you have and will pull any mean trick to either take it from you, or at least ruin it so you can no longer enjoy it. They intentionally create chaos so they can take control. They're not smart enough to have control in an honest world, so they create chaos with lies and cheats and gossip and insults because they know they aren't smart enough to take what you have within the rules of social order.

They drive us insane when we believe they have hearts. Once we discover and accept that they are nothing but predators who don't have hearts, we begin to feel ourselves loosening from their grips. The one thing that nearly did me in, was some part of me believed that a day would come when they would realize the damage they'd done and would come to me with an apology. When I realized they were never going to become capable of feeling remorse, I sort of...broke free from them.

My heart is with yours. I am not, by any stretch, healed. But I'm better. Much, much better. I have come a long way in my ability to not let these vampires into my head. It all started with two simple books. In Sheep's Clothing, by Dr George K Simon and The Sociopath Next Door by Dr. Martha Stout.

Cascade,

To your question: Am I too unstable to begin healing? I have the sense that the instability is one of the major things to be healed from, so I personally believe that my answer would be no. You are not too unstable to begin healing. In a way it's like asking if you are too sick to see a doctor. My answer to that question would be that the instability is the problem your therapist can help you with.

My therapist works best with me when my instability (which I call dysregulation) is in full bloom on therapy day. He can't help me as much when I'm feeling strong. He helps me most when I'm feeling the most unable to control my moods.  When I'm at my least, I need him the most.

I used to have a car that had a nasty sense of humor. Like me, it had good days and bad. It had an unpredictably sporadic electrical problem with its brake lights. I would bring it to the garage and lights would work perfectly. The mechanics would see no problem. They couldn't fix something that wasn't broken. I'd take it back home and the brake lights would stop working again. The car was playing practical jokes on me. I brought it in for repair several times until the lucky day came when the mechanic took the car from me, and the brake lights quit working while he had it. He could finally diagnose the issue. He found a short in the wiring and was able to fix it.

I know CPTSD can't be fixed in a single visit to a mechanic, but my point is that the problem I have with dysregulation is the very problem I need help with. So, in my own world, and my own life, I don't see being dysregulated as a problem that can slow healing, I see it as the problem that needs the most attention right now.

Wetsand,

Welcome to the forum. I hope the folks on this forum are able to help bring you the sense of support, community and friendship that you are looking for. I agree with you that having a good therapist is only one of the things we need as we find our way through Complex PTSD. We also need friends, and cohorts and corroborators.

It's so important to me to read that I'm not the only one who struggles, and I hope the friendships that can be made here are able to help you feel a bit less alone too. For me, the less alone I feel with my triggers and moods, the less crazy I feel.

Welcome!

I've read and/or listened to The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron a few times now. It's kind of a sleeper. At first glance it seems a bit fluffy or silly, but the more often I listen and re-listen to it on audio books, the more incredible wisdom I hear in Julia's writing. Chapter Two, for example, is all about who took our creativity away from us. She calls them "Crazy Makers". Her in depth description of how these crazy makers took away our creative juices is a one-to-one description of a narcissistic parent, friend, relative, or sibling. Each time I listen to her describe the ways the crazy-makers in my life (My narcistic friends and siblings), convinced me that I don't have the right to be creative, the more I find myself laughing at how right she is. She has it down.  It's like, "OMG! That is EXACTLY what my evil sister used to do to me!" I laugh, not out of comedy, but out of obviousness of how right she is.

This book has opened me up to accepting that I was indeed born with creativity but was raised in the lies that made me ashamed of it. By the time I'd grown to be a man who could make my own life's choices, I had lost all ability to know what my original wiring was created for. I wanted to be everything and nothing. I wanted to be a singer, writer, painter, musician, architect, and more, but at the same time had been taught to KNOW that I am nothing but a servant to my narcissistic friends and family members.

When I first listened to the audio book, I spent the first half hour thinking it was dumb. But soon enough, Julia hit some nerves and I became enthralled with her wisdom and her explanations of, not only how my creativity was taken from me, but of some ways I can begin to find it again. It's there. We all have it. I believe now, that part of the emptiness, loneliness, hollowness, that we with CPTSD live with, is driven by that little part deep down inside us that knows we have a creative spark still alive in us that would make us feel amazing if we'd just use it, while the rest of our inner parts are too afraid to accept that, so they are fighting to keep that part from becoming known. Our inner parts have assumed the roles of our original bad parents and siblings and have become the protectors who are trying to protect us from being humiliated again by the world that originally beat the creativity out of us.

I recommend this book for anyone who is really struggling to believe that you have a purpose but can't seem to find that purpose.

Our creativity is not gone. It's still there. At this point, the flames are cooled, but the spark is still there awaiting a day when we might give it permission, and oxygen, and fuel to reignite and bring us the joy that we know is there for us. It's there.

I entered into this book with a lot of cynical opinions that it was just a fluff book. I am now finding that it brings a flicker of hope that I just might be able, one day, to loosen my own bindings that keep me from experiencing the otherworldly joy that a person finds when we become who we were originally born to be...before narcissists and crazy-makers tricked us into abandoning just to feed their own jealous hatred of seeing others happy.