Messages

Thanks for the technique! It reminds me of a technique from the book "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron, where you write half an hour every day. Of course I only kept that up for a while, a good number of years ago. I could see it working for when I'm brain-blocked as a once-off thing.

I was lucky with the contract work. The client changed their mind but has to cough up anyway.  I did put a lot of work into it. And when a client has a written contract with you, they can't suddenly decide: "No, not that one. We need a different one."

But after learning about cptsd I almost don't think things like that are good for people who have been severely traumatized.  I don't know.  Some people say it's just a matter of facing your fears and getting over it, but I've tried to face many of my fears and it just seems like my cptsd symptoms never go away.  Being able to be fully self expressive and trust people intimately is something that just feels impossible to me. 

I've been on healing retreats since I've known about CPTSD. It was in fact two therapists at one of those who recognised that I have CPTSD! I was allowed to stay that weekend, and they worked a little differently with me than with the rest of the group. That kind of individual, specialised work can only happen in a small group imo, and obviously only with therapists / 'healers' who are trauma-informed.

You were quite possibly not 'doing it right' but that would have probably been your own internal protective mechanism to prevent re-traumatisation. Yay you! That's a sign of self-care and sticking up necessary boundaries 

Can we get over CPTSD? I've heard of occasional people who do. I know far more people who learn to live with it and continue to get better at living with it than they did before. So partial healing, but not complete.

Of course I wish you full recovery! But if it doesn't happen, then don't harangue yourself. You're not alone.

  

I've often had feelings 2 and 3 at the same time, so sitting with you. The feelings do pass for me eventually.

Combined with 2 and 3 (or just on its own) I used to often feel incapable of figuring out my priorities (which is different from your problem 1, I realise). Or even if I could figure them out, I couldn't do most of them. The whole situation  big time. Can only send commiseration and sit with you.

Thank you san!

I ate quite a lot in my break, but I was honestly very hungry. I ate healthy things though. On Saturday I bought myself a pre-made salad - just add dressing. I ate most of that. That's good because mostly when I finish doing work in the more difficult professional line I'm in, I'm so drained I can't cook or prepare food or do much else in fact. That's a moment when I tend to either eat nothing or go and buy and some junk. Compared to that, what I ate today was really healthy.

Then I also went for a walk in the  sun, as far as I could find it. It's really cold for here atm but it's nice seeing the snow. It might have been harder for me to go out if warmer but raining. Usually I need a reason to go out e.g. need to post a letter but this time I just went for a bit of leg-stretch and fresh air and sun. And because I noticed on the weekend that my usual go-to unhealthy coping skills don't work. So I'm practising treading the new path down.

  and have a good 

No other replies, huh? I guess people think I'm crazy after all.

I don't think you're crazy. I'm just having a super difficult weekend myself. I wasn't in a good place all week either though for different reasons.

D.R., this was maybe not the most caring of ways to write what I meant.

Let's try it again: the fact that people may not answer has nothing to do with your value as a person, nor does it speak to your sanity (or insanity). It might just be where they are rn. 

 

I'm so sorry for your bad experiences with this. You're right: within one diagnostic category there are a lot of differences.

Noticing further progress, and noticing is beneficial. My usual coping mechanisms like eating, SH, giving up and going to bed or 'wasting time' aka putting off and procrastinating are not working, obviously. But now I'm really noticing it. They aren't working and I *have to* find another way of getting through this contract. Today I'm not even resorting to eating when I shouldn't be or eating anything that I shouldn't be - because it's not working.
...
The whole thing feels like a breakthrough. I think it's the first time I've noticed in such a deep way that my old mechanisms don't work! They're not beneficial.

The realisation is one thing; sticking to the results of it is another. I know, it's practice in re-wiring the brain. Making a beaten path of healthier coping to run alongside the beaten path of unhealthy coping and eventually being a much better worn path than the unhealthy coping.

On with the work!

I guess I need to put some parts of me on the Porch so that other parts of me can continue the work I'm meant to be doing. The only thing is I have to figure out which parts go where and that's not so easy! The sleepy babies can go in a cradle, watched over by Blueberry a few decades on, and the sleepy teenagers are climbing onto an old sofa where they can pull the covers over their heads.

Some of the ICs like 4 year old and 6 year old will go and play in the garden, running barefoot, or maybe they'll even go down to the shoreline, the 2 year old is running with them because she likes to play near water. They're not real little children so I know in their cases that they can play on the shore without being in danger. They can come back to me in an hour and a half maybe to remind me of the sensation of running barefoot in the sand and at the water's edge. That might help me re-ground and take a break from thinking, reading, writing, making decisions. Something to look forward to!

The part of me that makes jerky movements to music can maybe do that from time to time to help blockages unblock. But not all the time or the main part of me won't be able to concentrate. 

Yay James, good for you! 

(Welcome to the forum yokosho!  )

safe  if that's OK otherwise just standing with you. Been there, done that i.e. let that happen.

Yay, Kizzie... it's great that OOTS is being included in the WHO's conversation about the definition of CPTSD.

I echo that! And it's thanks to Kizzie's work that we're being included.    Kizzie

Noticing further progress, and noticing is beneficial. My usual coping mechanisms like eating, SH, giving up and going to bed or 'wasting time' aka putting off and procrastinating are not working, obviously. But now I'm really noticing it. They aren't working and I *have to* find another way of getting through this contract. Today I'm not even resorting to eating when I shouldn't be or eating anything that I shouldn't be - because it's not working. Usually I wouldn't care that it's not working, I'd do it anyway.

SH - well I'm doing a little of it semi-automatically while I work, but I'm stopping myself faster than I was yesterday, and I'm not doing it in a way that hurts, the way I was yesterday. Now it's more a kind of absent-minded and 'soothing' activity as opposed to self-punishment.

More healthy coping: today when I noticed my body really wanted to move and I wanted to enjoy a little of that sunshine, I went out for a little walk. Often I feel too self-conscious to go outside, I want to stay inside and hide from the world. But my body knew it needed to move so the impulse to do so overrode my feelings of self-consciousness and whatever else was there.

And just now I put some music on and allowed my body to move as its impulses were. I wouldn't say 'dancing' really. It's more a way to allow whatever emotions were trapped and causing blockages to be released which will hopefully de-fog my brain as well.

The whole thing feels like a breakthrough. I think it's the first time I've noticed in such a deep way that my old mechanisms don't work! They're not beneficial.