Messages

Just a quick reply for the moment, Candid.
Maybe you're being self-absorbed as much as everyone else on here as opposed to "everywhere else" in your life. I really believe that we need to be self-absorbed in some parts of our life in order to heal. Why not on a forum where we go to heal??? OK, we vent here too but that's part and parcel of our healing. And anyway you are not just self-absorbed here! You reply to other people's posts and not just in a self-absorbed way. The way you write shows you care about other people here, and you obviously do about people in your non-digital world, like your husband.

to you, Candid.

I can so relate to that, especially your examples in the second paragraph. I ended up not trusting anybody outside the family. Even minor points, like not being in other people's cars in case they'd had a drink too many though actually someone in my own FOO sometimes had a drink too many or would doze off at the wheel.

I was certainly taught to fear/distrust/dislike social workers and doctors, and later on especially psychiatrists as well as of course therapists and psychologists. I was even warned that they might make me believe things that had never happened. Because you see in FOO's opinion I was so 'gullible'. Especially abuser no. 1 accused me of that  for supposedly listening to other people's opinions on what was going on in our family. That wasn't even true, I had formed my own ideas on something feeling very amiss in my FOO. My most gullible action however was believing all the critical, hurtful comments that were spewed at me over the years when I was growing up. I see the irony there and don't actually accuse myself of gullibility.

Thank you for bringing this topic up, writetolife. Good on you for helping out at a youth group. It can be healing to be among people who act and think differently to the way things were in our FOO.

Hi Joyful,
I've been taught grounding basically the way Eyessoblue explains except that I may use all my senses: so smell, sound, touch and even taste. In my case particularly touch e.g. pushing off against the wall with my hands or stamping my feet on the ground.

What also occurs to me about your post (numbing, shoving feelings down) though is that you may be dissociating because your system is 'overloaded'. You may be trying to do too much, feel too much, go too fast. Of course, we all want to heal fast and get all this stuff over with and be normal etc etc, but recovery from this beast takes time, unfortunately. If this doesn't apply to you, then ignore.

I self-diagnosed a long time ago as SLAA anorexic. (This does exist in the SLAA literature.) I have been in SLAA meetings and wasn't the only anorexic. Anorexics may have quite a lot going on in their heads  but otherwise not too much. It was a pretty triggering topic for me though. Some of the time it was good to share, but I don't go to meetings of any type any more, generally. One a year maybe, then that's enough. I usually trigger other people with my anger and they trigger me with some comments or other. I find if people in a 12 Step group all tend to do one type of therapy (this is the case in my country) then the therapy 'wisdom' flows into the 12 Step group too and here it's somewhat contrary to trauma-based therapy. At least that's what I find. The way that postings on Out Of The Fog main forum can be triggering for us C-PTSD people.

Also as somebody else said, the trauma therapy is the focus now.

I've also done a lot of what might be called holding therapy or attachment therapy for adults (there's no sexual content) which has done wonders for reducing my need for physical contact. The need was never really sexual anyway in my case (see anorexia - I'm not saying this is a healty state to be in either) but the more addictive (as opposed to anorexic) problems I spoke up about in SLAA are much reduced.

Welcome TimeToShine 

Wise words from Three Roses.

I get cycles, too, have been doing for years. You describe it so aptly, Coco! I read it yesterday and thought "Yes! That's what has been going on the past little while". When I was in non-trauma therapy it was actually sometimes worse than in daily life beforehand. But there are people who say it gets worse before it gets better...
Now that I've been in trauma therapy for a couple of years my down phases are shorter and I don't fall quite as far.

Yes, Woodsgnome, I know all about the coping efforts that tire me out. I'm glad I'm not alone with this. That means it's a symptom, not a personal failure of Blueberry (yay!!).

Hi Coco,
I'm happy for you that you had such a good, nurturing, healing experience. I've been in therapeutic self-defense (for C-PTSD or just plain old PTSD patients) but I don't remember so much happening all in one session. So glad the guys doing your course were so attentive and perceptive.

I sometimes have trouble translating verbal directions into physical moves. I can figure out what to do (mostly) but it's slow-going and I have to talk myself through it: OK, take your right foot and put it behind.... Seems trauma-related in my case, maybe in yours too.

And yes, unfortunately, far-reaching consequences, multi-pronged layers. Good description!

I've also had to do a lot of practical activities and movements to heal from a sort of paralysis in day-to-day life. Some of it I did in occupational therapy.  Why am I frightened of doing this??? Why can't I even start? Then I would start and all these memories started coming up. So then I'd talk myself and my inner child(ren) through that and things were at least better.

But it sounds as if you've found your solution without needing a therapy setting.     

Welcome, Katie6!    I'm glad you found us and I hope you feel comfortable here.
This is a very supportive forum and not everybody has an official diagnosis. So don't worry about that.

I think some people post in the adult and child forums and you're certainly very welcome to read both. Then it may become clearer to you which is more applicable for you. This is also a very non-judgemental forum, so no worries if you happened to post in the wrong place, I guess a moderator would move the post.

Trial thread sounds like a good idea to me.

I agree with / can relate to quite a bit of what mourningdove says.

TRIGGER WARNING


Beyond that, i.e. speaking only as myself, I've endured years of an inner voice suggesting I .... without mentioning any particular method. Now, I've always known that I wouldn't actually do so, but that didn't make it particularly easy to put up with this voice. Sometimes I mentioned it to friends-in-healing, always adding "I'm not going to do anything, don't worry, but this is the voice."  but I didn't want to burden friends all the time. Mentioning it however did reduce my agony with it, and reduced the strength of it. (Like saying "I'm about to dissociate" helps me not do so.) It wasn't a topic for ER or a doc because I wasn't in any kind of danger, no more than in any other EF.

I also used to get intrusive images of me self-injuring, but these are much reduced. Probably others do too. I mean it's a well-known symptom of C-PTSD, why worse than drinking, smoking, over-eating or whatever? When i write or speak about it, it's not to glorify it in any way, but to reduce tension. Docs and Ts say that my self-injury method was about bringing me back from dissociation, I certainly couldn't end my life with it, and now it's an ingrained habit. 

I can of course appreciate that admins and moderators might be quite concerned, wondering how much to delete and maybe also worrying that the supportive atmosphere might deteriorate here. I'm glad I wouldn't have to decide. But for these concerns, a trial thread is good.

Thanks a lot sanmagic!

I'm just so ashamed of the whole topic that it's really hard to talk about it, though I have before in other therapies. Oh I just remembered that we've been working at the topic from an oblique angle on and off for weeks actually. Not really mentioning it but seeing how much I can feel the physical presence of my body on the chair etc. without me dissociating, going numb etc. And actually I'm doing really well. Just as well my T keeps track of what's going on.    It is his job of course.

I finally had a shower and washed my hair yesterday, as I've posted elsewhere.

It wasn't till the evening and I was reading back in my diary that in a similar phase in the fall (real problems with self-care and especially showering - just the thought of it - was really exhausting, plus just staying in bed or if out of bed then eating unhealthily/too much, self-injury etc etc)  I realised it was mixed up with CSA which we'd briefly touched on in therapy. Then I sank all the memories, my explanations, T's remarks, the work we'd done on it... into a bank vault. And I really forgot that we'd ever touched on the topic. 
So the realisation: something similar has been going on this past week too. I don't even remember if the CSA topic came up again in my mind. Being forgetful can be quite useful at times.    Oh, yeah, it did come up, I was thinking it's maybe time I got onto this topic in T since I don't have many hours left.
So I've been in an EF which I can sort of function in but which makes the simplest sounding activities really difficult. Also self-motivation really hard. This realisation helps me not be so hard on myself, so critical.

CSA is the one topic where I still dissociate when I just think of it. I haven't admitted to myself, acknowledged how devastating it has been. It wasn't as bad as most people had. I could've misunderstood something.      Though I didn't of course. The body keeps the score. I haven't even read that book, but the title is very apt.

I'm grateful I have a place to write this.

Welcome crohnie, I'm glad you've found us and joined us.  There's lots of common ground on this forum, and lots of mutual support.

Yes, welcome here, Pammie.  Read around, old posts, new posts, whatever. I'm sure you'll find support and useful information. I certainly have in the few weeks I've been here.

6 months wait.... 

But you sound so strong.  that you're ready to take on the world and accept yourself as you are now!! (I'm not that far yet).

We're here in the forum for you when there are times that it's not so easy.

      Phoebes! Feeling empowered to stop own insomnia! That is a really good step.