Messages

arpy1,

I'm so sorry that you're going through this. Looking at your posts is so heatbreaking because I know how terrifying the deep-level FB's can be. I'm so glad that you got some relief from reading Pete's book. If I find the reason for what's happening to me, I too feel that relief. I just wish I could always remember this stuff because when I enter a similar EF a few days/weeks later it's like I can't remember the possible reason why, even though I've read through most of the book countless times.  I suppose it's that hijacking of the amygdala.

Have you been able to accept to a large degree then? I find that no matter how many times I encourage myself to accept, I invariably end up resisting again. I'm wondering if there's some magic button I should be hitting to 'accept'. Did you find that crying helped reduce the intensity of your FB? Great if it did.

I too am hugely triggered by anything to do with mental health. I was actually referred to the mental health team by my GP just last week. I received a letter today confirming my appointment. I was the one who asked for it though. But I remember a few months ago during an appointment he told me that I was mentallly ill and it tumbled me into a huge EF myself, so I know what you're going through.

As to whether you should go ahead with this, I'm not sure. You definitely shouldn't make a decision until you're in a better emotional state. People in bad emotional states make bad decisions. So wait and think about it. The problem is that this is obviously a  triggering mental process for you, so even thinking about it is likely to spiral you into further EF's. With that in mind I think you should ask for things to be put on hold and come back to it in a few moths and try again.

Don't worry, I've been there. I've thought I had everything, from NPD to Stokholm. With me, the times that I think I have these things is when I'm letting my ICr go mad because I'm in an EF. Could that be what's happening with you? When I get out of the EF I beat myself up for letting myself think there were all these things wrong with me.

Kizzie is right about Narcs being unaware. You wouldn't even be thinking you might have that if in fact you really did. Plus, if you were near that kind of thing for a long time some of the traits are invariably going to rub off on you, it's impossible for some of them not too.

It sounds more like those things are co-dependancy traits, to be honest. Have you done much research on co-dependancy?

I don't know if this is relevant, but I've been listening to meditations/visualisations and I dissociate when I'm listening to them. It's actually the person speaking that depends on how much I dissociate. Like if it's a woman I'm reminded of my NM and every time I was with her when I was young I dissociated. I'm trying to stop dissociating, so all I can do now is silently meditate.

I was out earlier seeing a new T and I came home and dissociated for about two-hours, so yeah, any change to routine brings it on. I actually thought of listening to a visualisation to ground me and stop the dissociation, but then I remembered it sometimes dissociates me more  !

Thanks for this. Must check it out. I'm riddled with health problems which I categorically know are linked to past trauma.

on the edge of hope,

Don't worry at all about this. As already said, it's just familiar to you and stimulates desensitised emotions.

As awful as the things depicted in shows like this are, it reminds us that we're not alone in this world in our suffering. My favourite books are all the really gritty ones. Before, I could never get behind happy books  I didn't know why the * I couldn't. I'm changing now though. 

[Breathe deeply and slowly. (Holding the breath also signals danger). [c] Slow down: rushing presses the psyche's panic button. [d] Find a safe place to unwind and soothe yourself: wrap yourself in a blanket, hold a stuffed animal, lie down in a closet or a bath, take a nap. [e] Feel the fear in your body without reacting to it. Fear is just an energy in your body that cannot hurt you if you do not run from it or react self-destructively to it. 8. Resist the Inner Critic's Drasticizing and Catastrophizing: [a] Use thought-stopping to halt its endless exaggeration of danger and constant planning to control the uncontrollable. Refuse to shame, hate or abandon yourself. Channel the anger of self-attack into saying NO to unfair self-criticism. Use thought-substitution to replace negative thinking with a memorized list of your qualities and accomplishments 9. Allow yourself to grieve. Flashbacks are opportunities to release old, unexpressed feelings of fear, hurt, and abandonment, and to validate - and then soothe - the child's past experience of helplessness and hopelessness. Healthy grieving can turn our tears into self-compassion and our anger into self-protection. 10. Cultivate safe relationships and seek support. Take time alone when you need it, but don't let shame isolate you. Feeling shame doesn't mean you are shameful. Educate your intimates about flashbacks and ask them to help you talk and feel your way through them. 11. Learn to identify the types of triggers that lead to flashbacks. Avoid unsafe people, places, activities and triggering mental processes. Practice preventive maintenance with these steps when triggering situations are unavoidable. 12. Figure out what you are flashing back to. Flashbacks are opportunities to discover, validate and heal our wounds from past abuse and abandonment. They also point to our still unmet developmental needs and can provide motivation to get them met. 13. Be patient with a slow recovery process: it takes time in the present to become un-adrenalized, and considerable time in the future to gradually decrease the intensity, duration and frequency of flashbacks. Real recovery is a gradually progressive process [often two steps forward, one step back], not an attained salvation fantasy. Don't beat yourself up for having a flashback.]

 Here are Pete's 13 steps to FB management:

   1. Say to yourself: "I am having a flashback". Flashbacks take us into a timeless part of the psyche that . feels as helpless, hopeless and surrounded by danger as we were in childhood. The feelings and sensations you are experiencing are past memories that cannot hurt you now.

  2.  Remind yourself: "I feel afraid but I am not in danger! I am safe now, here in the present." Remember you are now in the safety of the present, far from the danger of the past.

3.   Own your right/need to have boundaries. Remind yourself that you do not have to allow anyone to mistreat you; you are free to leave dangerous situations and protest unfair behavior.

   4. Speak reassuringly to the Inner Child. The child needs to know that you love her unconditionally- that she can come to you for comfort and protection when she feels lost and scared.

   5. Deconstruct eternity thinking: in childhood, fear and abandonment felt endless - a safer future was unimaginable. Remember the flashback will pass as it has many times before.

  6.  Remind yourself that you are in an adult body with allies, skills and resources to protect you that you never had as a child. [Feeling small and little is a sure sign of a flashback]

   7. Ease back into your body. Fear launches us into 'heady' worrying, or numbing and spacing out.
      [a] Gently ask your body to Relax: feel each of your major muscle groups and softly encourage them to relax. (Tightened musculature sends unnecessary danger signals to the brain)
      Breathe deeply and slowly. (Holding the breath also signals danger).
      [c] Slow down: rushing presses the psyche's panic button.
      [d] Find a safe place to unwind and soothe yourself: wrap yourself in a blanket, hold a stuffed animal, lie down in a closet or a bath, take a nap.
      [e] Feel the fear in your body without reacting to it. Fear is just an energy in your body that cannot hurt you if you do not run from it or react self-destructively to it.

  8.  Resist the Inner Critic's Drasticizing and Catastrophizing: [a] Use thought-stopping to halt its endless exaggeration of danger and constant planning to control the uncontrollable. Refuse to shame, hate or abandon yourself. Channel the anger of self-attack into saying NO to unfair self-criticism. Use thought-substitution to replace negative thinking with a memorized list of your qualities and accomplishments

   9. Allow yourself to grieve. Flashbacks are opportunities to release old, unexpressed feelings of fear, hurt, and abandonment, and to validate - and then soothe - the child's past experience of helplessness and hopelessness. Healthy grieving can turn our tears into self-compassion and our anger into self-protection.

   10. Cultivate safe relationships and seek support. Take time alone when you need it, but don't let shame isolate you. Feeling shame doesn't mean you are shameful. Educate your intimates about flashbacks and ask them to help you talk and feel your way through them.

   11. Learn to identify the types of triggers that lead to flashbacks. Avoid unsafe people, places, activities and triggering mental processes. Practice preventive maintenance with these steps when triggering situations are unavoidable.

  12.  Figure out what you are flashing back to. Flashbacks are opportunities to discover, validate and heal our wounds from past abuse and abandonment. They also point to our still unmet developmental needs and can provide motivation to get them met.

  13.  Be patient with a slow recovery process: it takes time in the present to become un-adrenalized, and considerable time in the future to gradually decrease the intensity, duration and frequency of flashbacks. Real recovery is a gradually progressive process [often two steps forward, one step back], not an attained salvation fantasy. Don't beat yourself up for having a flashback.

Trace, sorry to hear it's the anniversary of your Dad's death soon. I'll be thinking of you. 

I think leaving is worth it, but in small doses. Choose where you want to go carefully, soo that you don't go out needlessly. I think you did the right thing by staying in for a few days-de-adrenailize for a while.

wonder, too, whether flight offers a kind of dissociation, where one need not stay attuned in the present and the local but can instead "flee" elsewhere. 

That's makes a lot of sense when you mention the dissociation. I  guess that means we should sit with it then and not distract at all? At least I think that's the right response?

Thanks.

i realised that i have to protect myself from her condemnation and unfair treatment of me.

had a big EF this morning when i woke up (does anyone else get them  when they've just woken up?

it irks me that my life has dwindled to such small mundanities but i can't help that. work with what i've got, optimise, what else can i do?

Arpy1,

I'm at the same place at the moment-fighting with this damn ICr. It's hard work, which never seems to end to be honest  . I'm trying virtually all day though. Have you been able to grieve at all yet? It supposedly short circuit the ICr, according to Pete. I haven't been able to cry for the last ten years and can't get it going. 

Waking up in an EF? Check!  Every single day for I don't know how long, a couple of months. I've been meaning to start tapping in the morning. I do some during the day and it helps, but never done it in the morning. Have you tried it? May be worth a try. At the moment I read through Pete's steps and, like you, head for the coffee machine! Caffeine, just another one of my addictions!

Yes life dwindling to such small a level gets me too.  You seem to have accepted it though and can subsequently work through it. I'm still stuck at the stage where I'm mad that I'm so limited.

Missbliss, I'll put up the Pete Walker EF steps tomorrow.

MaryAnn,

I was just wondering if the Melodie Beattie book is any good? I'm on the lookout for good books to tackle my codepenency. Thanks.

When I read what you said about being in a freeze state the majority of the time these days because of your codependency issues it was like a light went off in my head! I am struggling with exactly the same thing at the moment. I can't seem to concentrate on a thing. I constantly flit from one task to the next in an effort to distract. I was out on my own yesterday and the lonliness was intense. So awful. Have you found any ways to cope with the freezing because of co-dependancy issues? I mean, on one hand I feel I should have compassion for myself and be with people in order to feel a bit better, but on the other I keep thinking that the only way to get through the codepency problem is to be on my own a lot and try and feel confortable that way. I don't know if I'm being too hard on myself, but I really feel I need to deal with this alone. What do you think?

Thanks and I hope you're doing OK.

Hi everyone,

I wasn't around the forums for a while because I was seeing a therapist who I knew wasn't good for me and at the time didn't realise that I was a co-dependant. Well, maybe it was more the fact that I was still in denial, I don't know. The therapist I saw couldn't give any diagnosis and when I started seeing her I became lazy and transferred all my feelings I had for my NM onto her. I felt more or less normal while I was seeeing her as she encouraged me to do whatever I felt like doing, such as compulsively jumping from one task to the next. That's not the right course at all, surely? I've always assumed we're supposed to fight the impulse to run from our pain, aren't we?  It was a really bad situation anyway that I got myself out of last week. I was in a continual EF while I was seeing her. It was low-grade, but prevented me from accepting the truth of the matter, that I'd completely fawned over her. I thought I could bypass much of my recovery if I had her to watch my back. 

Since discovering how severe a co-dependant I am, I've been reading the literature surrounding C-PTSD again and fully absorbing it this time. I knew before that I was a flight/fawn hybrid, but have properly accepted it now.

My question is, I'm having a very severe flight response in my legs where I feel like I just want to run. I'm also having such a problem posting on here because I categorically don't want to sit with my feelings. I want the support of people on here, but I find it really hard to write more than short posts. I just want to constantly flit from one activity to the next to distract.

I'm wondering, is what I'm experiencing, as in extreme agitation, a co-dependancy withdrawal, or my flight response to EF's? I mean, it could just be the day or the week because when I was young I had to sit in my bedroom most of Saturday and deny my flight response to emotional pain, which was hellish.

Thank you all for reading this incoherent ramble! 

Trace, glad that you're back with us. I totally relate to the feelings of being miserable at being home again after being away. I live very close to my FOO and when I go out, I'm miserable at the thought of coming back home again. I've retreated ever so slightly into self-isolation again because of the very thing you described, feeling so down on returning home. In a way it's almost better not to go out so that I don't have to deal with the terrible EF when I get home again. Plus, everytime I step outside I have an EF and extreme hypervigalence, which is extremely tolling.

How are you feeling now about being back? Have you settled into routine again? Hope you're doing OK.

it made me feel good about myself but i can't kid myself it was a healthy 'good'. in a funny sort of way it might even have been another way of dissociating from what i was really feeling. all part of the co-dependency swamp, i guess 

Arpy1, that's a really good point that it's not a healthy good. I'm finally learning the difference!  Before I didn't have a clue what was good for me. Doing stuff for other's may make me feel good, but a lot of the time, for me, it brings up huge feelings of frustration as I'm ignoring my own needs. That idea of dissociating while we're helping other's makes a lot of sense, too. Fundamentally it's a case of distracting from our own feelings, as you've said. It is so unbelievably hard to do things for myself, but I'm really trying. I keep beating myself up internally for finding it so hard to do things for myself  It's a never ending loop! I need to defeat this vicious ICr. This is a hard road, this recovery!

i realise reading this thread that i don't have a handle of EF's at all yet. 

i go between two states, either totally wired, constant EF, or else totally flat, probable disassociated.

I'm pretty much the same and don't have a handle on EF's yet, so you're not alone, arpy1. Could the flatness you describe be a form of freezing, do you think, where you overly retreat into that 4F response?

I feel like I'm in an EF most of the time. Everytime I know I'm in one I read through the steps. They help to manage it as previously said before, but a lot of the time I remain in them and they don't decrease in intensity until I do something for someone else, so basically relieve some of my co-dependancy issues. It sounds like I'm trying to make a martyr out of myself here, but that's really what is. I think it may also be that people are listening to me, not just co-dependancy. I can only do stuff for myself during a few hours of the day. I feel rubbish if I do stuff for me. I suppose it's a way of self-soothing, to do stuff for others, but I would like the opportunity to do stuff for myself, as well. Does anyone get an EF if they have barely an impulse to do something for themselves?