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 "It's what you do to get out of the dark that defines you"...Joseph Luzzi

Hi  Heatresistantwings, glad to meetcha as well.

I've been roaming around here for a spell, and I find it a huge help in trying to make sense out of non-sense. Having cptsd is like sorting through a huge attic of junk that needs intense sorting, let alone cleaning, if it doesn't scare one from even trying. It's also rather akin to foraging in a bottomless pit with no idea what's down there.

Like yourself, my intense loneliness is made worse by the bizarre reactions of even some well-meaning people, including therapists, who either don't get it or don't want to. I've found the people on this site invaluable for insights that could only come from people who've been through intense fire but somehow weren't consumed by the flames. OMG, that last, about finding trustworthy people--that's huge, coming from someone who has had a lifetime of trust issues.   

Pat answers to messy stuff is often pretty elusive, but at least you've landed with safe traveling companions who've thrown their judgments overboard. Again, glad to meetcha.   

I think you've hit on something often overlooked, amidst all the pain and anxiety that cycles back and forth with cptsd. And that's an acknowledgment that yes, there's a lot of desperation and of course grief in letting go. We aren't used to freedom. But then on the other hand, the act of letting go some of the mind's leftover cobwebs freshens up the atmosphere. It's like coming into some new territory for the very first time.

At first it's scary, perhaps...I know for me it generates quite a bit of disbelief that there can be a road for me, my talents, interests, etc. That I'm even alright and that there is a place for me. That I can wander free and just be. Sounds wonderful, and then...plonk! I trip over my own giddiness at seeing a world so foreign to the one from where I started. My big hope when the setbacks come is to find the way again and know it's still worth aiming for. Easier said than done.

I love what you said about seeing through to the hope:

"I feel empty and sad at the knowledge that i never developed a good sense of self/ my own personality with the whole gamut of what that entails, but it's also really exciting and freeing that i can now consciously choose who i want to be or finally acknowledge who i am. If cptsd causes a ton of developmental arrests, I guess i'm about to go through my teen years!" 

I was also reminded of something Walker points out in his discussion of the 4f's and how there's actually good traits to them, if we seek to develop them. For instance, I know I'm a freeze type, whom he describes as "aware, mindful, poised/ready, peaceful, and possessing presence." On my best days, yep. Then again, I easily fall off the wagon into lonely isolation, high dissociation around people, and a ready retreat where I can hole up for days.

Finally, following our trail into the fresh landscape, perhaps we can find what Henry David Thoreau discovered: "I did not wish to live what was not life."

I had similar experiences as a kid, short of the jerking sensation, but my memory is not sure on that score either. 

What I definitely recall is that the sensations produced what felt like an enormous pressure, like something was in my head that was so heavy...but light at the same time. I wasn't epileptic, and I didn't pass out, but definitely felt dazed, felt like maybe I would.

I've no idea why this may have happened, but I also feel maybe I'm too afraid to  even want to know. Just the memory causes me to freeze up and/or want to do something to avoid remembering any more than that.

Sorry, I don't think this probably helped; but I just wanted to share that yes, my kind of seizure feeling could have been what's labeled dissociative, I guess. Definitely felt bad, but oddly blank too. As an adult, it's never happened quite like that, but I often have what can only be called dissociative reactions to various trigges and EF's. 

Brick, I noted the way you spoke in reflecting on something I also experience...you said:

"Difficulty is later, when one learns I freeze, and won't answer the phone because of the soul-crushing criticism I'm certain is on the other end. Misunderstandings...", and you added..."So very, very, very, very, very hard to get out of my own way."

Yep, usually I'm right back in the shell feeling that I couldn't have been liked, that they didn't get it, they don't know I'm really no good, even if the performance allowed me to access the soul inside, for a change. I'll even question people who insist it was great by quizzing them that "surely there was something wrong?" It slips out so easily--like please knock me down so I know I'm all here. Highly frustrating. I'm so sick of giving my self pep talk: "some day I'll be alright; it'll get better, down the road"...which always seems longer than when I started. And so I drift along, in my pocket of shame.

Hi Dutch. I appreciate your sharing as you explore and sort through the messy memories and try to soothe the sore spots. It did bring to mind, though, my own troubles when I tried to write similar letters to "me".

Long story short, it didn't work for me; instead of rescuing, I felt more crushed than helped. Each time I'd find an image, my hyper-vigilance kicked in and opened up other scars. All I could bear to do was bail/hide/sleep/forget. I just couldn't stay with the depths it opened.

I guess all our paths are unique that way. I needed to improvise a different approach. Instead of letters, I began picturing my life as story; a past-tense story, but with strong effects on my present. And while "I" was in the story, it was more like watching a movie. That I found I could handle easier.

With a movie, one can get pretty wrapped up in the story. And finally the lights come back on, and you find yourself back in the present. The story's memory, though, having been so personal, tends to still grip the imagination. With the movie over, but with my feelings still strong, I began to look more to healing the present, but with a better handle on the story that still haunts me. Sadly, I can't change what happened in the movie, only my reactions to it in the present.   

That's just my take, after I found the letter-writing so scary. Yet for many others, it's a wonderful comfort to be able to do that. Maybe that's another reason this condition is indeed "complex". It isn't easy, any of it, though we wish so hard it were. It seems like there are so many paths to healing; it takes a bit of practice, I guess, to find what fits the best for each person. And even that changes.

I hope you keep finding and sharing your way, Dutch Uncle; I appreciate your fresh and frank discoveries as you circle back and try to make some sense of what was and is pretty senseless.

Everything you say resonates with my journey. It seems like there's always more questions than answers. So that may actually be that first important step--realizing you're not alone in the search and having the courage to ask. Trouble is, there are no  signposts pointing to a sure cure. If there were, we'd all have gone there, in a heartbeat. But we're here, sharing the steps with you. 

Not having any sure way and being utterly confused  is actually a kind of normalcy, too. Even having obsessive thoughts--they in themselves are signs, and are perfectly normal as well. I mean, they seem to show up whether we like them or not. The thoughts aren't wrong by themselves, and you're not terrible for having them--it's part of being human. And, the fact you've noticed them and would like to work them out (in spite of the pain they also represent) is also more than okay--it shows that you do care, and caring comes from that personality you seek.

You might not think you have much of a personality, but your words suggested otherwise to me. You are strong enough to ask, you're open to wanting to find a more comfortable way of being, and you're willing to learn, despite huge doubts. That's a huge first step, for sure normal, and means you have one beautiful personality just wanting to be seen.

Thanks for sharing and for being here 

I love the story of your nickname change, DU.

A key to all this heavy cptsd work seems to involve finding a safe comfort zone. And a name is not always "just a name".

My experience with a name change was huge in my attempts to find a safer route to recovery, or as I've since learned, the trail to aspects of recovery, as I know of few who just landed in some heaven called recovery. It's a process, too painful sometimes, of finding what works/doesn't in finding a way true to one's heart.

I fell into an acting gig at age 24 that facilitated adopting a new name. It stuck, for lots of reasons, but what really felt cool was, even if it was associated with an act, that not just the name, but the role it represented brought out my soul like I'd never experienced--for the first time, I felt like the real "me" was accessible--to me.

I adopted the name after the gig, actually, and no it wasn't like being shizophrenic. Several T's confirmed I didn't show an ounce of that, but that I had found some breathing room for the "real" me who'd always been stuck inside.

So congrats on your self-realization...you obviously needed the freedom to be yourself. In my experience it was huge--it didn't "solve" anything--the painful memories, EFs, all of that travels along and visits when I least want it, but...backing up to the name change, I also knew that yes, I could dare to find my self, the one I had to bury inside, partly with a name that represented hurt, shame, guilt, and grief I no longer needed.

Congratulations, Dutch Uncle     

Over my years of dealing with this, seemingly forever, I've tried about anything and everything to relieve the memories, the pain, etc. I tried endless meditation techniques, affirmations, visualizations, read psychology texts, funny stuff, serious takes, theories, mantras, etc, etc. Some of them kinda/sorta worked, sporadically. I just never hit on anything that felt totally right for me or that said "eureka, I'm in recovery". All I ever felt was the awful numbness, and that's my current stuck place. And lots of fear keeps me there, it seems. Another vicious cycle.

The only thing that ever panned out in my searching may seem strange or silly, and maybe it is—but the times when I stopped looking so hard for meaning were the most comfortable. The endless search for meaning only led to a bottomless pit. Strangely, when I gave that up, I found a smidgen of hope that, while it didn't produce the full recovery I coveted, at least it pointed to a road that was more peaceful. The mind's cobwebs were cleaned out by giving up the search for meaning in a  brutal past, and was replaced by an acceptance of peace in trying to create a more beautiful present.

By giving up the search, I DON'T MEAN giving in—this isn't about surrendering, none of that. I mean just easing off on the desperate search for the perfect way out, for finding any grand meaning to any of it. How can there be any useful meaning to something so awful? I can't say I trusted or even hoped as much as I just accepted that the abusive past had passed. It left me with some serious scars, and those I do have to deal with each and every day. So I guess I changed the focus somewhat from searching for answers to just finding what felt peaceful; then going on from there.

That all sounds rosy and nice, but acceptance has done little to ease my numbness, either. Yet. I desperately want to feel worthy of love, but go numb just thinking it too may have passed me by. Sad, and worse, it seems like it's become my normalcy. But I guess if I no longer try at all, that would only be giving my power back to my tormentors of long ago. It would confirm their attempts to shame and terrorize my soul into submission to their twisted desires. That I must never do. I need the strength for that, even as I struggle with the numbness. May your struggles lessen as you find the peace you're needing, as well.

                               

Thank you for sharing your feelings, DaisyMae. I hope they can cycle away somewhat from that numbness--I know that too well; some days, it seems like I'm walking around in a tight ball that squeezes ever tighter. And then it loosens, often without my even knowing why. The time from when I wrote the opener on this thread to now has been exactly that way--up/down/around/all over--numb, clear, awful, better.

You wondered, "Is this a "normal" response during therapy, CBT / DBT, as you work through learning how to feel and express emotion and learn to regulate them?"

Reluctantly, and sadly, it seems that way, doesn't it? Although I'm not sure what "normal" means anymore. For me, it's just life cycles recurring, but I guess they're oddly better that way--not cycling would mean being utterly trapped with no way out of the heaviness.

Staying with it takes another quality--patience. Living in a world not attuned to it, that too can seem totally frustrating, but it seems like part of the "normal" process of recovery.

I once thought that recovery would end in a steady state of euphoria--that I'd be past the bad times for good, etc. So cycles lead to patience and lead further to acceptance (which is NOT the same as resignation). But sometimes saying that makes me feel like 1)giving up or 2)getting mad. I used to consider the angry part to be a sign of failure. Now I feel it can be good, too; paradoxical as it seems. Recovery involves a lot of re-learning and finding surprising twists on what once seemed so rational.

In these moments, it seems like staying with it is the best way to get through the cycles I spoke of. I hope you can continue to find the way through, DaisyMae .

The writer Rainer Maria Rilke put it this way:
Let everything happen to you:
Beauty and terror.
Just keep going.
Nothing is final.

I live with this people-fear constantly--yet I too held mostly people-oriented positions. I can recall two periods when I felt comfortable enough to where I actually felt at ease with the situation--when I worked in hospice/end of life settings and when I was involved with pre-school kids in the program called Head Start.The common denominator for me, I think, was that in those roles I didn't feel judged, or maybe it's more the fear of being judged was erased by serving a greater need.

I fell into each of those experiences. I'd love to find another outlet like them, but the circumstances of how they came about were unique and aren't an option for me right now. Like you, I've reached a level where being alone is okay, too. I'm not actively looking, but I kinda wish for it all the same. Mine is a classic "freeze" reaction to cptsd, per Walker.

So that was my way, for a while. Not desperately seeking another outlet, but who knows? I'm not sure I consider it something to overcome, but if another opportunity arose where I could just be and share myself again, I might give it a shot. I'm still cautious with people, for good or ill, but at least I had the chance to feel safe at loving and being loved.

I hope you can find a balance in your life between alone and with people you can feel comfortable with.   

I'm a voracious reader, an activity that defines a huge chunk of my life. I'm often reading multiple titles simultaneously.

Most of my reads are non-fiction and cover a vast array of subjects. Of course I've a huge section on cptsd-related material. But I'm curious as to whether anyone here has run across a good fictional tale that touches on cptsd. There's a few titles described in reviews as dealing with ptsd, but I found none covering the cptsd variety.

Mind you, there's lots of psychology in all sorts of novels. But I was just curious if anyone has read any fiction that does a good job weaving some of the cptsd-specific issues into the story. It might at least provide a useful companion to the growing body of scholarly non-fictional material that's finally lifted the veil on the topic.

Thanks.

 , Creative Cat, I've had that experience often.

You wrote: "the colleague talks and talks and there is no room for me at all. I find myself collapsing into myself and I think this must be dissociation. i dissociate and then i cant think about what i am doing or keep my head about me and i end up loosing things. i feel very ungrounded."

Same here--I simply can't stand any hint of conflict, real or imagined. My modus operandi? Get outta here! Emotionally if not physically; preferably both. I don't so much lose things like physical objects, I just leave my emotions/mind and dissociate. I can be quite rational and well-spoken, until the dissociation kicks in--then what I say sounds like gibberish until I can flee the situation, not even caring how foolish I might be perceived. I've left several therapists that way; almost like I literally dissolved, and couldn't wait to get away.

I sometimes recall an old acronym in an attempt to cope: Fear=Fantasy Expressed As Reality. But then the fear ratchets up regardless, and I'm off to Dissociation Land again. The pressure of confrontation and/or explanation (and never being believed or listened to anyway) was always belittled in my youthful days, and it planted itself in my psyche.

The only thing that truly worked was to escape, literally. Long story short, I moved to the "toolie-boolies" but still had creative inlets via writing and consulting into fields I was expert on. I know it's avoidance big time--but I also know it was the only way I felt safe. To feel bad about it is only to fuel the self-blame, and I'm currently undergoing a huge spate of that as it is.

Sorry I don't have any great ideas, Creative Cat, but wanted you to know, based on my experience,that  yes--what you describe is a big part of this strange world we find ourselves in called cptsd. And maybe by plodding along we'll come across another "Epiphany", as you say.

Thanks for your keen observations, Jdog. Especially noting that: "... in overcoming my codependence, an important thing to remember is to first of all be my own best advocate". That's been a huge one for me to tackle, this advocacy question. It's kind of like I've reached a point of self-acceptance, and I need to defend it? Seems counter-intuitive, but I may be missing something .

I feel good about so much of my self-advocacy "style", which did involve a mini-retreat from society but I still had creative outlets/inlets I was comfortable with. Wasn't like I ran away entirely--I still had those inroads and felt my input was valuable. And it seemed like it worked, occasionally anyway. 

But when I encounter a situation involving conflict with people, that I can't handle.  And I do reach out, when and where I can. What devastates me is when I feel cast aside by people who said they'd appreciated my help when they truly needed it. That's when the self-worth and especially the self-advocacy deserts me. My self-advocacy becomes "I need to get out of here". The kicker there is, I readily blame myself, when in fact it might just be that they've changed...they're so far gone into their own coping, mainly via their drinking. It wasn't me, but I willingly step into the blame vacuum, even if I don't have to. 

Boatsetsailrose nailed my conundrum further by asking: "Inner critic gone wild ?" Yep. And then no amount of built-up self-recovery that I've worked on seems to help. The pattern of self-rejection repeats, stuns, and leaves me alone again. Mostly, alone is fine--it's more like a solitary strength, not a true loneliness. Mostly. And then something happens, blows the scenery, and maybe it's good to still be human. But is that just feel-good comfort?  Oops--veering towards more self-blame again--yep, it's the person I know. And love? Open question.   

This thread hits a core wound of mine, and it seems so hopeless right now. But that's a feeling, and I don't sense any feeling right now, either. Just the usual numbness when my IC pulls out its rejection card again.

I've been so good at going it alone for so long it's second-nature, but it's like having a gaping hole not to have any relationships. But for me it's like Creative Cat says: "I still feel  that I am 'too much' 'too needy' 'too aloof' 'too quiet' 'too loud' even 'too smelly'..."

While all my one-time relationships are severed--some deliberately (FOO), some due to circumstance, and some via death--I still maintained a loose connection with "friends" (some of whom I hired and mentored) at a workplace I'd been associated with for a long time, and where I thought I was still welcome. So the other day, someone I'd done huge favors for turned on me violently when I just asked for something I'd loaned back. Like you're [me] no longer part of our in-crowd, you're this/that/other and how dare you intrude.

There's lots of reasons they'd do that, starting with huge personal probs around drinking and such.  Still all I could dwell on was "it's me, again...I just can't do people." And I've been around all the Walker tips, and many more, and none of it seems to matter anyway. I know it's just ego-talk, that in spirit I'm really okay; but I so easily just fall into self-blame, shut the door and hope never to be seen again. I'm convinced the friends part of life must have passed me by and I've been too smug to even notice.

It's just nice to visit this site, at least, and find real people I can relate to, and know they've walked the same lonely trail. I admire your perseverance in finding a way forward again.

Others here, too, are at least moving, anyway; while I'm just stagnant, stuck but with no outlet, and the notion of why bother looking for one. It probably doesn't make sense, I never seem to hit the sense level either. After all, they also said I'm not in touch with reality. Yeah, right, all that means is I don't go to their bars and fry my brains out like they do for their real fun. And I know that, but my gaping hole just keeps expanding in the meantime, and my options are pretty thin. And I'm only venting, or I don't know...it's just feelings, right? And they're only back where they've always been, hiding under the numbness that won't open the lid and let them taste freedom. Smelly, indeed, in that box of pain.