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I have noticed also, before counseling I was struggling with short term memory and I have noticed improvement with that that I attribute to steps taken in healing.

What a relief to read that I am not the only one struggling with short term memory. It does indeed improve some after an EF and with the help of t - or maybe it is the other way around and it is worse during an EF... I never made the connection with EFs before but it makes sense that an EF would affect the short term memory negatively - during an EF I often have the feeling that I am somehow not completely in the present, in the here and now and after an EF that feeling of 'timeline disconnect' is gone.

Still, there are days when I feel like wearing a sticker on my forehead saying: "I am not stupid, I am not desinterested, I just have a really lousy short term memory so please forgive me if I ask you three times whether you want some coffee." Probably would make life a lot easier if we could be this honest with each other irl. 

I could almost draw a clear line in the sand from when the EF was happening and when it ended

I almost feel floaty, light, unhindered.  The EFs are really dark and filled with anxiety and fear, but when it's over, I know.

Another word that comes to mind is energized: I can do things again, I feel like taking action and showing the world a smiling face.

I don't feel like a different person. I feel more like I've found the person I  recognize and like. When I am in an EF, I can't really identify with the person I am then - dark, slow, easily overwhelmed by the simplest tasks, barely able to drag myself through the days and dreading the nights. Once it's gone - and it usually happens from one second to the next - I feel like the chains that forced me to carry the weight of the world are removed and I feel like me again... I can laugh again and find things to enjoy; the sun is shining again. 

Like you said: Hard to miss...

Hi, BeHea1thy,

frankly, it sounds like quite an unpleasant and exhausting task you have in front of you.

I wish you peace and strength in all of it and hope that you'll be able to take good care of yourself as well. 

I'm gonna miss your posts and look forward to your next ones!

Love and peace and happiness to you! 

kf

[ever]

So, I don't feel I'm denying my shame - it's with me at every moment. Distracting myself or avoiding it is not really an option, since it won't let me go anyway. Talking about it is no problem for me, I'll discuss my shame with anyone - after all, it's the dominant part of who I am. (Not that talking about it brings relief in any way.)

This is what makes me believe we're talking at cross purposes here: I do believe that when you say 'shame' might actually be talking about your 'trauma'.

An integral part of shame is that it is a feeling about something you do not want to discuss, ever, not even in t, in fact not even admit it to yourself. It's a feeling that makes you want to hide away, makes you want to cringe and be reduced to a size where it's possible for you to go paragliding under your living room carpet....

In contrast, 'trauma' is the (family) secret that feelings of fear, obligation and guilt (maybe shame as well) have forced you to keep hidden for so long. Usually, after the lid of Pandora's box on the trauma is opened (which can be an incredibly long and painful process before a person is even prepared to spill the first beans. In my case, I was 27 before I could face opening the lid a little...), it can't be shut again and talking about your trauma becomes easier and easier.

Once I started talking about my trauma, I could talk about little else and discussed it with basically anyone. My T explained to me that that was a normal part of the recovery and basically an attempt to find recognition for my trauma. I no longer do that - I hardly ever feel the need to talk about my trauma anymore - though I have no problems answering questions about it if someone's interested to know. (Taken me years to get to that point; that T was in 2001)

My feelings of shame, on the other hand, are still in place. I still remember when after the first three sessions in T my T asked me about my anger outbursts. I wanted to die! What gave me away??? I thought I had hidden my darker side so well in our talks... (she explained to me, that those anger outbursts are a normal part of PTSD with which I was diagnosed at the time and that's how she knew --- I still wanted to die of shame ...).

I hide my feelings of shame, of inadequacy, of not deserving to even exist, by being extra 'perfect', being self sufficient, never asking for help, pretending to be 'fine' at all times. I am afraid to admit them even to myself. It's a feeling that if I ever admit to them, I lose my right to exist, so I run in demented circles to prove to myself and 'the world' that I am perfect enough to have a right to be...

I don't know how to express this properly. I am just thinking that maybe it's more a question of semantics why you "feel like you're missing something that everybody else seems to understand."  I don't think that you're any less competent in understanding the books and/or talks than anybody else, so that's why I thought that maybe you identify a different feeling/thing with the word 'shame'? 

Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree entirely here - based on my own experiences in being able to talk about my trauma but not my shame. If so, I do apologize. I do not mean to offend you or preach to you or anything. 

This is such an inspring thread!

I have implicated many boundaries already but there are some that are mentioned here that I hadn't thought about yet.

I have a few to add:

- No triangulation. Talk to me directly, ask me personally if you want to know something/need a hand with something - else I neither react to it nor act on it.

- In order to avoid falling for 'fake sympathy': If someone asks a personal question, share only a tidbit, wait if the other person also shares something personal, otherwise change the subject and stick to neutral subjects only.

Thank you all, I have written to my T explaining how I feel and have asked her to reply but she hasn't so now I am in turmoil and feel that I can't think anything but that she is angry with me about sending the letter.b

It's my own fault I should have left it alone I think. 

Take Care x

Des, you always have the right to ask for clearification - nothing wrong with that and I really do hope that your T is not the kind of person who would be angry at you for doing that. If you have a question or a concern, it's okay to bring it forward! There could be any number of reasons why she hasn't answered yet - maybe she just prefers to answer your questions in person during your next session???

Be good to yourself and try and have some patience with yourself and your T.



kf

Thank you all for responding so quickly. 

The fact that I didn't respond doesn't mean that I haven't appreciated the responses - I've actually been rereading them several times now and been thinking them through for the past 3 days.

Tonight was the first night in about 10 days that I've actually gotten a full night's sleep again. Progress!

Please, oh please, oooohhhh please no "idiot thinking"

This made me laugh out loud the moment I read it and I kept chuckling the whole evening. Thanks for getting my feet back on the ground, Rain. 

Putting my vulnerability forward here, when I was talking to my T yesterday, she asked when the most intense feelings of pain would arise. And I was so very ashamed to admit that they happened when I was around my children. Why they would cause this (if they're even causing it) or why they trigger me, would be like going down a rabbit hole. I can tell myself that I'm a horrible mom for this happening, or I can tell myself that I'll cease being a horrible mom if I can find the reason...but what if I can't do that?

Thank you for sharing. I do not think that you are a horrible mom for being triggered by your children. Do you know why they trigger you? My children have sometimes triggered me because I could see in their carefree and childlike innocence the difference with my own childhood and it made me feel sorry myself, for never being allowed to be a 'normal' child and a 'normal' teenager. It wasn't that I didn't want my kids to have all we could offer them, it was just that it made me sad to witness the difference to my own experiences in my FOO and how easy it would have been for my parents to give me a 'normal' home. Just a bit of love and fulfilling their basic needs is enough to be 'good parents', really.

I sometimes find myself neatly curving around such realizations even when I'm very close to making them: "no no no, this could be too painful". It's like being afraid to look under a carpet for fear of what I'll find. 

I guess that's what I was doing - trying to avoid the bigger pain by concentrating on the lesser one...

second, given everything you said here, I do agree with you; certainly your childhood situation would be very triggering. I also agree with your original assessment, that your husband's employment uncertainty was a part. I think that the first is bigger, more potent than the immediate cause, but I believe they both played a part.

I thought about this a lot and I've tried soothing both parts of my anxiety these past few days. I think it helped. 

Your question about figuring out the cause of your EF hit me. Yes, I think for myself, it is sometimes very tough to pinpoint the actual cause, and I often get it wrong. And when the universe, my own mind or something someone else says seems to generate that "aha" moment, I spend lots of time mucking around in self soothing, or mindless distractions when that fails.

I would also like to say that I think there is a larger issue here as well. Not everyone has the desire or capacity to figure out the underlying cause of their EF or other problems. I think those that try, assume a certain mindset, which is a "fix-it" perspective. Here's a problem, where's the solution? People who are analytical often fall into thinking the solutions will be clear and easily recognized. At least that's because we want them to be. When they aren't, we have to dig deeper, and deeper, and sometimes get lost in a big "goulash" of memories which don't have a clear exit.  So, when we fail, or are wrong, even in our own eyes, we declare ourselves derogatory names. That's so unhelpful.

Grant yourself the same compassion you would to your child, your husband and anyone else you feel close to. Give yourself a great big hug and say, "nice going." 

That is such a great analysis! So very enlightening and helpful to me! 

It's hard to stop the analytical thinking, though, isn't it? It's part of our nature so we'll have to find a way to work with it and not let it work against us...

Thank you all so much for sharing your thoughts and reminding me to be good to myself. I appreciated all of your inputs greatly. 

Hi, confident,



What an epiphany - so painful and yet you managed to analyze the reason for your EFs so precisely that you actually have something to work with. That is soooo awesome!

But I guess the loss in this is the feeling of home as a safe place.

I am so sorry to read of your pain and your loss - though I do believe that the loss and pain you're feeling now will be only temporary and you can feel safe and comfortable in the home in which you are living now with your FOC very soon. 

I actually know the feeling you're expressing - when my little FOC and I moved into our second home, the layout reminded me so much of the house I lived in when I was 2-14 years old, that I had constant nightmares and other EFs. Thankfully, I had just started T at the time (CBT, actually) and my T helped me work through it. (So sorry to read that T is not an option for you at the moment. Maybe the online course of CBT that is mentioned in the therapy section of this forum might be helpful to you???)

Remind yourself that you are nothing like your mother, that you and your DH are providing a good and stable home for yourselves and your DS and that you are a grown up now who has the power to make the home of your FOC into a safe haven for yourself and your FOC.

Kudos to you! 

kf

[...] why when i go somewhere new, even just for a day, i come back with the accent of that place, why when i meet someone new i take on their musical, movie and food likes but if someone were to ask me my personnal prefference i can never deciede.

Hi, insanecrane1 and welcome to the forum! 

You'll find that many of us here have difficulties in figuring out what our personal preferences are, too. In the 'cafe' section of this forum there are several threads about this - trying to figure out what we like to drink/eat, for example, or discussing what new activities and/or hobbies we are exploring etc. It sounds completely insane that a grown up should have difficulties in knowing their own mind - especially when it comes to the simple things like taste in food or music - but there it is. You're definitely not alone in this. 

Frankly, I think this is the only 'fun' part about CPTSD: Figuring out who you are and allowing your (authentic) self to grow and enjoy the nice things in life.

I'm glad you found this place and wish you grace and healing on your journey. 

kf

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/early/2014/11/11/bjp.bp.114.150243

[empathy]

I like Brene Browns thoughts that the antidote to shame is empathy. Empathy has the power to make the feelings of shame disappear.

keepfighting, where is this?   In her book, youtube?   I would love to look at it now to get this further sunk into me.   

In this TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame?#t-1204028

Around the 14 minute mark, she starts explaining about shame - also very interesting to note the gender differences in experiencing shame - and around 18:57 minutes she starts explaining how empathy is the antidote to shame.

I love listening to TED talks when I am feeling low - so many ideas, so many people and all of them trying to help us build a better world. There are a lot of good people out there and it's inspiring to hear them talk. 

  Des!

I'm rooting for you!

Hang in there! You're not alone. 

 

Is she going to help you with that in the last remaining sessions so you  'qualify' for more T? - I sincerely hope that that's what she was saying while you dissociated after hearing this assessment (that's the only positive spin I can possibly give to this piece of your conversation during your session today - everything else that comes to mind is not fit for decent company  ).

Maybe write her a quick email and ask how she is gonna help you work towards this goal - it is pretty obvious that you both need and deserve more T.

Keeping my fingers crossed for you and hope you can sort this out! 

I've been having an EF since the beginning of this week; have been lying awake for hours each night, desperately trying to fall back asleep... each night I slept a little less than the night before and I tried CBT to lay my worries to rest before going to sleep and anything else I could think of (...in daytime, mainly 'flight' responses, going to the gym, keeping myself busy in the house and the garden...) --- nothing worked.

So, earlier today I was starting to type about this here - and while I was typing it hit me that I had gotten the cause of my EF wrong (...I am terrible at 'reading' my own needs emotions  ):

The contract of my h is about to expire and there is no new one in sight right now and I thought that I was panicking because of the insecure financial situation. So I was working on soothing that worry; telling myself that we are prepared for that and that something will come along etc etc. (Money problems were abundant in my FOO and caused a lot of horrible scenes and fights).

But then it hit me: The cause of my EF is not the financial situation; it's the prospect of h being jobless and at home for a while.

The thing is, many of my worst memories of my whole life happened while my  NF was jobless and at home. Trigger warning His verbal and physical violence escalated to the point where I feared for my life and my Lost Child little brother fled from home in the middle of the night, not once, but several times (he had to endure most of the physical attacks).

After that incident when I seriously feared for my life, my panic attacks and sleeping disorders started for real. I was 21 years old and studying at uni at the time and after that night, I couldn't stand to be alone in the house any more - not even in daytime. Only after living in a safe and stable environment for several years (with my h and kids) and T was I able to be by myself in the house again...

So now I know what started this EF and why soothing my fears of financial insecurity was ineffective... it wasn't the right cause of the EF.

I wonder how I can learn to read my emotions better so I can get to the correct cause of the EF straight away and not waste an entire week trying to soothe the wrong fears. (And a week is nothing: Last time I had an EF, it took almost 7 weeks for me to figure out what actually caused it - and then I figured it out by the merest coincidence ). Any tips are very welcome!

Before I forget: My h is nothing like my father - there is no reason for me to worry about that in the here and now.

Has anyone else experienced an EF and gotten the cause that started it wrong? - I feel like such an idiot and had a good cry while typing.

Thank you for reading.

[empathy]

Shame is the Rejection of Who We Are.

Shame is the rejection of who we are, not what we did. It hits the very core of our being and makes us want to cringe and hide away.

It's one of the things I can barely think about - let alone talk about - so thank you, Rain, for bringing it up and making me face that it's there; deep inside me, and it shouldn't be.

I like Brene Browns thoughts that the antidote to shame is empathy. Empathy has the power to make the feelings of shame disappear.

Thankfully, there is a lot of empathy here on this forum so we can help each other dealing with our feelings of shame - and stop our desire to  shrink and hide away.