Does this ever happen to you?!

[SteveM]

This morning I was in the laundry area and started to fold clothes that were in the dryer as i needed to put the wet clothes from the washer in the dryer, seems like a normal, boring , simple  task. As I started folding I almost immediately went into this very familiar bind of wanting the task at hand to be done and like done now so i could get to the next part of moving the wet wash, i didn't want to be in the space and time I was in I wanted out is the best way to describe it. I wasn't triggered by anything obvious i just wanted to be 5 minutes ahead in my life and not here and now. Again i feel like im not making sense, that said, i need to write this stuff out or it haunts me and i can't sleep.  somedays i try and figure out too much and maybe this is one of those days, good night and thank you to all that keep this forum going!
Steve M

[Armee]

Not the same exact thing but yes I have time where being present is impossible. I typically start something like unloading the dishwasher and put away 2 dishes then get weirdly uncomfortable and realize what I really need to do is put something in the washing machine but then realize I should wash the clothes I am wearing but should exercise first and so row for like 1 minute then feel very guilty that I am exercising when I really need to be walking the dog and decide the wash should wait till I walk the dog so go upstairs to walk the dog and remember about the dishwasher and then see the piano and realize I really want to play piano but really I should learn the cello instead and oh maybe I should try to contact the teacher for bass clarinet I took a few lessons from before running away in a ptsd panic...I wonder if he's still teaching? And start to look for his email address and find it and start to email him then realize what I'm the world am I doing?

So not exactly the same, but yeah probably both the same cptsd nature, and I hope you feel a little less alone. If it is just a thing with the laundry though I'd suspect a hidden trigger. 

[Papa Coco]

OMG!!!!

This is so ME!  Arthritis has stopped me from walking so fast, but all my life I've walked at 5 mph. Most people walk at 3 mph. I drive fast too. I want to get to the end. I can't slow down to smell the roses. I prefer to ride my bicycle to the store when the weather permits, but I find that I can't ride fast enough to get there as quickly as I want to. I start out saying I'm going to enjoy the journey, but by half way there I can't pedal fast enough to satisfy my urgent need to be there already. I'm a terrible traveler because I can't just enjoy the journey.

I have a woodshop where I build my own stuff. Sheds, fences, cabinetry, picture frames...I can't relax until it's DONE!  So everything I build ends up being hurried because I feel this insatiable urge to get it FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!! I might be building a cabinet, but before I can finish it I want to start the next project, so I cut corners or don't finish all the trim work. (Of course, lately I've been too depressed to do anything, so my woodshop is in boxes collecting dust).

I have attributed this to Hypervigilance. I walk fast because I want to GET THERE!  I drive fast because I want to BE THERE already. I have a house filled with almost finished projects and chores because before I could finish what I was doing, I was nervously champing at the bit to get the next project started.

It's so refreshing to read that others are feeling this same nervous need to NOT be in the moment, but to be pushing themselves to the next thing.

It was a benefit to me in my career. I was always doing the work of two people. It made me a lot of money and got me a lot of respect from my peers and customers, but it eventually burnt me out from the inside.

I'm grateful to you both for bringing this to light. It's one of those things I just figured was me being me. But this just might be a part and parcel of C-PTSD.

[SteveM]

Thank you both for your well articulated responses., they put more meat on the bones i started.
Completely different topic, how do I respond to a person about what they posted...for instance Armee you replied first how would i respond to you first and then Papa?
im learning

[Papa Coco]

Hi Steve,

I don't think we can specify what/who to respond to. I think we can just respond to all. I spend most of my time in the Recovery Journals area. There, I only have the reply button even for my own posts.

What most of us do, is start the letter like this:

Armee. thanks for what you said

Papa Coco, thanks for what you said,

The only way I know of to focus responses on only one person is to use the MY MESSAGES tab at the top of the page and select a person to talk with. Those are private threads.  Everything else on the forum is open to the whole community.

Sort of like you're a radio DJ who is answering phone calls on the air. Everyone hears everything you respond to.

[Armee]

Mostly I do what Papa Coco mentioned for replying and just reply to everyone openly, or I might say:

Papa Coco: I really relate to what you said!

Steve: sometimes people will use the quote function. There is a quote function at the top of individual posts that can start a new reply by pulling the post into a gray quote box, or once you start a reply if you scroll down you can see the other replies and  you'll see an "insert quote" option at the top of each. It looks like this when you do that:

Hi Steve,

I don't think we can specify what/who to respond to. I think we can just respond to all. I spend most of my time in the Recovery Journals area. There, I only have the reply button even for my own posts.

What most of us do, is start the letter like this:

Armee. thanks for what you said

Papa Coco, thanks for what you said,

The only way I know of to focus responses on only one person is to use the MY MESSAGES tab at the top of the page and select a person to talk with. Those are private threads.  Everything else on the forum is open to the whole community.

Sort of like you're a radio DJ who is answering phone calls on the air. Everyone hears everything you respond to.

Most people edit the quote by deleting portions to just select the relevant part, like this:

The only way I know of to focus responses on only one person is to use the MY MESSAGES tab at the top of the page and select a person to talk with. Those are private threads.  Everything else on the forum is open to the whole community.

I personally mostly stay away from private messaging because I had a bad experience on here using that with a former member and I tend to get more triggered by those types of exchanges.

[Moondance]

It's so refreshing to read that others are feeling this same nervous need to NOT be in the moment, but to be pushing themselves to the next thing.

It was a benefit to me in my career. I was always doing the work of two people. It made me a lot of money and got me a lot of respect from my peers and customers, but it eventually burnt me out from the inside.


STEVEMThank you or sharing this SteveM.  I so relate to this as well!  I do this all the time and thought just part of my weirdness.   As you say PC perhaps another symptom of CPTSD. 

ARMEE thank you for showing us how you use the quote function.  I wondered how that was done. 

[Blueberry]

I don't think we can specify what/who to respond to. I think we can just respond to all. I spend most of my time in the Recovery Journals area. There, I only have the reply button even for my own posts.

Just bouncing off your post PC because it's easiest for me.
Steve, it's like PC wrote, the response is visible to everybody, including people who are not even on the forum (so it's good to be careful about what you write, e.g. don't write out names of FOO mbrs or where you lived as a child or live now!). It's the same across all boards, I mean with just having one Reply button, whether you're on Recovery Journals or Symptoms or whereever.

Eta following:
You can quote 2 or more separate members and put them in one post, as I'm doing here. It does involve a bit of juggling around, copying in and out of posts, mostly via a Word document in my case and when trauma brain is full-on, it's not something I can even consider doing

I personally mostly stay away from private messaging because I had a bad experience on here using that with a former member and I tend to get more triggered by those types of exchanges.

I'm not big on PMing either, but just for general interest and information for all forum mbrs reading, it is possible to Report a PM to I think Admin not to Mod (there's a button anyway), but in both cases it's Kizzie. So if a mbr is e.g. using PMs to bypass the Guidelines and is triggering you or trying to dig for information on your identity, you don't have to put up with it.

Sorry Steve, bit of a hijack maybe? I'll add a separate post to respond to the real reason you opened this thread

[Blueberry]

This morning I was in the laundry area and started to fold clothes that were in the dryer as i needed to put the wet clothes from the washer in the dryer, seems like a normal, boring , simple  task. As I started folding I almost immediately went into this very familiar bind of wanting the task at hand to be done and like done now so i could get to the next part of moving the wet wash, i didn't want to be in the space and time I was in I wanted out is the best way to describe it. I wasn't triggered by anything obvious i just wanted to be 5 minutes ahead in my life and not here and now. Again i feel like im not making sense, that said, ...

Makes perfect sense to me, as in I understand what you're writing, no worries there. Though I do get thinking that nobody will understand and we're not the only two on this forum with that, um, issue   Cptsd is a bit of an all-rounder, as in it affects all sorts of areas in our lives. The only good thing I can say about it is that fortunately not all of us have all symptoms, as in all 375 different ways it affects our lives, those kinds of symptoms.

I can pretty much say  to the whole of Armee's post including 'if it's just laundry then I suspect a hidden trigger'.

There is the 4-F response: flight, fight, freeze, fawn. I do all 4 in varying degrees, it depends on the situation, but when faced with a task using my hands (e.g. all housework), I 'should' be doing or even 'have to' do (both triggering for me), I tend to flight. One way I catch myself at is doing a different task to the most important one. Sometimes it doesn't actually matter or sometimes I'm totally blocked and can't do the more important one, so it makes sense to start with the easiest and hope that unblocks the other thing so I can move onto it, which does happen to me. For the first time ever I'm teaching in my new apt on Wednesday and my teaching table is covered in papers. Since I moved I've been teaching at my students' houses or not at all cuz they've been sick, Easter holidays but now I need to get down to it and clear up those papers and sort them into rough piles or files or somewhere so I can find them again. What did I do? Put things away in my bedroom and the kitchen. It is different from what you're describing, but otoh it does feel kind of similar to me, so I'm wondering if that might be an instance of Flight in your case too?

See https://pete-walker.com/fourFs_TraumaTypologyComplexPTSD.htm and scroll down. Or look for posts about him on the forum e.g. https://cptsd.org/forum/index.php?board=194.0 or https://cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=2597.msg16313#msg16313

[SteveM]

Ok, this is no coincidence, it's Monday morning, again, and I'm folding laundry just like last Monday and I just couldn't stay there doing that 'menial task.
So here I am.
I thought about what someone said last week about maybe this specific task is a trigger....dunno.
We didn't have a laundry room or area when I was a kid, I'm trying to remember where the washing machine was, I think it was in the kitchen.

Possible trigger.


I do vividly remember bad things happening to me in the bathroom in the house that I lived in from about ages 4-8. I'm pretty sure we didn't have a washing machine in that house, my mom went to the laundromat, I think.

Thx for listening🙏

[Bermuda]

Hi SteveM, sorry I'm late.

Yes. I haven't read all the other replies, but yes. I think about this story from childhood quite often. It's from The Book of Virtues, it may be very triggering if you are unfamiliar, so better avoid it. The story is called The Magic Thread, and basically it's about this exact urge. The story ends with the moral conclusion that skipping over the bad things, or even the urge to, is immoral because our memories are all we have when we are old, so we are supposed to see joy in all aspects of life.... So so wrong, and such a hurtful harmful message... I think this message is very pervasive, not something strictly limited to my childhood. It's wrong and it undermines our experiences and true feelings.

Wanting to skip the bad parts of life, the tedious things, is healthy and it's normal. If you have negative associations with laundry than it is absolutely normal to not want to do it, even if you can't place the association. I dread vacuuming. I don't like sounds, and I remember being terrified of the vacuum as a child and mocked. Being able to place the memory is not important. If you feel uncomfortable, than that is valid.

I know that these invisible triggers can be debilitating, but they can get easier.

[Armee]

 

I would treat it as a legitimate trauma trigger, too, Steve. I've had lots of very weird severe triggers that I had no idea were triggers tied to a specific trauma but they eventually found a home in my story and made perfect sense.

I guess my recommendation if you're looking for it?

Take that laundry away from the machine. Try someplace neutral to safe feeling, even outside if you need to. Ground yourself first by noticing the things around you that are neutral or safe or make you happy. Say them out loud even in a whisper if you can manage that. Fold 1 piece of laundry and then do that again. If someone asks why you're folding laundry outside or somewhere else you can just tell them you are practicing mindfulness or trying to find joy in even the small things. Whatever.

Give yourself plenty of kindness because bad things happened to you and even if this trigger doesn't make sense right now to your mind, the truth is still there and this is difficult for a reason. And whatever reason it is, it's sad. This isn't just you not wanting to do chores. This is trauma. It makes some things that are supposed to be easy sometimes feel threatening.

I'm sorry for the bad things that happened in the bathroom. I feel so sad that you went through things like that so young. I'm angry at whoever did that to you. Hugs, if virtual ones feel safe.

[Papa Coco]

SteveM

Sorry to hear you're experiencing triggered moments of "Emotional Flashback" (EF) but can't remember what the trigger is recalling.

I resonate with the feeling and the question: What made me feel this way?


Speaking only for myself I can say this;

That stuff happens to me too. Years ago, in the early days of my Therapy, it happened more than it does now, but it used to frustrate me more then than now. These days when simple chores or events trigger a mysterious mood change in me, I just view them as a trauma response that is common for people like me with C-PTSD.

Complex-PTSD is different from PTSD mostly because of the Complexity. We don't have a car crash or a plane crash or a house fire to tie our trauma disorders to. We didn't know we were being traumatized while it was happening. So our sources of the trauma are complicated. Our triggers are complicated. Our reactions are complicated, and our healing is complicated. No big crash to tie any of it to. AND the trauma for many of us started at birth, so, unlike a crash victim, we don't know what life was like before the trauma. We have little frame of reference to compare our pre-trauma selves with our post-trauma selves to. It's jus so complicated!

Speaking again only for myself, not to say this is what's happening to you, but only sharing my own perspective: My therapist has finally been able get it through my head that I don't always need to know why I'm being triggered. The cure is the same whether I can identify the memory or not. He has helped me to reach an understanding that my emotional upheaval is trauma. If it were cancer, we'd call it a cancer side effect. It's trauma, so we call it a trauma side effect. He's helped me to finally accept that I'm not mentally ill. I'm not "crazy". I'm not "broken from birth" as I always believed I was. I'm dealing with trauma. Lifelong triggers from trauma. I'm a healthy, normal person who is dealing with an unhealthy environment that has spanned my entire life.

Whether I can remember what caused the trauma or not, it's still the same. 

While I still suffer with mood swings and hypervigilance, I've reached a point where I don't always agonize anymore by feeling like I have to find the root of every trauma response. And, like you, I do go into melancholy states I can't explain when I do things like bake, or build furniture, or climb under a car, because these were the things my parents used to do which caused feeling of confusion, or neglect, or fear in me for one reason or another. In the complexity of my rearing, I couldn't always tell when I was being lied to or taken advantage of, so I gained a general state of distrust for people who love me. So today, a lifetime later, when I fold towels, or bake cakes, or change oil in a car, I remember my parents, which then triggers my confusion and fear from all the lies and turmoil and soul-crushing emotions that are tied to those memories.

Today, when certain events trigger confusion or fear in me, I may not remember a single incident, but a theme of dangerous or soul-crushing abuse that came as a thousand small cuts, rather than a single crash. So when I climb under a car, or turn on a table saw, or bake a birthday cake for a grandkid, I connect with my parents in ways I would rather not. But I do. I may not remember a single incident, but somehow the thousand small cuts start to burn again.

On the bright side, the better I can get at accepting the trauma responses that I can't identify, the more often my brain releases the memories so I can see them. It's like, by not trying so hard to remember, I start to remember. By accepting, rather than stressing over memories I can't place, my brain seems to see that I'm ready to finally see the memory. I can't explain it, but for me, relaxing and accepting that I can't remember, helps me remember.

[SteveM]

Thank you so much to all that responded, very insightful and helpful....very loving, that feels good.

My writing is many times not cohesive so bear with me. I sometimes draw with colored pencils as its hard sometimes to put words to the feelings and mood, colors seem more descriptive and less confusing.  I've been moved lately to draw a road or path that is the time my sobriety from alcohol and  drugs started to now. its a long time i got sober sept 6, 1982. The colors that I was  moved to use are interesting, kinda all over the place when I started living without alcohol and drugs but there is a significant darkness to the colors in 1989 when i first started having serious body memories and flashbacks.

As i read your collective words and experiences they seem to fit on the road, this journey we are all on that had much darkness but has all the colors of the spectrum, I guess that's the sign of a large range of experience good and bad.

Anyway my healing path in the CPTSD world is one i may draw as well, maybe i will get more specific, don't know.  Im back doing some EMDR and tapping with a therapist i saw 20 years ago, she is awesome. A really good technician and then i have a therapist that is big picture my spiritual adviser is what i call him. He has done deep trauma work with me in 4 day long workshops where we unearthed a lot seas he says "he knows the territory".

Thank You All
Steve M

[NarcKiddo]

I agree it sounds like a trauma response.

If I were having that experience around laundry, which is a task that must be done, I like Armee's suggestion about taking it to another location to fold. I would also consider changing the detergent or softener to something that smells different just in case a laundry smell is what is triggering something. And I would choose something I really enjoy the smell of so I could inhale the scent of nice clean laundry before folding it up. That would make it more of a mindful experience for me.