Inner Struggles

[dutchierich]

Well, I finally got the courage to post on here. I'm so glad to have all of these resources available to help my recovery, and I'm thankful for all of you who are willing to share your struggles with me.

My most pervasive internal struggle is that I'm constantly creating fights/arguments/angry exchanges in my thoughts, with people who are antagonists or who otherwise trigger me. I will dwell on being wronged and get really angry when I fantasize about a conversation that I might have with that person in the future. It always leaves me angry, super-amped up, and I do it all day long. It perhaps has a lot to do with my living situation at the moment. There's a person whom I can't avoid the way I'd like to and that is a massive trigger for me. He's unpredictable and unstable, not violent but emotionally abusive for sure. Just the possibility of his presence spikes my stress levels, so I'm attributing my "internal struggle" to this.

I used to invent fights in my mind all the time before I started in trauma recovery, and when I'm able to avoid toxic people I don't do it nearly as much as right now, but I'm forced into this living situation so it's my unfortunate reality for at least a little while longer. I guess my question is, does anyone else do this? What would we call this symptom? (My guess is that it's emotional flashback, since one of my traumas was a childhood of unpredictable abuse.)

Thanks for reading and for giving me this space to speak my heart.

[Three Roses]

First of all, hello and welcome to the forum! I'm so glad you're here. 

It sounds to me you are describing "catastrophization", a common troublesome symptom of CPTSD:

The second kind of Catastrophizing is closely linked to the first, but it is more mental and more future oriented. This kind of Catastrophizing occurs when we look to the future and anticipate all the things that are going to go wrong. We then create a reality around those thoughts (e.g. "It's bound to all go wrong for me..."). Because we believe something will go wrong, we make it go wrong.

Falling prey to Catastrophizing is like striking out in your mind before you even get to the plate. Both of these types of Catastrophizing limit your opportunities in life, work, relationships and more. It can affect our entire outlook in life, and create a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure, disappointment and underachievement.

Both may lead you to self-pity, to an irrational, negative belief about the situation, and to a feeling of hopelessness about your future prospects. Further, both of these types of Catastrophizing will define either the presence or absence of alternative possibilities, and possibly paralyze you from going further with efforts toward your goals in life.

Battling Catastophizing

The first step to dealing with Catastrophizing is to recognize when you're doing it. The sooner you do this, the quicker you'll be able to start focusing on stopping it. It may be helpful to start recording your negative thoughts to yourself on a pad of paper or little journal (or your PDA or such) that you carry with you at all times.

(https://psychcentral.com/lib/what-is-catastrophizing/)

Also, here is a link to some information on EFs, or Emotional Flashbacks - http://pete-walker.com/flashbackManagement.htm

Let us know if neither is helpful, we'll get you to the right info. Thanks for joining!

[dutchierich]

Thanks Three Roses, for the thoughtful answer and the warm welcome 

I've never heard the term Catastrophizing before now, and after reviewing the link you've provided I can definitely say that it was a symptom I struggled with before I began my recovery. I think that the shadow of Catastrophizing still lingers in my daily self-perception, but my therapist and I did some work with my tendency to demand perfection from myself, which is self-defeating in the same way as described of Catastrophizing. She gave me some nice ways to look at/deal with that, and so I'm far less self-critical than I used to be. I now face a sort of dual reality, where the Catastrophizing lingers but a persistent optimism continually emerges. The struggle to overcome the disaster that I (unnecessarily) expect is a daily one, but one that I'm aware exists and that I'm continually fighting against.

After reviewing the link you've provided for Emotional Flashbacks, however, I think that I'm reliving one of my traumas by having these mental, polemical dialogues. My abuser was also a "trusted" caregiver, and after sexually assaulting me she spent years trying to keep me quiet about it. This would manifest as unpredictable emotional attacks and heated, aggressive exchanges which would leave me physically sick and intensely angry. She would keep me in an emotional cage, so to speak, so as to be subjugated to her will, to be her puppet, and any dissenting opinion from me would result in violent emotional trauma, and sometimes physical as well. This was to protect herself from the secret we shared, a secret I had blocked out almost completely until the symptoms landed me in the hospital and the road to recovery was mounted. Anyway, the emotions that I experience when I create these mental confrontations are exactly the same as when she was doing it to me for real.

Based on the information in the article, it looks like I'm a person who freezes. This description is pinpoint-accurate in my case:

"These misfirings then, cause dysfunctional warding off of feelings in four different ways.... (3) Freezing in numbing, dissociative ways such as sleeping excessively, over-fantasizing, or tuning out with TV or medications ('downers')"

Wow, that's me. And this is exactly what I still go to when my stress levels rise. So in my current situation, with an unpredictable antagonist in my life, I find that I am dissociating, one way being the over-fantasizing I described in my initial post. The over-fantasizing seems to take the form of reliving one of the traumas, with a different cast of characters playing toward the same result. I also have a long history of drug use, especially downers that calm/numb me, excessive sleeping, staring at TV while drugged, etc.

Since I'm so much better now, I am really looking for ways to deal with this without these freezing mechanisms. I've gotten pretty good at handling the hypervigilance and even the visual flashbacks, which thankfully have subsided for about four months now. I will review Walker's techniques for calming emotional flashbacks and incorporate them in to my regimen. I'll also look for more information about emotional flashbacks, which is also a new term for me.

Thanks for your help and for reading this long post! Any other insights you, or anyone else for that matter, have are quite welcome

[Candid]

I'm glad you started posting, dutchierich!    You're going to love it here.

does anyone else do this?

I used to do it practically all the time, so I know it's * to live with.  Didn't like me = great difficulty liking anyone else = great difficulty generally.  I still fall into it when I'm overtired but these days I get out of it a lot faster, and know better than to act on anything that comes up.

What would we call this symptom?

For me it's a lot of anger (outrage!) masking grief so profound I don't think I could survive feeling it, hence addictions to numb out.  I'm about to enter trauma therapy, having applied about a year ago, and I confidently expect to be a basket case at some point.  Can't be avoided; it's been keeping me awake for some time. (Understatement)

Do you want to tell us about your living situation?  I'm in a very iffy one myself, have been here more than a year.  Anyway, I'm glad you signed up.

PS  Just saw your second message.  I'm a freeze-fawn.

[dutchierich]

Thanks Candid I'm starting to feel like opening up on these discussion boards was the right thing to do.

Yes, it's extreme anger, hot, vibrating, pulsing rage. But it's so unnecessary! It's not really happening, it's all in my mind, which makes it even more nefarious. Ok, so this person is a real person who is definitely a trigger and who is definitely a provocateur, and the things that he has me worked up over are real things that happened, but I compound the pain by escalating it in my imagination. Unfortunately I can't say the things I'd like to say to him because it would be devastating for my wife at the moment, and I can't simply avoid him because of my living situation. Since you asked, the situation is thus:

I recently moved from the US to the Netherlands. I got married in June to a Dutch woman and have just (last week) become a resident of the country. My wife lives with her mother, who splits her time between her house and her boyfriend's. Her boyfriend is the problem (though her mother is an arguer, but one that I can more easily deal with). Until we get our own place I'm stuck at her mom's house, and the boyfriend can come over at any time. He likes to cause trouble. He does it for sport. He can be sweet and charming sometimes and be an ogre other times. The unpredictability and the sometimes relentless instigation have worn me down over the years, and I'm finished giving him second chances.

But her whole life my dear sweet wife has had to deal with her mother's bad choices, and this guy is yet another one. To tell him what I really think of him would be really bad because 1) we're still living in that house and we'd have to deal with the fallout, 2) my mother-in-law and the boyfriend have been involved in SOOOO many fights with family members/boyfriends of both her's and her sister's over the years that I vowed I wouldn't feed that fire, and 3) I simply don't want to sink to his level. So my best coping mechanism is avoidance, which is working, but I need to now dismiss the anger that he provokes in me as I "suck it up" for the sake of the peace. I think that the coping mechanisms for emotional flashbacks is a good place to start. Unfortunately, I am without a counselor at the moment, having to start a new life in a new country and all. As soon as I get healthcare I will find a therapist, but for now I'm on my own.

But anyway Candid, congratulations on getting into therapy! It's seriously the best decision you could have made, imo. It will hurt, a lot. You'll cry a lot. You'll have to think about things you desperately don't want to think about, talk about things you've maybe never said out loud, and it'll be painful for sure. But guess what... you'll start to feel better! With each exposure comes a new chance for healing. With each tear comes a cleansing, an outpouring of pain and a renewal of strength. It's tough, but stick with it. Find someone who really works for you, and don't be afraid to change therapists if the one you're with isn't a good fit. Keep at it and you will break free!

[Candid]

Yes, it's extreme anger, hot, vibrating, pulsing rage. But it's so unnecessary! It's not really happening, it's all in my mind...

Indeed.  Of course.  But isn't that the worst place it could be?

Until we get our own place I'm stuck at her mom's house...

ROFL and SNAP!  I've been living with my MIL (and husband) just over a year, and women are territorial.  *, ain't it?

But her whole life my dear sweet wife has had to deal with her mother's bad choices, and this guy is yet another one.

Is it you who has CPTSD, or your wife?  Both of you, maybe?

So my best coping mechanism is avoidance, which is working, but I need to now dismiss the anger that he provokes in me as I "suck it up" for the sake of the peace.

That's a tough one.  I'm now seeing the CPTSD: you've had to "suck it up" for a decade or three too long, I'm guessing.  If it helps at all, I'm starting to see the "tough ones" as the things that bring about the BIG shifts in our healing.  We don't have to "suck it up".

for now I'm on my own.{/quote]

*Ahem!*  You've joined OOTS.  It's an almost-unbelievable helping place for sincere seekers such as you.  to our Kizzie for starting it and running it;  to you, my friend.

[Three Roses]

I wonder if the BF is a narcissist? If so, here's a short video that may give you a few more tools to deal with him -   https://youtu.be/6TSh9zTHz2k

It's not really happening, it's all in my mind, which makes it even more nefarious.

Not in your mind - in your physical brain. Here's some more info on EFs - http://www.gostrengths.com/what-is-an-amygdala-hijack/

I'm glad you're here.

[dutchierich]

Candid,

that's funny that we're experiencing similar living situations. I'm trying really hard to get us out of ours. We'll be out in a matter of a few months, I'm sure, especially since the immigration process is finally over.

Is it you who has CPTSD, or your wife?  Both of you, maybe?

No, just me thank heavens. My wife has an amazing resilience, and thankfully she hasn't had to endure the kind of abuse I have. She has some issues for sure, but she deals with them in a healthy way and moves on.

That's a tough one.  I'm now seeing the CPTSD: you've had to "suck it up" for a decade or three too long, I'm guessing.  If it helps at all, I'm starting to see the "tough ones" as the things that bring about the BIG shifts in our healing.  We don't have to "suck it up".

Yes, there was a lot of that in my childhood. I was required to be tough all the time. I was taught that boys don't cry, boys can't feel tenderness or "soft and fuzzy," they must be hard. To cry was to be weak, and to be weak was to be either effeminate or homosexual, two things that were forbidden of masculinity in my childhood. So I didn't cry, like ever, until the dam finally broke, but by then I was in my early thirties. God knows I'm gonna let my son, if I'm ever blessed with one, to experience the full range of human emotions we're all entitled to. As you mentioned, I'm also trying to use this experience as a learning opportunity. I don't want to suck it up anymore. I want to deal with it in a healthy way, because internalizing isn't good for me.

How do you avoid internalizing the things that stress you out?

*Ahem!*  You've joined OOTS.  It's an almost-unbelievable helping place for sincere seekers such as you.

It's true, I'm not alone, thanks for reminding me I still have trouble giving myself priority. As a child I was never given the opportunity to say that I wanted or needed something, so I never learned how to do that. I always feel like I have to do things alone. But my wife helps a lot with that. She's teaching me that it's ok to say that I want or need something. So I'll do that here as well. I don't expect anything in return, but whatever I get is appreciated, and I know that at the very least I won't be ridiculed for saying what's in my heart.


Three Roses,

I wonder if the BF is a narcissist?

You got it right, he's a classic narcissist. I've previously done some research on narcissists and have concluded that they're completely unreasonable people, interested only in their own self-aggrandizement, and so any attempt at rational discourse is doomed to fail before it can ever be given the chance to succeed. This is another reason why I feel that distancing myself from him is the best option. If I were to blow up on him like I want to, it wouldn't have any effect other than giving him the fight he's trying to create. If I were to try to reason with him, it would only fall on deaf ears. In my opinion, he's a lost cause. I've actually identified him as being a particular type of narcissist, which I call the Provocateur type. I've written about it on my blog, in fact.

Thanks also for the amygdala hijack link, that's new info for me I think it's spot on, and I'm gonna tie it in with what I've learned so far the past few days from this site.