Messages

[Reaching out is exactly the right thing to do!]

"I am stuck. I keep experiencing the same ones again and again. Catastrophizing.
I feel lost as to what to do * myself. I feel overwhelmed sometimes. The feelings feel too huge to deal with.
I feel like a small child who has just been left, and who is frantic and suffering.'

I feel this precise way over the last couple of months, but have been unable to put it into words effectively. Thanks for doing just that.

Reaching out is exactly the right thing to do! I know how difficult it is to reach out, and the horrible inner voice that activates whenever I decide to. It tells me that looking for help is pointless, that nobody will ever want to help me, let alone actually make the effort to do so. That inner critic tells me all sorts of awful things about myself which just makes it even harder to seek help or comfort. But I am slowly learning to recognize the inner voice for what it is; a knee-jerk reaction to the abuse I suffered. I have to literally take a deep breath and tell myself that the voice is wrong. I don't think I'm at the point yet where I can tell myself all those helpful little positive things about myself, but at least I can remind myself that the voice is just a reaction. And it's the wrong reaction.

I may not know the perfect thing to say to you right now as I never really learned the skill of comforting or being comforted, but I want to tell you this;
Needing help is NOT wrong
Asking for help is NOT wrong
Accepting help is NOT wrong
I understand how you feel and I know how painful it is
You are NOT alone

I will be thinking of you and sending you hugs!


"If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging." ~Will Rogers

Contessa,

I recently went through a "do not apologize" phase of life. I feel like I have reached a good middle ground with it now, though. Now I refuse to ever apologize for my feelings. I will however, apologize for my actions if necessary. Sometimes I have to stop myself and analyze the situation... is this a "feelings" issue or is this due to my "actions"?

For me, it's a good rule of thumb to only apologize for my actions. It gives me permission to finally have feelings and express them freely. I need that permission, as it's something I've never had in my life.

["On a personal level, I have learned over the years that when I am feeling especially critical of others, it usually means that I am feeling bad and have flashed back to being around my mother who hated any dip in my mood or energy level lest I be less useful and entertaining to her. During such flashbacks then, I am self-protectively over-noticing other's faults so I can justify avoiding them and the danger and shame of being seen in a state of not being shiny enough."]

"On a personal level, I have learned over the years that when I am feeling especially critical of others, it usually means that I am feeling bad and have flashed back to being around my mother who hated any dip in my mood or energy level lest I be less useful and entertaining to her. During such flashbacks then, I am self-protectively over-noticing other's faults so I can justify avoiding them and the danger and shame of being seen in a state of not being shiny enough."

I have just started to recognize this particular flashback in myself, and it shocks me how often I experience it. I'm getting better at recognizing when it starts, though, so I'm hopeful that I can learn how to battle it effectively.

I'm triggered by someone slamming things around out of anger, (slamming doors, banging things on the table, throwing things out of anger, etc) talking too fast and loud, and any kind of repetitious noise (tapping, repetitious songs, etc)
I'm also triggered severely by the sound of the news on the tv, especially political talk shows. My NM still watches 24 hour news shows every waking second on full volume so she can hear it in every room of the house. She even has it going while she sleeps, but only at about half volume. She would freak out if we made any noise while she was watching (which was almost 24 hours a day). If we were walking too loudly, speaking above a whisper, setting things down too loudly, closing cabinets or drawers, etc. She would even get angry if we flushed the toilet too many times during a show. I still walk extremely quietly, and people are always telling me I scare them because they can't hear me coming.
It's also the reason that I can't handle a loud television. I will get very anxious and leave the room if the tv is too loud, and I'm always muting it if the people are speaking frantically or too excitedly.

The part that hurts most is losing my belief system, the way I understood humanity, how I thought I should behave, what I thought the answers were.  I wonder at my former "kindness".  I used to just react in a way I thought was kind and humane.  But just reacting rather than responding with wisdom and reflection isn't true kindness.  It can be self-indulgent, it can be unhelpful to others,  far too often it was self-defeating.  So I feel unkind, I feel selfish, I feel cynical and harsh.  I stop myself and watch where once I acted with generosity.  Even when I see someone else's sorrow, I stop myself from blindly reacting because I still don't know how to respond in a way that is truly kind and compassionate, to everyone concerned, including me. 

Well said! This really strikes a chord with me.

Contessa,

I was just saying this to someone over the weekend! Actually, true to form, I was apologizing for being different than I normally am and for being a "bad friend".

I, too, suffered multiple tragedies at the end of last year which have left me feeling not myself at all. I no longer try to make conversation with people, I no longer joke around at all. I feel very sullen, and serious all of the time. I also feel very different from most other people right now. (Of course, I'm sure it doesn't help that I keep crossing paths with the main person who perpetrated this latest trauma in my life.)

The way I see it, I was trained and taught to always ignore, overlook, and disregard my own feelings. But not this time. If I don't feel like making conversation or joking around, I am just not going to do it, and there is nothing wrong with that. All people have ups and downs, and we forgive everyone else's roller coaster ride through life, so why not our own??

Also, my husband is the one that pointed out to me this past weekend that I was apologizing to a friend for it. He said I owe nobody any apology for having feelings that aren't always positive, and he's right. So I'm determined not to apologize for my feelings anymore either, especially since I usually do so out of CPTSD habit. I will just explain to anyone who cares enough to ask that I am going through some difficult times, but I have faith that I will bounce back and feel more like myself again in the future.

I may always carry with me the damage from this latest series of traumas, but I will learn from them and grow to be a more complete person. I have always stayed strictly away from drugs and alcohol because I want to truly experience my own life. So I will take these experiences as well and use them to sculpt a newer version of myself.

I believe that we all have times when we don't feel quite like ourselves, and that's ok. I know a lot of us are just beginning to really learn who we truly are anyway.

Thank you, everyone, for the welcoming and positive messages. It's really nice to be able to come here and not feel so alone and out of place!

Thumper, I would love to read the book along with you. Time is my only issue. I'm currently working more than one job which doesn't leave me much free time. If I can manage to squeeze some free time into my schedule, I definitely will. I'll let you know if I can swing it in the near future. If not, I look forward to anything you might feel like sharing from it!

Thanks again 

Hi, all.

I have been coming to OOTS religiously since I found it a few weeks ago, and finally decided to join in the hopes of finding others out there who know what CPTSD is and how it affects daily life.

I was previously diagnosed (many years ago) with PTSD due to my childhood, but C-PTSD fits me so precisely, it's almost scary.

I was raised, with one sister, by a dx malignant NPD mother with sociopathic traits. The first abandonment took place at 2 days old, when she left me in the hospital for 11 weeks, and again at 18 months old when she placed my sister and I in an orphanage to anger our father. Things may have been a lot different if she had just left us in the orphanage, but we had no such luck. My father got us out after a year, and they began a kidnapping war back and forth for the first few years of our lives. We were tossed back and forth every few months, going from a suburban style life (with Dad) to a hitch-hiking, homeless hippie lifestyle (with Mom). We suffered countless abuses at the hands of both our mother and the disturbed people she traveled/lived with off and on. She left us with anyone who would take us, including waitresses she didn't know, a truck driver, a bar tender at the bar where she stripped, etc. Sometimes she would drop us off, claiming she needed a sitter for a few hours and wouldn't return for weeks. When we were with her, she was all but physically abusive. She rarely hit us, but found other ways to exact punishment for unknown offenses and perceived wrongs.

Anyway... you get the idea, I'm sure, of just some of what we lived with. Eventually she did "settle down" when she married her drug dealer, and I had to go live with them at age 14. I can honestly say, that out of all 4 of the "parents" I ended up with, the dealer was the best of them. He wasn't directly abusive so much as he allowed her abuse to take place and continue unchecked.

My adult life (now age 44, and a mother of 3) has been a series of one failing coping mechanism after another. Thankfully, after watching her rampant drug abuse for so many years, I escaped without any addictions to either drugs or alcohol. I actually have problems even taking medicine for pain relief when I need to because of what I witnessed and was subjected to over the years regarding drugs and intoxicated people.

I'm only now (after a severe emotional trauma in my personal life) beginning to truly understand what exactly has been done to me through so many repeated traumas. I have always been a fairly self-aware person, and this path of discovery I am now on is one I vow to travel, no matter what I have to face to do it. I want to heal as much as possible, I want to change my behaviors and hopefully improve my relationships/friendships and interactions with the world around me. I want to be healthy, and I want back some of what was taken from me.

I admit, I am having a lot of trouble dealing with the absolute flood of feelings, memories, and realizations that have all hit me within the span of about 4 months or so. I am struggling with depression, anger, frustration, and many other emotions (not to mention I still have contact with FOO, so toss in that ongoing abuse), but I am determined to reclaim my life and take charge of my future.

Thank you for listening, and for reading a little of my story. I have gotten so much help already from all of you who have shared your stories and inspired me to do the same. I thank each of you for being brave enough to share, I know how terrifying it can sometimes be.   

I absolutely relate to this. I have become not only very good at "appearing friendly" , but extremely good at  chastising myself afterwards.

I was trained to be very small and nondescript. If I dared to show too much emotion (no matter if it was good emotion or bad) there was shame, ridicule, and/or punishment in store for me. Now I often hear myself apologizing to those I love for any show of emotion that isn't expected of me, and internally putting myself down for showing too much emotion to strangers and acquaintances.

It can be quite crippling in any situation requiring personal interaction, and it's near the top of my list of things I wish to become more aware of and change about myself.

I can totally relate to the sinking feeling, and it being connected to a feeling of "being in trouble". I get that feeling when I hear that tone in my NM's voice. You know, the tone that tells you without a doubt that abuse and cruelty are just over the horizon, and are headed your way?

I've always been so hyper vigilant when it comes to NM, that as soon as I see even a slight change in body language or facial expression, I get the sinking feeling. And I must say... I'm never wrong about what's coming. (I'm not sure if that's because I have become very adept at reading her, or because the abuse is always just over the horizon anyway.)

I do find that now that I'm on the road to both discovery and recovery, that feeling isn't lasting as long or hitting me quite as hard. In the past (before the beginning of this year) when that feeling would hit me I would be completely preoccupied, stressed out, and having flashback after flashback for days on end. This would last until I knew what form the impending abuse would take and I could "deal" with it head on.

Wow! I wrote that last sentence and all of a sudden I could hear her voice in my head saying, "When you really want to punish a child, make vague threats. When they don't know what you'll do, their imaginations do most of the work for you!" She would always say this to others in front of my sister and I, and then laugh at how scared we would be of her. It's no wonder I get so stressed when I feel something coming, and don't know what it is!! 

I definitely have this to a degree. I would say that it is bad when I have any sort of additional stress and/or am in the midst of an EF. I become convinced that I am disgusting, ugly, and just plain horrible to look at. I almost feel bad for other people if they have to be in my presence.

I'm only now (at age 44) realizing that this stems directly from always being told that my sister was "the pretty one", and I was "the smart one". I've really been trying hard to let these feelings go, but sometimes when I'm in a particularly vulnerable state, nothing I tell myself seems to work.

.... And, now that I think about it, my sister is always convinced she is stupid despite her obvious intelligence.

I'm sorry you're having trouble sleeping due to the abuse you suffered. I know how important sleep is, especially with a 2 year-old to care for.

I have the same insomnia issues, also from being abused in my bed as a child (by an uncle).

I find that on the nights that I have trouble sleeping it helps to take a hot bath first, and to use very heavy blankets. It makes me feel more protected, I guess.

I'm not sure if this will help you, but it may be worth a try.