Messages

Hi Trees,

What a perfect name.  You are one of my two favourite things.  My other favourite thing is Dogs

I discovered Pete Walker's site recently and it's been fantastic.  I'm looking forward to buying his book. 

Thanks for the welcome.  It's nice to know I'm in a place where I will be understood and understand what others are going through.

Hi Chiraheally,

Ooh, isn't that a particularly sharp kind of pain, the one where you know you're letting your boundaries be violated?

I dunno, the whole being in love thing is so hard isn't it because (a) it's delicious and (b) there's an element of boundary-dissolving to it that's lovely.  But then like you say, feeling like this is way too early when it's only been a few days - I do that too, I've always done it. 

I thought it was quite poignant what you said about projecting your inner child's need to be loved onto men in these situations.  I think that's what's so grief-striking about it because it's like we're jumping in and doing something that our inner child wants while at the same time exposing them to the dangers that they really don't need.  It's so complicated and sad.  But I think it's really cool the level of insight you have, and that you're learning to have care and compassion for that inner kid, even though you are kicking yourself.

I'm interested in what you said about realising your inner critic was whipping you into a depression. That idea only occurred to me this morning that the inner critic may be behind the depression.  Do you have any more insights to share on that?

Cheers,
Sue

Hi all,

Anyone here had experience of being within a relationship and getting a handle on their emotional flashbacks when it's the relationship that triggers them?  You know how in relationships where you're triggered there's always that impulse to run?  Well, I did that when I was married.  I believed that the problem was with my partner while another part of me knew that was projection, but I got so weighed down with the increasing triggers that I just couldn't stay anymore.  It was overall a good relationship.

I was single for three years and in that time I did a lot of internal work, started doing art therapy, etc.  I was miserable a lot at that time, but I was also less triggered. Now when I look back on that time, and on how things were for the first year with my current partner, it seems like this rosy wonderfulness. It feels like a form of catastrophising somehow where I paint the past so rosy - I guess 'cause the past is safe, compared to the present?

Anyway, so when I got involved with my current partner it was all great for the first couple of years. I moved in with him a year after we first started seeing each other and I was honest with him about my worries of internally collapsing again. 

I have chronic fatigue syndrome also, and my symptoms stabilised when I was single to the point where I was working part-time. Even though I was coming home and flaking and not doing much else, I seemed to have had this idea that I was entirely recovered from CFS.  It seems weird to me now, but my experience of CFS was rather traumatic, being so vulnerable and oppressed, and so I guess I was happy to tell myself I was recovered so I could get some distance on it.

When I moved in with my partner my CFS symptoms returned.  I think it was a combo of doing too much physical exertion when moving, combined with my fears around "losing my independence", combined with my brother trying to kill himself two weeks after I moved house.  That was four years ago, and now my health has stabilised beyond last year when my partner thought i should be in a nursing home.  But still, I am quite limited in many ways.

My emotional flashbacks have started happening so much over the last couple of years that it's really hard not to consider leaving (though I have hardly any money). I don't even WANT to leave, but the constant retriggering is doing my head in.  I have had a bit of an improvement since I started re-taking lamotrigine (prescribed for CFS but also for PTSD - bonus). But the ETs are still coming and often out of the blue without knowing what's triggering them.

I feel like I'm in a hole. I am very motivated to get my life on an even keel but the combo of everything is just so hard to bear that sometimes I just want my life to end.  I've worked so hard facing things with courage, and I'm in this hole. Part of me I think is angry at myself for getting myself in a relationship again. I'm certainly more confident and less panicky and more able to know what I want when I'm single. But I went into this relationship knowing that this situation could happen and wanting to really learn how to minimise this flashbacking, to work with it when it happens, to stay with my Little Susie and comfort her, etc.  Little Susie and I have grown a lot together over the last 7 years  

Sorry for the long-windedness!  I guess I just need some encouragement, tips, that these ETs can be minimised. I know they can on an intellectual level - this is for my central nervous system

Oh, blergh, I reckon I ask my partner about three times a week if he's angry with me.  And out of the 37 million times I've asked him, about three times he's said yes, and then we've gone on to have a measured discussion about his anger and it's been fine.

But that still doesn't stop me at the moment (I'm severely relapsed when it comes to being triggered) from wondering constantly. Just last night he appeared to be down and wasn't talking much and I said, "Are you angry?" even though a part of me was standing with hands on hips and saying, "Come on, Susie, you know he's not angry with you. Don't give in to the catastrophising."  But I did, and of course no, he wasn't angry with me.  Bleck.

Re compliments, I feel like I'm getting better at accepting them.  I decided a decade or so ago to learn to graciously accept them and say Thanks even though part of me was clamouring and scrabbling on the inside of my guts. 

It's so hard to stay afloat above all of the old voices and the terror and the catastrophising.  I am totally fed up with the fight today.

Hi all,

Pleased to be here

My name is Sue, I'm 44. I just realised a year or so ago that what I was having really were flashbacks - I always thought that you had to know what they were about.  For me, they were just emotional, pure blobs of fear.  They happen almost entirely within my relationships, which has led to one divorce under my belt. Now I find myself in the same position in my current relationship. It's like the relationship slowly gets covered under layer after layer of triggers until it's hard to see anymore. I don't want to leave my relationship; I want to learn how to cope within one.  It's just really hard when I want to run, especially when I know that not being in a relationship is much less of a trigger. I guess you can say that relationships are hard anyway, but for those of us who are triggered by them they're MASSIVELY hard.

Anyway, so that's why I'm here, for support and to support others.