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Messages - Flutterbye

#31
the way I can tell is that I start acting out like my child self abused again..
- terror, confusion, anger, rage at some kind of perceived injustice (always an actual injustice in present time but its scale is unhelpfully emphasised by my trauma response)
- trying to change the 'parent' (i.e. the person who triggered the response) by instant & total emotional enmeshment, where I feel their agonising emotions for them so they don't have to suffer that, I think Pete Walker in part describes this as the fawn response, Karla McLaren describes it as 'enmeshment not empathy'. It's a very powerful, agonising trap.
- being the 'parent' and the rescuer for the person who triggered me; validating their feelings/entrenched negativity/rage (whatever toxic spew & no matter how big, bad or inappropriate they are), emotionally supporting them, counselling them for hours to absolutely no avail, they are just as negative as the moment we started. This goes on for hours (like, four hours) and I'm lost in time with them ranting at me; it goes on for hours until some external factor stops it (like the café closes or it's night falls or something).

I then ruminate about it for days, i.e. the EF continues for days, it's agony. I feel violated, tricked & furious that I let it happen again yet still fully responsible for this person's pain & fully certain that I can change their pain into positive action that they'll take on my advice, then they will respect me, say 'thank you' and we'll have a healthy relationship. Then I may end the association in desperation (to make the EF stop) if possible, or if not possible (e.g. if they are my manager) the ugly relationship continues & I get more enmeshed over time.

It took me along time to be able to identify all this. I'm happy to share that with lots of hard work I got better at understanding when it is happening and removing myself from the situation, and that my EF's are getting less intense and less frequent.
#32
Quote from: Indigo on March 15, 2016, 10:17:57 PM
Do you find that your cortisol and adrenalin levels are higher when you need to keep busy, such as working on the weekends?
Because this might be another reason why your anxiety is high at night time. Anxiety can be high and cortisol levels at night time too- dont know how much you know about that, but those with high cortisol levels can have dips in energy during the day, so the body tries to produce more cortisol and then by bed time, you can get a second wind of energy, thus making it hard to fall asleep and to sleep deeply enough.

wow, thank you for sharing this Indigo. :yes:

I have been trying to reduce my cortisol levels at this point in my recovery. What you write makes so much sense; I experience drastic energy slumps in the afternoon (including actually falling asleep at times) and after that I am physically exhausted throughout late afternoon & night but my mind is very stressed, restless and anxious. I tend to have a lot of dark thoughts & ruminate about things that have gone relatively well during the day, or recently, that I thought I'd already processed & moved on from; my mind churns them over looking for very dark meanings such as reasons to feel humiliation & to only expect a very bleak future. Not fun. Sometimes out of desperation I just go out walking to try to burn some of it off (I live in a safe area so it's fine at night) or turn to comfort food.

I really find focusing on cortisol levels (as an explanation) & practical ways to reduce them helpful at the moment. I'll have a look around the forum for any practical strategies for reducing cortisol.
#33
Art / Re: Some of my own drawings!
March 17, 2016, 11:09:05 PM
Mbr thanks heaps for sharing you art  :thumbup:  I love the woman depicted, I see her 'healthy' rage, strong sense of self, her own agency and power. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts if you'd like to share, for example if it's autobiographical in some way.

Wonderful that you have a way to feel grounded & connected, you're of course very talented. thanks again for sharing, I enjoyed seeing your exhibition!
#34
Art / Re: Art inspired by beauty
March 17, 2016, 11:04:33 PM
DU, wondering why this had you in tears, tears of sadness, of joy?

To me it looks predictable/commonplace.. it looks like just another objectified young woman, the muse of just another artist who liked looking at & sexualising beautiful young women.
#35
Ideas/Tools for Recovery / Re: Processing Emotions
March 17, 2016, 01:42:06 AM
Butterfly thanks heaps for the McLaren's article, I find it so helpful!  :bigwink:I love her short summary of actions required for shame, anger, sadness, fear.

I hear you on the inner child thing. I can't use that at all & go entirely on my instincts, gut, feelings, triggerings, bodily sensations that go with the emotions. You're definitely not alone  :hug: in being on a steep learning curve of identifying what feelings are happening, feeling feelings and deciding what to do about them.

It took me years just to identify that one of my predominant feelings was terror. I was then disgusted to learn that I felt anger at all let alone often, how rageful a person I was. I've done heaps of work on that and am happy to share that it's getting better; my relationship with my feelings is slowly getting better.

At the moment I am venturing out into social life a bit more & tho I feel ready to & am managing to stay relatively present (not dissociate or EF so much), I notice I am feeling shame. When I meet someone new & like them, I feel shame. When I want to befriend someone new I feel shame. Shame, shame. I just felt this kind of icky feeling in my gut hanging around me for days, sort of embarrassed & wanting it to go away, forget it or to run away from it.. but I'm working thru it, it's mystery is clearing away, I can see it is shame and McLaren's framing of shame is really helpful. There is also a little fear & sadness.

I've also found some Jungian & Eckhart Tolle ideas helpful, that all your feelings or your shadow are simply there as an entity with a certain intensity & character, something you can observe & decide how you want to relate to, that your shadow is your unique shadow, a responsibility yes but not something insurmountable or un-relatable.. I'm finding with work & practice, the storm can be broken down into individual, identifiable feelings, that more than one feeling can happen at once, that I can keep going & try to decide what action to take to serve my best interests rather than get totally stuck in very strong emotion. A few people have told me, notice the 'motion' in emotion, emotions are dynamic; that's a comfort to me to, that feelings come & will go.
#36
Dating; Marriage/Divorce; In-Laws / Re: First date
March 14, 2016, 10:16:35 PM
thanks for your support Dutch Uncle  :wave: & your kind words. I don't think I'm ahead of the curve! I feel fairly disconnected from most people but tend to crave company, feeling anxious & restless much of the time.. so I have a lot of work to do still.

I was just looking for friends & got asked on a date unexpectedly. I thought it was worth a try & knew I'd be kicking myself for not going if I hadn't tried.

I felt mighty nervous & nauseous right before, a horribly familiar feeling before any date, but managed to not run back to my car! It was better once we sat down. I did really well in terms of internal safety & triggering. I was grounded for the date & didn't feel like I was spinning out of control or confused. He was a total gentlemen & very keen about doing everything a perfect gentleman should do on a date, that was a totally new experience for me (with my exbf's I've always been the one to initiate & pursue them). Sadly, I just felt totally disengaged and no connection whatsoever to my date. Nothing at all, no compatibility. It felt a bit like being with a polite, upbeat robot.. don't know if that's my inability to connect with people or a case of total incompatibility. lt was painfully lonely when I left because I went for a stroll outdoors and there were all these happy families, out enjoying the sunshine & I felt this wave of terrible regret & loneliness, like I'll never have those bonds & relationships in my life :(.

The day before, I'd met a new person who I felt a really strong connection to & would love to be friends with. So the comparison was palpable. She's responded to my message but seems very busy & not interested in catching up again in 3d, I don't want to crowd her or appear desperate & lonely. So that feels sad.

Back to square one again I guess, being an almost totally solitary person. But the good news is I didn't have a EF total melt-down on the date like I did a year ago, so at least that's progress. And maybe I have a little better self-esteem so attracted a nicer person rather than my past pattern of exploitative/abusive parent type dates?

thanks for the suggestion to stick to dating for a X months, did you mean to avoid a s*xual relationship? Yeah, that's a great idea, for me such a torrent of emotions comes as soon as things get physical, tho I'd probably feel guilty dating a man for months without sleeping with him, I don't think that'd be much fun for him!
#37
Dating; Marriage/Divorce; In-Laws / First date
March 09, 2016, 11:29:00 PM
Hello all, this is maybe my first post. Good to meet you  :bigwink: Read some fantastic older threads on dating, wonderful wisdom about awareness of self & boundaries which really cheered me up.

So I've done a tonne of work on myself & went thru a lot of quite painful learning last year, I kinda put myself thru a boot-camp of facing my social fears.. meeting new people, socialising & altho I wasn't looking to date, unexpectedly found myself on more than one date.. all whilst trying to develop my (previously non-existent) boundaries. Wow, that was hard, hard work!

Feeling a bit more grounded within myself this year & better able to manage my symptoms (not perfect of course but getting there). My boundaries are coming along. I now notice I'm able to enjoy the company of some new people I meet (have that nice feeling of, "I'd love to see you again soon!") and better able to feel the early warning signs of people I don't like & deal with it quite well (a big improvement on my old pattern of: meet mean person -> EF melt-down -> instant enmeshment in abusive/exploitative relationship with mean person & take months to even figure out that I'm doing that again).

I still spend most of my time alone but am slowly getting better at socialising.

This week I was at a 3d dinner and unexpectedly got asked on a date. I'm off on a date in a few days. I've done well, I chose a café I'm comfy in that I won't stress about & am interested to see if I enjoy his company, it's worth a try. But.. eek.. some fears & doubts are circling up in my head,

- I'm not sure if I like him. There is something cold & off-putting there (even tho I can be an icycle myself); as I'm super intuitive/imaginative/emotional I don't like very logical/rational interactions much. Then again I feel that around many men or for that matter many people. I could dismiss the whole thing in impatience & miss out on a really nice person.. why am I over-thinking it and why can't I just give myself a chance, it's only coffee!
or
-  more dangerously, in this situation I could quickly get lost in EF and enmesh myself deep into a totally dysfunctional relationship where my inner child passionately works to change him (i.e. change the parent). this is a really big, strong pattern for me! I don't like a cold/lonely/anxious man, I feel an infuriating, cold absence of any connection at all but I behave as if I'm desperately in love with him & love him.. sometimes I think the feeling driving this maybe there's a very strong connection of hatred & I don't know the difference between love & hate

I'm in my early 40's and am quite sensible these days. But when it comes to dates, platonic or romantic, it's just a really big deal before, during and after. My mind focuses on it a lot, anxiety & ruminating.. I've found there's only so much prep I can do & beyond that it doesn't positively influence how the actually event goes, it's just a case of 'jumping in the deep end'.. can any other c-ptsd folk relate?
#38
Hello fellow C-PSTD people, I'm really glad to have found this forum.
I'm new here at the forum and have been finding the OOTF and OOTS sites so helpful for a while & continue to, there's so much info there I keep coming back to.

I've accepted that I have C-PSTD and that it was caused by my abusive childhood; sometimes I call that 'chronic early life trauma' or 'developmental trauma', each term helped me to understand & eventually accept what happened to me that was not ok to a kid, what damage it did me then and what damage I am living with now in my early 40's.  I'm now able to identify what symptoms I'm experiencing when and am gradually developing my ability to manage them, mainly with mindfulness. I think that all took me about some years. Lots of hard work in therapy, psycho-education & self-help.

These days I'm focused on my quality of life, I've had to take an early retirement due to injuries, relational/emotional probs, difficulty concentrating & fatigue but in a way this is the best time in my life! I like researching neuroscience ideas about how to feel better; I put my energies into what I can do with my diet & lifestyle to help and especially like things that can help with neurogenesis. I'm no expert of course but those topics give me hope & inspiration at this point in my recovery. I started high intensity exercise a few months ago & finding it helpful. To my great surprise as I'm the least sporty person I know & until now had a strictly yoga-bliss-out kind of approach to life.

Sometimes I slip back into denial. One pit-fall for me is I compare myself to people who don't have C-PTSD. Warm personalities, terrific fitness & stamina or very goal-oriented/ambitious people at times can overwhelm me & make me feel like a failure as a human being. I have to remind myself I'm working with some difficult damage & am a work in progress. I'm sure I'll find lots of shared experiences here & feel less alone in my limitations. Look forward to being part of the forum.