can't stop dissociating

[Coco]

This site makes me dissociate. Every time I try to post something I begin to dissociate. Lots of things I read on here trigger me. I seem to be triggered every 5 seconds this past 2 weeks. Before that I was numb/amnesic/in denial.

I have untreated CPTSD. A psychologist said I have it one or two years ago (time is difficult for me to understand)

I thought I'd stop trying to post and just read things, but articles also elicit strange reactions from me. I thought I'd go and look at some of the books on Amazon, and the same thing.

Sometimes my mind goes completely blank like a protective blankness is trying to take over
Sometimes I feel intense anger or terror
I feel too scared to post anything. I immediately forget anything I've just read, like my mind is trying to swipe it out of existance.

If I can't stop this, I won't be able to pursue a recovery. Any time I think of seeking a therapist, the same happens.

[Coco]

I'm sorry, I'm usually a lot better at communicating or expressing myself than the post above. Some part of me really, REALLY doesn't want me to explore this.

A few years ago I suddenly remembered lots and lots of things I'd completely forgotten from my childhood and teenage years. All the flashbacks began at once and I was unable to function. It was like 3D panoramas being projected from my cells or some invisible inner screen, and the memories played themselves out all around me like it was happening again. Before that. I remembered absolutely nothing. We all joked that I had alzheimers. These memories were horrific and it really..... I just couldn't live a normal life and I couldn't find support and I felt so guilty and confused and I don't want it to happen again. But if I don't heal, the scared parts of me control my life from behind the scenes, and I only have the tiniest bit of me available. And I want all of me, and I want all the bits of me to feel loved and accepted, and I need to be able to read the things here to do that.
I tried left hand journaling tonight with my inner child, and a few sentences in, I felt the whole thing just shut down....... there are bits of me who won't allow it. It makes other bits of me feel isolated and sad. I want wholeness.

[Three Roses]

This sounds a bit like what I went thru when I retrieved some troubling memories. Please know that we will be here for you, even if it's just to listen and give you a chance to tell your story. Whatever you've been thru, however you feel, it seems like there's always someone else who totally relates.

Move at your own pace and don't try to go too fast or force things. Just let things come as they will. And know we'll be here ready to listen when you are ready to talk.

[hurtbeat]

I'm glad you posted anyway you are working against it little by little!

I have the same problem when I read my book about CPTSD but I have accepted that it's going to be like that.
Usually I'll jump to a chapter that seems relevant to me, read one page and then take a break.
I'll try and read the whole page piece by piece until I understand the text and then I make time for contemplation to really get it into my head.

You just gotta work around it by being persistent, keep up the good work Coco! 

[Coco]

Thank you hurtbeat, and thank you for acknowledging that I managed to post! I was proud of that! Progress I'm glad I was brave. An inner adult/critic is piping up that that is pathetic, haha! I see where it's coming from but that's not the whole truth.

I realized I am traumatised about being traumatised! Parts of me don't want to be. This morning I'm acknowledging that my culture reinforces my defensive rejection of my CPTSD.
In the western world I receive a lot of messages about being positive, choosing your emotions, choosing your thoughts, rejecting internal negativity, being perfect, doing more, striving, achieving. Be productive. Take responsibility. Always be happy. Forgive! Let go. Move on. Even books as innocuous as positive affirmations and us creating our lives, have inadvertently been very toxic for me. They have reinforced the conclusions I came to when I was little that the only possible response to life was to be perfect, squash down my authentic needs and voice, stop feeling, and focus on what others wanted. And that any bad feelings were bad, a mistake, wrong, and must be eradicated. Obviously this doesn't bode well for recovery. There doesn't seem to be any way back to wholeness and empowerment other than acknowledging and feeling and re-assessing as an adult.

The police used to come to my house a lot, and when I was about 7 or 8 or 9, a government agency organized counseling for me, which was great of them. I was so dissociated by then that I sat with the counselor telling her that I loved my parents unconditionally and they were only doing all this because they were hurting. I was trying to be this archetype of the divine child or something -- supernatural love. The counselor said 'you must be angry at them' and I was so defensive of that statement that I never wanted to go back. I had been badly punished for crying, being angry, trying to run away from home, calling people for help, having any reaction at all really. It is strange to me how that 7/8/9 yr old is frozen intact within me and still informing all my parts that it is not OK to have any emotions, or we will be hit/screamed at etc, and that it is a personal failure to feel.
That counselor asked me to write poetry. I was a gifted writer and I wrote a poem about rain. The counselor showed the other counselors and they all praised me for the poem. They were all amazed and said it should be published. When my mother came to pick me up, they showed her the poem and said how great it was. She looked at it and a look of disgust filled her face. She told them I had plagiarised that poem, that I had copied it from a poetry book we had at home. We didn't have poetry books at home. I had not copied it, I had made it up in the counselor's room. I had enjoyed it. I remember a man counselor's facial expressions of shock and horror at what my mother was saying, and I remember him looking at me with his mouth open and his eyes were filled with sorrow and remorse about what she was like. It was impossible to acknowledge that he was right because I was so powerless. I still had to go home with her. My mother didn't let me go back to the counselors after that day, and I didn't want to. They were trying to bring awareness to me and awareness was too difficult to live with. The only way to survive was to go unconscious and disconnect with the reality of my situation. How could a child live in those dynamics with full awareness that she was completely powerless over her own life and safety?

So I have some layers to work through but I view this as a very special time. I am so grateful that my inner selves are talking to me now, and I hope I can be kind and patient enough to myself to let this process happen. I'm really happy I am remembering things. I'm beginning to have reprieve from the constant terror feelings. When I talk and listen to inner selves, and when I remember their memories, I get a feeling like a hug inside. It feels solid and stable and good.

I feel like my own system knows what to do to heal, and is trying to. I guess it kept me in numb amnesia until it was ready. 

Also trigger words like 'abuse' and 'trauma' and 'childhood' feature heavily in the literature I'm attempting to read, and they send me off on a spin before I even know what's happened. 

Thank you for your kind and loving and aware response 3 roses, it helps to read sentences that are sane and balanced and right and wise

[hurtbeat]

I recognize being defensive about realizing how bad things are while you're still in the family unit.
What is a child to do with such information?
Fight the system?
You had good use of your dissociation and now it's time to reprogram.
It shows that you are a writer and this will probably come into good use for you, have you written any poems ever again?
Might be useful someday as therapy

If things are hard to read, do you think it could be easier to write?
When you read you take in stuff, when you write you get things out of you.

And about all of those self- help choosing your own emotion- lifestyle books and whatever- I think they are only compatible with sociopaths because they are the only ones who can choose emotions.
It wouldn't surprise me if most of these lifestyle coaches are actually narcissists and sociopaths.
I recently saw a documentary about "James Arthur Ray", a motivational speaker who went to jail after accidentally killing 3 people in a sweat lodge in one of his courses.
He didn't show much remorse about it and his preaching lifestyle where he had to travel and convince a lot of people seemed fit for a true Narcissist/ Sociopath.

Good thing we are not like them!