Moved away from abuser and my C-PTSD is doing WeIrD things...

[writetolife]

Hey all,
The good news is, I've moved out of my parent's house Saturday to leave my abusive father. 

The bad news is, my C-PTSD and just emotions in general are doing some weird stuff that I'd like your thoughts on. 

Mostly I don't want to go see my family, but most days there are a few minutes in which I crave seeing them.  It's not loneliness.  It's like I feel like I'll die if I don't see them, like I'm detoxing from an addiction.  (FYI, I don't let myself go see them when I feel like that.  Only when I'm calmer.)  Has anyone else experienced this when they left?  I've heard that the intermittent reinforcement in an abusive and/or narcissist relationship can actually cause an addiction. 

Also, I think I'm starting to smell things that aren't there.  Last night I was thinking about my dad and started smelling gasoline and a combination of other solvents that I very deeply associate with my dad when I was a kid.  (He was a mechanic for a long time.)  But I shouldn't have smelled it because I had a candle warmer going and I don't think anyone was doing mechanics, or anything related. 

Does this sound like a flashback to you?  Any idea why I would suddenly start to have sensory flashbacks when normally I just has EFs?

Any feedback or suggestions much appreciated!

[Kat]

Good for you for moving out! 

I can totally relate to the smell thing.  My therapist calls them olfactory hallucinations and explained that they're a form of a flashback. 

The brain is a fascinating thing...

[Blueberry]

Thanks for the term, Kat.
I've had so bad olfactory hallucinations, I've felt nauseous and I've had to leave the situation. Once I got these around my little god-child, and they were nothing to do with him! I felt so bad, I had to go back home, I couldn't stay at his parents' house. And it wasn't his fault! It was something coming up from my past. It was after the first time I'd done trauma processing. Maybe a week or so later. Often spending time with my god-child and his family is actually good for me, otherwise I probably wouldn't have gone.

The brain is indeed a fascinating thing and even this Beast of C-PTSD I find interesting in its way, but I sure as * wish I wasn't learning about it first hand like this.

writetolife, congratulations on moving out of your parents' house to leave abuse! 
In my experience it's fairly normal to get a backlash when I make progress. I've been told it's called The Empire Strikes Back. Maybe some of the posts under Inner Critic would help you understand more. I'm feeling too foggy to try and write more. 

[I like vanilla]

Good for you - it takes courage to move away from your FOO, good, bad, or indifferent.

Unfortunately, what is happening now sounds fairly 'normal' (for want of a better word) in this context. When I moved out of my childhood home, in my case to leave an abusive mother, I too had a craving to see my family, olfactory hallucinations, etc. From participation on this and other support sources, it seems like many of us have this type of response, as unfortunate and painful as that is (yay you are 'normal' - for want of a better word). The upside is that over time and with work (often with a therapist) this response lessens and for longer and longer periods of times disappears.

It is like we are programmed by our FOO to feel and behave in certain ways - usually those that benefit them rather than us. When we move away, it is often difficult to then know how to feel or behave, and our selves try to seek refuge in the familiar, even if we know that the familiar is ultimately unhealthy and even harmful to us. Good for you that you have resisted that temptation (and OK too if occasionally you slip and make contact).

My sense is that working on building a life beyond your FOO, e.g. finding hobbies you enjoy, people you like, practising self-care activities, etc. seems to help the transition process. Finding and developing self seems to help with the reprogramming process - it helps to replace the faulty/harm script that has been embedded in us by our abusers and to replace it with new programming that is beneficial to us.

Sending good-energy thoughts to you during this transition period.