Still Learning (But Still Get Blind-Sided)

[dreamriver]

I've been doing so well for months with flashbacks. Especially making some big changes in my life, which have greatly lowered my anxiety levels/adrenaline at a base level.

A couple triggers have hit me these past couple weeks and now I realize I've been in a flashback this whole time, especially whilst more closely gauging my mood and perception - and a stealthy inner child who has thrown me off! I.e. suddenly my partner seems unsafe and I need to leave because of things he said in a mood but then apologized for (and my go-to CPTSD coping urge is leaving, which I did with my family as a teen and it was a very effective survival tactic....some part of me goes back to it again and again.)

But in the meantime I'm hurting him by completely overlooking and discounting the really good and safety-building things he does, and then I'm scared of abandonment from my being too much for him. He is trying to have my back in some ways but he's not good at it, and I wonder if I'm just punishing him needlessly.

"People perfectionism" runs amok in my flashbacks... triggers or unsafe behavior can make me feel entirely different about even the closest of friends. I hate this. Yesterday, a close friend of mine for years posted something triggering and it made me completely spin out and get emotional and tearful and feel completely different about him, and in a way that completely eclipsed the mutual understanding we should have for others and where they are at in life (and in their own relationships with others).

It's really hard navigating flashbacks when these experiences have felt like they've been a part of my personality all my life. I'm so used to them. When the feelings set in they're so sneaky. It's difficult to think of as this "separate" brain process that is high jacking things and not part of my personality, and to catch it. It's also really, really hard to realize these low points are *not* reality.

It's hard to tell my partner that I think I'm having a flashback because I'm not a war veteran.

It's hard to tell myself yes, this is a flashback, when I'm not in some catatonic or fugue state and work on getting back to reality again.

Then it feels like I'm just built to sabotage relationships. 

Can anyone relate? Catching and accepting flashbacks before they get destructive is so hard....

[Hope67]

Hi Dreamriver,
I can't say much today, as my thoughts are a bit restricted, but I do relate to what you wrote, and I wanted to say that.
Hope 

[Blueberry]

Hi Dreamriver,
I don't feel able to say much today either except I really get your Subject: Still learning (but still get blind-sided)

One thing I want to say, that you maybe know already, cptsd flashbacks are often these emotional flashbacks. Just because there's often no film in our heads, no pictures, often no connection we can make until possibly sometime afterwards, that in no way means they are somehow "less than" veterans' flashbacks. 

[dreamriver]

Thanks you two. I think I struggle with denial and maybe some dissociation, you know saying "no I don't think this is a flashback!" When it actually is.

Very hard to navigate alone...partner doesn't quite understand/absorb...which is hard when that inner child really badly wants someone to come in, protect you, and pull you out of it. Ugh!

[rainydiary]

Dreamriver, your experience resonates with me especially with having a partner that doesn't quite understand.  As I gain experience with managing my CPTSD and peel back the layers of my experience, my triggers often "surprise" me.  A tone of voice, a person's body posture, words spoken by another, dynamics I find myself caught up in can all lead to feeling stuck. 

I find it so difficult to feel validated in my experience by others in my life.  I find that I have different people that validate different parts of my experience at different times.  Yet it is still very difficult for me that the person I chose to marry struggles so much to "get me."  Without him I couldn't have gotten the place I am today...but now I need different types of support that I don't always know how to get especially right now. 

[dreamriver]

Dreamriver, your experience resonates with me especially with having a partner that doesn't quite understand.  As I gain experience with managing my CPTSD and peel back the layers of my experience, my triggers often "surprise" me.  A tone of voice, a person's body posture, words spoken by another, dynamics I find myself caught up in can all lead to feeling stuck. 

I find it so difficult to feel validated in my experience by others in my life.  I find that I have different people that validate different parts of my experience at different times.  Yet it is still very difficult for me that the person I chose to marry struggles so much to "get me."  Without him I couldn't have gotten the place I am today...but now I need different types of support that I don't always know how to get especially right now.

Thank you Rainy Diary! I appreciate that you relate to what I said... And thanks for sharing. This makes me feel a lot less alone.

Do you find it helps to figure out what you're flashing back to? Or does it not help? Do you have a good way of communicating to your partner what you're experiencing and they get it? I struggle with all these things immensely. I feel dumb saying "I'm having a flashback" because it feels like I'm lying. I might be having a flashback and still be functional doing dishes or something, like it's not something bad enough to bring up or complain about because I can still do things...(flashbacks dont always put me to bed ...)

I have learned a lot about what could trigger me, but don't always feel like the awareness of that necessarily helps. I can be aware but still feel like I need someone/something regardless to make up for the feeling of abandonment and family rejection that wells up in me.

Yes the validation part is so hard. They don't get it and the little things can be triggering and interpreted all too easily as rejection.

I'm sorry you're going through the same thing. I really relate to what you said about getting different needs from different people, that's such a hard thing to compensate for right now with covid. We feel compelled to rely on our partners for everything. Me and my husband are definitely fraying at each other....and all this while realizing we're kind of codependent and trying to put an end to that!

[Pioneer]

Dreamriver, I can relate to much of what you are saying. I also have been doing better lately, but I got triggered recently and I'm not letting go of it. My inner child is in turmoil. And now I am seeing my husband as the enemy and not fully appreciating the safe things he is doing for me and my family. And this causes him a lot of stress, which is hard for his body with his health issues. So, it causes him a lot of emotional and physical pain when I start sabotaging. And it causes me emotional sorrow when I run from him like that. I also resorted to leaving/escape tendencies as a teenager...

I hear what you are saying, and I am sorry for the struggle and pain. I am hopeful that we can both continue to get better at identifying triggers and dealing with them 

[dreamriver]

Thank you for your words Pioneer, you are definitely not alone dealing with this! Here's a hug if you need one I really so understand how it feels, it can get you all twisted up inside.

On the one hand my CPTSD makes me feel like I HAVE to "act out" against behaviors/mannerisms that echo what I was powerless against as a kid, in order to feel safe- it's like a release or a catharsis. It's a hard balance to find between doing that in a healthy way and when I go too far and really just sabotaged everything (I've done that many times)...but then what if I didn't go far enough, in reality? Am I being taken advantage of still in some way I don't know? It's hard to modulate.

Things have gotten much better for me recently too but boy was it dark a few weeks back. Some aspects of my husband's personality can really trigger me, and put me in fight (arguing the topic to pieces) or flight (thinking I need to leave our life and our marriage). He was really down and nothing seemed to console him, and I was already in the pits too - nothing I did helped and it freaked me out, and then that triggered me into thinking that he was using me only as a crutch or a prop, just like my family did when I was a kid.

But then things always smooth over. In the moment I have very little hope they will, it's like I'm holding onto the reality that things will get better by only a thread in a flashback ... Barely.

My only consolation is that when I'm out of the flashback me and my husband try to do a lot of affirming things together. Like a cut was opened, and we're actively putting salve on it. We both have childhood trauma wounds and I think it's inevitable that we reopen them from time to time. As long as we always have a way to fix things up that's the only hope I have. The dark moments sure are really scary and convincing enough to believe though....