One thing that helped you

[Snookiebookie2]

Hi guys

I currently feel that I'm going around in circles.  I'm hitting a brick wall.  I seem to come back to the same situation: overthinking, perfectionism and shame. This causes me into dysregulation, so I'm not functioning or I resort to poor coping skills/behaviours. That causes my inner critic to go into overdrive; I make errors due to being partially disconnected/dissociated; I act weird, overshare or go into avoidance.  My body is flooded with adrenaline and cortisol. This causes more deregulation, and the spiral continues.  As, I said going round in circles. Or it's a cycle.

I just wondered what had worked for you? What helped break a cycle, when you were stuck. What was a break through for you - no matter how small.

[Snowdrop]

For me, it was reading the book "Internal Family Systems Therapy" by Richard Schwartz and Martha Sweezy. It helped me to understand the sorts of things you describe in terms of parts, and gave me a way to help and heal those parts. I've been much better since I started putting these things into practice. Much more even and whole.

[Pioneer]

Hi  That's a really good question. The cycle you mentioned sounds all too familiar to me - I just hit a downward cycle myself and I think I am just barely climbing out of the heap after hitting "the wall" you mentioned. I wish I had more to offer, but I want you to know that I hear you and you're not alone. As I was thinking about how to offer a helpful answer, I realized that just writing out my feelings is something that helps me to break the cycle. Just acknowledging that there is a spiral struggle and communicating to a listening ear seems like an important starting point to breaking it.

[Gromit]

I was doing a course last year with a practice diary. It was yoga and included alternate nostril breathing. After regularly practising I noticed a change, more glimpses of feeling 'normal'. Stuff happened and I stopped but a person recently shared with me a practice that her T had recommended. It was a breathing practice, not the same one, based on breathing in for 4, holding for 7, breathing out for 8. There was a YouTube video too. My breathing has improved, I start to get short of breath with anxiety. This week I stopped as I had a cold and lo, the breathing problems returned so I am now trying to practice both practices.

It does not change anything externally, but it changes something internally and cannot do any harm. Alternate nostril breathing does not have to involve holding or counting if that is an issue.

It is just a suggestion to help pause.

G

[woodsgnome]

My recovery trail is littered with some ups, many downs, lots of unknowns, and ... ? I guess that's the attitude I try to stay with -- some call it 'living the questions'. Meaning -- many of the most significant turns I've been able to make while dealing with c-ptsd has involved keeping an open attitude, or even invitation, to allow surprises as I find ways to move forward.

Why? Don't I fear change? I sure do, but ... I've experienced some real changes totally by surprise, including a couple that I was sure weren't going to work out or be good for me. A couple of these could be considered shocking given the changes that resulted.


So -- just stay open and keep on trying as well as we can -- one never  knows where something positive might come from. It might not even be perfect; might even turn out much better than that!

[mojay]

Hello! I hope it's okay that I shared so much. Possible trigger warning




A small breakthrough for my negative/harmful coping skills was finding alternative coping methods. It's still a struggle to keep the healthier methods to be honest and sometimes I slip back. The three most disruptive coping skills for me are self harm (SH), dissociation (depersonalization and derealization) and substance abuse.

I've drastically reduced the severity and frequency of my SH by simply holding an ice cube. I've also been taking out some frustrations that usually lead to SH by having a pillow fight with my wall. I basically just use the pillow as a physical way to let out the anger and frustration.

As for dissociation, I've been working really hard on grounding techniques. Essential oils have been helpful, ice packs have been helpful, mindfulness and meditation have been very helpful. I can't always tell when I'm dissociating a lot or more likely to dissociate, but I think that practicing mindfulness has really improved my ability to tell when I'm vulnerable to dissociating. When I can tell that I've been dissociating or will dissociate I try to use an icepack or essential oils to ground myself. I practice meditation to help my brain understand healthier ways to take a break from information processing.

My substance abuse has gone way down since beginning treatment for CPTSD (I am now a year into treatment). Sometimes when I crave substances or crave an altered consciousness or escape that they provide, I will spin myself literally in circles really fast while looking at a point on the ground until I get dizzy. It sounds so silly and sometimes it can be really silly, but I've found that it does help!

I hope that you are able to break through the brick wall and deviate from going in circles! I believe in you!

[Alter-eg0]

For me, after ten years of therapy and feeling that I wasn't getting anywhere, eventually I found a coach who helped me achieve more than I had in all the years before.
I started working with an NLP coach, and started studying NLP myself afterwards. All of which, massively helpful. I still remember our first conversation, where I told her everything that was going on and all of the things that I did to myself....and she responded with: "Cool". I was dumbfounded. After years of therapists punishing me for "bad behaviour" and trying their hardest to erradicate it, that's what I had come to expect, and that's how I viewed all my problems. As problems, that needed to be banished. She helped me to learn that every behaviour had a positive intention: to meet a need. However unhealthy or unwanted the behaviour might be. And in that, she  basically taught me: "If hating yourself could make you happy, you'd be there by now. It's time to try something different."
So we went for a much more compassionate approach, basically. Obviously that was only the beginning. But I remember it vividly. We did a whole bunch of other stuff that really helped.