Eerie Anne's Journal

[Blueberry]

I still am not clear on how to work the journal.  If I focus on what it is I'm trying to journal about, I feel like I'm ignoring all the helpful responses I've received and if I focus on responding, then I'm not getting my thoughts out, but I'm too busy feeling bad I may unintentionally hurt someone's feelings and then I feel selfish that I am so needy right now that I shut down. 

I understand the dilemma. I usually end up responding to those who have replied in my Journal. But that's one of my problems  - prioritising other people over myself. It is PERFECTLY OK to just go ahead and get your own thoughts out and not feel bad! It really looks as if you have a lot of thoughts to get out too. Once you've been getting them out for a while, you may notice you want to respond to other posters and then you can. I would suggest trying to feel what YOU want to do. Then do that. I'm OK with not getting a response to this post, I won't be hurt or offended

[Armee]

It's such a long process, EAnne. Standing with you through it. We were all in situations mostly at least 20+ years where these traumas occurred. We simply can't get it out and undo it all at once. It takes a long time. Little by little it will get out and there will be pieces of relief.

I often can't respond to people's responses in my journal even though what they've written has been a salve and just what I needed to hear. I can respond to others in their journals, but responding to what people wrote in mine is difficult. I mostly try to acknowledge that what people said was helpful without going into much detail, exactly so I'll still have the emotional energy to write new stuff. It's OK, whatever is helpful to you.

[Eireanne]

I'm laying down, trying to get tired enough to sleep (thanks hypervigilance) and I'm trying to focus on the TV show I have on, because it's the only way I can quiet my brain enough to sleep.  It's always been this way, and I can't get other people to understand why "sleep hygiene" doesn't work for me...only, the thing I was thinking that seemed super important, so important I needed to stop trying to sleep and grab my laptop....by the time I get to a place where I'm writing a post, the thought is gone, so I have to try to grasp onto it like a balloon string slipping away and the thought floats away....

This happens so often, I was reading about it in the forum, a lot of people have these cognitive issues, I just wish I knew what they were called, and I'm trying to explain to my friends that THEY need to pay attention when I talk, because the thought is there somewhere, but it's all mixed up in the trauma.

For me right now, the trigger is context.  I've been saying it for so long that it's become traumatic for me.  When I don't have enough context to understand a situation, it makes me anxious.  When I cannot figure out how to frame something I'm trying to express to someone who doesn't have the same lived experience as me, and therefore cannot see my perspective...and even that falls short of really explaining it right, and see here's where I get stuck, I can't EXPLAIN it...and now I'm frustrated, I just want the other person to see what I'm saying, but there's never that moment of, Oh, I get it! there's just more and more confusion and I end up owning it. I don't know why it keeps happening, and I get SO confused, and then I'm scared, and then....trauma response. 

But even that is half of it, there's the other half, where the person doesn't understand me and I'm NOT confused, I know what I'm saying, and so I texted my friend the other night and asked, "Do you ever get into conversations when someone completely misinterprets what you're saying, so you try to phrase what you're trying to say a different way, but you just have a different communication style and nothing you say is effective?" 

To illustrate my point, the other day I had a zoom meeting.  When it started, the assumption is that I should have my camera on, which I did, only I'm backlit, and only appearing as a silhouette (this is not intentional).  I explain, "I understand you may need to see me, however I have body dysmorphia and usually keep my camera off, so this setup is not ideal.  If you need to see me, you need to let me know so I can figure something out for you."  Her response was, "there's a setting where you can turn your view off so you can't see yourself, do you want to try that?"  (confusion) Me: "that's really not going to help, as I'm backlit, I just really don't know how to adjust this, as it's not a need I have to see you, I'm not even facing my laptop, as I'm looking at the monitor (where I have my notes for the meeting).  So she asks, "but can you see me? I said yes, but I'm not going to be looking at you anyway, I have my monitor I'm looking at.  She says, ok, well I want you to be able to see that I'm listening to you. Um, ok? (irrelevant to me) so I try asking a different way, Do you need to see me, because right now I am backlit and I know you can't, so if you need to, can you let me know, because I really don't feel like moving my whole setup right now" and her response was, "you don't need to keep your camera on if it makes you uncomfortable. This exchange was enough to cause AH.  I don't understand why, or how...is it simply we have different communication styles? It's got to be more than that because it happens to me constantly, I think I'm speaking English, I think I'm articulating efficiently, am I not? Am I mixing up my words again and saying things that don't make sense? Am I losing my mind? and it's literally again, that I don't have the context to understand why in the first 2 minutes our conversation is already off the rails.  And when I ask someone to explain this to me they say, "that sounds very frustrating, I can understand why you'd be upset"

Tangent because Inner Child has something to say: I really don't understand this whole zoom need to see people when we talk, I find it very distracting.  I was able to communicate effectively with people for YEARS before zoom even existed - it's called the telephone!  I really don't understand why people think they need that, but then I realize my perspective.  I get it's a need other people have that I don't, it doesn't make their need irrelevant (like how my need for accommodations at work keep getting denied because the person deciding whether *I* need them is based on whether or not SHE needs them, so basically since it's a need she doesn't have, then I don't need it either....I've been trying to say this over and over but no one understands Can someone help me phrase this the way I'm trying to say it?

So when I start thinking of the times I needed context, asked for it and it wasn't given to me, all of these have now become trauma for me.  To try to give examples triggers a trauma response.  Documenting it....I keep trying to explain, it's not what was said, it is HOW, the implications, and when I try to get someone else to see them and no one else does I feel like I'm being gaslit...which reminds me of the years I spent...which reminds me of my childhood, and it's all tied up in a big sloppy bow.

And see here's the part where I think I'm calm, because I've said it well, and I've said it correct but if I try to elaborate, my brain runs away from it. 

[Eireanne]

Breathe To the therapist that told me to "breathe"

What I needed to hear was, "Another way to prevent amygdala hijacking is to use the 6-second rule. Waiting for just six seconds causes the brain chemicals that cause amygdala hijacking to diffuse away. Breathing deeply or focusing on a pleasant image helps to prevent your amygdala from taking control and causing an emotional reaction."

So much more helpful than just telling me to breathe.  I need context, I need to understand WHY.  When to breathe, why am I breathing, I need the science, I need the words, I need to understand, "what you are experiencing is called an amygdala hijack, so it makes total sense that you feel like you're going crazy, your brain is not capable of cognitive function during this time.  When you sense it happening, and you know your own triggers, try taking a few deep breathes and focus on a pleasant memory (ha, fat load of good that is trying to come up with a pleasant memory while you're trapped in your own nightmare) We can at least TRY to come up with pleasant memories!...so sad. All my pleasant memories are so closely tied to individuals that are currently too busy to be there for me when I need help, and I feel so alone in this, and I've always felt alone because I've never had the support I needed, it's always been me taking care of my self to the best of my ability with no tools and no understanding how to do any of this.

Sigh.

[rainydiary]

I appreciate your reflection on being told to "breathe."  It doesn't set well with me or help me and I wish it wasn't something folks suggested.

[sanmagic7]

hey, EA, i've also been thru the 'sleep hygiene' lecture - so to speak - and it didn't work for me, either.  as i've progressed in recovery, i've found a routine that works quite well for me most nights, plus my meds, so i'm fairly okay w/ how i'm sleeping now.

it's tough when 2 people are trying to communicate but they're on different planes and can't get thru to each other.  it's so very frustrating to not be understood, no matter how many ways you say the same thing.

there was a woman on this forum who used to give the suggestion to 'breathe, just breathe', and to me it always came off as taking a beat, let yourself be for a moment.  i found it very helpful when i was feeling frantic and/or flustered.  however, that's me.  one thing doesn't necessarily work for everyone.  we're learning to do what's best for us.  love and hugs

[Blueberry]

there was a woman on this forum who used to give the suggestion to 'breathe, just breathe', and to me it always came off as taking a beat, let yourself be for a moment.  i found it very helpful when i was feeling frantic and/or flustered. 

That's how I understood it too and sometimes it would work for me. Probably not if I was really EF-y and/or in the throes of a huge AH.

Eireanne, breathing as a grounding/distracting method is actually not good for everybody with cptsd because it can be triggering all on its own! It can bring stuff up from the depths. It does for me for example. As san wrote, not everything works for everybody. I think everybody's cptsd is a little different, just like we human beings are all a little different from one another. Living with cptsd or even recovery from it for those who manage is a journey in finding out what works for oneself.

[Eireanne]

Yesterday, for the first time I went out in several months and attempted to explain why I was on disability...I still haven't sorted out a way to explain it in "layman's terms" and it sounded so stupid in my own ears, I can't seem to get other people to grasp what is going on and I feel so defeated.  I don't know what to do or how to talk to people anymore. 

I keep getting into misunderstandings with everyone.  Even here.  I said, I don't know how to respond to people - I meant literally, what am I supposed to do, respond in a journal entry?  Then I saw there's a message feature, so I have been using that, but unsure if people see their messages. I ask what I think is a simple question and people misinterpret it. I wonder, is it me? Is there a better way of saying things? And I obsessively overthink everything to the point I'm upset about it. 

The issue is, I don't know how to even talk to anyone anymore. I don't have any interactions with other people on a daily basis consistently enough to remember how to effectively communicate and every waking minute is taken up by me trying to figure out how to even explain my c-ptsd and trauma response in "layman's terms" so I don't have to keep explaining to people...and I want to have to NOT explain it to people, but it's ALL that is in my head.  I can't remember things like, "what I do for fun" I can't remember fun, I can't remember anything anymore.  The situation I'm in currently is ALL I think about. 

I need to have connections with people and people misunderstand and think I need to be AROUND people, so they tell me to volunteer. But that's just me being NEAR people.  I went to a volunteer thank you (thing - see I can't even remember what it was called, words fall out of my head all the time) yesterday and I told people, "I'm having a lot of anxiety right now because I've been chronically isolated.  This is the first time I've been out of the house and around other people in months, I'm not used to it.  I don't know what to talk to people about, since I've been on medical leave from work, part of my symptoms have caused me to become immunocompromised and I have to wear a mask, which makes me self conscious, so I'm lonely, self conscious, and feeling really anxious, it's getting in the way of me being able to remember how to mingle and make small talk".

The first lady that heard me say this gasped and took a step away from me warning other people to keep their distance, because all she heard was being near people made me uncomfortable because I'm immunocompromised.  Thankfully she said this out loud, so I could say, that is NOT what I said, and said it again to a man who had just joined us.  He understood and was kind.  Other people included me to sit at their table with them while we ate, but at the end of it I still didn't feel like I could truly connect with anyone and all they kept telling me was I should volunteer more.  I said I DID I did all the volunteering last year, but it's transactional, it doesn't help with me not feeling CONNECTED to anything anymore. 

Why can't I explain this to ANYONE so they get it.  Then people tell me to get a dog, because a dog is a great way to meet people. I really just want to cry.  I no longer even know what to talk to my friends about, I'm so lost. 

I don't want to keep announcing to people that I'm on disability and I've forgotten how to communicate to the point it's making me sick.  I lived my entire life being "weird" now I'm a total outcast.  What do I do?

[Armee]

I'm sorry, EerieAnne, I totally misunderstood what you were asking. I thought you were referring to how to respond in terms of content. But in terms of how to respond, yes you would just use the reply button at the top, just like you do adding your own new journal entries. There's also a quote function if you want to respond to a specific statement, like this. Once you start a reply, you can scroll down to another post below and you'll see "insert quote" at the top of a post. That will grab the whole post and put it in quotes, and you can cut out sections you don't want to include. Misunderstandings can make me feel alien and like no one understands and that feeling of being "other" is a very common and painful symptom of trauma survivors.

I keep getting into misunderstandings with everyone.  Even here.  I said, I don't know how to respond to people - I meant literally, what am I supposed to do, respond in a journal entry?  Then I saw there's a message feature, so I have been using that, but unsure if people see their messages. I ask what I think is a simple question and people misinterpret it. I wonder, is it me? Is there a better way of saying things? And I obsessively overthink everything to the point I'm upset about it. 

[Blueberry]

I resonate with a whole lot in many of your posts. Often your questions and wonderings are things I've gone through and come up with a sort of answer for myself. But that's my answer, it might not be yours! In other words, it might not be what's best for you or best in your situation. Anyway, there is a rule-of-thumb on OOTS about not giving advice. Some mbrs get pretty triggered when given advice. I'm one of those. However it is OK to write about what helped you in a similar situation.

I sense a certain desperation in your posts and it's hard for me to separate myself from that. Although possibly I'm just remembering my own desperation way back when and attributing it to you now.

What helped me back then was Pebbles in Pocket plus Book of Daily Joys. Start out the day with pebbles or lima beans or something of that sort in one pocket and transfer them one by one to the other pocket during the course of the day everytime something good or joyful happens (a sunbeam; somebody understood you; somebody smiled at you in passing, somebody included you in their group etc - you'll find what makes you happy) and then go through the pebbles at the end of the day to jog your memory, then write them in your Book of Daily Joys. This method helps to re-connect your mind to what's fun for you, what helps you, what strengthens your resiliency etc. It also helps shift your mind to concentrate on the good things here and now instead of going through past trauma and wondering 'What did I do wrong??' in a sort of loop. It doesn't mean the bad stuff doesn't exist or that you shove it under the rug as possibly was done in the family you grew up in and-that's-why-you're-in-the-situation-you-are-now-in (which is certainly my case) but that for a certain amount of time you're focussed on other stuff.


One thing other mbrs on here often remind me of: be kind and compassionate to yourself! I tend to forget that. I want to heal right away, get frustrated with myself when I can't function the way i want to etc. I'd like to say that to you too. You might ask: "How can I be kind to myself?" It's a journey of discovery into what's kind for you? What feels good to you?

Possibly an easier way of getting into methods like Pebbles in Pocket / Daily Joys would be to look here: https://cptsd.org/forum/index.php?board=49.0  Threads of similar topics are pinned at the top. Choose one you like rather than one that annoys or triggers you. There are probably also apps you can use, some of which may be listed on the link I've just given you.

I keep getting into misunderstandings with everyone.  Even here.  I said, I don't know how to respond to people - I meant literally, what am I supposed to do, respond in a journal entry?  Then I saw there's a message feature, so I have been using that, but unsure if people see their messages. I ask what I think is a simple question and people misinterpret it. I wonder, is it me? Is there a better way of saying things? And I obsessively overthink everything to the point I'm upset about it. 

I did get your PM but I simply haven't responded because... my own life got in the way. Nothing personal.

I hope I've explained myself clearly up above, but I don't know.  Having difficulty with words/language is part of cptsd for some of us. That's a FACT. It's to do with part of the brain. I'm having particular difficulties atm myself, despite the fact that I'm educated, work with language etc etc

I also really resonate with the struggle to find a T or other medical personnel who really get it!

[sanmagic7]

hey, EA, i also got your PM.  thanks for the thanks. 

i think you communicate well, by the by.  i, too, have problems at times knowing the precise word/words i want to use.  i think sometimes my mind is simply overloaded at that moment.  at least, that's what i'm telling myself, instead of chastising myself for not knowing.  it's part of the 'be gentle' w/ me theory.  we've had too many people who have been harsh and hurtful to us, i think it's important to not do that to ourselves as well.

as for journals, i enjoy responding to other peoples' posts in my journal.  often, what they've said stirs something in me or helps me look at a situation differently, and i like to acknowledge that.  otherwise, i like thanking them for their support.  keep doing what works best for you, ok?  like my T told me, this is a marathon, not a sprint.  sending love and a hug full of clarity to you.

[Papa Coco]

Hi EA,

I am deeply touched by your situation. In my own life, I've had many times when I've felt similar things. I sometimes think of how trying to explain what CPTSD feels like to people who don't have it must be as difficult as a mother trying to explain to men what childbirth feels like. Or trying to explain what being a plane crash victim feels like to someone who's never flown in a plane. Here, on this forum, we all know what C-PTSD feels like, so my hope is that you can trust that we do understand a lot of what you are saying to us and what we are saying to each other.  We're birds of a feather here.

I'm very glad you found this forum. As you struggle with feeling heard, we can definitely hear you.

I struggle with this often. I have a robust and outgoing personality, but when C-PTSD brings me into deep depression or tongue-tied confusion, non-PTSD survivors look at me like I'm crazy. They don't understand how I could be happy and engaged one day, and then confused and dark the next. I say things out of context. I don't make sense. People think I'm nuts. It hurts. It's embarrassing. It forces me back into isolation, which only deepens my situation.

Please keep communicating with us. We get it.

What you're describing in your posts here feels to me like classic C-PTSD. Whenever I feel like I've sounded incoherent on this forum, the other members have come to my rescue and eased my fears about what I'm saying. The compassion and empathy on this forum are comforting to me and I hope that we can comfort you too.  Nothing you're saying here sounds crazy. It sounds like painful C-PTSD, which is what brought all of us to this forum.

What helps me to calm down when I feel the anxiety of sounding incoherent is I now just say: That's trauma. It's TRAUMA. It's not insanity, it's trauma. Trauma makes us all feel crazy. It's trauma. Trauma. It's not me. And trauma therapists can help us. Trauma drives the isolation. Trauma drives the depression. Trauma drives the feelings of not being heard. Trauma drives the loneliness.  So as we work with the tools of trauma therapy, all the other problems it causes start to fade down to manageble levels. Even though we feel like it's taking too long to feel better, trauma does take time to rise up from.

As far as people telling you to get a dog or to volunteer, I'm sure they're only trying to help, but I learned to stop letting NON-Trauma survivors try to help me. This forum, my therapist, and the books on CPTSD are better sources of information. Non-Trauma survivors may mean  well, but they don't understand trauma, so I don't put much faith in their solution ideas. I appreciate them trying to help, but...

Personally, speaking for myself, it has become a lot easier for me to explain my trauma since I started reading the books. The book that helped me the most in recent years was Pete Walker's book on Complex  PTSD from Surviving to Thriving.  I took notes and even made index cards that I could use to help myself understand why I was doing some of the trauma things I was doing. By reading his explanations of how CPTSD makes us feel alone and unable to understand or explain ourselves, I started to find ways to explain my situation with non-trauma people.

Understanding the trauma, has helped me to start understanding myself. I'm not my trauma, but trauma has been pulling my strings. As I learn what trauma really is, those strings are losing their grip on me.

[Eireanne]

So much more stuff has come up, and so many things to respond to, but I'm taking my time and sorting things out...thank you all for your patience and your kind words...

There was an ask about how come when the therapist told me to breathe it upset me, but the woman on the phone didn't....I had written this down and just want to keep it here for now...

It wasn't the saying of it that upset me, it was the context in which it was said.

In scenario one, my ask was, "I have an unnamed trauma, I need help naming it, the not being able is causing distress - what tools can I use for you to help me name it?"  Her response was to breathe.  Yes. I absolutely comprehend that breathing exercises help with dysregulation, but the dysregulation is being triggered by not having the words...breathing doesn't help me find the words, I needed resources.  The focus for her was to assist me to get my response under control.  My need was to get the resources, I already understand how to get the response under control and was disappointed as a "trauma informed medical professional" she was unable to do that.  Even during our follow up session where I articulated exactly what my need was.  There was never one moment in her exchange where she said, "oh, I see what you're saying" her responses were defensive – "this is why I said that". I'd counter with, "I appreciate your perspective, but can you see why there is this breakdown in communication?" And she'd just double down on where she was coming from.  It was a feeling of disappointment.  And ultimately, not being heard. 

In scenario two, I expressed, "I am experiencing a traumatic response to this conversation and it's inhibiting my ability to communicate effectively, I am experience distress" and the response to breathe was followed by, "I am giving you space to better articulate your thoughts, I understand your need in this moment is to be heard and I am providing that for you". 

I needed the therapist to identify what my need was.  I also expressed to her in my follow up session that I understand that is a challenge. I'm not expecting her to understand, but I am expecting when I say a thing, for it to be validated.  I recognized our communication style was causing me to become dysregulated.  Even pointing out how the importance we were placing on different aspects of the conversation was allowing for miscommunication was not diffusing the situation. 

I said, "I appreciate your willingness to understand my frustration at being consistently misdiagnosed and the helplessness I feel to properly express my symptoms so I can get the help I need.  However, I am not sure we were communicating effectively and I left the session with a huge sense of not being heard.  As this unsettled me, I followed up with some clarifying emails that weren't acknowledged.  From the outset, I explained that because I never have my camera on, my setup is not – right? And I don't know how to adjust it if I need to accommodate your ability to look at me. I don't want or need that.  Instead of saying that's fine, you asked if I could turn my video off, which confused me, because even if the video was off, you'd still have the same view.  I was under the impression you were trauma informed, and what I really needed in that moment were the words I needed to validate my trauma so I could stop the amygdala hijacking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala_hijack  I am not sure if you even recognized it."

Her response to this was, "It's helpful to have your camera on so I can read visual cues and body language".  To which I replied - you're not going to get any of that, if you need more context, just ask - I can tell you anything you need to know, but I need you to ask." 

Here I am, panicking about the situation I'm in that I've been dealing with in isolation.  I had, at the time I spoke with you last week, had no tools to aide in the support I've been desperately needing to the point I was fearful my condition was worsening to the CTSD diagnosis.  But I needed an outline, a structure, something I could use to focus my panic in more productive ways and telling me to breathe....I'm sorry, but it didn't seem to address my valid concerns.  Then I was filled with self directed anger because of course you won't understand the dynamic of how my trauma presents itself after one conversation, especially a conversation when I don't even have cognitive awareness.   

So I followed up with what I thought were clarifying emails that you did not respond to.  I'm doubting we are a good fit, but first I want to see what you have planned for moving forward with treatment.

I recognized we were still at an impasse, so I went on... 

I really confused when you mentioned Lady Liberty, I hoped it was a support group for people who were experiencing trauma, that I could use as a resource to find empowerment so I could get out of the trauma loop I have been trapped in for weeks.  I was incredibly disappointed to understand you were just saying balance.  Yes, obviously I need balance, but I can't get that if I can't get the symptoms of my disability under control, they've been running unabated for months.  I haven't been able to get the support I need and I came to you for help, I'm feeling really defensive right now and I'm not sure if we should even move forward with treatment. 

To which she responded, "well if you're not up to doing the work, you can drop the call."

Meditation does not help - it's a cue to my brain that it's time to enter the trauma loop to try to process...but I still don't have the words and lack of words make me anxious. 
Journaling does not help - it's a cue to my inner child that it's time to complain about every invalidating feeling I've had to distract me from the stuff my brain doesn't want to process without feedback from an outside perspective - more trauma looping. 

Feelings of validation help – I cannot give them to myself when I'm trapped in my own thinking which is I already know what I'm feeling is real but no one believes me, no one is listening and I'm too traumatized to explain it in a way that is being heard.  I've journaled on this topic quite a bit and can better articulate for you what I mean when I have time to read/process these journal entries.  Again I was waiting for some sign of, where my focus should be – more research, more words, get my story down? Where??? And the lack of direction created a setback that I was able to get myself out of.

I still haven't even gone back and read/processed my previous journal entries...I think right now it's helpful for me to get it all out first. 

[Eireanne]

I wrote this last night, but needed to edit it before I could post...

I think this is getting closer to the words I am looking for, but I still need help with some of them.  It's not advice I am looking for, it's literally - I need to know what the words are.  I have some sort of neurodiverse way of thinking that makes it very hard for people to interpret what I'm saying the same way I intended.  It causes for a lot of misunderstandings and confusion.  Which is one of my triggers - not being heard.  Sometimes I just get dysregulated, other times I get full blown AF, only I didn't know what it was...and the only way I have found to articulate it is in research I found about autistic burnout and...a different autistic article I found that has the right words....I can't ever find the right words...and it is so hard to get people patient enough to even listen to me. 

My manager at work has absolutely no empathy.  To her, it's a buzzword.  She doesn't even think of me as a person, I'm a tool to her, an asset.  Like an app in her phone, she allows me no autonomy, I'm not able to set any boundaries...I mean I can SAY them, I just can't actually live them....which has been completely triggering my c-ptsd but every doctor got it wrong....

I am filled with so much anger right now...but it's not actual anger....it's more like righteous indignation?

The way to treat trauma is not through intellectualism or dialogue or cognitive behavioral therapy. Only when the autonomic nervous system is relaxed and not in the fight or flight mode can one begin to attend to the trauma.

And when I read that, my brain went *ding ding ding* because the only time I can think clearly and make sense of everything, and be able to put it into words that make sense, is when my autonomic nervous system is able to relax.  All other times, my brain is literally in fight or flight.  It's called amygdala hijacking.  I figured all that out on my own.  The last therapist told me to BREATHE.  The one before that...I explained to him I was neurodiverse.  I didn't know what was going on with my brain at the time (or even now, to a certain degree, but at least now I'm sure it's at least 75% due to the unprocessed trauma....so here I am, going to this therapist for WORK WITH MY UNPROCESSED TRAUMA (sorry, that's the anger right there) and he hears the word Neurodiverse and latches onto it, tells me, "no way, me too, I have ADHD" and then filters ALL of my therapy through the lens of him projecting his ADHD onto me. 

When I tried to explain this trauma loop I've been trapped in, he was further convinced I had ADHD because of my "racing thoughts" and I'm like....100% no, these are not RACING anything, I can't even finish a sentence, this is more like brain fog....but it's more like all the thoughts I'm trying to have are jigsaw pieces and I can't fit them together....I need help PROCESSING MY TRAUMA....anybody?  No?  Do you know how exhausting it is to keep telling everyone the same thing over and over and no one listens? I really really really really hope this new therapist will hear me.  I'm so so so grateful to you all for allowing me this space to work out my thoughts.

[sanmagic7]

i hear you, EA, and also want to send along validation for your struggles. i am on the spectrum cusp, and i get how difficult it can be to find the words i want in a situation.  l also understand when you say your intrusive? is that the right word? thoughts are not adhd related.  i suffer from them as well, and have learned they're part of trauma brain.  as my T told me, i do have c-ptsd.  that is a huge wrench in the works of thinking, articulating, following, understanding - all that cognitive stuff.

please, be patient w/ yourself.  you've just begun this journey here, you're getting your thoughts and words down as best you can, and you have the time and space here to do what you can when you can.  no rush, no judgment.  our brains/minds have been wounded by trauma.  you've taken some first steps toward healing yours.  i give you a lot of credit for that.  sending love and a hug full of clarity.