CPTSD
- Yeah sex is cool but…
…have you ever not been anxious every single moment of the day?
Yeah, me neither.
- DAE Can anyone relate? Why can't I be silly when I want to?
I'm wondering, why can't I be fun whenever I feel things are getting more serious with someone? Why can I just not be silly? Why can't I play and be goofish with those that matter to me? Why must I be so damn dead serious?
- You’re always risking a gut punch when reading The Onionwww.theonion.com Loving Mother Only Wants Daughter To Be Different In Every Possible Way
ANNAPOLIS, MD—Seeing that her child was upset with her and hoping to provide some reassurance, loving mother Laurie Batts reportedly sat down Tuesday with her daughter Caroline to let her know that the only thing she wanted was for the girl to be different in every way possible. “Honey, I know somet...
- Me trying to navigate the multitude of triggers that my upbringing has left me with
YouTube Video
Click to view this content.
- 13 steps for managing emotional flashbacks
“Emotional flashbacks are sudden and often prolonged regressions to the overwhelming feeling-states of being an abused/abandoned child. These feelings states can include overwhelming fear, shame, alienation, rage, grief, and depression. They also include unnecessary triggering of our fight/flight instincts.” (Pete Walker)
Regression is a defense mechanism that awakens when survivors face anxiety-filled events that cause them to retreat to a childhood state. In regression, full-grown adults flashback back to their emotions as children and feel abandoned, abused, and helpless or overwhelming emotions of fear, rage, shame, depression, and grief that trigger a strong fight/flight/freeze response.
According to Pete Walker, survivors experiencing emotional flashbacks are overwhelmed with emotions they cannot understand or recognize with events they may or may not remember or connect these emotions to.
Pete Walker describes 13 Steps to Managing Emotional Flashbacks.
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Say to yourself: "I am having a flashback." Flashbacks take us into a timeless part of the psyche that feels as helpless, hopeless and surrounded by danger as we were in childhood. The feelings and sensations you are experiencing are past memories that cannot hurt you now.
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Remind yourself: "I feel afraid but I am not in danger! I am safe now, here in the present." Remember you are now in the safety of the present, far from the danger of the past.
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Own your right/need to have boundaries. Remind yourself that you do not have to allow anyone to mistreat you; you are free to leave dangerous situations and protest unfair behavior.
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Speak reassuringly to your Inner Child. The child needs to know that you love her unconditionally—that she can come to you for comfort and protection when she feels lost and scared.
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Deconstruct eternity thinking. In childhood, fear and abandonment felt endless—a safer future was unimaginable. Remember the flashback will pass as it has many times before.
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Remind yourself that you are in an adult body with allies, skills and resources to protect you that you never had as a child. (Feeling small and little is a sure sign of a flashback.)
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Ease back into your body. Fear launches us into "heady" worrying, or numbing and spacing out.
[a] Gently ask your body to Relax: feel each of your major muscle groups and softly encourage them to relax. (Tightened musculature sends unnecessary danger signals to the brain)
[b] Breathe deeply and slowly. (Holding the breath also signals danger).
[c] Slow down: rushing presses the psyche's panic button.
[d] Find a safe place to unwind and soothe yourself: wrap yourself in a blanket, hold a stuffed animal, lie down in a closet or a bath, take a nap.
[e] Feel the fear in your body without reacting to it. Fear is just an energy in your body that cannot hurt you if you do not run from it or react self-destructively to it.
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Resist the Inner Critic's catastrophizing.
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Allow yourself to grieve. Flashbacks are opportunities to release old, unexpressed feelings of fear, hurt, and abandonment, and to validate—and then soothe—the child's past experience of helplessness and hopelessness. Healthy grieving can turn our tears into self-compassion and our anger into self-protection.
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Cultivate safe relationships and seek support. Take time alone when you need it, but don't let shame isolate you. Feeling shame doesn't mean you are shameful. Educate those close to you about flashbacks and ask them to help you talk and feel your way through them.
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Learn to identify the types of triggers that lead to flashbacks. Avoid unsafe people, places, activities and triggering mental processes. Practice preventive maintenance with these steps when triggering situations are unavoidable.
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Figure out what you are flashing back to. Flashbacks are opportunities to discover, validate and heal our wounds from past abuse and abandonment. They also point to our still-unmet developmental needs and can provide motivation to get them met.
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Be patient with a slow recovery process. It takes time in the present to become un-adrenalized, and considerable time in the future to gradually decrease the intensity, duration and frequency of flashbacks. Real recovery is a gradual process—often two steps forward, one step back. Don't beat yourself up for having a flashback.
Recommended reading: https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/01/11/managing-emotional-flashbacks/-
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- How are you?
This is the community I miss the most from reddit and will probably go back at least to it.
But I would love for us to have and option here too and some support group in fediverse.
I am exploring mastadon #cptsd tag and found a way to subscribe to tag, so there are ways for us to connect.
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I need help.
- When I'm too out of it to take care of myself, I love this toolyoufeellikeshit.com you feel like shit
You feel like shit. That sucks. You Feel Like Shit is a game designed to help you help yourself through your shitty times and practice self care.
- Has anyone else read "What My Bones Knew"? I'm reading it and enjoying it so far, and it would be fun to discuss.
Also, she mentions that "The Body Keeps the Score" author Bessel van der Kolk was abusive to his employees?! Yikes.
- What have been your experiences with social isolation and learning to socialize
Given how common isolation is with CPTSD, what have been your experiences with socialization?
Do you find it difficult? Do you even try? Did you have to work out of isolation? Were you never isolated?
I personally have isolated myself over the past decade, but am slowly building relationships on and offline that have forced me to change. I'm not sure I want to stop, but that would require me to hurt the people who care about me, which I refuse to do.
Also since this is the first post, welcome to the fediverse.