• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

After A Lot Of Therapy.

Status
Not open for further replies.

Intrepid

MyPTSD Pro
I'm a pretty smart guy. I have been really confused the walls I hit. I have always thought I could think my way past the walls.

Well, I now see that thinking fast and hard doesn't move mountains.

This is what I am coming to understand. My thinking gets ahead of my feelings. When that happens my feelings turn into a restriction, not a bad restriction, just one that I haven't recognized, or even denied. Heck, my feelings aren't a restriction anymore. They have a purpose.

There's this book by Chris Crutcher, called "The Crazy Horse Electric Game." It's a coming of age book about an athlete who is disabled in a boating accident and has to learn how to function with one side of his body partially paralyzed.

He ends up in a homeless shelter for teens. He was in a lot of denial of his condition. There learns by playing basketball, and with some sage advise form a coach, that to function normally he needs to balance out the normal part with the paralyzed part.

I can relate to that. I have lived with a pretty severe emotional disability. I don't equate my emotions to the paralysis any more. It's how it's been in the past, but I've gone through a lot of healing (Thanks, T). I recognize my thinking as being very impatient It's been so frustrating to have an emotional disability that I didn't understand, and even denied.

So now I am pacing myself mentally. When I race ahead, overthink, or forward think too much, I'm not allowing myself to adjust emotionally.

I got this quote online: "Sometimes we’re subconsciously afraid we’ll succeed and then we’d have to deal with all the disruption (growth) and change that follows success." -Marc Chernoff

Last year I was forced into this "disruption" at work. I really wanted to keep my job the same, with my ideas trumping those of other. The business kept moving forward regardless. Eventually I had to let go, not of the job, but of the idea that what I had created was permanent.

My resistance was against anything new. The new meant disruption. For me the disruption was emotional. I have always believed I could handle the changes in process, location, or responsibility. At an intellectual level I could. At an emotional I always got by but kicked. I denied that it was hard.

Now, it seems as if the handicap is not so restrictive. I am moving forward with the business, rather that, well, being an anchor it had to drag along. I'm emotionally adjusting.

We'll see where this goes.
 
I can relate to parts of this, having to learn to live after getting disabled in any way can be unnerving. I have disabilities that I was born with, like dyslexia, so I also have those to deal with as well. PTSD was not diagnosed until along time after my abuse, like maybe 30-35 yrs. For that, I had to live with it all of my life, before I even knew I had it. Now that I know I have it, I am too old to do EMDR, or other trauma therapy. I can get CBT though, so at least that does help me some. It is a proscribed therapy for PTSD at least.

I am going through a med change right now too, so that makes it difficult for me to understand a lot of what is happening to me right now. I am also forgetful, which does not help, but everyone seems to have that problem when they age. (I am 60).

I hope you get some other answers that I'm sure will be more helpful.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top