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I'm A Jerk

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desiderata310

MyPTSD Pro
Seems that today is not going much better than yesterday.
Yesterday I found out that my SDiT probably is going to wash out.
I took this news in typical fashion: I shut down.

I sent a message of that news to my therapist and my best friend.
My friend responded with words of encouragement. To which I decided to pick a fight and nuke the friendship. Because, you know, that seemed more appropriate at the time.

I did write him back and apologized and then said that I was not fit for polite company.
I'm not.

I'm ready to quit everything.
I'm sick of having my heart ripped out.
I'm tired of trying to "trust the process" as my therapist puts it.

*shrug* I don't guess that reaction is necessarily PTSD. It's just me being a raging ass hole.

Fact is though that I DID start to get a tiny bit excited and hopeful and the whole thing just went to shit as it usually does.

I don't want to hope for things to get better anymore because they just won't
 
Many of us have had a rotten narrative implanted in our head when we were young: it goes something like you aren't good, you're don't deserve, or you're and asshole.

And sometimes we go out to prove it and in so doing become our own worst enemy.

That's what the abusers, those who gave us the narrative, want from us. They want us to be our own enemies and they want us to have that negative narrative echo in our heads the rest of our lives.

I'm sorry that SDiT didn't work out (but must confess that I have no idea what it is). Things often don't go as we hope.

Step back and breathe. Look forward.
 
I don't know what to do either, I'm in the same boat.
I try to change my attitude about things then I just fall right back in the same pattern. I don't know how to stop the cycle
 
Stopping cycles is damn difficult. But the first step is to have that desire for them to stop.

Work with your shrink to identify where the cycle starts and what it represents. In my case (which may not have any applicability to yours) is a need for my primary caregivers (mother, father, brothers, teachers) to see how much pain and fear I'm enduring and save me. So I would fall in love with a girl and give her all these wonderful attributes (few of which she really had) and then rest my entire existence on her accepting and loving me. Of course it didn't work.

Here's the really hard part. The biggest, jaggedest, and most horrible tasting pill is realizing that no one can go back in time and save your young self from what it endured. And trying to engineer situations where you'll be saved will just re-enact that trauma.

Only after that was I able ("able" he says, knowing he still struggles with this) to break the cycle.
 
My friend responded with words of encouragement. To which I decided to pick a fight and nuke the friendship. Because, you know, that seemed more appropriate at the time.

I did write him back and apologized and then said that I was not fit for polite company.
I'm not.


LOL... Yeah, the first bit was kind of a dick move. But you also recognized it, went back, apologized, and are actively working on putting it right (either staying out of polite company, or warning those who choose to venture where-thar-be-dragons that you're on the warpath, and to expect friendly-fire). That's honest, proactive, and allows people the chance to make a choice to keep their head down until you're back to yourself, or put on some nomex and hang out with the fire breathing dragons at their own peril.

Whether or not you SDiT washes out, rocks out, or becomes a friend to love on is pretty much beside the point. Too many possibilities right at the moment to deal with. How you're reacting to the news (disappointment, rage, despair, f*ck the world, fatalism)... Is something you not only can work on with you T, but is sounds as if you are actively -and pretty productively- working on it on the fly. Which is pretty damn cool. Good on ya, Des.

I hope for the best with your SDiT, but I'm wicked proud of how you're dealing with the blows that are coming along with it. It's awesome to see how you're learning to be flexible & responsive & aware. And where you react & react badly? Sorting it. :)
 
@WillyKat SDiT= Service Dog in Training. They can flunk out for a number of reasons.
Mine attacked another dog.
Kind of one of those things that pretty much end a dog's chance at service work and the trainer said she was having problems controlling him so I would have problems with him as well. So that kind of washes him out as an ESA as well. If I can't handle him, no matter how many times he wakes me from and comforts me out of a nightmare, he's not going to be able to live with me.

At this point, it'll take a miracle for him to pass. She's giving him one more shot.
I'm not hanging my heart on that.
 
@FridayJones
This is the only friend I really had in "real life"
There was just something so... f*cking condescending about what it was that he said... so empty: "sorry to hear you've been hurt so bad"
It pissed me off. He was someone who hurt me and never apologized for it.
I thought I had gotten over that. *shrug*
I haven't.
I properly nuked him.
He will never apologize.
Doesn't matter really.
Probably not much of a friend in hind site but then again, beggars can't be choosers, so I apologized for lashing out. People are where they are. It's ok. I've actually marked him off my mental 'friend' list. Which is appropriate. Shitty but appropriate. The last of the shit in a really big pile of shit from my past.

I'll be friendly next time he texts me his tale of woe of breaking up with the latest and greatest (which is really the only time I ever hear from him anyway) and I'll be nice but I have nothing invested in that.

Which means have exactly zero people in real life that I now trust... therapist doesn't count. He's a therapist. Not my friend.
 
I'm tired of trying to "trust the process" as my therapist puts it.

Patience, hope, trust...all super hard. I'm impulsive. Minutes sometimes last for days, and days last for years. But, what other options do you have?

I don't want to hope for things to get better anymore because they just won't

You don't have to hope all the time. I've gone from extremes of believing forever will always be hell to having almost manic-like and preoccupied hope. The middle ground is challenging. But that's where I have a little hope but also some acceptance that the process is so slow and subtle that I don't even know at this minute if I am in some better place than a month ago. In hindsight, much has improved, but it has rarely felt that way along the way, if that makes sense. Everything still feels challenging. But I'm reacting a little better. It still rarely feels good enough.

Anyway, not having hope does not have to mean giving up. You can just be really frustrated and pissed off and stick with therapy through your doubt, the way you stick with brushing your teeth. Maybe? I think of it sort of like that sometimes. I just keep doing this stuff, not with great expectations, but I DO KNOW what going backwards looks like for me. And no, that's not okay with me. 2 steps forward, 1.985 steps back seems to be how it works for me.

Hang in there. I'm a jerk too.
 
Mine attacked another dog.

Feel free to bite, I've got thick skin, but I can see why your friend may have been reassuring you. I'm also a little leery of this trainer (greyhound for 1, meeting at a carnival for 2, some of her general attitudes for 3... She just makes me a bit less than confident at her general ability to read animals). Dog who has been in a shelter with an unknown background, immediately into service dog training... Apparently with other dogs, right off the bat... In 3 new environments in less than a week.

If he were a horse I'd be expecting him to be flighty & touchy for a few weeks.... Just in shifting from shelter to home. Shelter to home to training? Doubly flighty & touchy. I'd work them with other horses, bombproof horses, and still expect some acting out. The whole name of the game would be steady-on. Building trust.

If he were a wolf, I'd expect 10x the trouble, because wolves have dominance things going on with them. It's not only sorting themselves out in a new place with new stresses, like horses... But also figuring out their place in the pack / social hierarchy. Which includes both dominance displays, mock fighting, over reactions (Well, I deem them over reactions, they disagree ;) Very much like a horse, they startle easy and lash out or run when scared), rough & tumble play time, etc. If it were a serious attack, and not just dominance posturing, or rough & tumble play? I'd still want to know the nature of the attack. Provoked? That's trainable. Unprovoked? Maybe trainable. Depends on the cause. Food guarding is trainable. Startle reflex is trainable. Dominance? Not so trainable. If they're an up and coming alpha who feels like they're ready to be boss now there are going to be nothing but problems. In a lot of directions. But some dominance traits are super trainable. Like when it's okay to display them. Playtime? Yes. Travel time? No. Out in the yard? Yes. In the kitchen? No. With me around? Sometimes. (Look to me first... Lol... They sigh & Humph and give me this looooong suffering look when I say no.). With company around? No. Etc.

Dogs are different from both wolves and horses. Somewhere sort of midway in the behavioral spectrum. Their instincts aren't as strong as either, they're scavengers instead of hunters or grazers... dogs are a bit quirky. In a lot of ways this makes them far more malleable, but that makes training both easier & harder. It's easy when you've got pure instinct to lay training on top of. Harder, at least for me, to deal with shifting goal posts & all the bad habits dogs can learn. It's more muddled. Still, though, this dog has had a huge amount of stress in a very short time. I'd be more surprised if he wasn't acting out.

I think I would give up on this trainer, before giving up on the dog.

Unless we're talking he needs to be put down.

But it didn't sound like that. It sounds like he's acting up, and the trainer doesn't know how to expect & mitigate that so it's a non-issue.

Again. I'd find a new trainer. If it continues to be an issue? Then serious consideration as to washing him out.
 
I think I would give up on this trainer, before giving up on the dog.

I don't know the background here, but there's a thought. I have a friend who is a dog trainer because she LOVES dogs but I think she struggles to actually read them because she's so caught up in general technique and behaviorism. She doesn't see dog personality and context (like the stress surrounding the dog). Maybe this person is a good trainer, I don't know. But I do know some dog trainers suck, like some doctors suck...and we go find new ones...

I don't have a service dog, but mine helps me a lot.
 
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