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Just An Observation....

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Adrienne12

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PTSD has different symptoms for everyone. I realize some of us are filled with shame, embarassment, anxiety and depression. Others feel anger and isolation. We all have one thing in common and that is the need to get better.

What I noticed is how kind we our to everyone else but not ourselves. I realized that I am telling people "It will be OK."' But I am not telling myself these things.

So, I thought about all of it. I decided to think of my best friend. If she came to me and told me she experienced the trauma that I did...How would I react to her? Would I blame her like I blame myself? Would I have told her she should not have been there? Would I have looked at her like she was disgusting or damaged?

Of course my answers were all no. I would comfort her. I would tell her she wasn't responsible for what those men did. Her responsibility ended when they chose to hurt her. Maybe we all need to be as kind to ourselves as we are to everyone on here. We are telling each other not to feel guilt and shame yet we are filled with it. I decided today that I am going to treat myself like my best friend and see what happens...
 
The best way I have found to combat this has been to speak with my best friend, who also suffers from PTSD, openly about the way that we minimalize our abuse. I have that kind of rapport with her, where we can joke about the hard stuff and speak lightly between one another of heavy things. The reason I have found this so effective is that one person is not saying, "I feel shameful..." and the other responding, "Don't feel shameful..." That has never made me change my thinking on shame. Rather, we tease each other about the ludicrous nature of our feelings, satirizing each other's habit to feel guilt when it belongs to others. This simultaneously confronted our thinking and challenged us to recognize that there was depth to the abuse we suffered without speaking in a way that made us feel shameful or that directly highlighted the gravity of our situations. I don't know that other forum members would take well to this fashion of speaking. I merely mean to say that it is hard to challenge "I feel shame" with "You shouldn't" or "Don't" or even "I know how you feel."

"i don't think telling someone 'don't feel sad' will console them" -Tao Lin, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (poetry)
 
So, I thought about all of it. I decided to think of my best friend. If she came to me and told me she experienced the trauma that I did...How would I react to her? Would I blame her like I blame myself? Would I have told her she should not have been there? Would I have looked at her like she was disgusting or damaged?
Of course my answers were all no. I would comfort her. .

My T used this approach when I was hard on myself. He asked if my daughter came to me, would I think her damaged or disgusting? Of course, I was like Mama bear, of course I would hold and comfort her and together we would move forward. It was a v useful session and I am slowly learning to love myself.
 
So true, so true. I read in a magazine once an article written by a woman reflecting on this very same point. She very eloquently summarized the dynamic by saying, "If another person spoke to me the same way I spoke to myself, I would never speak to that person again."
 
Its actually like a denial + coping strategy. People who are in need, use helping others similarly in need, as a mechanism to "feel good" about themselves, when often all they find is they still don't feel better at all. They then use this "feel good" analogy to believe they are better than they think (denial) which works temporarily (coping), but eventually find they must treat themselves better if they actually want to be better (breaking through another denial barrier).

Well done.
 
Its actually like a denial + coping strategy. People who are in need, use helping others similarly in need, as a mechanism to "feel good" about themselves, when often all they find is they still don't feel better at all. They then use this "feel good" analogy to believe they are better than they think (denial) which works temporarily (coping), but eventually find they must treat themselves better if they actually want to be better (breaking through another denial barrier)..

That makes so much sense - that is me. I am slowly getting to the treating me better stage, but do relapse along the way.

Each time it does I do appear to bounce back quicker.

Thank you Anthony
 
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