How do you manage helplessness and hopelessness of complex trauma

[aut555]

Thanks @Lola Nocheprieta and @Plat-Daddy! You acknowledgement is...

Sometimes the pattern we are in, we know it, it feels familiar, therefore change seems more scary. To step out of the known and into successful patterns means mindful mindset. So you recognize when you are heading to the rabbit hole, but instead of falling down, could you say nope. Not doing that, going to take some deep breaths, affirm again, l am not going there and instead l am going for a walk, l am doing deep breathing exercises for five mins., l am pulling out my little neck vibrator and concentrating on my neck for four mins, l am pulling this lavender oil and concentrating on the peaceful feeling after l smell it. So l do stop and get through, then refocus that l did get through it without shame, blame, or other feelings. So maybe you can find what you respond too at work. It's a little time but you do start to focus on positive and then you start to feel more centered day to day. Sending care and much understanding.

 

[ms spock]

Thank you those are great suggestions @aut555! I can do things like that! I really can!

 

[ms spock]

What has worked for me is firstly recognising that being seen is a trigger and then being very reassuring to that part of me (sometimes literally reassuring myself like I would a small child - it'll be ok, I know it's scary but you're really good at this, just a while longer, type messages). I'll also have a treat planned for after the "visible" thing, a nice coffee, cake, good book, movie whatever feels like a treat or feels nurturing.

I needed to reread this today. Thanks.

I know it's horrible but the freeze/fawn thing is just trying to keep you safe, so you need to be kind to yourself and reassure yourself that you are in fact safe. Try not to fight it, cos in my experience that makes it last longer and feel harder.

I keep doing this - though I have improved.

 

[ms spock]

This is really quite challenging to step out of - I am finding it really hard.

 

[Suzetig]

It is very hard sometimes to find a way through because those feelings go back to a very deep hurt. I've been struggling this week to - in a strange way I feel almost haunted by my 14 year old self and keep dipping in to flashbacks and and tears. I'm trying to be accepting of myself in that but it's not easy.

You work so hard on yourself @Ms Spock - I have confidence that you'll get to somewhere that feels more settled.?

 

[ms spock]

I am aware of this stuff a lot @Suzetig.

I am really pulling apart or opening up what is there - like a frozen child/person/part inside of me - there was never feeling my feelings and then sharing them - there was reacting as a small child the way I perceived my parents wanted me to react.

So I can't access what I feel or think about a lot things because if I could get criticism or perceive I could get criticism I actually shut down or fawn/freeze into what I perceive people want from or want as a reaction for me. I am often spending a lot more time reacting to what I think people want me to be rather than being there and reacting to the actual situation. It is embarrassing.

I get asked what I think and feel and I really have no idea quite a bit of the time.

So I endlessly end up spending time telling myself stories or acting out in fantasy what I think people want me to do - not helpful activities but at least I am aware of what I am doing now. It is better than being mostly dissociated a huge quantity of the time.

I am back to being scared of being killed if I have a feeling or thought that might not be a wanted and/or acceptable one. It is such a big waste of time in a lot of ways - but it is real - that is me at this time.

I am also so scared of being seen and visible. I have avoided having a life because of this and that is a little sad but radical acceptance it is what it is - I am alive. That is most fortunate indeed.

I am back to not being able to do any work or focus on any work, once again.

I have to actually do the work, which might seem like an odd thing to say - but with my parents - they said something and it was it - though nothing changed. So I have to step out of my parent's realities. I have to do the work. And I am not knowing how to do it or I am scared to do it. It is a very young place or developmentally challenged place to be.

 

[Suzetig]

I know what it's like to be in that place - you've described almost exactly how I react to people and situations. My fear that feeling anything at all, needing anything, wanting anything at all will literally end in death. It's a very very scary place to be.

CBT did help me for a while, it gave me tools to keep myself functioning and helped me challenge some of the thinking behind my feelings. The thing that has really helped me start to heal though has been long term, relational therapy where I've been given the experience of having a very safe place to talk about those fears, to try being vulnerable without the world ending and to talk through some of my fantasies about how people see me etc. it's a very hard process but I do see changes in me and how I relate to myself and to others.

Are you in therapy just now (forgive me, I feel like should know that already...)?

 

[ms spock]

@Suzetig in a forum this size it is hardly possible to keep up with whether anyone is in therapy on or not! I am in therapy with a psychiatrist that is really pushing to get out there - the anxiety will never get better unless I be in situations that actually address and work through it. I seem to be going glacially slow at times - but I am moving forward. We do quite a bit on CBT/DBT - there are so many aspects to what we are doing together. I actually have to be safe enough for me to be around. So I am at the building a relationship with myself, which sounds weird, but that is the truth of the matter.

 

[Lola Nocheprieta]

@Ms Spock, you are so very brave. I see you pushing and working hard, despite extreme fear. When you share your process, your ups and downs, you inspire me.

Like @Suzetig described, the things I am afraid of (not meeting others' expectations or standards, being too needy or too overwhelming, "failing" at my "job" to take care of everyone else's needs, etc.) ... the fear feels like utter annihilation. Yes, very young and extremely vulnerable. Yet you persist. You persist. I persist. We go on, we continue fighting and trying and living despite those who actually threatened our existence. Even feeling erased, invisible, unformed, molded and shaped by others for their use ... Even when it feels that bad, the truth is, we survived. We did more than survive, we are alive and kicking ass! Living is the best revenge when you've faced -- and escaped -- death and/or annihilation of the soul.

When I identify these invalidating cognitive distortions, these fallacies about our interpersonal relationships or my "place" in the world, I remind myself, "it feels really scary, it feels like you're going to die, but the truth is, it's survivable. It may not even be likely, but if it does come true, it is survivable. And remember [I tell myself], you have a damn good reason for these fears and feelings! You have to check the facts, though, and stay in the present, to make sure the feelings actually are warranted in this situation."

Sometimes that's all I can do: hold still, breathe, and let myself be pierced by the pain and fear. Then breathe some more.

I know this is a hard time, Ms. Spock. But you have skills. I have skills. It's about going back to basics, over and over and over. You can do this. {{{Ms Spock}}}

 

[Suzetig]

Your relationship with yourself is so important - an odd concept to think about but how you understand yourself, how you talk to yourself, care for and soothe yourself all impact so much on how you feel and how able you are to be available to others in relationships. Basically if you're scared, closed off and harsh to yourself, that'll spill out in other places too.

Try to remember that these feelings you have don't belong to now, they're a legacy of times gone past when people were cruel and harsh to you. They're still very real, and painful but as you let yourself feel them, tie them back to the people and situations they belong to and reassure yourself that things are different now, in this place, you'll start to move through them. Do expose yourself to things that cause you anxiety, but don't let your T push you further than you can cope with.

And do look at everything you've achieved while working so hard on yourself, it's been very hard but you're doing so well in spite of it all.

 

[ms spock]

... the fear feels like utter annihilation. Yes, very young and extremely vulnerable. Yet you persist. You persist. I persist. We go on, we continue fighting and trying and living despite those who actually threatened our existence.

Sometimes that's all I can do: hold still, breathe, and let myself be pierced by the pain and fear. Then breathe some more.

I know this is a hard time, Ms. Spock. But you have skills. I have skills. It's about going back to basics, over and over and over. You can do this.

Your post resonates with me. I decided today that yes it is going back to basics again and again and again.

Your relationship with yourself is so important - an odd concept to think about but how you understand yourself, how you talk to yourself, care for and soothe yourself all impact so much on how you feel and how able you are to be available to others in relationships. Basically if you're scared, closed off and harsh to yourself, that'll spill out in other places too.

I am not an easy person @Suzetig in some ways, because of my anxiety and my maladaptive ways of managing it. I am very harsh, attacking and persecutory towards myself. I am hard to be around in some ways. I have decided to work on this. The main thing is to really work on Self Compassion and Radical Acceptance. I have done a lot of work on this and was shocked when my sister said I had no Self Compassion for myself - after all the work that I have done - but she is correct. It would appear that I have none or little given recent ways I am treating myself.

The work that I have done is not lost it is the foundation for the rest of the work.

Try to remember that these feelings you have don't belong to now, they're a legacy of times gone past when people were cruel and harsh to you. They're still very real, and painful but as you let yourself feel them, tie them back to the people and situations they belong to and reassure yourself that things are different now, in this place, you'll start to move through them. Do expose yourself to things that cause you anxiety, but don't let your T push you further than you can cope with.

Your posts resonate with me. I am finding this challenging.

 

[Lola Nocheprieta]

The work that I have done is not lost it is the foundation for the rest of the work.

Thank you, Ms Spock, for the reminder. Your posts strongly resonate with me, as well.

I, too, can be extremely harsh on and to myself. I think I must have learned at least two lessons early on as a child: it's all my fault and I deserve to be punished, and if I hurt myself (literally or figuratively) I will have some measure of control over how I am to be hurt.

And yet, after over a dozen therapists and two decades of work on myself from my late teens to mid- to late-30s, I was doing so much better. I was able to hold down a job. I did good work in the world, social justice work making a difference in people's lives. I had left an abusive relationship and chose a wonderful person to spend my life with, and we weathered the storms of raising a teenager with her own emotional pain and trauma to deal with. The depression and PTSD were in remission. I loved my life and I felt like I knew and loved and appreciated myself.

After a dozen years, most of those things are still true ... Except for the last two sentences. I don't really know why, but the depression and PTSD came roaring back. Radical Acceptance says I don't have to know why. It. Just. Is. What. It. Is. My wife is a solid supporter after 23 years. I still have a job I love. And yet the last year has been such hell I don't even want to take the time to describe it. Suffice it to say I've had to work on stabilization and not self-harming for the last 10 months in therapy, and I've barely scratched the surface with my T of what I survived throughout my life at various ages.

This has been such a humbling experience. I realized how far I got from basics. I was so self-congratulatory about how much I had survived, how far I had come, how insightful and in touch with myself I was, how well I coped ... When I found myself down the rabbit hole again, when the Greek Chorus started up their horrible, castigating, vicious commentary on myself, I felt I had lost all that good work. Like the last dozen years didn't matter anymore. I doubted that I ever really had loved myself, that I had developed these great, insightful coping skills. I thought that I had faked it so good that I started to believe my own mythology. When I realized I needed to go back to basics it felt like failure.

So, thank you, Ms Spock, for reminding me that all that work was not for naught. It is the foundation upon which I am learning new skills, and rebuilding myself from childhood on up. Just like "healing," I realize that "self-compassion" is a process, a journey not a destination, a verb, not a noun, something you have to learn, and choose, and do, over and over again, sometimes in tiny baby steps.

And like a baby I've fallen on my ass a lot over the last year. I, too, have had to start with Radical Acceptance. Self-acceptance. Increased meds have helped with the emotional dysregulation and self-harm urges. The Greek Chorus has quieted down a little bit. I'm learning to identify self-invalidating thoughts, and replace them self-validation. And slowly, recently, I have felt little shivers of self-compassion.

Thank you for reminding me that my foundation still exists, and it's solid, and that self-compassion is just the next step in this work. My skills and all that hard work over the years is not a myth to be believed in or disproven just because the PTSD has come back. They are all still intact in there somewhere. And this time it won't take me years to climb out of the rabbit hole.

Thank you for reminding me to remind myself, Lola, you're actually doing pretty good, kid.