How do you manage helplessness and hopelessness of complex trauma

[ms spock]

I appreciate the comments @Suzetig and @Lola Nocheprieta - it helps that others understand. Drawing strongly on the Self Compassion Break aka Kristin Neff today - free to download from her website. I just have to stick with that.

I have an extreme aversion & phobia to my own internal experiences. That is the biggie for me. I don't want to be in my own skin. I don't want to feel my feelings - and I am working on coming out of the food coma I am a lot of the time and it is challenging.

I need to stop blocking human contact in the real world. But I have to be safe with myself before I can work out if I am safe with others. So it is a bit tricky.

The anxiety is so high today - the fear of being seen and found wanting and then being attacked and annihilated. I do it to myself though now as well. I am my own worst abuser in many ways and it is so embarrassing to type that. But I am doing Self Compassion and Radical Acceptance. And rocking. I feel this need to rock back and forth - so I am doing a bit of that. I just do it in a small way at my computer.

 

[ms spock]

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.

Yes - yes I learnt that as a child as well. That my reality WAS NEVER TO BE TRUSTED and that I am all and completely wrong.

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.

I am back to basics as well. I really am.

The Helplessness and Hopelessness is really back for me as well.

I am crawling out of my body with anxiety.

And slowly, recently, I have felt little shivers of self-compassion.

That is great. It is the hardest thing to do. But the most necessary thing to do.

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.

Yes - a good thing to acknowledge for yourself.

 

[ms spock]

It is tricky work to do, but most worthwhile. I still have boundless self hatred, distrust, violent anger towards myself, so much shit there inside of me - and I haven't been a sloucher I have worked so very, very hard to get here. I have worked extremely hard to get to this point. So it is the next set of things to deal with. I did comfort eat tonight - which is not the best but I don't binge eat at night like I used to - so lots of improvements in almost every realm of my life - I just need to go further now.

How can I ever learn to trust myself, my body, thoughts, feelings and reality? It just doesn't seem at all possible! But it must be possible so small, regular steps.

 

[Rani G2]

@Spock

i struggle with similar conditions, and some days fluctuate strongly. I feel devastated at times, there are powerful voices like “there is no sense to our human existance at all, just a repition of the same. I cant do this anymore“.
I just feel like loosing my breathe, it s just terrible!!!!

My therapist asks me to categorise those voices. Everyone has Egostates, sure you have heard about it.
These thoughts belong to a certain state, which is a bundle of emotions I felt at some point. Once you have sorted them out, you can place them to this particular state, which has a name, my hopeless, depressed little one has a name. So I have to talk to her, tell her that today on the 26th of September 2016 you are safe. I am here, we are in a safe place.

This might sound silly, but I get this as homework. I have tried this out, sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesnt especially when strong triggering happens.

 

[Lola Nocheprieta]

Hang in there, @Ms Spock. It is such hard, arduous work, but we are worth it. Can you try to talk to yourself as if you were talking to one of your students? That's what I try to do. I am hard on my adult self and my child self; sometimes I feel like I hate both. But I would never, ever in a million years talk to one of my (adult) students like that, or to my little niece. So, I may not be able to identify very much with treating myself with compassion, but for anyone else, of course. I try to remember how I would speak to someone else, as a bridge to treating myself with more kindness and compassion, acceptance and understanding.

I am rooting for you, Ms Spock! I know how very painful and unbearable it feels to be in that super anxious state. But I believe in the work you've done in the past and in the work you are doing now. {{{{{hugs for Ms Spock}}}}}

 

[ms spock]

Great to read how you are working on yourself @Shankara - you have a such a commitment to therapy homework. That is impressive to me.

I am hanging in there @Nola Nocheprieta! I am committing to do deeper work with Mindfulness, CBT, DBT, Exercise, Self Care, Radical Acceptance and of course actively engaging in Self Compassion. I have to actively engage in Self Compassion each and every minute - and I will get there for that. I need to overcome procrastination and really work on that in a big way. So that is one of the next things to work on.

 

[ms spock]

Stepping out of Helplessness and Hopelessness is really quite an arduous journey but well worth the effort. I see glimpses of the other side.

I did it today. I stepped out for three and a half hours.

 

[Rani G2]

Ms Spock I am glad you were able to do so!

Great to read how you are working on yourself @Shankara - you have a such a commitment to therapy homework. That is impressive to me.

I dont think really, at times it works, at times it doesnt or I dont try. My T is strict, she is someone like a teacher

 

[ms spock]

We are all work under construction @Shankara - it doesn't have to be perfect - we just do what we can on the day.

 

[Rani G2]

We are all work under construction @Shankara - it doesn't have to be perfect - we just do what we can on the day.

I guess most humans are ;-). Some more some less.

 

[ms spock]

Well my anxiety is really rising very high at times now as I have to make decisions and make plans. I had to write a lesson plan. So I wrote on. I don't think it is the best. But I had to just get it done.

I am really struggling with this getting out of helplessness and hopelessness thing - and I feel so embarrassed about it at times. It feels really crappy. I have improved out of sight to be doing what I am doing. But it still feels really, really hard and pretty shitty at times.

I feel very alone with the freeze/fawn thing. I feel so very alone with it all. But I am hanging in there with it all.
This is hard.

I feel like I can't do it! I feel like there is no way I can do any of it. I am overwhelmed. The anxiety burns for a bit. Then I go well I am doing it. And I struggle, slip, slide and feel I can't then I can then I can't then I can do it.

If only I could learn to trust myself and my reality. If I could do that at least I could be here in this now. But as I don't trust myself and my reality and my thoughts and perceptions. It is really hard to be in this now.

 

[Lola Nocheprieta]

t is really hard to be in this now.

It sounds like you are in this now. "This now," right now, happens to be feeling frozen, feeling full of self-doubt, telling yourself that you can't do it, shaking and burning with anxiety, getting angry at yourself, and hating all of it. That's where you are. And it totally f*cking sucks. But that is right now. It's not the past. And it doesn't have to be the future. You can let it be different this time. It won't last.

Sometimes, that's the only thing I can tell myself that I can truly believe: I know it feels like it's been forever, and it's going to last forever, these feelings, but it's highly unlikely that I am going to die before it gets better. This is survivable. It's really excruciatingly painful right now, and it feels unbearable, but I am bearing it, and I will survive this. I will do more than survive.

And so will you, Ms Spock. Unwrap those powerful moments from the past month or two to remember what it feels like to be successful, for your hard work and expertise to be acknowledged and graded highly. Those moments when the lights dim, the disco ball descends, the DJ starts spinning vinyl and you start to boogie. Take out a little slice of those memories to sustain you through the pain of this now.

You. Are. Awesome. And you are doing it, Ms Spock; you are.