How do you not take on other's "stuff".

[aut555]

Thanks @Panda Bear! I appreciate your view and I love your anology! :hug...

Honestly, l think people get off on being bullies to people who aren't sheeple and agree with everything. If you are different and not easy to push around, you can create a lot chaos l have discovered. So to stay away from users , you need those boundaries in place, and whale skin to those rude relatives, not so much friends, and complete idiots walking on the face of the earth. I look at people now telling me what to do, and l nicely but firmly stand up for myself. And l try to learn from other people's loads to see if that is my load and l just don't acknowledge it. Think once l started embracing and accepting my ptsd, it's helping me handle things much better. I know it sounds corny but it does help with progress. Hope l didn't screw up topic. :( :)

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Hope l didn't screw up topic.

Of course you didn't! :hug:

Plus, I love conversation. I think it feels more 'real life' to me (since we don't generally comminicate on one strict topic). Hell, my 'am I commiting animal cruelity for crating my dog for 12 hrs 1 day' bent around to service dogs. Which is awesome. We are all in a conversation.

So that's my long winded way to say you can't "screw up topics" in my threads!

I look at people now telling me what to do, and l nicely but firmly stand up for myself.

Yes! Yes! Yes! I do not like to feel like I being told what to do or even a glimmer of that.

l think people get off on being bullies to people who aren't sheeple and agree with everything. If you are different and not easy to push around, you can create a lot chaos l have discovered.

Yep to both!

you need those boundaries in place, and whale skin to those rude relatives, not so much friends, and complete idiots walking on the face of the earth.

Yep! And I have to remind myself that a boundry is what you will or won't allow in your life, not to tell others what they must do.

It is easy to mix up boundries with just being a bully or bossy even. In my opinion anyway.

Think once l started embracing and accepting my ptsd, it's helping me handle things much better. I know it sounds corny but it does help with progress.

Not corny at all! I get that. I have learned that acceptance on a big thing!

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Thank you Lost for making this thread because I struggle with these issues as well.

So much information that is healthy in the conversation here.

Very helpful to me and I am confident that you will find your way.:hug:

 

[lostforgottensoul]

So much information that is healthy in the conversation here.

Yes there is! I am amazed and very appreciative of how much support I have gotten with this topic. It's a big topic isn't it? I tried to break it down a little bit in my diary using some of the replies from here but I am gonna have to break it down even more.

Very helpful to me and I am confident that you will find your way.

I am so glad it could be helpful! :hug:

And thank you for your confidence! It helps more than you know! :hug:

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I find that I am pretty much where you are in a family situation and need help so much. Your thread is just the prescription I need.

I too do a lot of mind reading and have to unlearn this problematic thing in my head.:hug:

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Yeah @gizmo, like why do I have such an issue with mind reading? I do it everywhere for everything. I have a feeling that that's part of my head doing the "gut instinct" for me? If someone was a bad person and was going to hurt me, they wouldn't tell me they were a bad person and are going to hurt me. So I have to "mind read" that. I've always known I lack a gut instinct and that I suspect all until proven otherwise, but learned while here on the site that my head is my gut instinct but never really knew how my head did the gut's job. So maybe mind reading is it and maybe that is why it is so hard to change. So complicated?

I don't know. Def a lot of good stuff here!

 

[joeylittle]

why do I have such an issue with mind reading? I do it everywhere for everything. I have a feeling that that's part of my head doing the "gut instinct" for me?

Cognitive distortions are defined as inflated or irrational thoughts and beliefs that 'warp' clear thinking. They aren't maladapted coping mechanisms. It's not going to help to justify cognitive distortion as a coping mechanism.

I've always known I lack a gut instinct and that I suspect all until proven otherwise, but learned while here on the site that my head is my gut instinct but never really knew how my head did the gut's job.

I have a really hard time understanding this. Instinct is instinct. Thought is thought. The two aren't mutually exclusive..

 

[lostforgottensoul]

It's not going to help to justify cognitive distortion as a coping mechanism.

Im not trying to justify it. Im trying to understand it so i cam change it.

Instinct is instinct. Thought is thought. The two aren't mutually exclusive..

No, maybe not. And maybe that is not what it is. But I do know I lack a gut instinct and my head does a lot of thay work. How it does it i dont know.

 

[joeylittle]

But I do know I lack a gut instinct and my head does a lot of thay work

I really am curious - can you describe more what you mean, maybe with an example? What would be a time that you'd expect to have a gut instinct, but didn't, and what does your head do, then?

 

[lostforgottensoul]

What would be a time that you'd expect to have a gut instinct, but didn't, and what does your head do, then?

It's hard to explain but I can try. So, my brain automatically stays suspect of everyone. Likely where or why i fear everyone. Then my brain quickly (automatically) picks up things. Body laungage, movements, what someone is saying and doing, what is around them and whom is around them. Everything about the enviroment and people that i can. This happens in a crowd of people where im looking at multiple people and watching them all at the same time. Probably explains why my fear gets worse as you add people to the mix and why I completely shut down if there are enough people there.

Anyway, I'm sort of like "fact checking" in a way. Not from a list but just from what I would suspect a bad person would do (which is often completely wrong which would explain my freaking out over what one might say is nothing).

Making, sort of small judgements about it. Not to judge the person per say, jusr the situation and if they are probably a not so good person or not.

But I never feel anything in my gut or, what I would assume, is one's stomach area. All I am feeling at the time is unpenatrate-able fear.

My head is constantly moving.

Like, take Walmart for instance (which is like the only store I got to hense all my talk about it). I am finding "safe routes" or "eccape routes" but it is always changing and quickly because of other's movements and my own.

Its like that. My brain never stops. It only moves from one thjng to another. It's rather exhausting.

But that is what I am doing while trying to figure out a bad person or a bad situation. Constantly non-stop watching and, the only way to put it into words, fact checking...or making very small snap judgements back to back.

It's also one reason I REALLY want a service dog. Where you may walk down a street and feel in your gut something is off or wrong or not right or bad or danagerous, i don't. I could walk down the safest street in the country and still suspect it like it's the worse getto in town, until proven, by my head, otherwise.

ETA: Sorry, forgot ti finish that sentence. I'm much more relaxed in my head with my dog as then I am warching his body lanague and going off of what he is telling me.

I suspected mind reading because when I am, say, checking this person out, or making these judgements and watching their body langauge and movements and what they say and what not, I am also trying to fill in what that person is likely thinking "i want to rape her" or "i want to go see a movie".

It's the best way to explain it. And its how Ive survived since ive left. Its very hard to dismantle and figure out as i dont know what to exchange it all with. Like one would challenge a thought. I dont know how to challenge this as i dont know what this is. But i do know it is very engrained in me so dismantling it will be a chore. Im up to thay chore but i cant figure out what "it" is.

ETA: Hopefully that's not too confusing. I don't even understand how my brain works (only how hard it is to distract). I wouldn't ask anyone else to try to understand it.

My therapist doesn't understand it fully, I don't think. He just sort of moves with it. Sorta.

 

[joeylittle]

Then my brain quickly (automatically) picks up things. Body laungage, movements, what someone is saying and doing, what is around them and whom is around them. Everything about the enviroment and people that i can. This happens in a crowd of people where im looking at multiple people and watching them all at the same time.

I think you're describing, actually, the way instinct works. 'Gut' instinct is created by rapidly processing sensory input.

So the difference you are talking about is that you are primarily driven by fear (as opposed to curiosity, suspicion, interest, etc) and that your distortions tell you every one/thing is bad until proven otherwise (as opposed to things seeming non-impactful or even positive)?

In other words, I don't think you're lacking a 'gut' instinct. But you may experience it that way because you are experiencing almost instantaneous escalation, and it's cognitive (head-based).

 

[lostforgottensoul]

That makes sense though

you are experiencing almost instantaneous escalation, and it's cognitive (head-based).

That's why I was suspect mind reading as a part of that. Not all of it, just part of it. I suspect that there are many distortions in it but was trying to break it down, as much as I could.

The fear is a big thing but that's emotion, so not cognitive, but gets sort of processed in my head.

It is rather confusing.