Asking For Help- How, Who, When?

[Tinyflame]

Not sure if this is best placed here, but wondering if anyone struggles with this?

I see moving forward (for me) as needing to (in no particular order and not an exhaustive list):

-Identifying Cognitive distortions and actively trying to replace them
-Being as honest as possible with myself & examining how I think, and the reasons why I react, or the 'why's' of my life
-Recognizing and naming emotions, and self regulation partly through accepting those emotions
-Trying to employ self-care and other-care
-Graduated exposure therapy to what scares me
-Acceptance

I hope to one day, or maybe each day, build a little on re-building simply a sense of greater calm, and also one day hoping I will be able to have a semblance of a sense of my life back. (Though I'm not sure- the older I get the less seems to be in my hands. :confused: ).

I realize a few things, for example:

- my emotions affect my perspective a lot
-I avoid a lot
-I mistrust others, or conversely, withhold communication because I cannot trust myself: that is, I cannot trust that my perspective of someone else being trustworthy is a sound one. I know I wholly lack self-confidence. (I don't think I always did to this degree but I do now).
- I try to be brave but I feel really bad about myself if I think I am a pest or drag or 'dead-weight'
-I probably have either attachment +/or even more likely abandonment or 'trust' issues (or maybe even most likely fear and avoidance issues)
-I know low grade anxiety makes for feeling one doesn't belong
-I know external triggers or even being required to 'rush' to figure out my thoughts causes me to draw negative conclusions that really have nothing to do with anything valid, just because of rushing
-I know asking for help or reaching out is destabalizing for me, but also pushes me out of my comfort zone. But I never know unless well received if I made a mistake to ask? Or should not ask again?
-I know (to strangers, people I 'shouldn't' trust) that I'm not obligated to disclosure, just because they ask questions
- I normally had to manage 'stuff' myself. (I mean, growing up. Or I chose to).
-I feel vulnerable because I am honest (or too worn out to be someone I'm not), but I also don't know how to read negative signs properly, to their detriment or my own
-I internalize my emotions
-I do not feel much self-empathy
- I have no 'emotion' for long about things past that didn't harm me (eg just about got hit by a car thursday night, but it only took about 30 seconds to re-group and 'forget', because I didn't). But other things that aren't so dangerous bother me greatly (not sure if mostly because of the past, or more so lousy self-esteem/ self worth)

I sincerely have no template to know what is 'normal': When is it 'right' to ask for help, and when is it 'too much'? What are the right indications to not ask? Or to ask? And when to give up asking? How do you know who to ask is the right person, or if they wished you didn't ask, etc ? Is help just a purchased commodity? Such as: therapy; repair man, contractor? And, if so, is the 'help' needed to manage day to day, or the courage required to do things just something you have to muster yourself, or deal with yourself (such as feeling afraid or down or worried)? And how 'low' or 'bad' is 'low enough', when asking for help is 'ok'? (And probably more factors or questions). Does anyone have an opinion/ experience/ internal compass to know such things? :confused:

(I know some rare times earlier in my life when I asked for help it was a disastrous experience).

Thank you! Hope this makes sense. I can't really wrap my head around teasing apart what is: avoidance on my part, being a pest and not reading social cues, cognitive distortions, being triggered, doing (or not) what I know because it's familiar, fear, and issues that include trust, or attachment or what-have-you. (I don't really understand those versus avoidance).

I ask for help here all the time, and am now too (and am thankful). I don't feel badly- I think because it's anonymous, and if I don't get any I don't feel like I've been a burden. :(

 

[scout86]

I don't have any answers for you, I just wanted to say that I think those are all really good questions.

 

[EveHarrington]

I think because this issue is so involved, it’s probably best worked on with a therapist who knows you better.

I did this type of exercise while inpatient. It made me realize who I should turn to for what. It also made me face the fact that some types of “support” are just a mirage ie my community support person who just ignores me when I’m in crisis with the belief that I know how to call 911 myself. (I now use her as someone to offload on but don’t expect anything in return.)

 

[Tinyflame]

@EveHarrington unless one has insurance for it here in Canada T's are paid out of pocket. Psychiatrists are covered to prescribe meds after referral from a GP (covered), but only spend a few minutes and few minute follow up after a few weeks. (Meds also are not covered). But I hear you.

Thanks @scout86 . Well I guess figuring out the solution is a mystery to me. I feel lost. :(

 

[EveHarrington]

Sorry, I didn’t know you were in Canada.

You can do the exercise (in part) on your own. Make a list of all your supports. Under each, list ways you can and can not reach out to each one.

 

[Tinyflame]

Thank you @EveHarrington , that is helpful. I understand, but don't entirely have the words (or maybe a better word is realize), that, too, at least for me, I see responsibility in the asking, and that can be unfair. And hence the whole original post stupid.

By that I mean, by way of analogy, when someone lies, we blame them. But were it me on the receiving end, I would also ask myself, what kind of environment have I contributed to to allow them to speak the truth? Does lying become the easier, or only, way they can avoid the reactions to telling the truth? So onus and responsibility is on me, too.

With asking for help it involves, willingness to provide, freedom to provide it, even enough care, time, energy or interest. Lots don't want to be involved, or care, either way. That can lead to avoidance, lies, excluding, etc. Which, is also painful for me, since I notice, too.

And really, it's 'just' my problem, no one else's, so..

Hope that makes sense. I feel like I've been thrown under a bus, today, really.

Thank you for your thoughts. :hug:

 

[scout86]

So onus and responsibility is on me, too.

I have a hard time picturing you being scary enough that people are afraid to tell you the truth. I've been in situations where telling the truth was hard, because of how I thought it would be received. (Usually I tell the truth anyway and deal with the fallout. I'd bet you do too.) People are responsible for their own choices. Really. Someone on here once said that "No" has to be an option for there to be consent. I think that's fair and reasonable. But I'd bet you present things in a way that makes "No" an easy answer to give.

Personally, I tend not to ask for help. Don't want to be a bother. I'm way more likely to do it when I know there will be a chance to repay the favor. A lot of times, I don't bring things up with my T for a similar reason. It just doesn't seem serious enough to bother him with. But, he'd consistently acted like that's not a problem... That makes it easier.... He's also kind of made a point of suggesting that I was taught early on that what I WAS is "a bother" and that that has made my perceptions less accurate on this topic. So, sometimes I experiment. (But it's hard when people seem to think I'm a bother!)

One other thing he said recently, that I kind of like, "You can't really make a good deal with a bad person." I think that's true too. And, some people just don't like to help other people, period. But it's about them. Sometimes, obviously, it just doesn't work, even though they'd like to. It's hard to sort out, but I think this is a place where cognitive distortions abound.

 

[grit]

@Junebug

thank you so much for writing this post. You are asking a lot of great and extremely informative questions that I was also ironically writing about them this morning.

I had this weekend an experience of extreme clarity. Meaning I realized I have one body with two minds. One mind is PSTD - mainly fight, flight or freeze. I can explain how those manifest in real time. and there is the other mind which I call it Here & Now which does not manifest in anything but just there...

I have had the latter many times, we all do. We all get glimpses of small window to the Here & Now. We can only stay or memorize it according to where we are our recovery from PTSD but we all see it occasionally. Some of us never see it and usually those of us who never ever seen it, are most likely suicidal. It is tough place to be...or I think and could be off the wall, or some they self-harm before they pass the hurdle to see the reality or the here and now after a severe pain episode! vicious cycle continues.

For me, for some reason or another, I always considered this magical place as first fake, like cannot exist, or magical place I go when my anxiety is bordering panic (fight or flight mode), or my depression is deepening to freezing(dissociation). Since I only arrive this magical place only after extreme emotional overflow, I never took it seriously. But yet I live in it. I work in it. My marriage is mostly here and now. I am aware of things...but yet I am also aware the PTSD - my secret. If Here and now is magical, PTSD side is darker side of my soul that I wish it would just go away. Both live together but I believed more PTSD to be the real one. just like a child I was.

Today, I realized that the reason this magical place called Here & Now shows up is because as an adult human, I managed an extreme emotion that was absolutely unbearable when I was young. I managed it and boom adult feels like living in a magical place where the birds sing and the wind blows and I can dance and do whatever I want BECAUSE I COPED some negative emotions WELL ONCE. You may notice my tone of this, is sort of childish and magical. Because c-PTSD is being stuck in that childhood mood, environment while of course I have also grown as an adult and made self for some life that is safe and secure.
So I have two experiences: a child stuck there and adult stuck here. But the child who stuck there lived in miserable, violent and destruction so the adult life just seems like a bad tv, in my child like perception. I am suffering here as a child so how could I be happy as an adult? it makes no sense. As a child, I simply cannot imagine I will ever live to tell. so in my child mind, my adult version is dead...never made it.

because we are using same body too...the child is like but you are constipated because you are afraid to go to the washroom or poo in your diaper. and the adult would say to self, I am constipated because I am little stressed out about work or this or that..or maybe hmmm could be my childhood issues residue. So both adult and child are seeing the constipation but with different manifestation and different perceptions. Their perceptions will never ever match because one lives in the 70s/80s and is being abused and one lives today and is living a life she chose.

the question is how do they integrate? and ever live together without cutting each other out. That is the cure to C-PTSD.

and this brings me to your one line:

-I do not feel much self-empathy

When you are in bed, alone, your stomach is full, your house is safe, and you feel a very negative emotion toward you or toward a person in your life (in your head now), you know that is you alone experiencing this feeling and emotion. IF AND ONLY IF you recognize that moment, no one is giving you a stress, and the only stress you have is your memory of the day, then you need to acknowledge the self that is recognizing this as you the adult and the self that is "remembering" the past or PTSD is your inner child or whatever term that makes sense to you. Then you do not ignore the feeling, you name the feeling, I am feeling really shame. you name where in the body you are feeling - the right side of the face twitches, and you start to let the emotion wash over the body, no resisting and no ignoring and no justifying. If you do enough of this allowing the child feeling and observing as an adult, you will develop the self-empathy, compassion and realize the vulnerable side is your inner child and you are soothing you as a child. Of course there are many barriers to this because some people do not believe the inner child or language barrier like I am using the wrong words to convey what language cannot describe truly. But these are barriers from the child manifesting as adult mind protecting. It is basically madness!

If you soothe yourself, eventually half of the questions you ask here will be soothed automatically. Some will be soothed short gap and some you may struggle for the rest of your life but your energy will be higher and their duration will be shorter and easily recognizable for soothing until again it is automatically which you will also recognize at some point.

Everyday, rather than thinking I am stressed, I think I need to be more self-compassion. I need to be kind to me. Every single day, I say I am so grateful. I am feeding my inner child to ensure she can dream that the future is not bad because I am here to take care of her.

The reason I can breakdown this inner child needs from my own adult mind is a sign of PTSD. Most adults cannot bring apart the inner child and the adult because their memories are more intertwined too deeply and are ingrained or as they call it integration. So Mine is dissociated and I am just waking up to the crack - a stuck child who does not know how to soothe who is in adult body that is in pain. The adult cannot soothe the body and ignore the child's needs. The child cannot soothe alone because a child does not know how. hence I have PTSD. I am adult who never had chance to learn how to soothe simple things let alone real huge things! I have been mimicking all my life and still here struggling with something most adult seem to have it as a right.

IMHO, a healthy person has to go into psychosis and recover to see the crack of the mind. I believe PTSD is adaptation of childhood psychosis and if one recovers fully, one can describe the cracks of the mind better than anyone who has never experienced the crack of the mind personally or witnessed a person they knew well breakdown. I am curious and fascinated watching myself recover but it does not come without a cost.

Sorry too long but if you are bored reading this, the take away is this: The cure of PTSD is learning how to soothe appropriately as an adult by tapping into self-empathy, compassion, gratitude over and over and over for life. It does eventually become automatically and again it is my take in life, that we, the PTSD sufferers are much closer to a healthier integration than a healthy person.

ps. wanted to add until the inner child is soothed, asking adults/others help is and will be always problematic but doable if you are becoming more conscious about your feelings that are barrier to asking adult help.

 

[Tinyflame]

Thank you both very much. :hug: I will have to come back to absorb and chew on everything, my head is too light-headed. But I thank you both very much. I seem to have missed @scout86 's quotes so I'll post twice.

Today, I realized that the reason this magical place called Here & Now shows up is because as an adult human, I managed an extreme emotion that was absolutely unbearable when I was young

I can see this applying, as we are (all) shaped from our experiences from birth on.

If you soothe yourself, eventually half of the questions you ask here will be soothed automatically

I will take your word for it @grit . I did learn however that an absence of self empathy or self compassion (and other things that are physiological) preclude the ability to self soothe. So the first (I think?) has to be learned before the other is even possible.

But I think the biggest part (just for me) is simply cognitive distortions and physiological. (I laughed, re constipation: I am so practical, and have a family full of cancer but also cancer of the cecum- the 'other' end of the colon. So between that and wonky eating I see even 'that' as not really in the realm of psychological (for me) ).

I totally agree on gratitude, and for me the (my) vulnerability people think of as childlike- is rather trust in the trustworthy. And knowing the difference, by remembering in advance all those very reasons/ good times of why it was right to establish such trust. So I suppose it's the 'quality' of that trust, is what I mean, rather than the 'place' it comes from (it might be considered 'childlike', it doesn't come from a child place, but my own ('adult') self).

Thank you so much! :hug:

 

[Tinyflame]

Thank you for saying all that @scout86 . :hug:

Personally, I tend not to ask for help. Don't want to be a bother. I'm way more likely to do it when I know there will be a chance to repay the favor. A lot of times, I don't bring things up with my T for a similar reason. It just doesn't seem serious enough to bother him with. But, he'd consistently acted like that's not a problem... That makes it easier.... He's also kind of made a point of suggesting that I was taught early on that what I WAS is "a bother" and that that has made my perceptions less accurate on this topic. So, sometimes I experiment. (But it's hard when people seem to think I'm a bother!)

Wow- me too. But I figured out: if someone isn't a good choice to confide in, the precursors are different. And perhaps it is the 'bad choice'/ bad deal you speak of? And if someone is kind/ trustworthy- well, that is where I then can become the burden. Perhaps not confident because they are kind they won't say no (in words)?

I think this is a place where cognitive distortions abound.

Yes, well, I always know I have plenty of those, in regards to these kinds of subjects/ realities! :confused:

I suppose my only saving grace +/or workable knowledge is that I actually 'do' care (about other peoples' welfare, especially if they need people to), and I 'know' I've got too much physiological fear, and I know I have learned (or chose?) messages as a child onward that said ("that's') not safe/ not thoughtful/ not possible/ not entitled, not a good choice.

Thank you so very much, for your kindness. :hug: (I tend towards feeling 'bad' or self blame, rather than it's another's problem. ETA, by that I don't mean it's 'their' problem, but that me asking for anything is a problem, hence I am the problem. And if I was stronger/ smarter/ more capable, I wouldn't need to and I would be 'normal'/ not a burden (gross), If that makes sense? :confused: )

Ugh. Must head to work. Hugs to all xox.

 

[Tinyflame]

When you are in bed, alone, your stomach is full, your house is safe, and you feel a very negative emotion toward you or toward a person in your life (in your head now), you know that is you alone experiencing this feeling and emotion. IF AND ONLY IF you recognize that moment, no one is giving you a stress, and the only stress you have is your memory of the day, then you need to acknowledge the self that is recognizing this as you the adult and the self that is "remembering" the past or PTSD is your inner child or whatever term that makes sense to you.

I was thinking about this, and I suppose.. I can't relate? In this way: if/ when I have those things-full, roof over my head- I am thankful. But I also usually can't withstand (physical) pain, including stomach, mostly can't sleep, rarely feel safe if there isn't a dog there (and sometimes for legitimate reasons, even when there is). Then.. I never feel a negative emotion towards 'another'- though sometiimes it's towards an illness or behaviour. The negative emotions I feel towards myself are still an adult choice (even if they are beliefs learned in childhood) I know are adult. I know, too, that were my perspective different- my emotion would be too. So yes I am creating my own stress, again as an adult. But also, somewhere, something or 'some things' have to matter- or nothing matters, I think? So what I 'feel' is a necessity of sorts, too, relative to happenings in my life, questions they necessitate, decisions that then arise. Feeling; assessing; re-assessing; trying to make sense, not only of emotions but my life. However, I counter that too with knowing everyone should have the freedom too make their own choices. Even if I feel pain or worry from their choices. I also have to know what I don't control. And accept too I don't know 'the right way': what seems 'right' to me is perhaps 'wrong', or wrong timing etc etc, for them. I am not God, nor am I anyone else.

So I suppose what I'm trying to say is I don't understand how my 'past' specifically comes in to play, there?

Also (unrelated to the above), I do not understand what is the difference between a cognitive distortion and a distorted core belief? :confused:

 

[grit]

Hi @Junebug

I wanted to respond yesterday but I got carried away....another symptom of my PTSD...just noticed it.

I noticed you and few other people on this site question how does the past come into this struggle of ours? Well for one thing, this thing is called PSTD and the P=post. Meaning whatever is ailing us aint happening today.

So the first belief to challenge is our issues in terms of PTSD are not here. It is you threw a ball and the ball never lands. We are thrown out of situation in a violent way and we have not landed yet.

Until we accept that, I feel the post in PTSD will haunt us forever. Of course, there is life while we are in momentum from the last trauma and we may get many other Ts in the meantime still not landing from the first one. Or other non-trauma morbidity and health issues and life issues. It is complicated.

But in order to heal from PTSD, one must accept unequivocally that whatever is ailing you is not happening right now…that pest POST.

IHMO, they should have called it consciousness. Because to me, I feel I have c-PTSD meaning that I never even got a chance to develop as a child and that has become my first consciousness but while I was high in the sky and not landing yet (that ball metaphor), I obtained some skills and life experiences that made me question about my way of thinking and for whatever reason, I did not believe them right away but I kept the curiosity.

Now I have a question to ask you? Do you know anyone who has PTSD? Do you see their symptoms? How do you know that is a symptom of their PTSD?
My PTSD symptoms are what I call target or manifestations. Let us say, I am thinking of my therapist and I am getting anxious about sharing something or being vulnerable…that is a symptom of my PTSD because on a good day, I never think of being vulnerable or sharing something. so I have the proof experience in life to contrast and compare. If I see myself cursing on my mother while I walk in the park, com’n, no way that is sane…right so I put this under category PTSD.

If you can spot on others, try to see your own unique symptoms and try to understand it yourself. Writing helps. I write PTSD vs here and now. So I can see when I am in reactive mood and when I am blissfully here and they are not far from each other and sometimes so mix, it is confusing and exhausting = the sign of my insanity is weird but not frightening or harmful…if I am in a safe space like at home where I do most of my exploration obviously.

What is opposite of PTSD, IMHO, the lack of self-challenge, self-induced anxiety, self-critical …all these negative assuming about self or others or things when you are not really in front of them.
I know what is here and now, because I am in the flow. I write easier, I love easier, I f*ck easier, I come easier, my body is lighter, my stomach is empty of tingling or fighting or freezing, my blood is calm, my nerves are calm. I am calm. I need less of things and less expectation of people. I am not tired or worried or in the future or in the past. It is hard to believe but when you find your PTSD symptom, then you will know what is the absence of that.