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Triggered By Criticism And Accusations And Seeing Conflict

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FreeSoul

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I imagine standing up for myself against a bully/an abuser, or sharing my opinion with someone, I immediately see another person accusing me back or criticizing my opinion.
I do have a very critical father, and over the past 4 years have been accused back when I tried to stand for myself against 3 narcissists.

Whenever I see a conflict in real life, I get triggered heavily, and I start victimizing myself.
e.g. I witness 2 men having a verbal spat on the street, I start feeling crazy, and start imagining how I would handle that. Just 2 days back I was watching a video of a cop arresting a criminal and I started imagining myself getting arrested.
I grew up in a family and in a neighborhood where there had been lots of verbal and physical abuse and conflict. Though, I personally faced very little, I was witness to many incidents.
I was also victimised by my elder siblings and my parents for their problems and stress. They tried to shame and blame me when they got into trouble.
 
I imagine standing up for myself against a bully/an abuser, or sharing my opinion with someone, I immediately see another person accusing me back or criticizing my opinion.
I do have a very critical father, and over the past 4 years have been accused back when I tried to stand for myself against 3 narcissists.

Whenever I see a conflict in real life, I get triggered heavily, and I start victimizing myself.
e.g. I witness 2 men having a verbal spat on the street, I start feeling crazy, and start imagining how I would handle that. Just 2 days back I was watching a video of a cop arresting a criminal and I started imagining myself getting arrested.
I grew up in a family and in a neighborhood where there had been lots of verbal and physical abuse and conflict. Though, I personally faced very little, I was witness to many incidents.
I was also victimised by my elder siblings and my parents for their problems and stress. They tried to shame and blame me when they got into trouble.
I imagine standing up to my abuser too, and having a better life, but it just isn’t happening to me. It was really confusing when I was blamed and things did not work out how I wanted them to. I wasted all my good years on someone who was just using me.
 
Are you getting any therapy? A therapist can help with your responses to these stresses. Welcome to the forum.
Thank you.
I visited a therapist for few years; but she was causing me more suffering than actually helping. I feel really worried of going to another one because of my experience with the previous one; especially when I don't have a stable income, and therapists don't come cheap.
I have been journaling since the lockdown started in my city from March 2020, which seems to be helping a bit, but I continue to feel abandoned and neglected , which is the major cause of my trauma.
I cannot work on my own, but I also don't trust therapists. Not sure how the next therapist is going to be.
Good luck to me.
 
Welcome to the forum. I’m sorry to hear that your first therapist hasn’t been good for you. I’ve suffered a lot of abuse and neglect as a child and a teenager and also lived in dangerous places with arrests, ODs and even a guy who died shot. From time to time we could hear the shootings. While I didn’t directly suffer from it I really can relate to your experience to anticipate a catastrophe and having to deal with it and mentally envision a fight to death.

This is something my first therapist didn’t understand at all and she wasn’t trauma informed. I spent two years paying for basically ranting there and I had the impression she felt like she did made her points when I ended up crying but nothing did evolve during that time. At the same time she completely failed to identify I was really going so much worse than what I looked. I also felt judged for my life choices and it didn’t help. I just kept sinking further.

I also had another awful therapist that started to challenge me right away about the role I played in a relationship with very serious domestic violence. I did just disclose it to him and was already feeling horrible just for having described a fraction of what happened (and still was happening) and that was the first response! Needless to say I never came back.

But now I’ve found a good therapist and I’m sticking with her. I find she’s been very positive in defining priorities in treatment. But I had to make my way cross websites, researching the damn person and hearing them on the phone or have a first appointment to make my mind. I tend to think but it’s only my opinion, that psychiatrists who are also trained as therapists are a good combo. I also don’t have a stable income and I defo understand that you don’t waste precious time and money in landing on bad therapists, or just the ones with whom it doesn’t click. But IHMO, if you’re feeling you’re needing it, it’s never a waste of money to try. On my scale, I’m spending zillions I don’t have in therapy and medication, but for the last 3 months I just wouldn’t have coped if I didn’t have that assistance. I prefer to pay for a good therapist who isn’t on my insurance rather than having someone awful who is covered.

I also wouldn’t have coped with this place. I was on the waiting line to join a trauma group and it was taking ages. So I just did my research and found this place. I hope what you can find here will be helpful for you. It’s a place with a lot of support and truly people here helped me to cross a very dark period.
 
I see faces of people who would have criticized me in real had they been present with me when I am thinking of doing something.
e.g. I am thinking of sharing my opinion or view on a dish I cooked, I automatically see the face or hear the voice of my father (in my mind) criticizing or demeaning me or I feel emotion (anger, sadness due to lack of support) as a result of the criticism I would have faced.
I hardly remember criticizing myself.
I did call myself broken once couple of years back when I was imagining being in a relationship with a girl I was attracted to.
Besides this one incident, I often feel critical about my attempts to do something, in a very similar way as I would have been criticized by few people in my life, including my father, brother, a colleague, and some other crooks.
I am curious to know if anyone else have similar experience with criticism.
Do you criticize yourself by calling yourself things, or do you criticize in a subtle way like me where those critics in real criticize me in my imagination every time I intend to do something?
 
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