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Post-traumatic play/game in adulthood

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patan

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I'm stuck in the childhood post-traumatic play/game. And I am adult. I have various characters, or memories, I don't know, that maybe seem to only be able to interpret words and thoughts in the context of the play/game.

What I mean by this is that they seem to me to be not as mature as, say, one or more dissociative parts, but at the same time connected enough to the present to re-enact the trauma with the traumatic plays/games.

I'm confused. Has anyone else experienced this or something similar? How do you treat or manage or recover from it?

It's really problematic for me that I'm stuck in these plays/games and I feel like I'm failing over and over to do it differently: I always believe and think that "I'm doing well now", "I am recovering now", but in fact in the end again and again it turns out that I did the same thing as before (it is the part of the play/game (I think now, in this moment)) -- I'm disappointed in myself, I can't change my "bad behavior", just like I couldn't when I was a child -- and the adults around me didn't really know either.

My therapeutist sais that the key is the flexibility but I feel he treats me as an adult with that believe that I can change myself and my behaviors, but I can't believe in this again -- I think he would be disappointed that again I can't defeat myself and so my trauma.

I feel the same thing that I felt in my childhood that I can try forever (I feel guilt and remorse, kiss my parents to express love and affectionate, I say that I love my parents and I tell them to that I do not want to do that behaviors), but I can't comply for the idea and image of the "good child".

And that the adults around me are helpless and disappointed and frustrated and seek another solution(s) and gaven up (than I am) because they feel that I can't learn from the experiences and explanations, I repeat the same behavior (e.g., disrespectful, talk back for adults, swearing), again and again, despite they say that "no!" and / or "Don't!", in wain I say after that behavior that "I didn't want to do! But I did again. I am sorry.", but the guilt and remorse will not help me to not do again,. (maybe therefore because I imitate others?) And i have times when I lose my conscious -- I can't see, I can't hear, or I can't touch, or I can't move -- I am in that "inner world" and my thoughts too (we are)) and when I wake up (literaly) from this state I do not remember what I am thinking in that state and I do not remember what happened in the outer world during these times (as the sleep) (Maybe a dissociative flashback about my night bad experiences?)).
 
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You don't need to share things you don't want to, but is there some sort of theme to the games/behaviour that you are trying to change?

A lot of us here have/had used some form of behaviour to cope or block out pain. Whether that is self harm, or addiction of some sort, or acting out abuse etc.

Will and desire not to do it aren't enough when those moments overwhelm and we retreat back to old patterns because what else will we do? Got to build in mechanisms to help when the urges come. Grounding techniques. Distraction techniques. Seeking help etc.

But, you're not alone.
 
"Will and desire not to do it aren't enough when those moments overwhelm and we retreat back to old patterns...": my therapist sais that it just a choice, a decision. That I do something different. Because he sais that I have resources to change, so he believes that I can use these inner/internal? resources to change my behavior in that moment, and in the present. He is a schema therapist. I thought that it is a good theory but I am doupt in this now. Sorry my poor English.


Behaviors: my problem is, for example, swearing. So I think in my childhood from swearing if I plaied that 'It's a play/game', and the adults helped me to go out the play mode (because I hurt emotionally someone with swearing), and they (the adults) explained me that it is not good (swearing), I understand, I felt guilt, remorse, but I repeat the play/game again and again, (because I thought 'But it is a play/game now, because it is an another place/situation/swearing word (for example, not b***, but s***)). (What is "acting out abuse"?) In play: but my intention was the play/game, not emotionally hurt others. So, I do not think that the 'I am abuser because I have trauma' thing. I try from my childhood to 'delete' for example, this pattern, but I can't. And the opposite things are disintegrated in context of play/game (e.g., light, dark, bad and good, right and left, etc.). So, dark-white thinking.
And I "share" roles for people in present (e.g., reality my father (past) = play (my friend) and my ex (present) is (so I do not "understand" that my ex (present) (reality) was not equal with my father (past) (play), so I treat with my ex as I playd with my father that we're friends (so, not every pattern are bad but as we understand with my therapist that 'lack of balance').
 
Can you imagine what you would do instead of swearing? Can you find a replacement for what you could have said during the original issue and practice that? I never found deleting was successful for me. The program still resides inside of you. But instead, can you replace the action / words for something else. Like "I really WANT to swear right now but I won't". To, I love you but I am not at all happy. Or anything that feels right to you. That way the program, which will always exist, has a different part to it. Behaviour modification.

Does the swearing come from a place of anger? Frustration? Rage? Maybe looking up alternative behaviours to those emotions may be helpful.
 
my therapist sais that it just a choice, a decision. That I do something different. Because he sais that I have resources to change, so he believes that I can use these inner/internal? resources to change my behavior in that moment, and in the present. He is a schema therapist. I thought that it is a good theory but I am doupt in this now. Sorry my poor English.
So I do agree with your T. It is a choice. But we have to become aware of it because a lot of our behaviours we no longer are fully conscious about when doing them. It's being mindful. But it's also having a 'plan' of what to do. So yes, a choice. But also, a strategy of how to behave differently. So that's where it is more than will and desire, because we need exactly what @shimmerz said.

What is "acting out abuse"?
This means, behaving in a way that seeks out further reminds or reenactments of the abuse we may have previously experienced. An example for me, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, was to replicate that or repeat those patterns finding more abuse or consenting to things that were similar to what happened etc.

Can you imagine what you would do instead of swearing? Can you find a replacement for what you could have said during the original issue and practice that? I never found deleting was successful for me. The program still resides inside of you. But instead, can you replace the action / words for something else. Like "I really WANT to swear right now but I won't". To, I love you but I am not at all happy. Or anything that feels right to you. That way the program, which will always exist, has a different part to it. Behaviour modification.

Does the swearing come from a place of anger? Frustration? Rage? Maybe looking up alternative behaviours to those emotions may be helpful.
Exactly this ^^
Being mindful: breaking down exactly what is happening when you want to swear or replay the game with your ex and father.
What are you thinking and feeling? What is driving it? What are the underlying feelings? And what can you do instead? What do you want to do instead? And building in those new toruals and behaviours.
 
@Movingforward10:
Interesting informations from Mindfulness - details:
"
The Buddhist ascetics who took up meditation in the fifth century bc did not view it as a form of stress relief. “These contemplative practices were invented for monastics who had renounced possessions, social position, wealth, family, comfort, and work,” writes David McMahan, a professor of religious studies at Franklin and Marshall College, in a 2017 book, Meditation, Buddhism, and Science. Monks and nuns sought to transcend the world and its cycles of rebirth and awaken in nirvana, an unfathomable state of equanimity beyond space and time, or at least avoid being reincarnated as a mountain goat or a hungry spirit in the hell realm underground. In the Pali suttas, the earliest Buddhist texts, the Buddha discusses meditation almost exclusively with audiences of followers ready to reject all earthly belongings. “Generally meditation is presented as something monastics aspiring to full awakening do,” McMahan writes, “an activity that is part of a way of being in the world that is ultimately aimed at exiting the world, rather than a means to a happier, more fulfilling life within it.”

In other words, mindfulness was not invoked to savor the beauty of nature or to be a more present, thoughtful spouse. According to the Pali suttas, the point of meditation was to cultivate disgust and disenchantment with the everyday world and one’s attachments to people and things. Aspiring Buddhas were “asked to contemplate the body from head to toe, inside and out,” McMahan writes, “not for relaxation and even less for body acceptance, but to bring to full realization its utter repulsiveness, coursing as it is with blood, phlegm, and pus.” If meditation conferred any practical benefit, it was in helping ascetics “accept the discomfort of a hard bed and a growling stomach or in preventing them from being beguiled by physical beauty.”
"
Source (awailable link): Lost in Thought, by David Kortava
 
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