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Treading Dangerously?!

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I'm yet to be able to read this thread as I would like - one post after the next.

I'm still at too great of risk of being triggered and losing precious time. Just once thus far, (hopefully not this round) but hell once is enough.

And, I do mean triggered and not stressed. If it keeps me awake, starts me into obsessively thinking with uncontrollable tension and fear within the present intertwined with past trauma and injury and makes me lose my appetite, cease to be able to concern myself with the present, sometimes people, self-care and time and otherwise raises stuff from the depths, then I've been triggered.

Having said this I know that others are not responsible for being at the other end of me being triggered.

I however am and as tempting as reading all this in consecutive posts, even with little free and borrowed time, I find myself controlling just when I can and cannot risk this reading.

So many of my injuries, even abuses resulted from me being extremely ill and having numerous people, including mother, doctors, family, once a beloved boyfriend, many an acquaintances and those of whom called themselves a friend, - conclude perhaps in ignorance, moralize, judge and condemn me for being deeply injured, traumatized, ill and unable to help myself. Unable to pass all of many consecutive tests or to secure and balance various different types of treatment for progressively increasing times of inflammation, and forms of illness and outcomes most of which either is, and/or directly stems out from my early Ptsd, ......and to do so, all still while caring for the needs of a handful of sufferers and numerous others:

The test of:

• for whatever earthly reasoning being rejected understanding, educated or informed support, or even just that family member who loves and supports you, doesn't understand, but loves and supports you anyway.

• locating the help exclusively by oneself

• arriving at the help

• discovering that the help is really of no help, but within reach

• discovering that the help is of real help, but out of financial reach

• locating and putting trust in people and services only to be informed that you need no help - perhaps too this or that, therefore to well and not in need

• locating and putting trust in people and services only to be told you are to ill for such specific and too narrow of services

• locating and trusting the help only to be thereafter instructed to follow damaging approaches, though well-accepted as a solution, indeed turn out to be of greater damage.

• locating help only to be instructed to abandon one's ideas and experience of what one believes to be wrong and to go forward replacing reality with cluelessness, misdiagnosis and partial truths, therefore only to follow through, resulting in partial or failed treatment

• locating services that turn out to be significantly, perhaps permanently injurious and destructive only to then need to fit such additional recovery into ones day.

• locating services and help, to go onto improve and or heal only to meet up unexpectedly against uncontrollable forces that undermine and remove such aspects of improvement, healing and possibilities for greater success.

• wake up one day and discover, you've been judged upon appearance, while indirectly it suggested that you among others are not good enough, nor is your definition of what success means.

And, I could just go on for hrs......... :eek: I won't!

I think so many people have been so programmed that they believe they have no voice. Or if they use it they will be reprimanded for it! I saw this and it made me think of the thread.

Concluding in my exhaustion that though I agree with the above, there are still others whom, all while knowing that they have a voice, for numerous unavailable reasons, (which fall beyond their control) Cannot, ......and other times thru wisdom choose not and - specific to me: should not, always use it.

I think I have so great of struggles with this thread due to my religious beliefs, but that's a whole other story.
 
We should never allow fear of the past to control our future! Hugs Whitney

That would mean that everyone with PTSD is a very bad person for allowing it. I recognise that probably isn't what you mean, but for many denial that they have PTSD is more destructive than acceptance that they need to go through a process to heal.

When I was last attacked, I was part of a spiritually minded group that used a lot of philosophies borrowed from taoism, buddhism etc.

I am prone to a belief in taking responsibility for making a better life for myself, making myself a better peson, being responsible for how I feel and percieve things etc. And these are the philosophies behind the quote that you've used.

But because of previous abuse, in my mind, these philosophies are tied in with shame, guilt, self blame.

After the person who attacked me returned to the group, I stayed and faced him, encouraged (or manipulated) by someone trying to protect my attacker and the group as a whole from the reality that I had been sexually abused and nearly killed.

So for me personally, accepting that abuse is real and that it is a process to deal with the reality of its effects, is a vastly more positive act than philosophising myself into denial.

I realise that your intentions were positive, and this isn't a criticism of you personally witneystory. I just wanted to offer another perspective. There can't be one understanding that fits all because the background of everyone is so different.
 
We should never allow fear of the past to control our future! Hugs Whitney

That would mean that everyone with PTSD is a very bad person for allowing it. I recognize that probably isn't what you mean, but for many denial that they have PTSD is more destructive than acceptance that they need to go through a process to heal.

I will say I feel the word 'should' often creates harsher overtones and implications than if say I was to say "It would be good for us to reach a point where our fears from the past no longer control the greater part of our lives".

Meadowsweet I took the more positive response to what was said as I am no longer troubled by my past like I was. Say that same thing to me 10 years ago and I would have reacted being defensive and justifying all the reasons I could not change.... not realising the control I had.

Yes bad things happen and I have been abused by more than my fair share of people including people in a position of power and trust with the ability to have more than just an emotional impact on my life. I don't know how I got to here but I do know I got up every day and tried to recognize what I wanted to improve, what I could control and what I couldn't. I also found that while I couldn't control some things I could control the way I reacted to, dealt with or responded to these things.

I chose for not wanting my past to control my future and that for me was the inspiration to have goals; little and big.
 
Getting back to the goals and off track - I will share that I was told that the mind thinks in pictures and not in words. Finding this out I got the biggest picture of one of my favourite coloured cardboard and sat down and cut out pictures of the things I wanted in my life. I had it on my wardrobe so I saw it every day and when I moved my office to home I put it above my desk. I was proud of the collage and one picture was the words of a song I wanted to be played as I walked down the aisle to get married again (I was single at the time), other things I needed like a new washing machine, a picture of a home as I wanted to buy my own home for my son and I to be able to do as we pleased, a picture of an old couple holding hands and drinking a cup of tea, flowers, a lady smiling etc....

For the first year or so I saw I had accomplished one or two things I had wanted but I didn't want to spoil my 'goals' - some were 'dreams' based on life as I knew it. One day I took a big black texta and made the first big tick which was an awesome feeling. The goals were in the back of my mind for some time but obviously not as much as I thought as one day I stood up, looked at it and thought, hey I've done this and this and this and ticked away.

I didn't get everything exactly as I wanted in the collage but I had most of them is some variation of the pictures I chose.

Today I only have one to tick off - the old couple holding hands........ :inlove:

Perhaps it is time for me to make a new one? Time to grow in other directions.
 
Meadowsweet I took the more positive response to what was said as I am no longer troubled by my past like I was. Say that same thing to me 10 years ago and I would have reacted being defensive and justifying all the reasons I could not change.... not realising the control I had.

I hope you havn't read my response as being a negative response. It's an objective intellectual response.

I've been brough up with self-responsibility over sympathy and emotion, so I've seen the negative side of that. But because of that I've never experienced what you have - being in a place where you want to justify being unable to change.

The point being made is that because people have different experiences, when we try to understand or help others by imagining what we might be experiencing in that situation, all we do is gain a better understanding of ourselves. We never truly understand the other.
 
cut out pictures of the things I wanted in my life. I had it on my wardrobe so I saw it every day and when I moved my office to home I put it above my desk.

I have something similar. Iron "strings" up in my living-room with postcards of things I want (an old (they look like 95 or so) couple getting married, for example) but also postcards with quotes I want to remember because I am convinced they will help me getting there, encouraging me to take appropriate action and thinking already today. Has helped me very much.

Also, I have given up on having to (= feeling that if I don't, I would not have had a good life) get there. It has changed, and some are still in the process of changing (because I consider this a good change for me), to wanting to get there.
 
The point being made is that because people have different experiences, when we try to understand or help others by imagining what we might be experiencing in that situation, all we do is gain a better understanding of ourselves. We never truly understand the other.
Agreed but I also believe it presents the opportunity to try things we ourselves have not even considered being limited by our own experience as you state:
But because of previous abuse, in my mind, these philosophies are tied in with shame, guilt, self blame.

It wasn't easy but I figured the way I was living and thinking wasn't getting me to where I wanted to go so I looked towards the people who were living a life like what I desired and had healthy relationships and surrounded myself with those; my aspiration to be as they were, being willing to re-learn if need be as their world and perceptions were different to mine. I figured I had to change my thinking even if it went against my philosophies - just not my moral code.
 
Perhaps it does offer a different perspective.... I feel that sometimes we are so caught up in the journey the destination catches us by surprise?! :coffee: Like I said I can't tell you how I got here but I did and I know I tried. What the answer is I don't know but I'm glad to have some peace.
 
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