How To Deal.

[quaintpapercut]

How do you deal with the feeling of looking back on your entire life and realizing things were not what it appeared to be? Every relationship, decision and milestone examined for authenticy and noticing something tangible lacking. More specifically, a pressence. Of what I'm not sure. My instinct is to say my pressence , but wouldn't it be assumed that I was there considering they happened to ME?But they feel largely absent to me. Devoid of color, vibrancy or impact. They feel dull and not experienced. I KNOW all these things happened to me - choices I actively participated in, but they all feel impersonal to me.

How do you begin to understand and put that together?

 

[therapybankrupt]

This is the hardest part for me also Quaint. I am sorry you are struggling with it. The more I go round and round though. The more my symptoms escalate. The EMDR is helping with the trauma. But it is more about self discovery and knowing that I can't change the past that really helps. Some of it helps you understand how vulnerable you were and how awful others can be. I can not live a life of bitterness it is just not in me. So I get angry now something I never did. And I grieve it and work on letting it go. It does not surve me well to hang on. I know its hard with the symptoms not to be "something" especially when it is caused by someone or something other our selves. Hang in there.

Tb:hug:

 

[quaintpapercut]

Thanks TB :)

For me it's not just the bad stuff. It's the good stuff to. I've lived a lifetime- had children, got married, built my career etc..

I agree it is about self discovery. In a way it feels like for the first time in my life I'm making more conscious decisions. So many choices made previously were dictated by things I wasn't aware of and that sat just on the periphery of my vision. They weren't all bad choices, and I'm happy with what I've accomplished as theres tons to be proud of , but I don't feel attached to them.

It sounds like you've come a far ways. I'm still new at this and it all feels a little endless right now. What helps is hanging on to the vision of what type of life I want to lead.

Thanks for understanding :)

 

[I Can Do This]

I think you describe it perfectly - we aren't present for most of our lives when we are dealing with childhood based PTSD. Even when we were there, we really weren't. We couldn't enjoy the moment, we probably wanted to be at home in bed instead. I don't know about you but I realized I have spent much of my life in thoughts about the past and in fear of the future - never really available to right now. My mind and its fears always took me somewhere else and I was never comfortable anywhere.

I've made huge improvements though, awareness is an important part of it. When we begin to change our habits and understanding - we literally change our brains. I'm all about changing my brain these days!

 

[The Albatross]

At the risk of offending anybody it was: 1 Corinthians 13:11, King James Version (KJV)

"11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

It didn't really have anything much to do with my actual age, as much as it had to do with maturation. I re-examine just about everything now.

 

[Kas_Can_Fly]

How do you deal with the feeling of looking back on your entire life and realizing things were not what it appeared to be?

My problem is that I look on the bad things and try to find any other (hopefully positive) maybe my father abused me because he loved me - well I know that's not true, maybe he loved me in spite of it, and then I hate myself and never want anyone to love or appreciate me again. I look on the good things and am sure they were bad a recent example feeling wrong and a terrible person for enjoying a short animated film that he bought on VHS for us. That has been worsened by realising some of the good things in the past were genuinely bad e.g. sitting in the front room on my fathers lap as a child and everyone was happy and laughing and me not understanding that he was holding me over his erection and tickling me to wriggle on him, we were a close family and this was normal in a non-sexual way and I didn't realise/remember until recently.

I also feel bad for wondering why, why was I the only one, why did no one notice, why did I not tell, out of four daughters, why was it me - not just because why me, but also (horribly) why not them. I don't deal with this well I think. I know the answers as much as anyone can, probably more than most, the answers don't help.

 

[Mayday]

My instinct is to say my pressence , but wouldn't it be assumed that I was there considering they happened to ME?But they feel largely absent to me. Devoid of color, vibrancy or impact. They feel dull and not experienced. I KNOW all these things happened to me - choices I actively participated in, but they all feel impersonal to me.

Yes, yes...yes and YES!

This is exactly what I have been wondering lately. I can look back on almost anything I've done and have no real attachment to those memories. Same when I look at photos...I know it's me, but...like you say, I just feel really impersonal about my entire life so far

 

[rightkindofme]

I feel like what I'm doing is getting scope on my life. I can now tell the story of my life and figure out why I have the bad/maladaptive coping methods I have. Once I understand I can address them one after another. It's useful. A lot of it is forgiving myself for having the habit in the first place. I can give myself credit for developing useful skills when I needed them. I survived.

Now I need new skills. That's ok. But I hate me less when I understand why I have the quirks I have. I would forgive anyone else for being how I am after what I went through. It's really hard to believe I deserve equal forgiveness. I'm trying.

 

[The Albatross]

Perhaps a read through of Albert Ellis's stuff on "Unconditional Self Acceptance" will help you over the hump of hating yourself less and capitalizing on your new found understanding? I did that for a couple of years and have been trying to expand that to Unconditional Other Acceptance. Which has improved but is still at times a struggle.

 

[quaintpapercut]

I think you describe it perfectly - we aren't present for most of our lives when we are dealing with childhood based PTSD. Even when we were there, we really weren't. We couldn't enjoy the moment,

Exactly.

why did I not tell

This is hard to understand and its something I struggle with to. I have started to look a bit at why I thought certain behaviours were ok or why my first instinct was never to tell. This followed me into adolescence and my adult life as well.

I would forgive anyone else for being how I am after what I went through. It's really hard to believe I deserve equal forgiveness.

I'm learning the story of my life as well - I never realized there was so many nooks and crannies to my memory. I'm not near the point of forgiveness towards myself but hope I will get there someday as well.

I want new memories!! If only life was like a science fiction movie...

 

[The Albatross]

I want new memories!! If only life was like a science fiction movie...

Quaint, somewhere along the line I was able to turn my core belief around. My core belief around my traumas is now a learning experience and a benchmark for new growth and maturity. I consider it adversity training/boot camp. I was somehow able to connect with the idea that grief, shame, blame, guilt, adversity and traumas come to pretty much everyone. Though I've had more than my share as have many of us here, dealing with PTSD, maladaptive behaviors, stress reduction techniques, and rational approaches to disputing thoughts with my adult mind, recognizing stresses, learning how to heed the warning flags and ground or do self care.... all those things that I'm learning now will serve me well if/when I get to senior citizenship.

But instead of 9-12 weeks of boot camp, it has been decades. Post traumatic growth or adversarial growth though is an extremely valuable skill set.

 

[quaintpapercut]

somewhere along the line I was able to turn my core belief around. My core belief around my traumas is now a learning experience and a benchmark for new growth and maturity.

I agree. It is about turning thought patterns and beliefs around. It takes a long time though to turn a big ship around. Especially, when as you say, its been decades. Thanks for explaining, I understand your earlier quote better as well.