Topic Specific Mind Blanks & Patterned Temporary Loss Of Information. Anyone?

[Abstract]

I am not sure if these two different experiences are related or not. The first is something I am aware of happening and the second is not and can take a week or a year for me to get the information back. It seems to come back to me in one go.

The first type is something I seem to get a lot randomly but it also happens when my mind seems to decide a particular topic is a no go area, has better ideas that I do, and won't let me do something. Relevant example and what I am struggling with the most is trying to find a T. For well over a year now I have been blocked from doing so.

Initially I was determined and hit against it repeatedly. I can't even remember all I have tried now but suffice it to say just about anything and everything. Affirmations. Writing out small steps. Doing meditation and relaxation regularly and prior to trying. Positive thinking. Imagining being safe and protected in a bubble etc etc etc. The harder I tried the quicker the block would happen.

Eventually I decided to try something totally different. It appeared my mind did not think it was safe to do so so I started working on finding a way to have it feel safer and addressing its concerns. And easing up on the pressure a lot. As well as an attempt at radical acceptance to help reduce the shame, frustration and self hatred which was high. I was used to thinking of myself as determined and felt pretty powerless in this situation.

I did not try for a while but it appears I am still blocked although managing to get much closer and with less shutdown. Sometimes I can almost catch a glimmer of the space on the other side.

What it feels like varies a bit but what seems to be milder versions are a complete emptying out of my mind. Unable to think at all means not being able to do anything at all until I back pedal. What I suspect are more intense versions feel as if I have run up against a steel wall. I rebound off it and usually with no warning. This is the type that I get when I attempt to find a T.
:peeking:
The second type (patterned temporary loss of information) is something that mostly seems to happen in relationships and T is one of those. I seem to remove tiny sections of information that relates to an aspect of a person that I find difficult. So that can mean someone being subtly sexually inappropriate with me or in T (as this is the main thing I am working on at present) it could be some of the normal difficult stuff that comes up and both guides and challenges the relationship.

Without that information, of course, the relationship can continue in directions that can potentially be difficult and unhelpful to say the least.

So my questions are if anyone relates to any part of this, if they have any insights or suggestions or if they have any information that is relevant. Questions would also be welcome

One thing I want to clearly state is that it is not related to dissociative trance states where information goes permanently missing and I would rather not discuss those. Nor is the second type something I am aware I am doing at the time that it happens. Also advice to just try harder would not be useful as believe me I have done that. It is not accompanied by feeling spacey in any significant way or at all.


The second type used to happen a lot in all parts of my life and all the time to various extents and I know it happens much more rarely now after all the years of work I have done on it. When it does happen now it can take a year before I realise it and when I do the emotional backlash is what I can only describe as truly awful.

 

[Red Feather]

I can relate a lot to what you say. You seem to have more of an awareness and terminology. I feel like I am just a current of fluid sensations which I can be aware of and also unaware of. I am blocked when it comes to my artistic practice and music. Trying harder, doesn't help. This wave of emotion comes up whenever I try and it takes control somehow and I have to meditate.

And I am constantly confronted with the wall, especially after saying goodbye to my kids. I call it the black hole, because there is just nothing and I don't know how to maneuver.

I thought that I am just not connected to reality, and all I really need to is connect and then I can find my focus. But even if I can connect it and focus, than it quickly disconnects again automatically.

I think maybe I shouldn't think about everything that I can't do, and instead focus on what I can do. I get stuck in the can't and all the symptoms. I feel so stupid that these simple tasks are so difficult for me.

I think there is some sort of identity conflict, and in the back of my mind I always think I need a doctor to help me with it or a trauma therapy... but what if I keep waiting for a trauma therapy and when I actually get one, it doesn't help me. Somehow I have to sort through this.

 

[Abstract]

Hi Nadia,

Thanks for replying! It has taken me about 8 + years of hard work to get to the point of being able to discuss it like this. The absence of something is incredibly hard to build an awareness of or even explain. I would love to know how many hours I have put in. But the progress I have made with the second has meant me being able to be safer in my life for the first time and I am very grateful for that. :tup:

I don't feel spacey when I get the blanks. Do you?

I have a lot of problems (fear) and shame in asking for help so it is hard for me but I have also come to the realisation that I won't be able to fully deal with this by myself. And then at the same time I won't let me get into treatment so it is a dilemma.

It has been a very humbling leaning experience to realise that effort just does not do it and actually backfires. I have had no choice but to go down the road of acceptance and kindness with myself it seems to be an essential part of the solution.

Anything more you want to share would be appreciated.

 

[Red Feather]

The absence of something is incredibly hard to build an awareness of or even explain.

This is just it. It's so frustrating.

Spacey? I think I am pretty much always spacey, when it gets bad (like a blank) during a conversation then I need a few minutes to understand what somebody is saying to me. If I am having a derealization than I feel like I am hanging on to reality like a thread and I can fall off any minute. Breathing has helped me and somehow relating to others helps me.

I have problems asking for help. But it is easier for me with professionals than with friends. I was recently in the hospital and the nurses kept on saying that I needed to go to them if I needed to talk or needed help. It was so hard to talk but after 5 weeks, it was easier. Talking to professionals is still easier for me because the professionals seems just so much more careful and sensitive.

I know it is hard to ask for help, but I think it can be a real problem if you can't. You can think of it as help that wasn't given to you as a child, and which you need and is your right, in order to move forward.

I am grateful that you say it is possible with a lot of hard work. I always feel so powerless. One thought is that I have to force myself, just like when I force myself to jump into a swimming pool when my kids want me to go swimming with them. If I could just force myself, but it is not so easy I guess. I really would like to move through this confused state.

 

[Abstract]

Thanks Nadia.

Yes, help is good.

If you don't mind I would like to just check to make sure we are both talking about something similar. Exactly the same can be tricky with this type of thing as it comes in so many flavours.

Scenario 1: Something is a difficult situation and when one approaches it one starts to feel disconnected from reality and slowed down thought wise. It is like everything is cloudy and unreal and thought stands still in a sense or it is hard to concentrate. One feels stuck in a sense.

Scenario 2: Something is a difficult situation and when one approaches it one is very suddenly and completely blocked from all thought. Instantly. It is like there is a black or white hole where ones brain should be. Ones body is still there and functioning normally and in other ways things feel fairly normal. Its just that there is a blank space where ones brain should be.

Which would you say fits better?!

possible with a lot of hard work

I am afraid it doesn't seem to help much with the first type but with the second (patterned temporary loss of information) it has. Mostly with a combination of staying mindful and aware, forcing myself to stop disconnecting from emotions and myself and increasing coping mechanisms. Powerlessness is a horrible feeling isn't it?

 

[Abstract]

Just wanted to add that this is what happened after any trauma. It would immediately be set aside and I could not "think" about it even once and even if I tried. Not that I did. I would hit against that metal wall. It is only in recent times that I have been able to have more access and once I got through for just a minute.

 

[Red Feather]

I think I have both scenarios. The second might be more fluid in my case. I am not sure. It just feels like the brain shuts down. Once I even felt that the brain had dissapeared completely. At the moment... my brain is shutting down when I think of what I should do with myself. After my kids leave, the black hole comes and I have had panic attacks because I just didn't know what to do with myself. I am having to meet with people in order to orientate myself which has been helping.

The first scenario I have quite often and I would probably call it derealization. I have pictures I want to share on the forum but I havent scanned them in yet.

I would get fuzzy just by intending to play music. An music therapist helped me move through that. But the blind spot still is there when it comes to doing my music. It is like the trauma has placed itself right there between me and what is most important to me. :(

 

[Abstract]

Hi Nadia,

I am really sorry you hit the blackhole after your children leave.

Yes, I would describe the first example that I gave in post 5 as a depersonalisation/dissociative trance type experience and I think they are common.

But it is interesting that you have experiences closer to the second type I mentioned as I don't see them discussed very often at all.

Really sorry this is getting in the way of your music. :(

 

[Abstract]

I agree it is as if my brain dissapears. Like I don't have one! I used to have it in therapy a lot but didn't have words or the self awareness to express it afterwards and it seems it was thought that I just didn't care and didn't want to engage.

I still get it a lot in therapy (the last lot I had) but along with a whole lot of more intensive stuff.

I am assuming that some of the trauma tainted your music in some way and hence your mind stopping you from going there. ?

 

[Red Feather]

Thanks Abstract. It feels like the problem is in my brain. I can't filter some information. I have a very intuitive way of playing. For example on the piano, I often do not even know what notes I am playing. Like my hands know more than me, and then when I write the notes down my brain shuts down. It's happened twice today. I have to keep on making small steps, but it is rather like torture.

For scenario 2, you have named a specific term... i.e. "patterned temporary loss of information." Is this the medical term of this nightmare?

What does finding a new therapist mean for you? I have had issues with making steps towards being healthy, which is traumatic in connection to my mother... it was all unconscious but I think I worked through most of it the last time I was in the hospital. I had to or I was always going to continue sabotaging myself. I think this is also in connection to my music, because it is what I want more than anything.

 

[Abstract]

I totally get it feeling like torture. It is torture. When I am feeling more positive I can see it as a journey. That I am getting closer to self awareness and where I want to be.

It certainly isn't a medical term! It is my desperate attempts to put a name to something unnameable. And it is very hard talking about it. I hate to admit it but trying to describe things comes along with feeling sure someone will tell me that I am making it up or am deluded. Partly possibly because those are typical ways I treat myself. And not helped by having had a therapist for 5 years who when I tried to describe even the most simple forms of dissociative stuff like not being able to connect with emotions whilst in therapy, looked at me as if I was an alien :alien: and repeatedly told me session after session that it was impossible. Since I was only scraping some first crumbs of self awareness of my inner workings, it fried my brain. I didn't have the self awareness to leave nor the awareness because of the "patterned temporary loss of relevant information".

And yes, there are aspects of it that go back to how I was treated at home and is why it got to me as it did.

Its a hard decision to go back to therapy when I can't trust that I will know what is happening in it.

I have never got anywhere near discussing any of this stuff with a professional.

I am sorry about your mother. It seems that something in that traumatic connection introjected itself for you and was sabotaging anything good and progress. I think its wonderful that you have figured it out though. It sounds like that may be the first step to changing.

I definitely have an introjected saboteur. But it saves its energy by concentrating on telling me there was no trauma and I don't have PTSD. Most of the time I think it is trying to protect me in a warped way. Other times I think it is just having fun!

The missing information stuff seems to be a way of removing the part of a person that I find threatening and therefore not needing to be assertive or have the associated emotions. I think its related to a freeze state in a way as it seems my mind does not see removal from the environment as a possibility. Its like a "lalalalala" fingers in ears approach in some respects.

Does your mother always sabatage anything good for you?

 

[ninja]

Hi Abstract,

I think I might do something similar to scenario #2, but not sure. On a much smaller scale, I find that it happens frequently on this forum. I will decide to post something in an attempt to externalize the chaos brewing beneath the surface. I'll even have a bit of an outline in my head, but as soon as I pull up the site, my mind goes blank. At that point all I remember is that I was planning to post something.

Sometimes I manage to grab onto bits of the idea/motivation, but usually I feel encased in some kind of bubble. The bubble is transparent enough for me to see the outline of what it is I want/ed to accomplish, but rarely clear enough for me to see the specifics (which would allow me to address the topic/s).