Doing Too Much: When Recovery Becomes An Obsession.

[purgemeofthepain]

I'm sure many of you here feel like it's all so overwhelming sometimes. On one hand you have your symptoms to deal with, the backlash and damage from all those awful traumas of the past (and sometimes ongoing too), and then you have the pressure from society, family and even yourself, to get better. To improve your life and make yourself whole, sane. To "fix" yourself.

Some of us can't even pinpoint exactly what's wrong with ourselves just yet. We have an inkling of an idea or we lean towards the solutions or causes, but can't really be sure of anything from the extreme dissociation we've learned from an early age.

Some of you out there know what you need to do to get better, others are only waking up and realizing they need help. But no matter where on our journey we find ourselves, recovery and healing can become just as big an obsession as the coping mechanisms we use or the compulsive behaviors and thought patterns we use to survive.

Do any of you get the feeling that you're doing too much in your attempts to recover? I find myself totally immersed in self-help books, listening to audiobooks, browsing the forum, talking endlessly about my situation and possible solutions to my family, doing all kinds of exercise to awaken my body and finally feel something in it for a change, forcing myself to stay present instead of dissociating all the time, trying to let the memories surface, analyzing what the true nature of my behavior is and the why, whos, hows and whens of my traumas. Aaahhh!

Now that I have an increased sense of self awareness, I'm starting to see that I am doing way too much. I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm forcing the healing process. I'm overloading myself with information and investing too much of my effort into all things related to well-being and health. I've come to the point where I feel guilty if I watch a TV show or a movie cause those aren't gonna "build me up" or help me in my recovery! How crazy is that?!

In a way, my self-punishing, self-hating mechanisms have turned something that could have been a breakthrough for me in terms of improving my quality of life, into an unhealthy obsession and compulsion. It's my extreme behavior at work here and now I see it clearly.

So yeah, this thread is not meant to ask for help, but mostly just a friendly reminder to all of you out there, that it IS ok to just back off a bit and try to relax sometimes. Not EVERYTHING in your life needs to be about recovering and self-improvement. And also a reminder to myself, that you can't force recovery. It all happens when the time is right and not a minute sooner.

So be gentle with yourselves. Take your time. Breathe and rest in the knowledge that it will all come to you in due time. Best of luck!

 

[Deleted member 10686]

I have felt exactly this way in the past. When I was first diagnosed with PTSD I felt an extreme pressure to recover and to do so now, like I was running out of time to "fix" myself. I became obsessed with constantly journaling, not just on here but in my own personal notebooks, stacks and stacks of notebooks, and drawing, I was obsessed with therapy, getting it all out, even if I wasn't ready to get it all out, it's like I was torturing myself.

It's only recently that I've taken a break from therapy and everything related, I only pop on this site occasionally, and it feels better to be going slower, actually. No pressure. When I do start therapy again it'll be revealing things at a very slow pace. I'm in no rush to share everything.

 

[KwanYingirl]

I'm not healing to end up tethered to my daily rituals for progress. I go to concerts and movies and the beach. There was a time I was too isolated I couldn't even go to the store. I was so sick I gave up driving because I had panic attacks. Healing means freedoms to enjoy the fun things in life

 

[franciemarnie]

I like that - Be gentle with yourselves.

Trauma is a violence to the system. PTSD has frequently got us in an emergency state when there is no imminent annihilation situation anymore. We might feel as if - we must fix this now!!! Because our bodies are so revved up. It is important to step back and increase our quality of life, our sense of well being, in relaxed, fun ways when we can. Hope everyone has some real contentment today, if only for a moment.

 

[Chava]

Good post. Sometimes I do feel like I over-focus on recovery stuff, though usually related to chronic pain (which limits me, is uncomfortable, and can trigger lots of stuff if it feels out of control).

If I'm researching or thinking too much, it is probably just another manifestation of a safe bubble I create for myself. I retreated to this world often when younger...studying, writing, practicing an instrument...never got in trouble and rarely interupted in that place. So it does help to be aware of that, even if it means knowing I still need my private study bubble sometimes now.

Other times, hopefully more often, keeping a journal of some kind or trying new healing approaches is a way to keep present and avoid backsliding. Backsliding would be so easy for me. Right now I'm into Pilates...I read some, write some about how the exercises are going, and sometimes feel a bit obsessed...but I'm actually doing it. So, I'm trying to create new patterns and that requires a good deal of attention and practice.

Sometimes it's hard to know what I'm doing..."obsessing" as a form of bubble-like safety, or more as a way of working diligently to create new patterns. A good guage is whether I'm stuck or actually moving forward. Also, am I giving lots of time to recovery but also to the rest of life (accepting invites to things, taking care of house projects, etc). If all attention is on recovery, to the point that the rest of life is a distraction, that seems obsessive. I've been there, too...and sometimes it's like my bubble, while other times it felt like I was fighting for my life, which was important at the time.

With trauma recovery stuff I am impatient and want to force myself to resolve everything. Part of my stuff is that I'm impulsive and live in a perpetual present sometimes (more like a childish sense of time, not the Zen sort). If I can't resolve something now, I can't resolve it ever. There is no tomorrow or another day, especially when I am hyped up. Understanding time as a process is like a foreign language to my body but I feel like I am becoming more aware of it as I piece together a continuing sense of self...vs a disorganized blur of non-self. But when my "self" feels like it's disappeared or gone hiding, all this knowledge is useless...so the goal seems to be keeping my "self" a little more atttached.

 

[Tinyflame]

I guess for me it's more management efforts than recovery, but you just pointed out something big to me @purgemeofthepain I think. You see, I've done rounds of work on 'me' for so many years it only took really hugely falling apart to accept what I also couldn't control. In so many ways I just feel about 90%+ vulnerable. But now I'm ok with it (that), now.

I think @franciemarnie is 100% correct.

I think 'doing' needs to include 'not doing'- relaxing, reducing pressure to 'fix' or 'do' or 'get over it' or 'fix the (A!) problem', to have fun & do what we know helps relax or reduce pain/ pressure, even if we don't feel particularly 'entitled' to do that. I think that's a huge part of 'healing', actually. Both to do it & to 'let ourselves feel entitled to do it' (even if that's an uncomfortable thought or 'feeling').

 

[desiderata310]

Wow. This is very timely for me.

Once I had finished my trial and won, I went back and told my therapist that I felt ok to start EMDR again and he was happy to start back because well, I hide how I am actually doing quite well.

So we started back but the effects were terrible. BUT I figured that didn't really matter; I needed to push through and fight through it and just get better.
The results were me starting to self harm again and have full on flashbacks in sessions during EMDR.

My therapist and I had a very long talk about this. There is no easy button on me. Everything I have every done has always been hard, full out, balls to the wall, and I am used to straight out constant stress. High levels of stress, to me, feels normal. When it isn't there it feels wrong. He said that this is actually a symptom of PTSD... oh. There's one I didn't know. He compared it to being an adrenaline junkie. (and then proceeded to also point out how this might also relate to my tendency to do exercise to the point of exhaustion and take on multi-sport.)

He went over all the changes that have happened in a short amount of time: I got out of an abusive relationship, lost a job, moved all the way across the country, started a new job, have no friends here, went through getting a restraining order, was suicidal for months, dealt with my son attempting suicide, had him move out here to join me.And my changes aren't over: I still have one more child who will be joining me in a week which means more changes, more stress to deal with. Just as things are settling down I wanted to jump in with both feel and HEAL NOW!

It doesn't work that way.

My therapist kept watching me fight through these EMDR sessions where part of my brain is fighting with all its might against it, and fighting to learn to trust him. I had horrible full out flashbacks that took out my memory of our sessions and left me a mess for days and triggered all to hell.

He apologized. Said that I seem so stable that he thought I was ok to move forward when all the while I was not ready at all. I have, in some ways, too good of coping mechanisms. He said that I was suffering and it wasn't necessary. I am a little frustrated by this. A lot frustrated. Ok, pissed all to hell and cried angry tears of frustration.

I didn't mean to go in to therapy to delve into all the childhood abuse but just to get to the PTSD that was linked to the abuse from my ex. The problem is that it doesn't work like that. They are... linked. To heal one, the other has to heal.

Part of this? I thought I would be DONE by now. I didn't want to be in therapy at all.I kind of resent being in therapy.

He did say that I could probably quit therapy and continue to live my life. I had found a way to cope that works but that's the thing, it's just coping.

So I'm now trying to deal with being ok with moving at a slower rate- at least in therapy.

My therapist said that there were a few things that needed to happen before we could reasonably do EMDR again.. if ever.
1. I needed to really be able to sleep again. I've been dealing with nightmares for so long that real sleep is not something I am friends with.
2. I need to be able to stay HERE most of the time. He cited that I dissociate far too easily and do so at work.
3. He pointed to my very visceral and uncomfortable reaction when he calls what happened to me "horrific": I tend to dissociate when he goes there. He had to drag me back.

Being gentle to me is not something I do well. I guess I will have to learn.

 

[purgemeofthepain]

Great responses everyone! I knew I wasn't alone in trying to force recovery. :-) I feel supported and understood when I come to the forum and that's something I haven't felt in any of the other places I've looked for help in. So thanks!

Like so many of you, I am also addicted to the rush that stress and constant strife bring to me and if it doesn't feel HARD and like a struggle, I figure it's not doing anything. Maybe that's why I try so hard at this recovery thing. It HAS to feel like I'm pushing, fighting, exerting a lot of effort, or else I feel it's going nowhere.

like I was running out of time to "fix" myself.

This really hit home for me @forwardmotion462 . I also think: "I'm 36 years old for chrissakes! I don't have the time to let the healing happen! I gotta MAKE it happen!".

I'm not healing to end up tethered to my daily rituals for progress.

I'm completely with you on this one, but try telling that to my all-or-nothing, black-or-white brain! LoL, it's either: I'm doing a LOT to recover, or I'm wallowing in my own misery, getting worse by the minute. I think I'd rather have this polarity and option than the low one. As I've said before in other posts, the middle path is where I want to be at. A healthy middle ground. Or at least move evenly between the choices, not just stay stuck way up or way down!

Other times, hopefully more often, keeping a journal of some kind or trying new healing approaches is a way to keep present and avoid backsliding.

This is very important in my eyes. Just cause one is avoiding the notion of recovery as an obsession, doesn't mean one should allow himself/herself to fall into old patterns and regress. Finding a balance is hard but a must for me and others in this situation I'm sure.

it only took really hugely falling apart to accept what I also couldn't control

Very important as well! To, as they say in the 12 step recovery prayer: "recognize what we can't change". This is huge. There are things about ourselves and our circumstances that just can't be controlled or even predicted. Accepting the uncertainty of life and our human condition seems so necessary, specially in those moments where one feels like they got everything in their world "set up" JUST the way they want it.

Not getting attached to this is essential, cause as all survivors of PTSD know more than anyone, life can just blow all your plans into oblivion and trauma, shock and pain and chaos happen to all of us, at the most unexpected times and the most (seemingly) "safe" of places. To put it shortly, shit happens! and there's no amount of therapy or self-help books or even total isolation (like with me), that can stop it from happening. (Realizing this just scared me to death...).

I didn't mean to go in to therapy to delve into all the childhood abuse but just to get to the PTSD that was linked to the abuse from my ex. The problem is that it doesn't work like that. They are... linked. To heal one, the other has to heal.

THIS. I have come to see that it is all just a big, nasty ball o' wrong inside me. ALL the traumas and phobias connected to each other in ways I never thought possible, melding into a super strong and heady cocktail of dysfunction, pain, horror and sickness. Nothing inside of us is isolated from the rest of experiences, thoughts or feelings we've had to endure over the years. This makes recovery a more difficult process than I ever thought, cause you seem to come to grips with ONE trauma, only to realize there's a ton of other things it's linked to and you'd better deal with those too, or else you stay in the dark hole of PTSD for gawd knows how much longer!

 

[Tinyflame]

Oh very true @purgemeofthepain . It's like entering a tunnel with no way back. :eek::sick::nailbiting::(

I can't recall how many years it's been since I felt my life was 'set up'. By what I can't change I mean also not only circumstances or of course others but sometimes my self, or at the rate I want, or my own vulnerability. In fact, other than 'managing' this is all uncharted waters for me. :wideeyed: :nailbiting::chicken:

 

[shell]

I have really struggled with this, needed to get better instantly, because I couldn't handle the thought of being mentally "ill" and when it wasn't happening quick enough then I wasn't trying hard enough. One of my therapists actually told me I try too hard (and it got me nowhere).

It's only more recently that I have stepped away and am enjoying having a break from therapy for a couple of months, for me there needs to be a balance to stop the slide into depression.

I am changing my focus to the present, so I can improve my daily functioning and relating to others, socializing etc, because I was being sucked into the past. Now I only journal a couple of days a week if I need to, with the view of creating a new life because I wasn't really doing anything more than existing.

It was only when I read back over my journals of the last years that I could see all my entries were obsessed with the past, it's one thing to make sense of it, and change disfunctional thinking and behaviour patterns, but it doesn't help to move back there and take up residency.