Forward & Back

[Friday]

My new TT was trying to get me to talk about future plans. Early-ish in this relationship, maybe 6 appointments in? I'm not intentionally resistant, but getting any kind of info from me is like squeezing blood from a stone. I can see it, I'm effing trying, and can't get the thoughts together or words out. Pissing me off in a big way.

He asked me something about the future. Work, maybe? Not really sure. My brain blanked, my jaw wired shut, and I tried an end run around it: got him talking about something else, and interrupted with the answer to his previous Q. I don't remember the rest of the session. (Almost 2 hours). I remember talking. Don't know about what. I was in stepford mode: canned responses that don't require thought. Not a total flashback, but montages. Mostly war stuff. Some personal stuff.

It was a 3 cigarette problem out in the parking lot. This thing happens, like a block of ballistic jelly drops into my mind, and I can't think through it. I cannot think. I can still talk (clearly, my mouth isn't wired to my brain, but we knew that), but I can't think. And then the montage-flashbacks start. But I'm still doing my thing in real life. I'm not completely in the nightmare. I'm not completely in real life. With the damn block of ballistics gel between them, and my mind.

f*cking pisses me off.

Upside: realized in the parking lot that this always happens. I try to think too far into the future, worse try and talk about the future, and my mind seizes up. If I try to push through? My past crashes into me like a freight train. It wasn't too bad, yesterday. Let me see the moving pieces instead of just getting bowled over by them. Future thought: dominos start falling (everything that leads into it or lead so of it), montage starts, ballistics gel, can't think, can't think, can't think... and then either a true flashback or true anxiety attack. By the time those are over, I'm too wrung out to do anything. Much less parse what really happened. "Too far" varies. Sometimes an hour is too far into the future, sometimes I can range out months and be fine.

Does this happen to anyone else? Any ways to work around it? I'll be bringing it up in 2 weeks, for sure. Lol. If I can remember. Like in the parking lot, I can remember if reminded, but my memory is shite these days. Can't remember when I want to, can't stop remembering otherwise. f*cking brain. Sigh. Or maybe it's not my brain. Maybe it just me. Don't know.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Yes, I freak at these sorts of questions. To be truthful, it IS a lot of pressure, right? I mean we are disordered individuals, many of whom have a hard time thinking about anything beyond today (or even the present moment). Our focus is oftentimes in making *right now* tolerable, so how in the world can we even fathom tomorrow, or even further in the future?

I have been in recovery for 6 years now and it wasn't until last summer that I decided what direction I want to go in. Yes, I have a future career plan outlined, but I will never know if it is a possibility until I am out there actually doing it. I don't know if I'll ever get off disability. I don't know if I'll ever be able to work a full time job. Lots of unknowns, so when I get questioned, I feel like I'm being interrogated and I just lock down. And even though I have an idea in my head about what I want to do, I don't actually tell anybody because I don't want to deal with what will be said if I don't live up to this goal.

Are you at a point where you think you should be considering what you'll do in the future? I know that for me, NOT thinking about the future was a HUGE struggle at first. I was always thinking "OK, gotta work, gotta find a job, gotta advance my career, etc" and my healing was denied. It wasn't until I let go of future thoughts that I was able to focus on the present and accept that this is where I am in life, and the present moment is A-O-K.

And then part of me thinks that this sort of questioning about the future is the stuff that is in a book of canned techniques that all therapists get in therapy school, LOL. I mean, if someone is mildly depressed, mildly anxious, or anything that isn't TOTALLY severe, they seem to urge future planning. So early on in treatment, I don't think this should be the focus! The focus should be on the here and now....

 

[theotherside]

I went for a consult with a T the other day ..the whole thing is a blur
I walked out and and couldnt believe how long i was in there. So weird. I was just babbling away.

I had a dfferent experience a year ago with my old T. She had suggested i get a job. At that point i had a breakdown and i dnt remember the rest. She obviously had no idea how bad i was.

 

[Recovery4Me]

Does this happen to anyone else? Any ways to work around it?

Not that it might matter, but I have grown extremely fond of your thinking and wit. So, although you might want to kick me...I was like hey, maybe what I am going through is normal for PTSD!:O_o:

I too need to address some overwhelming :poop: for me at this time (future) and I have been stumped as to where my rationale took a hiked.
I often felt the way you are describing after posting here in the beginning. Now considering the future is bugging me out and I hit a small depression bout after I calmed down the anxiety as well as some major flashbacks.

What is working for me at this time:

*breathing into the moment and having some grounding techniques to anchor in the present

*listening to
[DLMURL]https://www.myptsd.com/c/albums/the-mindful-way-through-depression-full-youtube.802/[/DLMURL]

* doing positive thinking threads
https://www.myptsd.com/threads/what-moved-you-emotionally-today.51232/page-3#post-818562

*and figuring out what I can sell if I can not find a job which I can handle (or back-up plan). Turns out I have some stuff that may buy me time if need be.


All I know for sure is my ar$h is attached and I have made it through worse, so f*ck the small crap-even it is called future...one day at a time, doing the best that I can to self regulate is good enough. I know where the d*mn shelters are if need be, you know?

Be gentle, compassionate and accept yourself....there is no future without an YOU. :hug:

 

[illusionist]

You've just taken me back to years ago when I was asked that. My answer was.....survive? She really did seem surprised, and said that she didn't mean that, and I told her thats what I'm here for...to survive.

 

[Ronin]

My usual with therapists at that point was answering some other person, not them. Answering about where I wished to be and could remotely make it realistic... which wasn't in the goddamn therapy, talking about my life instead of doing something with that hour, out there. About pretty much therapists I liked and therapy I needed at the time, so it wasn't about them, the therapy, or even the time horizont. More about feeling super useless and annoyed at that uselessness.

... This was meant to be some sort of thinking through question for you if it can't be an issue of how you are with time spent on therapy/if the spacing out isn't related to feeling like a waste, but I have a f*ck all clue how to do constructive. So semi-sharing it is.

 

[Friday]

It definitely feels related to survival-mode. In that mode, there is no present, no past, just what is right immediately in front of me. The person on either side of me are real. Nothing else is

I know I work best in crisis. Oddly enough there, my mind clears, my muscles relax, and I can think & move in any direction. Physically as well as mentally...past, present, future. Everything clarifies. Crisis can be studded with a lot of dips into survival mode, where the only thing that matters is now, but crisis itself is different. It's when I come back to the real world that everything locks up & I fall apart. Stuck in survival mode when there's no damn reason to be. Everything clear as mud.

 

[Friday]

Are you at a point where you think you should be considering what you'll do in the future? I know that for me, NOT thinking about the future was a HUGE struggle at first. I was always thinking "OK, gotta work, gotta find a job, gotta advance my career, etc" and my healing was denied. It wasn't until I let go of future thoughts that I was able to focus on the present and accept that this is where I am in life, and the present moment is A-O-K...

LOL... Honestly, what I'd like to do is to curl up in someone's arms for the duration. Let the world calm down, and come back to it in due course. Later. Much later. Failing that, go sleep on a beach for a few months. Problem there is losing custody. And if I'm gonna lose custody, may as well go work in a war zone somewhere. How lame, when even my most uncomplicated solution has to go and tangle itself up.

Think I've been at the point where I can't reach any kind of stability because my trauma schtuff is acting up too hard, but at this point, in order to sort my PTSD stuff I need some kind of stability. Which means getting a job & renting an apartment. Having some external structure.

 

[theotherside]

@FridayJones i relate to that so much.

 

[Ronin]

@FridayJones , is there anything linking survival mode & crisis? I mean, something that'd flip you out of stuck back to action, something to persuade yourself it's a different situation? (I get even if there is something like it it may not be an option, because own kids are just exceptions for hella lot and it'd be nice if that was voluntary but it simply isn't.)

 

[Justmehere]

It definitely feels related to survival-mode. In that mode, there is no present, no past, just what is right immediately in front of me. The person on either side of me are real. Nothing else is

My trauma therapist says that losing the ability to think about the future is actually a symptom of PTSD.

Stuck in survival mode when there's no damn reason to be.

That's sort of a way to describe PTSD in a sentence.

I have really struggled with this at times. Even to the point that I have freaked out and numbed out over just trying to schedule for next week, let alone come up with a plan for my life.

It has gotten quite a bit better, sometimes, by working through the trauma. As all my symptoms get better, sometimes it's like "whoa, I have a future!" and I can actually plan for it. Then when PTSD symptoms are worse, I lose all future planning ability all over again. My therapist says this will keep getting better along with all my other PTSD symptoms. "Your body won't be so stuck in survival mode and you will have the freedom to plan a future again."

 

[theotherside]

@Justmehere how do you go about finding a trauma therapist? I went on psychology today or whatever and i find some that say trauma and ptsd but i look at what they treat and the list is a mile long.
Anyway i did call RAINN and hopefully that will work