Nobody Seems Real, Don't Trust Anyone

[KwanYingirl]

Hey @Chava running towards the rabbit hole yes? Do you have a sponser? A meeting doesn't mean you have to share, but it may change your train of thought. Do you ever feel like the alkie monkey on our backs can f*ck with our heads big time. When I derealize, it's when I breathe too shallow and rapid-fear state-and then I'm hyperventilating. Then everything feels unreal yet I can't get my ass in gear to recover from it. I breathe into a paper bag, take a hot shower and visualize all the crap in me flowing down the drain. Then clean Jammie's and into bed.

Trust. You do know that is one of the four major difficulties in PTSD. The others being self esteem, safety and intimacy. Describes the things we need to be connected to others. PTSD blows it away. Sometimes a soft breeze, sometimes a hurricane. But weather systems calm and change and so can your mood and outlook. Your post shows you are struggling with all four of those areas. AA will assure you that you can stay sober in spite of it.

My advice is to not act on dying. We are here and you matter to us. This too shall pass. Take a hot shower or soak your feet in hot water and essential oil. Honor your body. Crawl into bed and rock yourself. It's very calming. The de realization is a temporary result of breathing too rapid and shallow and your Braine gets nitric oxide instead of oxygen. Thus the perseptions of unreality.

I'm sorry you're having a bad time. Hang in there. Give it a couple of days to reboot. And remember to eat. Do you have anyone that can give you a ride to the meeting? You and I can have one on PM if you want. I don't know where you live, but I'm in Maine on EST. I hope you feel better soon.

 

[Chava]

Hi @KwanYingirl . No I do not have a sponsor. Sobriety isn't a huge issue anymore (sober many years) but I don't like the space I'm in sometimes and the urge to get f*cked up creeps me out. I have a good habit of sticking with meetings.

Trust. You do know that is one of the four major difficulties in PTSD. The others being self esteem, safety and intimacy.

I had not heard this. Trust is SO hard. Why I don't have a sponsor. All these major four difficulties = why I basically don't have any relationships and already middle-aged. A group of people that invite me to some events. Nobody I really talk to, not that I haven't had a couple good friends in the past. It's like I need to run into the right person at the right time with my insane trust issues. If stressed at all (most of the time), it's never the right time. I prefer getting away from others.

My advice is to not act on dying. We are here and you matter to us. This too shall pass.

Thank you. It's a little better today. Very conscious of need to work more on positive experience and feelings...I don't seek them out and I don't internalize them. I don't internalize feelings of support easily either. I internalize all the bad feelings. Anyway, I know I have to practice and stick with it. Good to accept a bit of a mess and have some goals.

I hope you feel better soon.

Thanks. This derealization and shutdown (not trusting ANYONE and not leaving the smallest room of my house) has passed. I'm a little overwhelmed but more present.

 

[KwanYingirl]

@Chava same here. No sponsor and manage 24 years of sobriety having NEVER told my story. I like step meetings as I never was taught any functional coping mechanisms and I don't tell anyone but here about my cutting. I usually only have two friends but I avoid them a lot. If work is stressful, I come home for lunchtime and put on blinders and go straight to bed and cover me and Annie with blankets. Somehow, I always pull it together to work.

Someone should do a reality show starring a gaggle of us. It would be compelling and I would gladly volunteer. What was done to us as children has life long repercussions. I get so pissed off when my child parts come out for help. She needs to be held and comforted yet I don't let anyone know her. Just plow through the bad days and relish the good ones. My therapist I had in New Hampshire used to give me textbooks on trauma. One of those was all about those four areas of difficulty. I'd like to read Judith Hermans book on CPTSD but don't know the actual title. I thought it would be a good read if I put it in my kindle and read it at my sons wedding while everyone is getting smashed.

 

[Teasel]

Judith L Hermann Trauma and Recovery: From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Best book Iever read on all this stuff

Better even than that was this website - relevant to me cause I have c-ptsd - http://www.pete-walker.com/index.htm x

 

[Chava]

Somehow, I always pull it together to work.

Me too. It's like everything makes sense. I like what I do, which helps, but so does the structure.

Someone should do a reality show starring a gaggle of us. It would be compelling and I would gladly volunteer. What was done to us as children has life long repercussions.

OMG. Yes. Sometimes I wonder why it's not more terrible for me sometimes. I've adapted super well to being disconnected from my body and not having close relationships. My "normal" would look pretty sad, lonely, and dysfunctional to most people. But trying to get a little more "normal" usually feels much more challenging than rewarding.

I liked the Judith Hermann book. Thanks for the link @Berlinda. I read it a couple years before I even found a therapist. I related to all of it and felt really validated to even hear about problems with self-and-other (and all the other areas of difficulty). I really appreciate her model. I'm a little borderliney borderline, but have never been diagnosed with BPD (took the MMPI and other related tests too). But I have a mix of all complex trauma symptoms...how my therapist sees it too. All of my relationships have been pretty low-key and peaceful....just nobody gets to know me...I sort of vaporize slowly and disappear from the relationship.

And all that reality crap that keeps me separated at a safe distance. Not quite BPD or Avoidant PD or any solid dissociative disorder, just a stubborn bubble and inability to trust others, even when I want to. Noticing the derealization-depersonalization tango a lot more...probably because it got worse a bit and i'm more aware. It's always been like this....one of those things where awareness feels powerful and simultaneously super f*cking depressing. Like can I even fix this????

I think it's awesome that you have a good book plan for while the wedding guests are getting smashed. Perfect! I don't care if others are drinking, but I know if the air is getting too boozy-smelling, I need to sneak out and have my own thing to do. Plus drunk people aren't funny when I'm sober, which I'm sure you've experienced too.

 

[KwanYingirl]

Chavez, I totally get you. So I hope this doesn't upset you, but would you ever consider having Reiki sessions? It is encouraged that you embrace the existence of chakras because Reiki unblocks them so that we can heal the mind/body split. For years I held fiercely to keeping them separate due to the fear of feeling abuse. But it's been the complete opposite. It is very gentle. My Reiki master is also into crystal healing. Sometimes I go in so dissociated that she lays crystals on me.

My therapist encourages body work as he considers it vital to recovery. If I had more money I'd go more. She is very intuitive and she told me when I get mastery of my trauma symptoms she thinks I will be intuitive too. You know-been there, done that.

 

[Born to Run]

So I didn't quit therapy. Insurance will continue to help and my therapist is very patient with my meltdowns.

Chava, this is great news!! I am very very glad for you :):) This was your BIG troubling issue, and maybe initiated this total breakdown. You will get out of the shit hole, they call it rabbit hole I believe, but I don't want to offend my rabbits ;), I am sure of that. You have a good therapist. I know the somatic method does miracles for early trauma. I hope you can start to believe in it again, now the therapy is secured again. Take care crabby.

 

[Born to Run]

We need animal icons here!!

 

[Chava]

@Born to Run yes, I think this was a big deal. Feeling the ambiguous b.s. from insurance company was going to prevent any feeling of just settling and focusing on some goals was really eating at me...and then the instant "back the f*ck off" to everybody in the universe...not trusting ANYONE. That's a terrible feeling. Everyone becomes unreal and the fog around me is very heavy. I do feel better, more hopeful...glad my therapist has been willing to advocate.

@KwanYingirl I am really intrigued by reiki, but maybe down the road. I hiss if people get too close to me. We're working on some of this sort of thing in my somatic therapy. My therapist can touch my shoulder or back and sometimes it's helpful, other times I shake a lot. Last time she touched my hand and I started clawing my head (so she backed off and tried to help me not pull my face off). I think I'd want to be a little more stable and predictable about people in my space. I'm also not much into chakras. Just no opinion. I do relate to heart-lung stuff (where I've had major medical issues but also feel heavy shutdown sometimes). But nobody can mess with that space. It sounds like you have a Reiki master that you really trust. I think that would be huge. I barely trust my therapist at the moment and she's perfectly nice and gentle and patient and I've seen her for almost three years. So, this might be another step for when I feel capable of trusting someone else. Not right now.

But I do wonder about sound healing. Can't find in my area. I think I'd even let someone set a singing bowl or some low-pitched thing on me because there would be an in-between...it wouldn't be the healer trying to cut through my bubble, but the sound vibrations (or likely how I'd feel it)...if that makes any sense. Sound is a super powerful thing for me. My soundscape has changed a lot in my music work lately but I can't say I even know what I need. Low vibrations (slower)....big gongs, conch shells and the sound of the "ocean", trying to recall the good sounds of my childhood (I internalize good sounds, not good images or feelings, but the sounds have affective qualities).

 

[Born to Run]

When I did Reiki level 1 course, I learned hand positions to do on yourself. These are extremely calming and balancing. IMHO you don't need a course to learn those hand positions. http://reikirays.com/1743/reiki-hand-positions-with-downloadable-pdf-chart/