Triggered By... Well, Life

[sun seeker]

I can't decide whether this should be here, or in the anxiety forum.

I don't get how a person is supposed to get on with life while dealing with this condition. Every molehill feels like a mountain. Figuring out simple things seems monumental, and more complicated stuff triggers me to high heaven. I'm facing a few things like that now. Things that, I think, to a normal person would involve some reflection and research, but to me, make me feel like it's the end of the world or something. I was triggered badly today by a friend's helpful suggestion about one of these. Sigh. I have a support system, but they don't get what this is like.

It feels like I need a babysitter to negotiate the details of life. I'm doing okay now at routine stuff like grocery shopping, but anything much beyond that feels like I need to don protective gear and prepare for a trip into outer space. And there is no one in my life right now who gets that. (Well, my therapist would, if I explained it... but no one in my immediate life right at this moment.) And then I feel shame at needing so much help. I seem pretty functional if the demands are kept low, so people don't realize how little it takes to send me over the edge.

How in the world do other people without supportive families do this? I was trying to think things through a few days ago and came to some tentative decisions about a few things, one of which was to ask someone for advice, which I did, but then found I was badly triggered just by doing that. Arrghh.

 

[sun seeker]

And I am feeling like something bad will happen because I posted this. I think I really am not doing very well.

 

[anthony]

Figuring out simple things seems monumental

Correct. This is why you must approach PTSD with the baby steps view. You break everything down into as many pieces as you can, then you pick one and conquer it, fix it, do whatever it is you need so that one issue is no longer an issue. Now move onto the next. Rinse and repeat.

You find yourself then having conquered many smaller issues which make-up a larger initial problem. Then move onwards.

Otherwise you find exactly this... things are just too large, you do nothing because you feel defeated before beginning, and well... nothing gets better.

I remember when I started my trauma journey and worked this out. I ended up with a list pages long, across many columns. Very slowly I worked on one thing at a time. Worse, I found myself adding constantly to it. Before I knew it though, I was a page down. Further issues become non-existent due to fixing something else. Whilst I still added to the pages, I started speeding up to get through little aspect by little aspect, all compounding to larger issues.

Years later... a lot of work was done that just felt completely overwhelming otherwise when I tried to view an issue.

 

[Nevermore]

)-: I can really relate to this! Or definitely a few years ago tjis pretty much describes how I felt.
It does get easier!!! I had one friend who pretty much saved me though she probably doesn't know that. She is a Buddhist and we used to - and still do - have long philosophical conversations that always calmed me and made me feel ok about needing so much time alone, and about my fears of other people.
But it was a loooong lonely and difficult time - out of which though I learned more than I ever had before - about myself, my own needs. And about the world.
I think it is a long slow process of rebuilding when you've fallen apart so badly. One that requires a lot of patience and kindness with yourself!
Other people's advice never worked for me. It was when I started listening to my own self that I started to feel stronger. It felt good to trust myself again and it paid off as I always knew what helped and what hurt, but thought I was wrong in some way.
I too felt shame of my own neediness and kept as much of it to myself as I could. I didn't want others taking over my life and tbh I found it hard to trust anyone so exposing how needy I felt was too scary for me.
Be kind to yourself always and be patient with yourself!! One step at a time as the song says!
(-: I just read ur second post as I was about to discard this one. I have the same feeling every time I post here...
Crazy! So I'm a lot better but still not totally there! Wishing you strength and self belief. Thanks for posting. I so relate!!

 

[Chava]

I don't have a supportive family and haven't lived with anyone for many years (decades now?). But the nature of my dysfunctional childhood made me independent to a fault. I also have survived on a sort of auto-pilot and automaton version of myself. So as I try to end the mad blur, integrate stuff, and have feelings, it feels more often like reality-how-I-liked-it has crumbled.

That being said, when I'm overwhelmed I just focus on one thing at a time and keep it basic. I do fall into thinking in terms of all of time (past-present-future all globbed together) and my therapist has kindly pointed some of that thinking out. So anything I can do to just focus on the present and the thing I can do right now, helps a lot. It's not the whole future and it's not everything. The present is usually fairly tolerable, but it's hard to get there! :meh::alien:

 

[sun seeker]

You break everything down into as many pieces as you can, then you pick one and conquer it, fix it, do whatever it is you need so that one issue is no longer an issue. Now move onto the next. Rinse and repeat.

I find myself wanting to protest "Yes, but... " But it's an emotional reaction, and some of the steps need to be about dealing with the emotional reactions step by step. First step: figure out and write down what to do next time it gets this bad. I'm off to work on that one. Thank you everyone for your replies.

 

[Friday]

How in the world do other people without supportive families do this?

Honestly, it was easier when I was on my own / without my family around.

Hungry? Catch a fish. That takes a few days in the beginning. Have to work out how to get hooks & a line & a net. Make them. Barter for them. Steal them. Sleeping hungry a few times though is a good motivator. Pretty soon, though, got the lines tied the night before so there's usually fish in the morning :) And you've got the knife to skin it, and coals banked, and good to go. What took a few days? Is something you've got set up to be available -almost- whenever wanted. From days of effort, to hours & minutes of effort, to effortless.

And everything is like that. There's a need/want, and you go about getting it done. No clocks. It happens when it can. It happens over and over. It becomes less of a thing, no longer a problem to solve, and is replaced by other things that need solving.

This is a problem? Or that is? Okay. Start working towards solving it. Want problems built on top of weeks/months of solving need problems. Same problems, same solutions. Same process, rather. Whether it's a need (food, water, shelter) to a want (blending in crowds, making a phone call, renting an apartment, sorting a trigger, sleeping at a certain time & place, working, filling out a form, etc.).

^^^ Was my first tailspin. At my absolute worst. Removed from the world. Gone more than a bit feral. From that... To the whole 9 yards of white picket fence, marriage, kid, dog, work, school, vacations, "normal" life. About a zillion steps in between survival and living.

It's a f*ckload harder trying to start in the middle! :wtf: Can't even tell you the number of times I've almost walked away from my life this past year to start from scratch. But despite other people's expectations (of what I "should" be doing / be able to do), and worse my own, I haven't, yet. I'm backsliding a lot more in a lot of ways. I'm afraid this way may end up taking longer than starting from scratch did. But my life is different, now. There are people in my life I have not been able to walk away from. Even if I'm a gimping mess. Little piece, by little piece. Same process: whichever is bothering me the most at the moment? I start chipping away at. Huge effort. To tolerable effort. To effortless. To the next problem. Huge effort, tolerable effort, effortless. :)

 

[Chava]

Can you tell if you are stressed more by the multiple little demands of daily living, like all the tasks, or the idea of not having a helper? I say that because I know feeling "alone" with all of it can be overwhelming in itself (though I tend to notice this for myself once I'm in an emergency situation and feel like I've created no good connections...I don't know who/how to reach out). If in any way these things are tangled together, I wonder if it would help to separate them out in your mind...like acknowledge the alone fears, but also note that you can probably do many things on your own if you break it down and don't let yourself get sucked into seeing too much altogether. Not sure if this makes sense. ?

 

[Born to Run]

Yes, I relate to this too. To me it is the reliving of the total helplessness of the very young child that has no one. A few months ago I almost drowned in this state, and it is hard without real supporters, who really understand. I felt I was capable of nothing; grocery shop and therapist was all I managed. When I even thought of something that I had to take care of I drowned with 'I can't' inside, I was totally dysfunctional. Now 2-3 months later I am very slowly regaining my power, and it was the most devastating period of my life, totally fallen apart to the state I was in a couple of months old after the biggest trauma. It is the most lonely time ever, but remember this chaos will lead to transformation. It will, you will get through this and find your own power.
I really like @jojo88 's post, as I too had this shame of being so helpless, and again the inability to ask for help as the trust had been so badly broken in the past. It is spot on that this is the period where you can start listening to yourself, it is rebuilding of a life that has been hijacked for so long.

 

[Chava]

To me it is the reliving of the total helplessness of the very young child that has no one. A few months ago I almost drowned in this state

And that's kind of what I think I'm trying to get at too. My recognition of even needing or wanting others for support is nearly non-existent. But I relate to feelings of powerlessness and immobilization that are not well-suited to current reality. My therapist has helped me sort out some of the powerlessness and not getting trapped by the past, but recognizing what I can do now. From a really powerless state, sometimes I have to find the weirdest thing to either ground me or bring me back to life, so to speak. I could force myself to clean the floors, sure, but it would be painful, like dragging a dead self attached to me....or like I'm fighting the immobilization with all of my energy.

I'm not sure if this makes much sense, how I'm trying to say it. For me the early stuff is about powerlessness and immobility. Whatever I can do to clue my body back into the present reality of mobility and power is helpful. Usually it's music or sound, because from an immobile place I can still do something with that internally. It is good for regulating and pulling me out of where I'm stuck.

But anyway, if you can sort out some of the pieces that overwhelm you, I wonder if that might help. Is it the to-do stuff, or is it really more about feeling alone or feeling powerless on your own? And how you could make tiny steps to change the info that is being generated that way? Even good friends can't take care of us all the time, but honoring where that might come from and what that means for you, and how you can still meet your needs (maybe between a combination of tapping into your own power in do-able ways and also finding out when/how/who to reach out to). ??

 

[sun seeker]

To me it is the reliving of the total helplessness of the very young child that has no one.

Yes. That. Exactly that. And feeling shame at needing so much help when there are other trauma survivors who go the other way and become super independent. When I was so badly triggered yesterday I went into one of my somatic reactions that goes back to infancy. And no matter how much I try to explain this to the people who are trying to support me, they don't get what I mean. Thank you, that's it precisely. And some other things. Someone's at the door, I have to go.

 

[Chava]

And feeling shame at needing so much help when there are other trauma survivors who go the other way and become super independent.

Well I'm not shaming you. You're shaming you. But I should have stayed out of this one. Don't want to trigger anyone.