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Growing up in a hoarder household has made me want to be neat at all times to feel in control. Too much stuff and I start to feel really anxious. I travel a lot for work and I love staying in hotels too.

Do you find when you see that rock or leaf in your pocket that it triggers the memory and time associated with it or is it just like - WTH is this thing?

I’ve found that running sometimes makes me feel anxious afterwards or the next day. I love it but it activates my flight parts and sometimes I dissociate during a good run. Don’t know if that is what’s happpening with you but thought I’d share in case it helps. Could be a medication side...

I love this idea of using tokens to refresh memory. I’m going to try it. I can see how once you develop a habit of recording - whether with photos or notes - that you would continue to record even if you are out of pocket.

How do you do self-hypnosis? Is it like meditation?

If you are in the US, as a teacher with a disability, under ADA, you should have a right to a reasonable accommodation which could include a reduced load. Your psychiatrist can give you a letter for this purpose. I have a relative who is a college instructor and he got a reduced teaching load...

I can't imagine ever writing a forgiveness letter to my abusers. I don't think they deserve it. I do think about writing a forgiveness letter to myself. I'm working toward self-compassion in small bits here and there. Its hard. It sound like you still have a lot of self-blame too. Maybe...

I think you are making a good decision. I hope the second visit goes well .

I have felt like this before. It hasn’t lasted for years but weeks for sure. Seems like doing something physical helped me breakthrough. One time after 2 weeks of just yuck numb, I got a shiatsu massage and started crying at end. Another time, yoga helped me get out of it but it took a while...

So does processing traumatic memories when you have DID mean that you are able to remember and feel at the same time without dissociating or switching? I am kind of struggling with this.

This has been my experience for sure. I’ve done yoga and Zen meditation for years and while it certainly has helped my adult self to be calm and clear headed, it has had no effect whatsoever on my parts. If they detected a threat, they would just push me out, no matter how enlightened or blissed...

I don’t think @grit is talking about integration, I think @grit is asking if it will be easier to talk about if you you reframe it and say “my” trauma instead of “her” trauma. They first time I changed those pronouns out loud in session I was really afraid but after, I felt really sad and...

This came up in therapy for me today actually. I was talking about this memory we had been working on that was partially better, I no longer felt intense fear or the sensation that my head was being pushed down but I still felt weird feelings “down there”. He said do you want to go to that spot...

Thank you for this. I've become aware that this flashback thing started when I was working on accepting that "I" not "her" was the victim of the pedophile. I have parts and this flashback felt like a warning of some kind from one of them, kind of like, if you go back there, you will feel like...

It was and still is very hard for me to accept that I blocked out these terrible incidents in my childhood. Some days I accept that all this stuff happened to me. Some days it feels like it happened to someone else. I don't have a clear diagnosis either. My T told me he thought all that DSM...

I have had similar experiences to everything you have listed here. When I started therapy I would have described myself exactly as you have. Now I know that these different parts of me were holding on to a whole lot of trauma. Have you talked about all of this with your T? Hope you are...

Maybe PTSD should be renamed Exploding Head Syndrome...

I’m sorry this therapist re- traumatized you with exposure. This happened to me too. I’m not sure why this type of treatment was ever thought to be effective. As Eve says, starting with coping skills and then moving to processing is the way to go now, it’s much gentler and supportive. Yoga...

Focusing on hope - this is good advice. Actually getting hospitalized got me out of the situation. While I was in the hospital I felt safe and started to feel hope for the first time. I think the thing that is bothering me the most about this flashback is the olfactory component. It cuts right...

So for the past two days I’ve been having an intrusive memory from a time in my adolescence when there was a lot of trauma going. I hadn’t had access to this time in my life previously so this I thought this meant I was more connected to my parts. While I was in therapy today talking about it...

I think your dad abused you. Do you have a therapist or other support? Are you safe or working on being safe?

I force myself to do one social thing a week. I'm anxious all day before I go, anxious during, and relieved after. Sometimes my social thing is just going to a drop-in group exercise or art class, sometimes I have lunch with a work colleague. That seems like enough to me but my T thinks I need...

This happens so often. My T thinks I should be less socially isolated and I keep putting myself out there even though its painful but once the tiniest threat is detected, wham, I become way too intense. I hadn't thought about having discussions afterwards with the parts about how to proceed when...

This is terrible - I am so sorry this happened to you. Do you have any support at home?

Ouch - you are right - I am overthinking this and trying to intellectualize and plan my emotional responses in some to-be-determined future as a way of trying to control it, as if that were ever effective. My anxiety is that I will get triggered, feel overwhelmed and react by dissociating or...