Research A Very Interesting And Cool Explanation Of Ptsd

[scot]

@greenleaf I love your computer model. I guess whatever works is perfect. As you said, we can best understand and relate to concepts we (already) know. I actually don't have a real problem with "insured" and "healing", I just can't connect to them. They drive me nuts. Wait - better, dissociation, compartmentalizing, tell me something about it.... Maybe I can't connect because its the science guy that keeps me functional and pushes forward the "healing", ups, did I just use that word.... While the injured guy is still so mad, angry, stubborn and completely refuses to even try giving human goodness and trust another chance in his pain. Whenever hearing the word "healing" and "injury" he freaks totally out (the science guy doesn't even know why because the stubborn idiot either refuses or can't even tell), attempts to take over, and wildly screams at the science guy to shut up and makes his life really hard.... In the past I got really upset because I did get to hear these words in therapy way too often and then the science guy "screams" at the therapist or doctor (loud less) why in the wold helping this stubborn idiot to spoil everything instead of helping me being constructive and keeping things together. The science guy by the way can fully understand the stubborn idiot. Its sort of a very strange relationship. Its a very gentle, love you, care for you, got your back relationship, patiently waiting for the stubborn idiot to come around, who doesn't mind being called that way because he knows its rather meant to be lovingly sarcastic, says sorry, but emotionally just can't get over these things. I just never thought about that this way up to this moment.

Sorry for babbling this out loud. I am not kidding. Don't ask me how I got there, I don't even know...:) I am not drunk....
There is another one of these concepts, but I can't find it right now, its somewhere else in my brain - currently no access.

 

[greenleaf]

@scot -- those are wonderful insights, I know you're not drunk! I've been having possibly similar experiences here and there since I started reading about (secondary dissociation) last winter. Having a cognitive-level "model" that "feels" right to the other level(s) is amazingly helpful! I think it is helping me coordinate these levels and they can work together better. The insights aren't common but they seem powerful when they occur. My T suggested journaling to record these so I don't have to remember everything constantly, you might try that?

I've been starting to understand cognitively that certain modes of feeling that I've had sporadically, like, as long as I can remember, are associated with certain time periods in my life. That's helpful in allowing the adult cognitive abilities to help with little bits of the emotional part's issues. It's just little bits at a time for me.

I totally get the "somewhere else in brain, currently no access" part too. Sometimes the concept can feel really emotionally important but there is no verbal access or even image available. Frustrating. I sit there sometimes and try to let something crystallize. My analogy for that has become: trying to hold your two arms in front of you and get your fingertips to meet... only whatever you do, they go right past each other -- the two hands are both "yours" or "part of you" (the internal parts are all "me") but, well,...

My best access to these areas has turned out to be with massage and some physical therapy work; parts that are frozen seem attached in small ways to particular numb, chronically tight shoulder and neck muscles for me, and work on those physical areas sometimes is getting whole contexts of childhood to pop into my head. Not horrible flashbacks at this point anyhow, just emotional contexts and pieces of what was generally going on. Do you have any physical issues that seem connected, @scot?

I hadn't had many memories at all for most of my childhood for decades, so I'm actually really glad to be getting some of this back. Not all was bad but all was cut off. Not being afraid (most of the time anyhow) of it helps a lot. Serious yay for good therapists and books and researchers.

My sense is that I'm working at getting comfortable with how I felt back then, whatever feelings about the abuse that was going on -- and I have a pretty emotion-free mental narrative of some of the events that I've kept all along, that was helpful for safety during childhood -- might be a bit scarier, probably not safe yet... maybe anything bad will go away, and I can go for a nice ice cream? :whistling:

 

[greenleaf]

Sorry, little internet glitch, double post...

 

[scot]

@greenleaf. Thank you for your words, they feel really good. Well, with physical symptoms, not that way, but I sometimes seem to loose track of my body outline... I run into things like door frames (which nobody should miss) because my auto-drive seem to think by body outline is kind of either next or within me, its actually sort of even funny. When I am completely stressed out I tend to fall over, can't move or speak, and don't know any more where to find my arms and legs and whatever else there is. At times I actually access my mental stage according to how banged up I am, ranging from not at all to I can't let a doctor see that because they might think I either intentionally hurt myself or got into a fight.

The writing down is a nice suggestion. I never done that because I am sort of afraid of having it written down on paper, makes it too real.
I was actually surprised about myself having the guts to post that....:)

My PTSD got kicked off about 15 years ago (domestic violence, sort of a live and death situation). I am actually doing quite OK considering everything, but yet have to find a good therapist maybe because I am kind of strange or something is wrong there anyhow.

I know that I had trouble before that, but I never was consciously fully aware of/acknowledged/addressed that until after I totally crashed 15 years ago and doctors and therapists started to ask (for me anyhow) very strange and quite uncomfortable and upsetting questions because I somehow knew that the answers would be sort of bright red frags. And there you go, when I talk about what I remember from my childhood until the age of 6 (nearly nothing) and thereafter, it all sounds like a very strange puzzle where the pieced don't seem to belong/fit together. I had a good home and was not abused at least not that I remember. However, I have to commit that I have very upsetting and confusing memories such as for instance, at one point (in my teen years) I was standing in front of the house I was living in until the age of 6, and was damn shocked because I knew that this was my home once, but the house felt totally foreign like I was never there. The same day I got totally upset about my relatives (they were living in the same apartment where I lived) because they looked at me really strange and thought I was kidding when I didn't know where the bathroom was. There are more stories like that. Some seemingly more pointing toward what might have happened than others. At this point I think I likely will never find out what happened, maybe that is good and to me it feels like this part begs me to very gently, calmly, and lovingly let it rest in peace. However, figuratively speaking, I have to somehow find a way so that this "stubborn idiot" eventually let me tend his "injuries".....Yes, and this does somehow feel like a part of my very early childhood and like an emotional window in time. Maybe something in the vicinity of: how to you approach a very badly hurt and confused toddler who completely gave up on trusting stupid adults? Don't ask me why I use HE/HIM, I don't know why, it just always feels better in my head, though I am a very feminine woman.

 

[anthony]

My question is: how can one treat something of which you don't know how it works on a biological level?

Because the experts don't really know exactly what PTSD is or how it functions in the brain. The best they have is that its within the pre-frontal cortex... beyond that... until they can literally be measuring people during real trauma, and then beyond, literally seeing their brain change, they won't know exactly what goes wrong, or where specifically.