Clinging To Ptsd (and Totally Ashamed)

[Kzk]

I've been terrified of making this thread. But I have to. I've been thinking about this on a seemingly daily basis for weeks.

Seemingly suddenly, I've been having anxiety over the idea of working on my PTSD to the point where I am not symptomatic. I stopped essentially ignoring it fairly recently, and reaching out and looking for help again is just striking horror into my bones.

I think it all started when I started to realize dissociation was probably my biggest problem in terms of interfering with my functioning daily. I want to work on this, but then I started thinking about what life would be life if I didn't dissociate past the level of the normal population. And it just scared the shit out of me.

So I've been ruminating over how PTSD has basically been with me my whole life, and I just don't know how I would function if I were truly free of its symptoms.

It sounds crazy, I know. PTSD hates us. PTSD wants to bury us alive. Why the hell am I reacting with such anxiety to thinking about this? It just sounds completely off the wall.

But it's so true. This idea of living without PTSD actually scares me. Dissociation, you know, in a way it's been there for me, in a twisted way. Does that make sense? It has done some terrible things, but it's also allowed me to go on auto-pilot and just handle shit without me being present at all for it. It can be scary, but at the same time, it's like I rely on that as just a part of my functioning.

I've also thought about how PTSD really feels like a part of my identity. It has, for all practical purposes, been a part of my life forever. Sometimes I can't tell where I end and PTSD symptoms begin. It's just part of my reality.

I don't know if anyone here will identify with any of this, but it's confusing the shit out of me.

 

[Humuk]

Me even if its scary I wish to just get rid of it - I would be a nice person and always kind - not like a nerve twitch who get triggered with almost any kind of stress... I more like to wish to be In that position to just drop it down and Ben with a normal sense of fear I will be there... For me is more makes me sad to I can't be or sent and don't find it great when I. Autopilot... You miss out a lots of things... For me is more scary I can't get rid d of my t and is really annoying and destroying for your surroundings- like they have to tip toe all th time, because that can trigger you, but you neither respect them to be there when they are doing so much for you, instead oh I have a right to behave shitty with the others. Because of the PTSD... Hmmm

You not afraid to from the ptsd you are afraid to be yourself. To be who you are.is absolutely not related to ptsd other people who don't have that they afraid to be themselves and most of the people aren't.And if truly you are yours is frees you and you will fly- your was broken and you would like to brake your own words Wings???!? When you can grow it out? A lots of people can't fly and when we fly we fly more freely then anyone else. That's will be magic - I don't think magic should be rejected
What do you think of that?
And don't over analyse it just be without thinking which is you and what's not. I think is more scary because it's a hard job to be yourself and express what ever is in you, without regret.

 

[Goliha]

It's totally normal. I was the same when I first realised I'd got over my depression. I'd had depression for as long as I could remember. I didn't know who I was without it, how I was supposed to behave, what I was capable of. A part of me wanted it back because it was familiar, it was what I knew. The unknown was scarier. But at the same time I was determined nothing would ever take me back there again. Living without it was like seeing things totally new. It was scary. It was also amazing.

 

[Maju]

I wish to be there :(
I'm just struggling :( how you get to that point ??

 

[Ahaka]

I think it's very hard for people to understand who haven't experienced complex trauma. I think for adults who get PTSD it's different, they know what they've lost. When you have experienced trauma as a child you have no idea what's missing. It's impossible to imagine a life without.
I don't know I can give a great deal of advice to help you get over that fear. For me what worked was a lot of therapy. That and journaling everything that bothered me. And when I couldn't journal, drawing, scribbling, anything just to get that feeling out of me. If you have good friends, get support from them, even if it's just by spending time with them. If you can talk to them about any of it, even if it's just to say there's something you're trying to work out, do.
There's nothing shameful about the way you're feeling. Nothing at all.

 

[Luso]

The unknown is scary for a lot of people.

 

[Wora]

I believe in an 'authentic self' that is how we would be had the world not interfered. I think that having faith in that self as being good and kind and compassionate etc is exactly what we need to anchor to when healing. Building that self is part of the process.

 

[Olisaj]

Change is scary, even if it is overall a good change. You have nothing to be ashamed about. I think your feelings are perfectly understandable.

 

[Kzk]

I think it's very hard for people to understand who haven't experienced complex trauma. I think for adults who get PTSD it's different, they know what they've lost. When you have experienced trauma as a child you have no idea what's missing. It's impossible to imagine a life without.

That's the rub.

It's like I have some kind of PTSD stockholm syndrome (sorry if that similie offends people who have experienced stockholm syndrome). And seriously, I just can't imagine a world where I don't cope by dissociating. I don't even know what that would look like.

I could do without parts of PTSD, of course. Of course I hate my crazy sleep cycles and the nightmares and crushing depression etc.

But another thing that has always weighed on me is that my greatest times of depression and total derealization have been some of my most productive periods of life creatively. The dissonance that I feel is a perfectly rich space for my creativity to take off, because it's like in some ways my creativity originated, I think, from the need to dissociate and disconnect so early in life.

 

[Unin]

I must admit I'm kind of in the same boat but not to the full extent. I know how I was before my ptsd and in all honesty I don't really want to be who I was before ptsd. I was just another face in the crowd trying to not be noticed to much and never stood up for myself or for those I care about. Ptsd sucks even it causes me to over react to my family and have a hard time going to crowded places and the flashbacks I like who I am now better