Community Social Events Drive Me Nuts!

[nycowboy]

Hi. Thought I'd post this here, because I need some insights from fellow sufferers. I have non-combat PTSD. I was bullied severely as a child. I felt very ostracized by my peers and this has left lasting mental and emotional scars. I'm territorial, hypervigilant, and afraid of anything (especially noise) from an unknown source.

Here where I live, winter is finally turning into spring. I hate the transition from winter to spring because it has been quiet and SAFE outside and now it will get noisier and brighter. I've posted that in other places.

What I am wondering about: with spring comes the onset of "festival" season - you know, this outdoor festival, this craft show, this parade. From now until the weather turns cold, it will be constant weekend festivities.

There is a St. Patrick's Day parade tomorrow. The weather isn't supposed to be the best, and I'm glad about that :( Yes, glad. Then other people won't be happy because the weather is yucky, their plans for a drunk-fest will be spoiled. Sometimes I used to actually pray that the weather for weekend festivals would be lousy so people would be miserable. Schadenfreud am I.

I hate feeling this way, and since I've been in therapy, the feelings have gotten less by quite a bit, but my good old nervous system still wants to keep me in bondage to my old ways.

Why do I feel this way about community events? If you have this same trouble, what do you do to help yourself through it?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Ignore them? Can you just go about your business or is it always right in your face?

 

[illusionist]

I moved to an area where I'm not in the thick of it. That was something I detested about living in towns...people and noise, which they are entitled to do, but didn't realise until I came out of it, just how badly I was affected by it. I used to close the Windows, put my headphones on, and be a miserable sod on my own. I spent a lot of years having low hearing....then when I had an op everything was obviously louder...so between Ptsd and hearing a world I wasn't used to...I really was a miserable so and so. Just got the soothing sounds of nature around me now....bliss!

 

[nycowboy]

I am learning to ignore them, but it is very very hard for me.

I WISH I had silence like you do, richter. I wish I didn't have neighbors, and I'm tired of being "a miserable sod" (love those words).

 

[nycowboy]

Solara: this parade is about 30 miles away, but it seems like every time you turn on the TV (or rather, my wife turns on the TV) we have blather about the BIG PARADE or the BIG FESTIVAL. GET OUTSIDE AND ENJOY IT. EVERY WEEKEND COUNTS.

I know, I know. Turn off the TV. I am learning to do that too, and just go about my business.

Maybe I just really resent media people (or anyone) telling me what to do. It's like STOP BEING MY ACTIVITY DIRECTOR already. It's like the book 1984.

 

[illusionist]

I'm totally with you on that one! I tend to look at people as following each other like sheep...the need to be doing what others are doing, even though some just go along with it, just because they feel they have to, not because their heart and soul are into it. I've heard many, over the years, relaying how they hate going to such and such a place but 10 years down the line they are still doing it...it frustrates me..I know it shouldn't as its their choice. Maybe feeling that I don't belong isn't such a bad thing.....I can opt in or out as I choose to...I feel no obligation to mix in social circles..which some feel trapped in...maybe the feeling of belonging is more important to them than it is to me...I feel free!

 

[nycowboy]

This is a very very good way of looking at it, richter. I can opt in or out if I choose. :) thanks!

 

[illusionist]

Yep weavingcowboy......there are positive points to being a miserable sod....we have a certain freedom that others don't have....and we can be true to ourselves in that respect.

 

[nycowboy]

Thanks for the profound thoughts! Really, I mean it. I never thought about it that way. I can CHOOSE to go to those things if I want, but I don't HAVE to, because I'm not someone who NEEDS to be where everyone else is or doing what EVERYONE (ha ha) is doing!

You made my day.

 

[nycowboy]

Well, I made it through the big St. Patty's parade. By all accounts at work it was a drunken haze. AND I DIDNT GO TO IT. And I didn't miss going to it!

 

[illusionist]

Good!....How did you find the noise?

0ops!....just remembered the event was miles away!

So did changing your thinking change how you thought about not going to it?

 

[nycowboy]

Yes it did. I was less stressed about it.
Of course, there was the inner voice going "you should find out about the parade. How many people are there are they drunk what are they doing why arent you there?"

But... I acknowledged it and then tried to move on. When the evening news came on and blabbed about the parade I went and did something else. It helped.