General Do You Sometimes Feel "insignificant"?

[GWhizz]

I do salsa. While it's quite a sensual dancing style it's all just for fun. And I'm quite modest normally. My oh doesn't enjoy dancing as much as I do so I'm not going to be held back by him - his loss!

 

[Sweetpea76]

Being the strong one sucks @Lemontree ... you definitely need a little "me time," especially since you have small kids as well as a PTSD partner. You deserve to have your own identity and hobbies too. You can't just be "the caretaker" all the time without having things you do for yourself. Could you go with some girlfriends and take a zumba class, or maybe tap dancing lessons? Some type of dance that you can do without a partner?

 

[Friday]

LOL... I was the Troublemaker, I aimed for insignificant :D Spent most of my childhood dodging the spotlight. Quick! Duck! I was used to it, though, so I also was the one to dove in and distract adults from everyone else. My siblings, my friends, anytime anyone else was in trouble, I'd redirect it over my way. Baby brother being yelled at? Oops. Who put that vase there? Crash. Teachers about to send my friends to detention for the afternoon? Watch me stretch he blue side of my vocabulary until they were forgotten about & I was chilling in detention for a week. Someone beating up someone else? I can't imagine how my fist caught the underside of their jaw (never close fist a face). I didn't go looking for trouble. It just always sort of followed me about. But I also worked my ass off (started working, also, as a kid), and was always cheerful, and never took anyone being mad at me to heart. My friends and siblings would be heartbroken to be in trouble. Me? I got myself out of trouble far more than I got myself into it. Sigh. Not that I ever got any credit for that ;)

<grin> Another dancer, here. I described it to someone just earlier this week who claims they can't dance (pfft. I can fix that!) as "Exactly like sex, all about matching rhythms, & driving the energy up." So, yah, I quit dancing out when I was married, too! LOL. Except at home. Each and every single time I cleaned? Music up, dancing on. Danced with/for my husband back when we still got on. Danced with my kids in a non-sexual way (cause kids have different rhythms, not a sexual molecule in their bodies, therefore their rhythms are bright & pure & ecstatic... Unlike clubbing rhythms!), even the dog (ditto). Horseback riding is another kind of dancing/matching rhythms with no sex involved.

My PTSD loves clubs. They're a much needed break from overly acute senses: the blissful relaxation of sensory overload. Ahhhhh. But ***i*** love dancing. Many, many different kinds of dancing.

 

[Deleted member 28812]

I'm not sharing so you can tell me to deal with it. I'm telling you to try and get a little sympothy because in all honesty sometimes that is all I need.

Concur!!!!!

I told my parents about my husbands struggle with checklists. He believes that he always needs a checklist, he feels unsafe without and he believes he needs to wash his hands a certain way and if he does something wrong while washing them he needs to start all over. I shared this and they just told me that my hubby needs some real problems.
That are real problems. How real does a problem need to get until they recognize it?
My mother is softer and often empathizes but my father has a tough guy image and he likes to pretend our problems are only in our head. Now I tried to make clear to my father that hubby cannot just snatch out of this and then my dad started to believe that hubby must have some kind of inborn weakness and I must be strong and suck it up. He then told me to be gentle with him but only because he thinks he was born weak.

He likes to say that other people have it worse and I have no right to complain.

 

[holdenmonty]

That is tough. I was just thinking about the line that our problems are only in our head when there have been studies on people with PTSD and that people with PTSD on brain scans they can actually see the difference from our brain and something without PTSD's brain. I think it makes it that much tougher when a family member sympothize with you.

 

[illusionist]

Dancing?.....I've been known to dress myself up ( yep, like an old tart)....put the music on and dance like a lunatic on my own, behind closed doors. Far more fun imo as I can dance and dress as wildly as I want and not inflict any of it on anyone else....the thought has just put me in the mood!...where's my boob tube?

 

[Deleted member 28812]

My father does not get why he struggles with list. My husbands believes he needs a list and he needs to do certain things a certain way or we will be unsafe. My father likes to point out other people don't do the things and their families do not die but hubby feels singled out for misfortune so he needs the list so that he can be sure to remember all the things he needs to do to keep us safe.

My father does not get feeling like all the bad things will happen to him. It is sometimes difficult to get for me too but at least I try to understand.

Do you have a link to the brainscans?

 

[Deleted member 28812]

Dancing?.....I've been known to dress myself up ( yep, like an old tart)....put the music on and dance like a lunatic on my own, behind closed doors. Far more fun imo as I can dance and dress as wildly as I want and not inflict any of it on anyone else....the thought has just put me in the mood!...where's my boob tube?

*lol* Feel very much like doing this today.

 

[John7377]

I wouldn't agree with the going clubbing if your husband feels uncomfortable about it. I'm the one with PTSD due to two sexual assaults, one on me and one on my wife. My wife is a very attractive woman and I really don't care for the way that honky tonkers look at her and if I leave her side to use the rest room, the odds are that someone will think that she is by herself and ask her to dance. Thant would only set me off!!

So, we don't go clubbing and for the most part, she understands. We do belong to a dance club and we do go dancing, but that is a controlled environment. BTW, we are an older couple.