Fawk. With Memories Come Loss Of Mere Annoyances And Enter Triggers?

[Ocin]

Ok so this whole thing is a work in progress.
I went from "I can't feel my nipples, how could breastfeeding trigger anyone" (through 3 kids and collectively ~10 yr nursing) to my god I want my husband to twist them to help me take them back from the family members who touched me before I had tits to "Dear, get your hands off me! Sorry, I know I asked you to twist them three days ago but now I am gonna head butt you if you keep it up!".
Spring break.
Non-offending but enabling parents avoiding me since I started to discuss this whole mess.
Renting beach house w husband n kids.
Curiously UTIs that arose when in early childhood and reappeared in college have once again popped up. (Current partner not college partner.) Had to drive 35 min to rural community clinic since I woke up peeing blood today. On abx, feeling better. Did a good job asserting self to spouse around health/work/childcare ish.
Hubby runs to store for treat-- gets ice cream and I hear my perpetrator family member in my head with his quote about ice cream. Wanna puke.
No thanks. Before I was like I don't dig icecream but it's cool. Now I feel like really opinionated and aggro.
So different. I wonder, does this stuff soften over time after the recollection?

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I wonder, does this stuff soften over time after the recollection?

Ummm, nope, not for me. Sorry, wish I could say yep but I move in and out of emotional spaces lile this in a matter of hrs or mins let alone days.

Things generally get worse before they get better. There is a lot of truth in that.

 

[Deleted member 37474]

I am especially worried about the worse before better thing because the flashbacks are as bad as they need to be. I still don't know what happened to my neck, I know something did, I can't allow anything/anyone to touch it, I just want therapy to fix it all without extra pain.

 

[Friday]

For myself -with the things I haven't processed- it's been pretty cyclical. Sometimes things are wicked hard, sometimes they're pfft! No worries. How long those sometimes last? Varies.

The parts of my trauma history I've actually sorted? Don't do that. A bad memory is just that. It doesn't take over my life, or my now, or my next week, or show up all unexpected visitor with bags packed for the duration (go away). It's very much like my non-trauma stuff. Pick a happy and an icky memory totally unrelated to trauma. Notice how you might get a little glow, or a little eeeeew yuck... And then nothing? It's like that.

 

[BlueOrange]

Does it soften over time?

It does, once you've learned how to get it to soften. (For non-PTSD people, they seem to have this automatically.)

The trick is to avoid 'chasing it away'. Rather than thinking of something else, or minimizing it, or being upset that you're having the memory, you allow the memory to happen.

It seems like your husband is pretty cool; when you say "No twisting!" He stops twisting, but doesn't stop loving you. It's an example worth following.

If you take the return of these memories as a signal that means "I want kindness from myself," then that's probably the best way to train yourself to get them to fade.