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Fear of getting crazy and feel like I am faking symptoms (maybe triggers, not sure)

Calmdown

New Here
I don't really know where to start because I am under stress since years. I need therapy since 3 years and I am still on a waiting list. The therapist assumed a trauma-related disorder with recommendation for trauma therapy and EMDR and I didn't even tell her everything. Some stuff is easier to talk about and not dangerous, just unpleasant like work related bullying I experienced for a year. There is more and I feel like I haven't processed anything that happened in childhood or after childhood. Some of that is "everyday" experiences like a horrible relationship with a woman that has BPD and tried to destroy me mentally, this was over 15 years ago! Therapies were superficial or damaging at worst. I made one good experience in a clinic that specialises on trauma therapy.

Now to the reason I made this post: A few weeks ago something triggered me and I don't really know why, I also had to cope with stuff a friend was telling me and then suddenly a name was triggering like it never did before. I was overwhelmed, tried to calm down and not feel like I overreact. But then I started laughing like crazy and then I cried. I was switching between laughing and crying again and again, like a maniac, the last years were just too much and then this god damn name.

I don't remember anything bad related to that name but I act like there was something and it is driving me nuts, I feel like I am making things up. When the name came up I had a sentence in my mind that I can't find a reason to of why the hell I had it in my mind, it was abuse related but nothing ever happened.

Then yesterday, and it mostly happens in the evening and night time, I had a picture of something disgusting in my head, but no memory or anything, just some sort of cut out picture of a disgusting thing.

The evening before that I heard a noise in the room and suddenly feared the name was coming for me and wanting to kill me, I knew rationally that it could not be true because the name is dead but I was anxious like hell.

When I was in the clinic 10 years ago I had the feel that the name was threaten me not to talk about anything, back then I thought it was just a part of my mind telling me that it is too much to handle for me, now I think more like I made it up.

The death was too much for me to handle as a child, now I can't explain the extreme emotional response and seem to begin to make stuff up as a way to fill gaps? I know that all of this sounds crazy, I can't stop thinking about it which sounds more like OCD to me. I know there is trauma related stuff but not like this. How do I stop this?
 
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I can't stop thinking about it which sounds more like OCD to me.
PTSD has that, too.

Whilst Avoidance (CritC) is a required symptom, and “Recurrent, involuntary, and intrusive distressing memories” is only 1 of 5 possible Intrusion Symptoms? (CritB) Intrusive thinking IS a symptom of PTSD. Just not a required one.

Similarly, people with OCD can also have PTSD. So it can also be both things. Or neither, and be something else, entirely.

Criterion C Avoidance
C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the traumatic event(s), beginning after the traumatic event(s) occurred, as evidence by one or both of the following:
  1. Avoidance of or efforts to avoid distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings about or closely associated with the traumatic event(s).
  2. Avoidance of or efforts to avoid external reminders (people, places, conversations, activities, objects, situations) that arouse distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings about or closely associated with the traumatic event(s). Ptsd diagnosis

Criterion B Intrusion Symptoms
B. Presence of one (or more) of the following intrusion symptoms associated with the traumatic event(s), beginning after the traumatic event(s) occurred:
  1. Recurrent, involuntary, and intrusive distressing memories of the traumatic event(s) Note: In children older than 6 years, repetitive play may occur in which themes or aspects of the traumatic event(s) are expressed.
  2. Recurrent distressing dreams in which the content and/or affect of the dream are related to the traumatic event(s). Note:In children, there may be frightening dreams without recognizable content.
  3. Dissociative reactions (e.g., flashbacks) in which the individual feels or acts as if the traumatic event(s) were recurring. (Such reactions may occur on a continuum, with the most extreme expression being a complete loss of awareness of present surroundings.) Note: In children, trauma-specific reenactment may occur in play.
  4. Intense or prolonged psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event(s).
  5. Marked physiological reactions to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event(s). Ptsd diagnosis
 
hello calmdown. welcome to the forum. sorry for what brings you here, but glad you are here.
I don't remember anything bad related to that name but I act like there was something and it is driving me nuts, I feel like I am making things up.
i self-gaslight with discouraging ease. in my own case, this occurs when i am repressing memories and/or emotions and rewrite the event with more acceptable details, bit by bit, at a pace so slow and subtle that i don't notice the changes. it is not a lie. it is more of a propagandized evolution. bullying myself only snarls the facts further. when i catch myself self-gaslighting, i work to do nothing more than observe and see where the untangling leads me. emphasis on "work." doing nothing is the hardest work you can ask me to do.
Therapies were superficial or damaging at worst.
i try not to judge too quickly. all to often, therapies which feel superficial when i am introduced to them have the longest term benefits and they work when i work them. breathing techniques and the like really do work when i work them. equally, therapies which feel damaging in the early going prove to provide the most healing mojo. it hurts to disinfect deeply infected wounds.
I can't explain the extreme emotional response and seem to begin to make stuff up as a way to fill gaps?
self-gaslighting. be gentle with yourself and patient with the process.
I can't stop thinking about it which sounds more like OCD to me.
i have undergone therapy for both intrusive thoughts and OCD. in my case, the two are deeply connected, but they are, arguably, not quite the same thing. i believe my personal cycle goes, "can't stop thinking about ^it^ --- intrusive thoughts --- OCD. just believing. the debate rages.
How do I stop this?
let me know if you find a cure. i haven't, but i'm doing much better since i shifted the focus from finding a cure to managing my symptoms.

but that is me and every case is unique.

steadying support while you sort your own case. welcome aboard.
 
It does get easier.

Sometimes what sets this off doesn't make total sense in the moment and that in itself can be really scary and destabilising.

What usually helps to ground you?

The fear, the distress are things from the past. And trying to believe that the threat isn't in the 'here and now' is a really really hard thing to conquer. But it is possible to. And then, it does get easier.

Like you say, you logically know that the person with the name isn't able to hurt you now. But your mind and body can't compute that as it's triggered. Connecting within yourself will help.
What would help me is speaking out loud like "I'm ok, I'm safe". Just hearing my adult voice helped me to connect to present day, rather than me being a child in the past.

How do you stop it? Unfortunately, my experience is repressed trauma that we have stored away for years/decades has a horrible way of coming out like this: tumbling out in difficult ways. Fighting it, trying to stuff it back in and make it go away, (a trick I think everyone on this forum has tried!) only makes the process longer and harder.
Something has stirred up, and it's working out how to make sense of it, heal from it.

It can all get better. This is a very tough part.
 
I think I need to wait until therapy finally starts to really understand what is happening.

@arfie This really helped me, they keyword is to observe and I will try to do that without overthinking.
I have very mild ADHD and since yesterday I take a very low dose of extended-release Methylphenidate again. It helps, my mood is better and the evening is better too, however this medication also has downsides, I think it makes more suspectible for potential triggers, but the days without medication were definitely worse.
Regarding my therapies: I had really bad luck and this plays a role in my current condition, one Psychoanalyst just insulted me and made me feel like crap, the behavioral therapies were superficial without any of techniques or whatever but I know that there are also good therapists like I experienced in the clinic back then. I think it really helps if a therapist is experienced with trauma and doesn't just use his neuroses know-how.
Thanks for taking the time to help.
 
@Movingforward10 Music helps, people can help too but that is also a problem because I am the one who helps others, nobody I know is really stable enough to help me. I really don't know what else could help me but I will think about it. I will try speaking it out loud but this is a hard one.

I really don't know what this is and strangely some days I feel like everything is like ever and it was just a short period of overthinking or making things up, but the emotional outbreak I had was real, that is the only thing I really now. I think the last years and then on top of that not getting help lead to this and I really wish I could just forget about the last weeks and go on but somehow even with all the denying I know that there is something that I really fear that I need to work on.
It is strange, I felt like I could withstand so much, be there for others and still go on and then suddenly I feel like I break apart, and now I am overthinking again while writing this, so I just stop here. Thanks for the insight.
 
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