Frustrated With Regression

[Deleted member 18673]

It seems I conquer an issue and then several months later it starts up all over again and I'm back to square one.

Currently I'm having incredible difficulty leaving my house for any reason and I keep missing my therapy appointments because of this.

My anxiety is three-fold: my safe-zone is my apartment and the thought of leaving it makes me anxious, even if it's just to take the garbage out.

Two, having to be somewhere at a certain time panics me because of my issues with expectation and obligation, as well as the fact I grew up in a military family where there were enormous consequences for coming home ONE MINUTE late. And I mean that absolutely literally. 60 f*cking seconds.

But the third thing that's really getting in my way is fear of the cold. My mother used to lock me outside without a jacket in the middle of a Canadian winter and wouldn't let me in until my lips were blue. That's just one example of the many instances of her using the cold to abuse me, and I've had fullblown hypothermia six times as well as frostbite and watched a younger sibling get such bad frostbite their toes turned black. I'm terrified of the cold, and each winter I face that fear and conquer it, and then the next winter I start at square zero and have to conquer the fear all over again. And the stupid thing is that lately it's been unseasonably warm here for a Canadian January and yet I'm still terrified to have to wait at the bus stop in the cold or walk for half an hour to get to my therapist.

Why do I have to keep overcoming the same issue again and again and start from scratch every winter? Why can't I just get over it once and for all? It's that way with me about EVERYTHING. I'll face a fear and do well for awhile and then it just becomes overwhelming again.

Exposure therapy doesn't have permanent results for me, it works for awhile and then stops working and I have to start all over again and I feel so pathetic and frustrated and I feel like I'm running out of the energy and willpower to keep facing these same things again and again without any permanent gains.

 

[franciemarnie]

One way of looking at it is that the original wound hasn't healed.

Could you have phone sessions with your T for now? That's what I did when for various reasons ("It's not safe out there!"), I wouldn't leave my apartment.

 

[Deleted member 18673]

I'm going to have to ask if I can do that (phone sessions), it would sure make things a lot easier.

The next question is, how to heal the original wound?

 

[digger]

I was going to suggest phone or Skype sessions too in the meantime if you are comfortable with that and hopefully that will enable you to continue working towards healing the original wound.

 

[franciemarnie]

@conquer - That's the big question, isn't it? How to heal the original wound so we're not living a life simply dealing with all the "infections".

Some people say it can't be healed. Maybe - but I will keep trying to find a way. I feel I have experienced healing of certain areas, but it would be nice if it were possible to heal the wound everything reverberates from.

They say the limbic brain becomes injured. A great abstract I read on this is called: PTSD - What Happens In the Brain by Howard and Crandall MD. Google this if you're interested.

But how to heal that?

I have read also by a PhD who became a shaman named Villoldo (sp) that if the original trauma can be felt and released, we're clear, but I haven't come across anyone who has had it removed. Perhaps that can happen. The closest I come is Somatic Release but I can feel the original trauma hasn't been released yet. I remember it's aftermath but have a blank on what happened.

Even if released, can the brain return to normal? I don't know. We have to find our paradigm, what works for us.

 

[HFA_Cat]

Bless your heart. Can you move --- say, to Florida? Or anywhere that doesn't get cold? PTSD is bad enough without living with a trigger that happens yearly and lasts for months. You poor thing.