How Do Others Piece Together The Jigsaw Of Trauma?

[Girl3]

What you did was unbelievably brave and great - just going there despite the dread - is incredible. I wouldn't have been able to - I either come up with some excuse and don't go or I find someone to get me there. I can't go places like that alone - especially at night. I am utterly in awe. Bravo - and of course it was draining - it was an act of vigorously battering down, keeping back whatever that horrible thing welling up was trying to stifle you.

Remember - you DID something. Nothing bad happened. Next time it will be easier.

 

[Abelabelabel]

What you did was unbelievably brave and great - just going there despite the dread - is incredible. I wouldn't have been able to - I either come up with some excuse and don't go or I find someone to get me there. I can't go places like that alone - especially at night. I am utterly in awe. Bravo - and of course it was draining - it was an act of vigorously battering down, keeping back whatever that horrible thing welling up was trying to stifle you.

Remember - you DID something. Nothing bad happened. Next time it will be easier.

It's my experience that you cannot prepare yourself for those feelings to suddenly come up and overwhelm you.
You can only observe them like you did, and accept it for now.
Maybe there will come a point in time, where you will know how to constructively respond to the first signs of this loop you're in while going out and meeting people.
It starts with one trigger, and then rapidly winds up and up untill you feel the way you did. Inadequate, ashamed, guilty, uncomfortable, and so on.
You are already doing a great job by keeping your head clear and analyzing whats happening, thats all you can do for now. You are learning about yourself and your triggers and the patterns they follow, in a major way!

Thanks for the comments! Here's the thing: I go out pretty regularly. Just as early as this past weekend I was out and about with friends, and alone, to meet up with people. For halloween. I spent a couple of days making a Halloween costume, we tend to go all out. I was a piece of bacon. So the spotlight tended to be on me most of the time when we were out. I felt calm, silly, and mostly in control for most of the weekend. It was nice. I didn't crumble to pieces, or get super anxious. It wasn't magical though. I had a couple of questionable run ins. . . one drunk guy seemed like he wanted to start a fight, and I may have said the wrong thing to some girls. But it was no big deal. No crazy triggers. I felt mostly in control. And had a good time. And felt good about myself.

One week later, I go out alone again (no costume) and I get the wind knocked out of me. I can't tell if the positive experiences I have just don't "stick." Or if there are triggers I don't understand yet that suck me - fast - in to such a draining, miserable, loopy state. It was a rude reminder. But yeah, I don't know what else to do other than to accept it for what it is, and hope that I can connect the dots looking back. I can honestly say I don't know if I have the strength to keep at it this way though.

 

[Sterre]

.... I can't tell if the positive experiences I have just don't "stick.".... .

Recently I read an article that made much sense to me. It was an article about complex trauma in wich the researchers described how the Traumatic brain was different from the "normal"brain.
They wrote something like this:
The traumatic brain is focussed on survival, hence the alertness, hypervigilance, and such. The "normal" brain is more foccussed on living and learning, aka a learning brain, instead of surviving.
The traumatic brain is wired to survival instead of learning. The traumatic brain is very good in recognizing potential dangerous situation for instance, because it is wired that way. That means that there is not much activity left for learning from experiences. It is more likely that a traumatic brain will learn and proces/ recongnize negative experiences instead of learning from positive experiences. Also they stated thst the traumatic brain has much more difficulty processing and generating positive feelings and experiences than negative ones.

It made sense to me, its sad but I think there is some logic in the things the article stated. I struggle very much with the notion that I can remeber and learn from negative experiences,and the positive ones just dont seem to stick.It is as if they dont make in impression/imprint in my brain.So I could relate to the content of the article.

( this is how I interpreted the article, I can not find it back, so there is a possibility that I wrote the summary not completely as the article was stated)

 

[jewel]

I am almost four years into my trauma. Mine was a multi car collision that left me disabled. I am just trying to understand what happened during the four hours in I was trapped in 27 degrees. I don't remember a lot of it. Piecing it all together is a scary thought for me. I don't know if I am ready to feel all the raw emotions. Any suggestions on how to move through this process effectively and with not so much emotional pain?

 

[shadowchaser]

Well how I go about trying to sort it all out is writing. I have multiple journals around my house. Any time I remember anything no matter how small I write it down. And not just the bad. The good memories are even more important.

 

[gigi2690]

I am almost four years into my trauma. Mine was a multi car collision that left me disabled. I am just trying to understand what happened during the four hours in I was trapped in 27 degrees. I don't remember a lot of it. Piecing it all together is a scary thought for me. I don't know if I am ready to feel all the raw emotions. Any suggestions on how to move through this process effectively and with not so much emotional pain?

I personally find it helps to determine things that relax you, a song, a scent, a thought. For example - when I write my poetry and thoughts about my trauma I usually do it with candles, lavender incense, a playlist of soothing songs, and usually in the early evening (my favourite time of day). Do everything you can to make it as comfortable as possible. I find it helps to set when I think about the trauma in a controlled and distinct atmosphere. This way I don't find myself thinking about it at inopportune times- unless I'm triggered.

Hope this helps,
gigi

 

[ms spock]

Rough night.

Was feeling anxious for a good half of the day, and could not pin down what was triggering it, and could not stop the flow of negative thoughts all day. By the time I got to the show I wanted to crawl under a rock, and saw several people I knew. Instead of feeling releived and happy to see farmiliar faces I dreaded interacting with these people seeing only humiliation, rejection, and hopelessness. Why are all these feelings so intense?

Because the adrenlin from your reptilian brain is flooding your nervous system?

 

[ms spock]

On the one hand I was so spaced out I could barely form a sentence. On the other hand, I had put in the time and effort to drive out to the show to check things out. I was so "checked out" by the time I got there I couldn't feel anything but miserable and a million miles away from the experience I was having. I was so distracted when interacting with people, and so knocked off my feet by who knows what triggers, a night of checking out music and seeing people I knew turned in to a sort of personal hell.

I had a day a bit like this yesterday. It was not fun.

People might have noticed but then again they might not have noticed. Loud music and lots of people generally tend to filter most things out.

 

[ms spock]

Abelabelabel,
Wow, I 'm so impressed by the way you are able to describe the proces that goes on internally!

You ask "' How can anyone prepare for this?'

You are already diong a great job by keeping your head clear and analising whats happening, thats all you can do for now. You are learning about yourself and your triggers and the patterns they follow, in a major way!

You cannot prepare untill you learn to recognize, and you can only learn to recognize by getting caught up in situations like this.

And sometimes you'll just have to accept that this is how you are wired sometimes, and not blame yourself for it.

So if you accept that any human gets it right about 50% of the time that is a realistic way of looking at it.

I have found the buddhist mindfullness body scans helpful though I completely forgot about that yestersday.

Focussing on breathing and rubbing your on feet can be grounding. You need to practice, experiment to find out what works for you. As we are all different, what works for me might not be helpful to you and so on and so forth.

For me, it is practice, practice, practice, practice. Some days I get somewhere and it feels like the day is done for all the amount of energy it took to get there.

I am not as insightful as you in noticing your process but I am gaining experience and insight as time goes on.

I think the accepting that this is how you are wired sometimes is important and not blaming yourself on top of that is important. I must say I haven't got there yet.

This is really close to the bone stuff for me I am struggling with focussing, thinking and fighting of the deep and abiding desire to have a nap or fall asleep at the computer.
ms spock

 

[ms spock]

Writing this post took so much out of me that I actually went for a nap afterwards.

I would say pathetic but I am trying to focus on that even typing this out is a big step for me.
ms spock

 

[Abelabelabel]

Writing this post took so much out of me that I actually went for a nap afterwards.

I would say pathetic but I am trying to focus on that even typing this out is a big step for me.
ms spock

Wow. One of the things that this particular thread has helped me with is a reminder that my own personal experience is similar to others. For a long time I've known that there were some very unusual "barriers" that I was forced to deal with that others didn't seem to have. I knew it in my gut. I do get along pretty well a lot of the time, but the struggles I have are a very deep and fundamental part of who I am. Knowing that there are others that have similar personal struggles, that are most definitely not PATHETIC, or WEIRD or LAZY or TOO SENSITIVE or whatever negative view we might have had of ourselves over the many years.
Knowing that I'm not alone. That there might not actually be something that I'm doing wrong afterall. That I'm not the only person that "coping" or "dealing" with this particular type of intense stress IS draining. After that night I came home and actually passed out for a bit. I wasn't drunk, and it wasn't particularly late. I was sucked dry. Getting "through" these sort of episodes take everything I've got.

And it looks like so many of you on here too are trying to be resourceful with your energy, and in dealing with PTSD or Complex PTSD. I haven't read a single post on here that makes someone look like a lost cause, or someone looking for a pity party, or a crutch. I guess we're all trying to live our lives well as we can. I have many things I can do, but the first thing I'm going to try to do is accept this part of who I am a little more readily. So often when I have a positive "streak" for several days or weeks when I do have an attack I get really, really angry. It feels like I've failed, or I've been tricked, or that my hard work doesn't count for anything. But I usually realize that this is not true within a couple of days. I am usually able to suss things out a bit, but it's always after the fact which is a very painful reality.

So when I am feeling especially stressed out, and can tell I've been triggered, or I'm unable to stop the spiral of negative thoughts (or in times when I can't actually pin down the incremental negative thought spiral and I'm in just a "dark" state of mind) I will try to accept it as a part of who I am and instead of judging and punishing myself when I feel that way, I will try to observe and improve more readily.

 

[Sterre]

Abelabelabel,
Your writings read like I could have written them myself! Except the fact that you can express yourself very clearly, where I struggle to find the right words.
I can relate so much to what you experience and write down that its almost erie.

Be kind to yourself, even when you are in a negative state of mind, or in the middle of pushing people away or some other state.
You are very aware of whats going on, and you work very very hard to stay on top of your emotions and control them. It costs a lot of energy to work this hard and therefor you will feel sucked dry and drained sometimes.

Good luck!