How Much Time Do You Spend Thinking About Your Trauma?

[void]

Though I rarely think about the trauma it affects every moment of the present.

Actually, I obsess strenuously about the future, a fact which I regard as being a manifestation of PTSD.

Issues of trust, fear, dysregulation, hyper-arousal all conspiring together to inform the obsession.

 

[Iamsensative]

Yes obsess about the future. Go as far to think I will be one of those homeless woman pushing a shopping cart...My mind has great fun with me. By the way Void your doggy pic looks like my Bella, so cute.

 

[Rani G2]

The experiment taught me something about the plasticity of human nature. Not the evil, not the aggressiveness but a certain kind of malleability.

-Experimenter film

So I have hope....not always but most of the time I do

 

[Tinyflame]

It is also possible to be triggered in a good way so look out for those one too give a bit af a balance.

@rosey , may I ask, what does this mean? :confused:

(Thank you, hope it's ok @sun seeker , to ask.)

 

[Chiqui]

Yes obsess about the future. Go as far to think I will be one of those homeless woman pushing a sh...

Oh!! I also think sometimes I will be one of those homeless woman!

 

[Chiqui]

Oh!! I also think sometimes I will be one of those homeless woman!

I suffered mind control for years in a cult. They told me, between other horrible trinos, if once I left them I would be homeless and a mad woman. So I have thought about it many times. I feel an intense mercy when I see one. Always think, could be me...

 

[shimmerz]

Is thinking about the trauma itself something that takes up huge chunks of most people's time?

It did for me in the beginning. I think that was because I had no idea I had been traumatized as a child, so didn't understand why or what I was flashing back to. I needed the story. Very, very badly. So that I could understand that there was a reason that I was reacting the way I was. Validation I think would be a good word for what I was seeking (pardon the pun Sun).

My T's kept telling me that I shouldn't be focusing on the traumas because it would retraumatize me, but my reactions were literally killing me, so I figured rehashing to understand was MUCH better than being driven to desperate situations that I didn't comprehend.

Then I moved to a stage of figuring out how to reverse the trauma reactions. It consumed my every moment.

Now it is reverse engineering my life so that I can have some quality time again. It has been a journey.

 

[shimmerz]

It is also possible to be triggered in a good way so look out for those one too give a bit af a balance.

This is the golden get out of jail free card. Get this one right, and things can turn around really quickly.

 

[shimmerz]

but do you also mean that people who are dealing with Trauma feel the need to justify themselves?

Yes, for me. I definitely did this. I still have to stop myself with this one.

 

[rosey]

@rosey , may I ask, what does this mean? :confused:

(Thank you, hope it's ok

What i mean is that things can set off good memories and good reactions. Unfortunately the human brain is wired to focus on negatives as a survival strategy therefore we tend to only observe bad triggers. Once i became aware if this i started noting the good ones.

 

[Friday]

Last year / year before last my biggest problem was that I couldn't stop remembering. Pandora's box kinda sorta busted wide open,following a couple years of things leaking out here and there. Flashbacks, intrusive thinking, nightmares... They just ate the vast majority of my time. There were whole weeks and months just had to lay down locked in them. Once things got a lot better, it was maybe only 5-10 hours a day, plus all the nightmares and shit (panic attacks & rage storms & SI & disassociation that come part and parcel with them). Super fun :wtf:

This year it's about cut in half. So I'm way better. But last year I was a hurtin puppy.

IDK if that qualifies as thinking about trauma, though? More like actively trying not to think of trauma. ;)

***

That's just the "now" though. Spent years and years not thinking about it at all. Shrug.

 

[sun seeker]

do you also mean that people who are dealing with Trauma feel the need to justify themselves?

No. :-) Having had all day to process what this question means, I will say my question here wasn't about justifying anything. I've written some posts in the past ranting about how frustrating it is that people who don't have PTSD can't understand. This one really was just pure curiosity.