• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

How we can have a trauma disorder dysfunction so long that we do not even consider it or even recall that it IS part of your daily life.

Status
Not open for further replies.

sonnet

Learning
Hello new friends in wonderful, welcoming group 😀 T looked in forum to see if there was a thread about this but didn't find one. It is about exactly what it says. For example, I was prescribed a medicine once and the therapist told me that it would help stop the stuttering, rocking, tapping. etc... after I took it and came back...I told her that it had stop me from chewing my gums up when I took my top dentures out (10 years previously). Well I had been doing that for so long that I didn't even think or consider it to be an anxiety disorder? Why didn't I?

Those of you who read my introduction know about my thigh knots. As a child being molested I would tense up when my father entered the room. I have always been a tense person. And you know the rest of the story. But the deal is. How come I didn't consider that whole arching up. and then having to relax myself to lay back on my back a bad thing? I just thought it was a normal occurrence. Like walking? I didn't give it a second thought. Is it part of self-preservation? Would normal people think that it is abnormal right away?

I am feeling like it comes down to I cannot trust myself. I feel sad now 🙁
 
I am sorry you are going through this.

I think it is common for us to learn to accept crappy manifestations of our trauma without realizing it. I have an issue with my feet being touched while I am in bed because I got strapped down after surgeries when I was a kid. It took me decades to even accept that I overreacted to my feet coming into contact with human skin.

I do think, though, that with time we can begin to notice what is abnormal without anyone telling us. And sometimes it can even happen fairly quickly. It sometimes does for me.

Best of luck!
 
Evolutionarily, there isn't much benefit to the brain being hyper aware of the familiar.

So we tend to dull what's familiar.
Think physical pain - I actually didn't realise how much I was constantly in until after a recent surgery when it was no longer there. Or the smell of your home - you likely notice the smell of others' when you enter, but not your own if you have been there a while.

What's important is the things that stand out in a landscape. So while our triggers still do, I suspect that after a while, the recognition of the physiological impact that our triggers have on us no longer do, substantially. We just dull them.

Attention is a limited resource, and so our brain prioritises where we put it.
 
Evolutionarily, there isn't much benefit to the brain being hyper aware of the familiar.

So we tend to dull what's familiar.
Think physical pain - I actually didn't realize how much I was constantly in until after a recent surgery when it was no longer there. Or the smell of your home - you likely notice the smell of others' when you enter, but not your own if you have been there a while.

What's important is the things that stand out in a landscape. So while our triggers still do, I suspect that after a while, the recognition of the physiological impact that our triggers have on us no longer do, substantially. We just dull them.

Attention is a limited resource, and so our brain prioritizes where we put it.
I never thought of it like that. I feel kinda in shock reading this. And sick to my stomach. Much insight to take in.
 
I agree with @bellbird . It’s only now that I came to the realization with the social overloading was the fear of being approached, that the way I was constantly tense and having migraines wasn’t normal, and that definitely I was overreacting or freezing to anyone touching me, even my own mom. I remember endless awkward hugs. The drama is that I am actually quite affectionate and I do like hugs. It’s just I can’t bear touch if I wasn’t prepared. If you try to tickle me I might smash your face before you understand, and evidently it’s a total overreaction. If no one informs you, if all you know is pain and fear, you adjust your normality to that.

Once you see the light and understand another world is possible… where the word relaxation means somethings… well you aren’t there, it isn’t easy, but it doesn’t feel that alien and unreachable anymore.
 
I agree with @bellbird . It’s only now that I came to the realization with the social overloading was the fear of being approached, that the way I was constantly tense and having migraines wasn’t normal, and that definitely I was overreacting or freezing to anyone touching me, even my own mom. I remember endless awkward hugs. The drama is that I am actually quite affectionate and I do like hugs. It’s just I can’t bear touch if I wasn’t prepared. If you try to tickle me I might smash your face before you understand, and evidently it’s a total overreaction. If no one informs you, if all you know is pain and fear, you adjust your normality to that.

Once you see the light and understand another world is possible… where the word relaxation means somethings… well you aren’t there, it isn’t easy, but it doesn’t feel that alien and unreachable anymore.
Hiya Rubocora, Definitely have I been there. Socially I was an icicle. A few people know me, but relaxing is not my forte'. LOL All I can hear in my head is, "Run to the light baby. Mommy is in the light." (Poltergeist) ok that is silly. I do hope I see the light and do somehow get the emotional part of this all behind me. Thank you very much for sharing xo
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top