I Fell Into A Burning Ring Of Fire

[Jen93]

Anyone know that Johnny Cash song? I'm trying to make light of it, but it's not really working.

I've been stressed since the suicide training thing I went to. I can't concentrate in class, I can't sleep, and for some reason, I can't even cry. I just feel numb, and yet, I feel like cutting myself or throwing myself in front of a car. (Oh wow... I just have tears in my eyes now... Is that success? I don't know.)

Anyway, the "flames are going higher" if I'm allowed to quote the song. I'm trying to keep safe, but how can I when my school doesn't feel so safe anymore? (I was re-traumatized in one of my classrooms, and in another one of my classrooms was where I had the suicide training). I'm just so scared of everything, I'm holding it all together because I don't want to scare anyone, but my visuals are intense again and I've been having some avoidance. If there was just someone I could talk to....

I was feeling so great about completing the training, and now I feel like crap. It's been a week since, and I just don't know how long I can keep going like this.

 

[arfie]

One of my more effective therapists called this, "The Imposter Syndrome." I still haven't really found my own way past it, but that is the name for it that has given me the courage to keep trying. I have had a few accomplishments that I held steady through. Nothing to impress a Nobel Prize committee, but hope springs eternal. My past matters every day, but it decides nothing.

Steadying validation hopes, jen. You are not alone. Hope you find your way through the flames.

 

[City Slicker]

Hi Jen93,
I remember going through similar training and feeling pretty close to how you are feeling now. Specific training like suicide training touched a scary, lonely place in me and I was thrown off my feet for a while. It also touched people with no history of trauma as well which I found somehow reassuring at the time and that it wasn't just me. t don't know your circumstances at school but is there a counsellor or health services you can access for someone to talk to face to face? arfie said it, steady validation. The flames will subside.

 

[WillyKat]

To answer your question about whether crying is success or not, I'd say yes.

In our culture, we're taught to believe that crying, breaking down, falling apart are all bad things. Part of my healing has taught me that that's not the case. All those things are a kind of reaching the bottom, falling down into the fire, which of course must happen for you to come back up.

And yes I'm familiar with that song. It's about love and sex too I think, but PTSD is like a ring of fire that we have to pass through; going around isn't an option.

 

[The Albatross]

Why are you robbing yourself of a success? What is the backlash from the training you received. Can you put it into words?

 

[Laurie McLaughlin]

Hi Jen -

In situations like this, what works for me is to deconstruct things -

If I have to go into a room that is a trigger, I think before I get in there - What part of the room is causing me the trauma - is it the walls? The windows? The pictures? The floor?

If I really examine all the parts of the room and look at them honestly, well, at least from my side, I cannot find one part of that room that is actually causing the trauma.

So, if nothing outside is actually causing the trauma, then my memories are causing it -

And then, when I am ready, I go through the memories, and try to identify what part of the memories are really causing me to react and be so scared. When I look at my memories of an event, I am able to see that I am looking at something in the past. And there is nothing about the memory is inherently fearful.

What I am reacting to then is a fear of something that might happen again and as long as I can stay in the moment, I can help to lessen that fear -

Don't know if that helps at all but hope you feel better soon

Laurie