I Think You Will Find This Rare

[Dot Warner]

Hllo Annie,

I am not judging. I am glad if you and others can find a comfort in poetry.

I think that what you lived about emotions was a defense. I say that because for 12 years every little emotion, bad o good, every little surprise, every thing that I didn't exept (and it was almost everything, because as I told I wasn't able to think or to imagine) caused me a huge stress, with many many negative consequences.

There is nobody and no organization here that can halp me in managing my life. And for the other persons is difficoult to understand me, also because I am a quiet and apparently serene person (I passed my whole life acting happyness).

Thank you for your words.

 

[Lonewolf87]

Welcome aboard, Dot Warner!

I can sort of relate to the memory loss...I feel like there are chunks of my life missing after my "incident". I don't remember how I coped or how I dealt...it was like I was too blinded by sadness and rage and confusion to really contemplate it all. I too, have done martial arts training and that's when I also felt alive...it was like something inside me woke up and I got to let it all out and express it. I am not doing it currently but hope to get back into it again...hope this forum will help you out! :D

 

[Dot Warner]

Thank you Lonewolf87,

Sport is the best I have found in my life. Practizing sports (aleo free climbing, trekking, canoing, mountain bike, multisport challnges..) I hava never had any problem. Maybe because the body has a memory of his own. I was winning many medals in tkd when that doctor destroyed my knee: that has been a trauma above another trauma. Because like you, when I was practizing sport I felt alive.

I hope you will get back into that, I don't know if it will be possible for me. I have already been operated twice.

 

[Dot Warner]

I am so stressed that I can't stand any plan I do.. I am blocked. And in this period I can't sleep in the night.

I don't know how to deal with it!!!

Any suggestion?

 

[Michel]

Maybe journaling would help, by letting you safely get out little bits of what's blocking you or simply by letting you "share" whatever you're thinking - how you've slept the night before, what you've done so far in the day, what the weather's like, how you feel, whatever comes to mind. Do you journal?

Maybe you can find some sort of exercise that uses mainly or entirely your upper body - might help you have better energy during the day, sleep better at night.

How about "planning" to do something that's more receptive than active - plan to watch a movie, listen to a particular CD. When it's over, you'll have done what you had planned to do. Maybe that would help you feel less blocked, more like you are able to do what you plan.

I probably know too little about your circumstances to offer ideas that will fit...

Sorry you're feeling this way right now.

 

[Dot Warner]

Hallo Michel,

I have never tried these things you are suggesting me. I will surely try!

Thank you very much!!!!

 

[Michel]

My best wishes will be with you. Keep us posted!

 

[Dot Warner]

Hey Michel!

I have tried journalism and tonight I fall asleep at 4 a.m.! Normally I began to sleep at 6 or 7 a.m.. And this morning I got up at 11, when normally I got up at 1 or 2 p.m... so a good advance!!!

 

[Michel]

How wonderful! I'll be hoping things keep moving in the right direction. Thanks for letting me know.

 

[Nishkaa]

Hi Dot Warner,

I just want to say welcome on board here! I see you have come out from a curious experience of a very long memory gap. It must have seemed really strange for you.

Sometimes our brains manage to work for us when we are faced with terrible trauma and violence in childhood. If we're not able to run away, no place to run to because we are in the care of our parents and family, sometimes children find a way to run inside their heads, and it helps for the time when the reality you're living among is just way too much to cope with it. It's actually quite an amazing survival strategy, quite sophisticated too!

Sometimes as we also get older, too, when we already learnt ways of hiding inside of ourselves, we can continue to practice this to cope with newer stressors we find along the way in our journeys from childhood, adolescence, adulthood, to deal with schools transitions, school work, all kinds of things. It becomes sort of a habit, something natural for us to do, even do it without even thinking about it, it just happens. It's pretty sophisticated survival adaptation.

I have memory problems, sometimes I can access them, sometimes I can't, even though I've written about them elsewhere. There's a bit of dissociation that's happened with me and along a few fronts, e.g. emotions split from thinking, intellectualizing. It's been definitely kind of freaky to 're-acquaint' parts of myself to myself :) It's also a challenge for me grow up some parts that have been frozen by traumas at different points in my life.

What you are describing, is it a "dissociative amnesia"? It sounds like a very extreme form of dissociation and it's not all that common, I don't think? But I think you will find people here who are familiar with dissociation on a few levels, so no worries about that.

 

[Nishkaa]

Sharing My Experience Of MBSR: Meditation Yoga Helpful For Dissociation And PTSD/C-PTSD

I'm really glad you've been discovering meditation. Yes, the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is also really really good stuff.

Meditation helps with accepting what is, whatever comes to be in our consciousness and some practices teach how to notice the distraction or the 'inner beehive', but to come back to focus on the breath. I think this is a very useful exercise that can gradually lead to building up more ability to staying present in our lives and I think can help manage dissociation symptoms with regular practice of the technique. That's my opinion, just based on some of my very recent experiences-- it's not coming from a 'doctor' here though ;-) I'm just a C-PTSD sufferer and just giving my opinion on how I've experienced it.

The MBSR program I took, also had a yoga component to it, some gentle stretching, some 'progressive relaxation body scan'-- this stuff even works well with people who have physical impediments. The program I took had people with chronic pain issues, some people had really restricted movement because of their injuries, but were still able to benefit lots. There was even one person, who's back was so bad, they needed to be in a special chair to support their back, but she was still able to participate, move what she could move, accept what she couldn't move-- and that is also really helpful because it helps one appreciate at least, and become aware of parts of ourselves, even in the midst of chronic pain, that actually feel pleasant.

I've noticed for example that I've learn to really enjoy breathing! When I practice these techniques, I'm finding that feeling really pleasant, kind of 'buzzing sensations' even, which I think is because I'm simply bringing in much more oxygen to my bloodstream, but it's also contributing to moments of feeling well-being and also of being okay in the present moment (which I've had a habit of being fearful of it, of running from it, of having anxieties even). To actually experience feeling safe in the present moment-- is a Very Big Discovery!

I totally lucked out because in the area where I live this MBSR program was being offered for free, and the instructor was an absolutely beautiful woman-- I mean very high inner beauty, her voice was gentle, it was soothing, I felt really safe there. She also is very familiar with treating trauma, was a psychotherapist-- so I didn't have to even worry about any wonky CPTSD symptoms presenting, because I knew she could handle that. Safety-- such a wonderful thing. Sweet Safety-- it's definitely worth working to discover it, build on it. It's really important and helpful "first stage" recovery work and I'm sure your therapist(s), team are working on that with you.

Anyway, can you tell-- I'm very enthusiastic about the meditation stuff. :)

It's very nice to meet you here!

Thanks for joining up for this group!

Cheers,
~N

 

[Dot Warner]

Hallo Nishkaa!

How are you? Thank you for your posts.

If I am not wrong, the therapist called my sympton dissociative amnesia, and she noted too that the gap was very big.

I have many other strange symptoms concerning with memory and mental funcioning in general.

Yes, it' a peculiar situation but I had to get the habit to it.

Actually this forum is the first useful thing I have found, because in Europe, where I live, therapists are of the old freudian school, they know very few or nothing at all about stress and PTSD.

I found a therapist, but she wanted me as an object of study, just to spread her results and be famous, also because I am a particular case.

At any case, therapists here don't know so many thecniques. They are not so useful.

I practice maditation (and other things). Meditation helps me to know myself better and to see reality with more clarity. Buddhist meditation can help to calm down anxiety, if you are open to accept buddhist point of view, and that's not that obvious. I have tried to train the meditation exercises you describe,

Meditation helps with accepting what is, whatever comes to be in our consciousness and some practices teach how to notice the distraction or the 'inner beehive', but to come back to focus on the breath. I think this is a very useful exercise that can gradually lead to building up more ability to staying present in our lives and I think can help manage dissociation symptoms with regular practice of the technique. That's my opinion, j

but they are veeeery difficoult. It's an entire life that I am trying to develop those capablities, but I am still not able.

At any case, being positive and practice is a good actitude. Good for you! ;)

Thank you again, see you around!