If Only Brean-cleansing Technology Really Existed...

[jmni]

My complaint is I've been ''sick" so long I've heard it all and nothing works anymore.

Trite lines I am sick of. These are so worn out and tired they're just corny...
- Live in the moment.
- Let go and let god, or just let go.

Right now I am feeling like I am so preoccupied with stuff that occurred in the past, I am actually in the past. Perhaps this is a form of schizophrenia. It's almost constant.

Can anyone relate? I just want to forget.

 

[Phenioxrising]

I think you may be overthinking things. What helps is to be validated for your trauma(s). This not only helps with symptoms, but as well brings a bit of peace of mind. you can never truely forget. Just move on from your trauma.

 

[Leah123]

Right now I am feeling like I am so preoccupied with stuff that occurred in the past, i am actually in the past.

I just wanted to let you know you were not alone in that experience. I have had it recently and it is disturbing, draining and engrossing. It is a message to me, from my subconscious, that I have not dealt with that part of the past enough yet, not healed from it, so that the demons that torment me can still summon me to them, still call me back and compel me to relive my past, until I do the hard but rewarding work of healing. Once I heal, I will control the past and visit as I choose, not be terrorized by it. I hope you find some comfort soon.

 

[maddog]

When we become very fused with our thoughts and feelings and memories, I understand, and relate, that it can definitely feel as though we are actually transported back in time to the past. That's part of what PTSD is and does - it transports the past into the present and convinces our minds and bodies that we are still back there.

To that end, it's normal and natural for what you've experienced, and doesn't need to be pathologised in any other way. Obviously it's something of critical importance to work on as part of trauma processing, and grounding strategies, cognitive reframing, somatic experiencing, stress management techniques and countless other forms of intervention can all play a part in moving our minds into the present and keeping them there.

As with everything, dealing with it is a balance between accepting it as understandable and "normal" for what you've experienced, and taking all reasonable proactive steps to deal with it. Most important of all is to not beat yourself up about it, or to feel that it can't change or that you'll be like this forever. Easier said than done, but so so important to remind yourself, and to listen to when others remind you too.

Maddog

 

[Abstract]

Yes I can. If I am understanding correctly that is.

When I am really obsessing and stuck back there someone telling me to live in the moment or to let it go makes me want to implode.

Of course I know I need to do both and it isn't as if I am not trying (trying and doing what we need to do is super important when like this) but when I am in that space I already hate that I don't seem to be able to do either. Self hatred and shame is usually rife when I am like this and the invalidation of these comments just seems to make everything feel a hundred times worse. I know they are well meant of course.

It depends on how it approached though. So much of how we experience things and receive them lies in the detail.

 

[Leah123]

What helps is to be validated for your trauma(s).

When I am really obsessing and stuck back there someone telling me to live in the moment or to let it go makes me want to implode.

I think these are two closely related comments, and I agree with both. Early on, working with my therapist, she'd try to ground me in the present and I was so frustrated by that. I wasn't able to do it, and felt she was pushing me to turn off the past's effect on me as if I had a switch. I let her know how I felt, and she very sympathetically replied, telling me "It seems too hard, doesn't it?" and things like that. Having her know how stuck I felt and being able to manage my anger and frustration and hurt and everything else, even though I couldn't get grounded the way she was trying to, well, that helped me through it a lot. Over several months of therapy, it seems to have gotten somewhat easier. I often don't *feel* like getting past it is possible, though sometimes I have glimmers, I can imagine that I can, and now I can trust my therapist, that at least I believe she truly means it, when she tells me I will get through it, that I'm healing from PTSD.

What makes it easier, the trauma work, is finding the truth that there was a before and, more importantly, almost, an after. We get stuck in the trauma, but doing the good work of healing helps me *feel* and know and believe in the after, helps make it as real as the trauma, so the trauma falls into context, doesn't overshadow everything when I think of it.

Do you have anyone you trust to help you when you feel so stuck?

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I've been there.

Then I went to therapy that focused on bringing me back into the present so I can see that my happiness didn't end with the trauma. It wasn't just in grounding. (Although grounding is important.)

It literally separated the abused me from the present me so that I could see I am no longer that person. A lot of trauma therapy in my experience focuses on the time the trauma happened. This can be counterintuitive because it reinforces negative neural pathways. Instead, I recreated my trauma from happy before to trauma to happy after in imagery and artwork. This is an overly simplistic explanation, but I'll be darned if it didn't work! It was actually as if a switch was flipped in my brain.

I still have issues with the past, don't get me wrong, but the therapy was successful in getting my mind un-stuck if you will.

 

[ashdawn8287]

Just wanted to say I used to deal with that a lot. A big awakening to me was taking control of my triggers by various relaxation techniques.

All that stuff maybe trite and it may be corney but its the only way to get through it. So you can go on thinking like that with negativity or you can work towards positivity.

Negativity and that thinking gets you no where but spiraling in your head.

It might be wise to listen yo those corney messages.

 

[Silver2015]

"Letting go", blah blah. Yes its annoying and upsetting, along with "Don't live in the past, get over it". Both of those statements have upset me for years.

I figured out that others that do not understand PTSD, can't honestly know how hard it is to forget and go on with life and there is no way to erase such memories (we own them). the memories are there forever and erasing them is no way possible for the PTSD survivor.
I don't bother to try and make others who don't understand it, to try and understand it, any more. I except that I own something they will never know about, and bless them for not having to go through what I live with, I would not want to wish it upon anyone.

Found that not having to convince others what I go through, or what its about, has lighten my own load to deal with me, and how to heal me personally (there is no cure for this condition, but it can become less and less of a burden and stressor in living/life daily). Triggers are the hardest for me to overcome, and get through. The emotional roller coaster I just except my moods as they are when they are, they pass faster for me that way.

I have other memories too, not just trauma ones, ones that make me smile, ones that lighten my spirit, easy the palpations of my heart, slow my breathing down, prevent anxiety attacks