If You Didn't Have A Chance To Build A Self Before Complex Trauma

[Beans]

If you didn't have a chance to build a self before complex trauma, then you need to build a lot of skills up in your repertoire.

So now I am having a self to work with, and it is a big change.

Okay you basically just have to keep chipping away at it - you just have to keep chipping away at it, building up skills, practising skills, and working out which skills you need to learn next. It is quite time consuming!

So happy to see you've come so far in this Disco. I've followed many of your threads for a while and have seen you mention many things you're doing or have done. Would you mind making a list of the skills you've built? The self is still where I feel most stuck and i find it difficult to build a life for myself when i dont really have a sense of self still lol. I feel just as empty now that I'm working and around people as before cause at my core i feel empty and am not enjoying things. Just looking at others trying to feign a normal life instead of creating a life that is an expression of who i am. Sigh. Idk. It's all rather confusing. I'm building up a life around a shell of a person, kinda like before. So have i healed my trauma at all? Oh god let me stop now lol!

 

[ms spock]

I so relate to what you are talking about @Beans. It sounds like to me that you are making solid progress, and the thing is not to have too high expectations but to keep slowly and surely working on building up more skills. I will write up a list of skills for you. It will take me a few days to do that, but just remind me if I have not posted back in, say, a week's time.

 

[DharmaGirl]

That will help lots of folks, Disco!

 

[Beans]

I so relate to what you are talking about @Beans. I will write up a list of skills for you. It will take me a few days to do that, but just remind me if I have not posted back in, say, a week's time.

Hey Dancing Queen!

No rush or pressure intended, but just wanted to send a gentle reminder about the list of skills post. Thanks again!

 

[ms spock]

Hello @Beans & @DharmaGirl

I was thinking about this a lot.

Would you mind making a list of the skills you've built? The self is still where I feel most stuck and i find it difficult to build a life for myself when i dont really have a sense of self still lol. I feel just as empty now that I'm working and around people as before cause at my core i feel empty and am not enjoying things. Just looking at others trying to feign a normal life instead of creating a life that is an expression of who i am. Sigh. Idk. It's all rather confusing. I'm building up a life around a shell of a person, kinda like before.

So my first short answer is that you need to find a good trauma trained/experience psychiatrist or psychologist who has the skills and personality to work with you, your PTSD, schemas, anxiety, depression etc and your issues.

Then you have to find the ways of healing/recovery that work for you. It is very individual what your actual symptom management/healing/recovery journey will be like.

So you need to make a list of the healing modalities available at the time, and then work through those and work out which ones are for you.

Next post I will write a list of the healing modalities that have worked for me, they might not work for anyone else, and the ways I do things might not be relevant to anyone else's journey, but I had to work out what would work for me, and then do it the way I need things to be done. It took me a long time to work out the ways in which I needed to work on my symptom management/healing/recovery.

I can't really advise anyone else, as I am not a highly trained professional, but I can offer my personal experience to those that are keen to work out ways for their own recovery. If I feel I have something to offer I will try to support, back up, challenge, and care for people.

So sorry this has taken so long.

 

[TruthSeeker]

I don't think I have ever built a "self" per se. I spent all my life trying to gain acceptance fro...

I think the concept of self is always adapting to our situations and to those around us and therefore, self is constantly changing, learning new ways, experiencing new things,changing .....over time... I think everyone has some sense of self, and while others may not ponder the concept of self like we are here, I believe self is fluidly changing....sometimes it is looser and other times more definable or even rigid depending upon our current circumstances and how we are feeling about the world around us. I think self is what we strive to be....and we don't always succeed-we're human. But, sometimes we do...

But if you stop and ask yourself, how many people do I know that sit and ponder...who is my self? Where is self? When did self start? I'm not sure too many. C-trauma folks don't all have such great memories, and I'm included, and I think valuable time.....pondering this self is such time wasted. I see trauma times themselves as wasted life-time time robbed.....lost time. I'm not going to spend what time I have left on earth wondering about my pre-trauma self......wishing things were different...or trying to imagine what things might have been like. Pre-trauma me is a me I'll never see or have a prayer of getting back. I see trauma as a part of my self's history. I try to own it, call it part of life, and move forward. Sometimes my self is successful, and other times....not as successful as I'd like...so I keep trying. However, I thoroughly acknowledge that what works for my perception of self, and how I try to deal, doesn't necessarily work for others. I didn't mean to get philosophical or heady. Sorry.

 

[ms spock]

Great response @Bkinder! Thanks for your contribution.

The whole notion of self is indeed problematic, I don't know how to explain it, it is trying to work out my likes and preferences, my dislikes and my boundaries, to have a sense of self is to know what I want and need, that I am not dissociated, derealised and depersonalised, where I have lived the majoriy of my life. You have to have a connection to how you feel, in order to navigate life. If you don't know what you feel or think, then it makes it hard to be around other people, or to have purpose or meaning in your life.

 

[TruthSeeker]

Great response @Bkinder! Thanks for your contribution.

The whole notion of...

Quite true. If you don't have connection to feelings, you can't know when you are safe....or maybe not safe. You can't rely on intuition or feelings.....but I believe everyone can connect to feelings if they really have a desire to change and put forth the effort. It is super hard, very messy, a meeting and acceptance with the darker side of the self (still working on this..grrr), and I have a long way to go on my journey. I will die trying to put things back together and create a more functional and in the moment self that doesn't flake out and have anxiety when things are unexpected (that's improving).......I didn't die from the trauma.....and I don't want to be like those who hurt me-emotionless and entitled. So it would be okay if I die in the process of trying to improve my overall self. I will have done the best I could...no regrets. Yea...self is a process, and sometimes quite a difficult journey.

 

[ms spock]

I don't know when I am safe or not safe, I am very confused about this. I am often in freeze, fawn, fight and flight. My days are tough. I don't have access to my intuition. I have no trust of my own self or my perceptions because I don't know what my perceptions are a lot of the time. I am just small and hiding. It really is super hard.

I am not sure what you mean about dying? Do you mean that as you grow other parts of you will die, as you grow into a new person?

I am very flakey. I am working on it, but I am very flakey.

So if I could be attached to my "self" enough to feel my feelings, I would be grateful to be part of the process. That is what I mean I don't have a self to have as a yard stick before or post trauma, even during trauma. It is really hard to explain, and people just don't get it. There are these huge splits in me, where I don't have contact with what another part is doing, I can be listening to someone attentively whilst reading a book. It is like I have to have the part occupied to be able to be present. It is shitful. But Buddhism does have some ways of dealing with that, so I am not alone.

So saying the self is not important, is possible when you have a sense of self, if you don't, living life is almost impossible, which is where I live, in the impossible spaces.

So I would respectfully disagree that everyone has some sense of self. That is just not true for me at all. And it has meant I have been terribly abused, exploited and retraumatised.

I didn't even know I wasn't connected to my feelings, that is how little a sense of self that I had. It has only been recently in the last 5 months where I have been getting on top of my disordered eating, that I have started to have glimpses of my emotions and feelings.

It is not so easy to connect with feelings I have been trying for about thrity- forty years now. I can't even begin to understand your experiences that you would be able to type this. This is not my experience at all. I have tried so hard, and it has been a total disaster with me not able to leave the house for many years, have a job, or have a life. So please be respectful of my experience, and please don't assert things about my experience that you don't know anything about. This is my thread where I have worked on managing not having a sense of self, so if you need to assert things that totally undermine my issues that I am working on in this thread then please go and start your own thread.

 

[TruthSeeker]

I don't know when I am safe or not safe, I am very confused about this. I am often in freeze,...

I'm so sorry. I did not mean to hurt you or mess up your thread. FTR: I have endured incest, rape, attempted rape in the Smithsonian, betrayal by my adoptive family, had my 97 father with a failing memory kidnapped last year who lived with me for 8 years prior who is abused and I can do nothing, dealt with physical violence, strangled, you pick...constantly threatened, belittled where I did nothing right and was never good enough, and made to be the crazy one in the family. Not believed when I told about the incest because bro could do no wrong, not loved growing up, yea....I get it. I am c-ptsd. I lived in bed for years, hid in bed..ate myself to 375 lbs.....married and got physically and emotionally abused in both marriages and lost all my family to include my only grandson who brought my inner child joy, with the second divorce. I've lost my adult daughter to the narcissist and the family $ who will only hurt her, but the narc has "changed" and she'd my replacement in the family system. I no longer see my grandson, ......, I recently turned my back on my entire family to stop the abuse in my direction because I can't move forward in therapy and take care of me when I'm rightfully paranoid with current abuse.

That was so very hard, but I regained a bit of my integrity in the process. This year, I've been Bluetooth hacked, changed phone numbers several times, bought a gun for protection, been computer hacked, had people watching me outside my home and follow me, cars sit outside my new home, and over this past year, my father has been alienated from me. I've also been very paranoid as a result legitimately so, but I hate the feeling of always watching over my shoulder, wondering if they will come to this thread and figure out who I am, or if they are following me today in my car..... I don't really feel safe here and I thought it has slowed down this weekend until I had another car stop and take photos this past weekend....it is for intimidation. The legal system can't help.

I'm in pieces....but I know I have a value system where self resides...I refuse to let them continue to hurt me.....standing up for myself has been soo soo hard, and so lonely........I hate my life right now, but I have to have hope that one day, it will be better...different, and maybe I'll find contentment. I go to therapy and even T says, we can't move forward on the "issues" when things change from week to week. I know abuse, I know hate, I live with other's hate or indifference. There is one person I can trust in my life with my private life information who believes me. I am lucky. I do have a core belief that everything works out....that is what keeps me going.

Abuse has impacted me severely in the health department which has negatively affected my independence. I have gone on FMLA leave, had to get an ADA accommodation to stop a narcissistic boss from threatening and triggering me intentionally when he found out my recent family dilemma..... This all has negatively impacted my work.....but I'm not going to let them beat me....I will recover and be whole! I have to because I am all I have left....so I'll die trying to get better. Do I feel the dark side of my soul...you bet. I hate my head.....I hate the epilepsy, the traumatic brain injury which impacts memory along with the PTSD, the mental health issues, the negative label, the crappy family and abuse....but they won't be the end of me....I will get better despite them. I will have something that none of the abusers have: happiness and contentment....or I'll certainly die trying!

Again, I meant you no disrespect or harm. I send you positive energy for your situation. Peace.

 

[ms spock]

I'm so sorry. I did not mean to hurt you or mess up your thread. Again, I meant you no disrespect or harm. I send you positive energy for your situation. Peace.

Thank you!

I am so sorry for what you have lived through. I really am. But I have lived through similar types of trauma, and I felt the need to stand up for the self that I am finally learning to have connection with, which I haven't had most of my life.

I didn't mean to dismiss your experiences, this is the only thread that I really talk about the the struggles for self in it. That is great that you "I know I have a value system where self resides," but to be frank I haven't had this, and your what seemed to me to be casual invalidation really pushed my buttons - your assertion that everyone has some sense of self - well you are lucky that that is your experience. I have been so invalidated over this, and it has been painful for me, because if people assume you have a connection to yourself, they expect in therapy, and in life, stuff that you cannot do, because you have no connection to yourself. If you don't feel any feelings, you can't give honest feedback. People say tell me if you have a problem, don't blow up, well I have no feelings or connection to myself, so I often only knew when I blew up that I have a problem. So I have avoided people, and kept life at arm's distance to manage not having a self.

I have lost most of my family, though recently I have had some contact, which often destabilises me, so that is a struggle.

It is super hard, very messy, a meeting and acceptance with the darker side of the self (still working on this..grrr), and I have a long way to go on my journey.

Me too!

...create a more functional and in the moment self that doesn't flake out and have anxiety when things are unexpected (that's improving)

I am working towards this!

.......I didn't die from the trauma.....

I didn't die, but I don't know if I lived though, physically yes, but the rest no, because I was either derealised, depersonalised, dissociated or in maladaptive daydreaming. I haven't had a life, a job, purpose, meaning, friendships, a community, the ability to stay present in my body whilst other people are there, the ability to stand my ground, to say no, to feel what I am feeling.

Yea...self is a process, and sometimes quite a difficult journey.

I am just at the beginning of this process. I have been numb and sedated on food my whole life until this last 5 months, so finally I have some small sense of self.

 

[TruthSeeker]

I am so sorry for what you have lived through. I really am. I didn't mean to dismiss your expe...

I am learning a new set of skills-communication skills. Sensitivity on the internet is not one of my honed skills, and I don't have much of a filter...I just let it hang out there.

Do you have any hobbies or interests like music, games, art, drawing-fun stuff? There was a time, not so long ago that I was 375 lbs and was miserable because others could do, but I couldn't participate. I had a hearing loss, moderate at the time, but with hearing aids, I was good. I made a plan to lose weight, and eventually I did. I wasn't sure I'd be able to do anything with other people being so large, and I wanted to play music with others....make music-one other person would do. So, in my late 40s I learned to play the alto recorder, at home, using a music program and notes on the computer. I learned to read music...because I eventually wanted to be good enough to play with at least one other person. I met someone at work, who now is my best friend, and who plays the violin. We practiced in my class once a week. Another two people joined us over the year. Years later, we now play together with several others....and we play at my home. I lacked self confidence, and for years would practice and practice and sweat having people over or going to their home. I got better, I ventured out once a month then played with a local recorder group....very shy.....very quiet....very mortified if someone noticed I made a mistake. But I endured, and got better playing with others, and now people come to my home....and now, the music takes me to a magical place..where my brain is happy with goosebumps when we play well together......but preparing a song list, food and drinks, cleaning the house for people to come over is a major ordeal. But it is always positive, social, and I do look forward to having people to play music with once a month. Do you have something that you connect to, like me to my music that makes you feel good? I have also been writing poetry and drawing (I didn't know I could draw until recently) that make you feel good or gives you a positive feeling?