Sufferer I'm committed to recovering. Any one else?

I

Indie RN

New Here
Ellooo!
I'm happy to be in here with all of you.
I'm now a mid-aged person who just discovered that this was what has been wrong with me. I wish I had known a lot of this stuff sooner. I would done better to keep some cherished relationships. But here I am and here we are :)
Post traumatic mindset must be converted into post traumatic growth mindset, and I'm interested in all the ways that can happen. Neuralplasticity is the best umbrella concept. It makes self-compassion more comprehensible, and OMG perspective is better.
I look forward to crossing evolutionary paths with you :)

My favorite immediate anxiety reducing hack is the physiological sigh:
double nasal (if possible) in-breath to reach max inflation of alveoli, then a slow exhale.
One will help, but 5 minutes is almost like a spa treatment✨
I'm serious. I've pulled people out of active panic attacks guiding them through this breath. I hope you try this tool right now and keep it handy.
 
Indie RN said:
Ellooo!
I'm happy to be in here with all of you.
I'm now a mid-aged person who just discovered that this was what has been wrong with me. I wish I had known a lot of this stuff sooner. I would done better to keep some cherished relationships. But here I am and here we are :)
Post traumatic mindset must be converted into post traumatic growth mindset, and I'm interested in all the ways that can happen. Neuralplasticity is the best umbrella concept. It makes self-compassion more comprehensible, and OMG perspective is better.
I look forward to crossing evolutionary paths with you :)

My favorite immediate anxiety reducing hack is the physiological sigh:
double nasal (if possible) in-breath to reach max inflation of alveoli, then a slow exhale.
One will help, but 5 minutes is almost like a spa treatment✨
I'm serious. I've pulled people out of active panic attacks guiding them through this breath. I hope you try this tool right now and keep it handy.
Click to expand...
Welcome to the community! It's great to have you here and I'm glad you're finding ways to cope with your PTSD and CPTSD. The concept of post-traumatic growth is a powerful one and it's great to see that you're exploring different ways to achieve it. Neural plasticity is definitely an important aspect of this, and self-compassion is another helpful tool to have in your toolkit.

Thank you for sharing your anxiety-reducing hack - the physiological sigh. It sounds like a really great technique and I'm sure it will be helpful for those who try it. It's always great to have new tools and techniques to help manage anxiety and panic attacks.

Feel free to explore the various forums on myptsd.com and connect with others who have gone through similar experiences. And don't hesitate to reach out for professional help if you need it. We're all here for each other.
 
i'm a bit afraid of telling an RN i am committed to healing because i can never predict the pro definitions of things. i almost get the verbage wrong by professional standards, but i do consider myself quite committed on a lay scale.

Indie RN said:
Neuralplasticity is the best umbrella concept.
Click to expand...

i love the brain plasticity theories so much that in the 90's i learned how to read swedish so that i could keep up with the latest research at the stockholm brain institute. i confess that i'm enjoying the translations now available, but it was kinda fun learning a bit about the swedish language. have you bumped into their theories/practices on using foreign languages to forge new neural pathways? i followed their lead and it works for me. translating some of my more therapy resistant symptoms into another language is the ultimate reframing in my own experience. is it progress that i can now hyper-express in 3 languages? if nothing else, it reframes the repetitive babble into beneficial language practice. "el dijo, ella dijo, ellos dijeron."

Indie RN said:
I've pulled people out of active panic attacks guiding them through this breath.
Click to expand...

i, too, have had tremendous results from that particular breathing exercise, both personal and with others. my oldest foster daughter (now 7) was suffereing attachment disorder and frequent panic attacks when she came to me 3 1/2 years ago. i started breathing with her through her panic attacks on her very first night with me. she doesn't have panic attacks very often any more and she now does the deep breathing reflexively when an attack does hit. go girl! ! ! just breathe. . .
 
arfie said:
i'm a bit afraid of telling an RN i am committed to healing because i can never predict the pro definitions of things. i almost get the verbage wrong by professional standards, but i do consider myself quite committed on a lay scale.



i love the brain plasticity theories so much that in the 90's i learned how to read swedish so that i could keep up with the latest research at the stockholm brain institute. i confess that i'm enjoying the translations now available, but it was kinda fun learning a bit about the swedish language. have you bumped into their theories/practices on using foreign languages to forge new neural pathways? i followed their lead and it works for me. translating some of my more therapy resistant symptoms into another language is the ultimate reframing in my own experience. is it progress that i can now hyper-express in 3 languages? if nothing else, it reframes the repetitive babble into beneficial language practice. "el dijo, ella dijo, ellos dijeron."



i, too, have had tremendous results from that particular breathing exercise, both personal and with others. my oldest foster daughter (now 7) was suffereing attachment disorder and frequent panic attacks when she came to me 3 1/2 years ago. i started breathing with her through her panic attacks on her very first night with me. she doesn't have panic attacks very often any more and she now does the deep breathing reflexively when an attack does hit. go girl! ! ! just breathe. . .
Click to expand...
hahaha I'm not that kind of RN. Growing up with a narcissist did teach me to make a sticking point of semantics over meaning and connection, so I don't do that anymore :) I'm all about getting the info to be understandable by the most people. In the hospital I often felt like doctors were being technical and obtuse in order to spend less time with patients.
I love the idea of translating your feelings. I know Björk writes songs by translating them between Icelandic and English until she gets what she wants. And I definitely support any strengthening of organized neural pathways. I'm not, myself, so adept at languages, but I don't rule out the possibility. It's cool to connect on that point. I have started to transition to left-handedness for perspective and reframing. It's been really interesting. My left hand has better recall, is a better renderer, and takes more natural creative license. Weird huh? :)
 
Indie RN said:
hahaha I'm not that kind of RN.
Click to expand...

thank you for your kind understanding. alas, my social distance from the medical community makes it nearly impossible to tell one med pro from another. even out of uniform, i smell the antiseptic and shut down reflexively. i can't tell a glamor doc from an orderly. from what i consider a safe social distance, ya can't tell a horse from a zebra. 6 feet never was enough social distance for me unless it is 6 feet down.

the language theories are designed to create new neural pathways around damaged brain centers. TBI, alzheimer's, etc. if ya can't beat 'em, change the subject. it doesn't attempt to strengthen those damaged neural pathways. it creates new ones. there is no grammar or phonetics testing involved. it's okay to say it **badly**. the neurons respond as well to bad grammar and funny accents as they do to presidential addresses.

i had to look up bjork. i started with "army of me." thank you for the hot tip. she looks like a woman after my own heart.
 
Indie RN said:
. I have started to transition to left-handedness for perspective and reframing.
Click to expand...
LOL… I taught myself to write with my left hand when I was teaching my kids to write. So I’d have a better idea of how difficult it was for them. Even perfectly understanding reading-wise? And having a couple decades on them being largely ambidextrous in other ways (muscles built up).OMFG. The cramps!!! The total lack of stamina for the fine motor control was outta this world.

Whoops… I’m chatty tonight. The POINTS I meant to get to?

1) You may find processing events “backwards” useful, or at least interesting. Start at the end, and work backwards. It was a trick they taught us for after-action-reports, because our minds naturally skip things, or connect things, or fill in the blanks …when moving forward… creating an inaccurate series of events. As our brain naturally does that anyway (not seeing blinks, adding color to our peripheral vision, seeing/hearing what we expect to, rather than what’s there, and a few dozen other things), adding stress/trauma/etc. kind of oomphs it up.

I found that if I take virtually ANY time frame and list it out backwards? MAD sensory/emotive info replaces the concise forwards version of events.

For example?

Backwards.

- Red blood swirling around a white porcelain sink.
- My hand gripping the rounded cold white heavy edges of it to hold myself up. My wet shirt clinging to my skin.
- Water. Perfect cold, clear water. Flowing over my head from the nape of my neck, to my crown. Sluicing over swollen tissue. Stinging yet relieving at the same time. Life.
- Imoossibly cold, cool, perfect water on chapped lips, split and singing, parched throat, the cold radiating out from my chest, my hand too slow, drinking directly from the tap. Dizzy. Worry. Flooding relief.
- Oddly numb feeling as I careened off walls/doors, where pain should have been but wasn’t, as I staggered down the hall.
- Reaching up to touch the sticky mats in my hair, feeling for soft spots above my ear, across my cheekbone.
- Half dried fluids sticking my face to the floor, as I have to peel myself up off of it, wishing for water to soak myself off, regretting skin left behind, but stubborn, confused, angry, determined, concerned, about… something.
- Opening my eyes to stare at the patterns of light and shadow, dust motes in sunbeams oddly in focus, whilst everything else was oddly out of focus, unrecognizable, and slowly -almost reluctantly- took shape. Furniture. Floors. Walls. Windows.
- The grain of the wood pressed against me, the sounds of traffic outside mixed with birdsong and someone’s sprinkler.

Forwards

- I woke up on my living room floor, went to the bathroom, and washed the blood off my face and hair. Then got a drink.

***

CLEARLY some difference in recall, there!!!

I also, even in so few words? Got the order wrong, in the forward version. IRL I stuck my head under the faucet and drank directly from it, and only afterwards washed the blood from my hair and face. But as my whole intent/drive to get to the bathroom had been to wash the blood off? That’s what my mind places as happening “first”. Even though it wasn’t.

Quirky, right?
 
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