Internal Crisis

[intrasearching]

That is very kind and especially meaningful to me that you wrote in a poetic form. Thank you for your extremely kind correspondence through the course of this thread.

 

[HighwayToHell]

Hello Intrasearching

Thank YOU for your kind words too. How are you going today? It is so up and down isn't it? Talk abut an emotional roller coaster - without the Fairy Floss. I hope it is going OK with your partner and that after having some success with EMDR I hope you still feel you are moving forward.

Cheers.

 

[intrasearching]

Hey, thanks for checking in!

It has been OK. I still am waking up at night with what seems to be flashbacks and fear/sadness. I also have been more susceptible to strong feelings that everyone hates me, that we are all meaningless, and I can get triggered at random moments and it causes me to feel confused and scared and just out of control (or afraid of losing control).

BUT... I have remembered just tonight to look at my painful feelings and hold them with love. It's something I read in a PTSD therapy book recently. I found that it actually helps!

So... It's surely a roller coaster. I am pretty fragile and if the right combination of things were to happen I could become pretty upset. I am not certain where things are going with the sleep issues. Those are pretty new.

I was diagnosed with PTSD four years ago but I never really started having flashbacks or sleep issues until this year. I think I was traumatized by my brother's episode in a way that "set off" a lot of my PTSD stuff that wasn't super active before, or was maybe repressed.

I am still moving forward. : ) Just have to keep trying!

Cheers!

 

[HighwayToHell]

You are doing well Intrasearching. Just keep doing what you are doing, one step at a time.

 

[intrasearching]

I just had a horrible moment!

I had been doing well for a few days (more or less) until tonight when I was trying to converse with my partner and she was just very absent. She later admitted to not having been emotionally invested in the conversation.

I could pick up on it and that instantly puts me on edge. Long story short, I totally had a meltdown, and I essentially got her to tell me what was wrong through freaking out and being hysterical.

Then, she started saying that we have an issue in that we don't know what to talk about anymore (which I disagree with). That made me panic completely, because I thought she was trying to say she wanted out of the relationship, and I went totally nuts with the fear of abandonment, repeatedly typing "please" and "please don't leave" and all that sort of thing...

Then ALL the other negative things I struggle with came back... I started to worry that I was a bad person, I started to feel doomed, I felt like I ruined our chances at staying together by being emotional... And I also started to worry that I had borderline personality disorder (my psychologist swears I do not have it, however).

I eventually calmed down because I told her I was triggered and panicking and that I needed a moment. FINALLY she came back emotionally (or at least superficially) and told me to relax and that nothing was wrong. She told me that she has never even thought about leaving me, and I do believe her, but in the heat of the moment... anything that seems like scrutiny from her just kills me...

I definitely have an attachment disorder, due to losing my biological mother and then being abused by my adoptive mother... It is really horrible to deal with and I need to figure out a way to prevent myself from fearing abandonment and launching into these irrational, hysterical meltdowns.

Any ideas? Can anyone relate to me?

 

[HighwayToHell]

I sure can relate to that Intrasearching. Fear of abandonment is so ingrained in me that I am upset right now because my Boss at work (whom I love dearly and so do the rest of our staff) has been unwell and my head already has us at the funeral!

Now you have calmed down and there appears (just going on your post) no lasting damage was caused by your outburst (or her 'emotional absence' from the conversation), perhaps you can look a bit more closely at what happened when you next see your Therapist?

It is good that you recognise there are two sides to the communication equation, as there always is.. It is never all PTSD just as it is never all your partner 'pressing all the buttons'. It is one of our greatest dilemmas that it is so hard to pin down where one begins and the other ends.

It is difficult enough being in a long term relationship without having PTSD-driven miscommunications to worry about as well. So yes I do relate and probably the only suggestion I make is that you look at what happened right before you were triggered and perhaps discuss in depth with your therapist.

Great to hear from you as I have been wondering how you had been going.

 

[intrasearching]

HighwayToHell, I am sorry to hear that. : (

Just to be clear, things in my relationship are fine again. My meltdown was more extreme in myself than between the two of us, so my partner is fine... She just said she felt guilty for triggering me and that she would try to be more transparent (my emotional radar is strong, and when people are evasive my radar goes haywire).

But now I am curious... Were you diagnosed with PTSD, HighwayToHell? We haven't talked about you much at all. You seem to relate so well to me, and to my understanding the constant fear of abandonment and feelings of shame are not common to all PTSD sufferers. How are you?

 

[HighwayToHell]

Yes I was diagnosed almost 12 months ago. I didn't quite believe it at first so sought a second opinion. The first opinion was confirmed by a Therapist and a Psychiatrist. So much for denial. It did explain a lot though looking back.

My fear of abandonment comes from the violent death of a parent when I was a child.
That was followed seven years later by a multiple violent death in the remaining immediate family. and THAT was followed by a third major trauma (by then I was in adolescence) which I believe is when the PTSD first took hold. It was all downhill from there. Throw in a (much later) serious car crash, assault and a divorce and you can start to see how I might relate so well to other sufferers.

 

[intrasearching]

I see. My heart goes out to you. The loss of any family or loved ones is tragic enough, but experiencing the permanent loss of a parent as a child is too clearly a blow that will affect one into perpetuity if left untreated.

I can relate to the repeated traumas later on that sort of solidified or precipitated the PTSD.

Are you currently in therapy? It sounds like you have quite a lot that would prevent you from feeling emotionally safe, and I would love to hear that you are seeing someone about it.

 

[HighwayToHell]

Emotionally safe? I don't think I am ever going to feel that again in my lifetime and have never had that expectation. The most I hope for is to be able to manage the increasingly severe symptoms effectively - or at least effectively enough to be able to earn a living.

Go back into therapy? Why? What else is there to say? I told them my story over and over and it hasn't changed a Goddam thing.

 

[intrasearching]

That's true, talk therapy generally does little to nothing for PTSD.

But it seems there are therapies that can be effective for PTSD, even when it is the result of "complex trauma," as it sounds your case is (as well as mine).

I relate to wanting to just be able to manage the symptoms so as to perform adequately in life... I don't know anyone else's feelings and mind but my own, so all I can tell you is that I am personally hoping PTSD-oriented therapies will provide some honest relief.

My fear of abandonment can sometimes be so bad it seems absolutely delusional. I must remember that I also have OCD, so indeed my issues become obsessive thoughts and useless rituals to assuage my anxieties, which adds a lot of fear and depression to the already thick morass. So... I am just banking on these therapies like EMDR to bring some relief, somewhere. I don't really know you but I really hope that something could help you in any way, too. I hope participating in this forum has helped you. And I do not mean to be presumptuous in what I am saying, because I understand that many times things like this seem completely immutable and hearing people suggest getting help can seem completely hopeless and even asinine.

 

[intrasearching]

Update: It has been a week and I haven't had any meltdowns. I had a partial meltdown last night, where I felt deep grief and anxiety that I wasn't good enough for my partner, but I didn't lose control of my anguish and start catastrophizing as I had been.

However, I find that today I am perhaps a bit melancholic. I have this sad feeling that I really am not good enough for my partner. I am still hung up on the comment she made about us not having much to talk about other than small talk many times. I disagree with her, and maintain that the nature of my emotional states means that when she's not physically here I'm more inclined to be talking more in terms of "How are you doing? How was your day?" etc.

She tells me to never worry about being inadequate because I'm exactly what she wants and that will never change. Nevertheless, I have a lot of anxiety and sadness about "not being good enough" and I know it's just residual trauma over the loss of my biological mother. I don't want to fall back into the PTSD hole that I had been stuck in for so many months. Last week was the best I can remember in a long time...

I am wondering if it's possible to get over the deep psychological pain of having been abandoned as a toddler by my mother. I know that it is the sort of event that permanently alters a person and many times that change is highly problematic and enduring into perpetuity. I want to somehow feel worthy and lovable. Since I didn't get to do EMDR with my therapist this week I tried doing it alone last night and interestingly cried a good bit during. I think doing that opened up some wounds a bit more. I had a harder time sleeping last night than is typical so I feel as though I'm on the cusp of some storm...