Irrational Creation or Real?

[shiraz]

I am wondering how much of PTSD is biological and how much of it is an ‘irrationally creation’. It has been suggested to me that much of what is going on with me is my own creation. I don’t know how much of what I am experiencing is out of my control and how much is in my control. Right now, it mostly feels out of control and I am worried that I am letting PTSD become the excuse for not coping and for not achieving.

I was diagnosed about a year ago, in the last six months – things have intensified to the point of not recognizing myself and having the people I love stressed out and ready to give up on me. I hear about people speaking about the difficulties of ‘early stages’ – what is that?

All I know is that what was a once or twice a month occurrence is now continuous – what is going on? Am I creating my own hell? Things definitely intensified when I joined this forum and it has been suggested to me that I stop coming here. So another question, does being on this forum really help, or does it just keep me focused on illness? I used to suppress EVERYTHING. Now I let it all out, I have decades of suppression to release, but it is affecting the people I love and I don’t know what to do about that.

 

[TLight]

Shiraz;
My experience is that when we begin to confront our trauma, all the pent up emotions come out, for me, a lot of anger. This gets directed as a lot of raging........it subsided after awhile and I've been pretty stable for a while now. People don't know what to do with our anger. Instead of just letting us release it........and support us in that, releasing it in a good way, yelling into the air, beating pillows etc........it disturbs them and they dessert us.
I've recently had my symptoms of anger return full blown. I can not take anymore injustice and lack of support from people who are supposed to 'love' me. My landlord has been staulking me and has taken away all sense of security that I've ever had. My home is now not safe. I'm in get distress and am having to write legal letters telling him to leave me alone. He has agreed, but this has done nothing to make me feel my home is safe. That is destroye knowing that a pervert is living right next to me..........my experience with perverts is that when they don't get what they want, they proceed to try and destroy my life. He is succeeding. I'm now desparately looking for another place to live. I'm sleeping with a knife under my pillow (or should I say not sleeping). I'm angry, angry I have to deal with injustice AGAIN, OVER and OVER.
My therapsit implied this is happening because I have "victim' written across my forehead and I don't look people in the eye............NOT TRUE, SO NOT TRUE. My 'best friend' (ha ha, wake up folks, there is no such thing) has said maybe this experience will make me 'stronger'............as if I'm f***cking weak!

So apparantly all those who are supposed to love and support me and whom I'm supposed to be able to trust have ENDED UP BLAMING ME AND NOT THE PERPETRATOR..................
ONCE AGAIN.
No, we don't create our own hell...........from my point of view, others do and we get the blame. We attract bad things to happen to us, we put out messages that we deserve to be disrespected, we are weak and victims because we don't look people in the eye.
YEs, there are difficult earlly stages of releasing the anger and grief that are hard for normals to understand...........but be careful, those 'normals' may turn out to be bad people also.
My suggestion, if they can't stand beside you and just support your emotional release, that may distrub them by it's fercocity..........keep them around.
If they can't take it and end up making you wrong for it or blame you for being somehow 'defective' .....get the f**ck rid of them.. They will only add on to the damage, creating secondary wounding and more anger to deal with.
My advice, but then again..........as it's just been pointed out to me..........I'm the sick one that needs help, not the guy who lives next to me and staulking me..........I just need to get 'stronger.'

 

[TLight]

Whatever is my response to that.

 

[morgan]

This forum can trigger you but it's important to expose yourself to your triggers in order to overcome them. If the forum is too much for you maybe you should take more breaks from it and come back to it slowly. That's what I do. I come on here for a while then I take a break for a couple of days. Also no one says you have to read all the threads. You can pick and choose which threads to read. Knowing that has helped me a great deal also.

This forum can actually help you heal if you give it a chance and follow some of the suggestions.

Whatever you decide, I wish you the best of luck.

Take care, Morgan

 

[Mina]

I think it really just takes a substantial amount of time to deal with and process everything once you finally open the floodgates. Working through decades will take time, longer than people who aren't going through it will understand.

This is a weird analogy, but it helps me. Think about kernels of unpopped popcorn. Each one is a trauma (including minor ones) or experience from your past or a bad thing you've put away or a time you haven't been heard, or...you get the idea. Each person has a paper bag to put their popcorn kernels in. Dropped in one little kernel at a time, not a big deal. But over time, that bag gets fuller and heavier. When it finally breaks, the kernels hit the floor and scatter everywhere. And you have to pick them up one at a time. Takes forever, right? (especially when they roll somewhere and you don't see them).

Silly analogy, I know. But I figure it's going to take quite a while to pick up all those kernels...and every now again when I think I've got them all, I will find one which rolled to some odd place I didn't expect to find it.

Btw, can you tell I have spilled unpopped popcorn all over my kitchen before? :rolleyes:

Good advice from Morgan, too.

 

[Grama-Herc]

Mina,

Thanks for the analogy.

It has really hit home and helped me to calm down. I needed that, as they say!

I am going to get "1" single piece of pop corn and place it in my "special place" so I will see it every morning. It will remind me to take it slow and be easy on myself. It took me 61 years to get this screwed up and there is no such thing as a quick fix!!

 

[Irton Pike]

I am no brainologist but.......


when your brain learns something, doesn't it set up a network of connected brain bits that when fired in the right order allow us to remeber things. Like behaviour for example. the thing is, learning something has an effect on how the brain operates. If you learn some bad behaviour by being traumatised your brain is functioning as it should isn't it? It might cock our lives up but the individula bits of our brain don't know that. All the therapy i have seen seem to be about confronting our "wrong" behaviour or thoughts and come to terms with them so that they no longer over ride the sort of normal behaviour we all dream of.

 

[Seeking_Nirvana]

I can tell you from experience when you start to do inner healing you will dig up crap you never knew existed (like the pop corn analogy) Once you start down that road it is almost impossible to stop because things just keep popping up which keeps us in a constant state of hypervigelence.

However, you should deal with your healing in an aggressive manner and take on as much as you can handle and eventually the load will lighten. Things become clearer and you have short glimpses of inner peace.

Then as life goes in cycles something stressful will happen and cause you to fall back 3 steps and you will freak out. After you work through that you will take 7 steps forward in your healing and gain self confidence and start dealing with your issues in a calmer manner.

Then another trigger will come along and you will fall back 4 steps and freak out. After that you will take 10 steps forward and learn how to create boundaries and start sleeping better at night.

This is a process that takes time, but you have to work hard at it. You may drive some people away but your mental health is worth it, and you can always go back when you are better and apologize and explain that you were trying to heal ( I had to do this) They can either accept it or not.

When I first came here I would leave this forum so angry and feeling like crap that I questioned whether I would leave for good. I talked it over with some friends but made up my own mind. I decided to stick it out and now this forum rarely triggers me and I've healed so much from what I have learned here that I don't even need to be here anymore. I only drop in to help others out with sharing the experiences I have learned and hope it helps them in some way.

Everyone is different and I think some people are not ready to heal and can't handle this forum and they leave. I also feel if someone is 100% dedicated to healing they will stick it out in here until it only triggers them on very rare occasions.

When I'm in a bad state of mind I avoid coming here because my anger is violent and I don't want to hurt anyone. So I'm a work in progress and always will be, but I feel I'm getting closer and closer to being whole again.

I think this is something you have to decide for yourself. Ask yourself this:

1) Am I 100% ready to heal and give it the best I've got?
2) Can I handle the truth spoken to me in here, and come out of denial?
3) Am I willing to put myself first so I can heal so that I can be a better person to those I love in the long run?

I feel if I can't do anything positive for myself I sure as hell can't do anything for my kids and husband.

Hope this helped
Tammy

 

[trial'n'error]

In my experience, suppression is the illness. When I started to remember and realize what had happened, I didn't want to admit what my parents had been and done, so I was ragefully angry. I lost my best friend at the time (August) and my husband and kid had to rein me in. When I started to admit to myself what had happened, the anger became tears, became thoughts that I could do something with and not the incoherent rage of the abused child I'd been.

So, I couldn't heal until I faced everything that had happened and all the implications of it. For that I had to stop suppressing, denying, and doubting, or at least be open to stopping. I'm sure for example that there are still many events for which I have complete amnesia - most notably, my entire fourth grade year, for some reason. However, I know that as part of my healing I can't demonize those forgotten things no matter how horrible they turn out to be. Resisting the memories makes me crazy angry, forgetful, and paranoid! Maybe this is what you're experiencing and maybe not. But take a second to consider whether it is.

Also as far as this being our "creation" - I say balls to that. There may be steps I haven't yet taken which will help me to do better, but I sure as hell didn't wish for this condition nor "create" it. It's my body's reaction to being treated like an object as a child, a situation clearly none of us were cut out to experience. If people are telling you you're to blame for your PTSD, perhaps you should find new people to hang with, no offense intended. We are at fault for many things, but never PTSD.

 

[Booknerd]

Mina,
That is the best explanation I have heard yet. Popcorn kernels. You are exactly right. Having dropped some before and knowing how difficult it it is to pick them up one at a time and deal with them makes sooooo much sense to me. An A-HA moment.
thanks

 

[srbyslpr]

I love the anology of the popcorn. I think Grama-Herc has a good idea of placing a kernel of corn in a special place to remind myself. I was afraid to get on this site afraid it would trigger me. Instead- I am sitting here, content- thinking of how lucky I am. I am lucky to find a place to come to that addresses these issues.

I have been told that I had victim printed across my forehead- So, I replaced that with a sign that said- One Pissed off Woman. It does keep people like the landlord back but, it is not a perfect solution. Plus, it makes me tired. I have to say that writing this has made my mind blur- I will have to let it go for awhile. Do my routine!! Thank You

 

[midi]

I get popcorn everywhere! In my hair, on my clothes, on the floor! Oh well, at least I get some of it in my mouth! It's a great analogy...