Lessons....need your collective brain power

[Warrior Chicken]

Thanks everyone, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around all of what has been said here. I don’t want to be resistant to looking at it “side-ways” but it’s like some of it is a foreign language. Maybe it’s some sort of protection from the fact that I need to look at it, break it down pragmatically, and reassess what I hold as my beliefs about myself.

@Friday thanks for the link, I took it and compared it to crap I had already spewed onto paper and matched what I think are the cognitive distortions. But I can’t separate the feelings that come with it and I think i have to accept it’s gonna take time to be able to articulate it without grunting, clawing, and stomping like an animal. I have to be ok with telling my T that I’m slow even though I want solutions NOW.
Sure we all do, but that’s not realistic.

So, for me, in incredibly resilient as a direct result of my trauma. That's a great thing because it literally kept me alive and lets me function in adult life - I learned I could survive real adversity. The flip side is that I learned never to ask for help so I have to do it all by myself.

This one helped me, thanks. I can identify with the same lesson.

Like something I did after the military that I didn't do before was avoid sitting with my back to a door.

Same same. I will ALWAYS do this no matter if it doesn’t fit in context with the environment, the risk otherwise is far too great. As I see it, some of us have seen things that also allow us now to keep others safe....guess that’s a lesson. Protect from peril regardless of whether threat is imminent or irrelevant. Threat to us is never irrelevant.

Have you thought of where it moved you?
As in stating what's it brought to you, where it moved you in life in terms of how you relate to everything, how it changed who you are and view and interact with life?

Ronin.....with respect, your above comment is like when I read Existentialism philosophy. I’ll keep at your questions but it’s gonna take some time. I really appreciate the questions though. So far how I relate to everything is how Does it compromise the safety of others....how many will die if I don’t assess it correctly and come up with a solution. There’s waaaay more to it, but that’s one piece.

I’m still not sure how to separate the lessons from the trauma cuz for me they’re very intertwined. Still have several days to work on this. Thanks again for the input, it helps.

 

[Ronin]

@Warrior Chicken, still applicable though :)

As in: If you're counting any less dead with X action, now, how pressing yourself you are about solutions, how you view time and if you're getting anywhere with how folk around you view time, what threats you -don't- scan for or scan for less and if you're able to talk that sense of danger into shushing, things like that.

Didn't mean to go all shit existential on you brother / I can curb it a bit and be concrete, promise.

 

[Warrior Chicken]

Yeah....still a bit existential there @Ronin, maybe just for me interpreting it. But you mean use my sense of threat analysis in the external world to calm my triggers???

 

[Ronin]

@Warrior Chicken, that, and actively mark change of what you're not perceiving as a threat anymore, what normalized / see that you aren't as stuck in the past, because there's progress and being more present.

 

[Freida]

My guru thought me 60 second sweeps and weapons check. Stop.look 360 for 60 seconds. Assess available weapons..determine if reaction is necessary. Then move on until you need it again

My favorite part was weapons in the grocery store.....cans..5 gallon milk jugs..wine bottles...shopping carts

Lesson? I need to build my fear into something I can respond to tactically instead of letting it overwhelm me. Surprisingly effective!

 

[Warrior Chicken]

Update: had an appointment today. We started to touch on lessons briefly, I initiated by asking about the overall objective. As I understand it, looking for lessons is just a way my T wants me to grasp meaning from my traumas (good or bad), so that the memories don’t run on a constant cycle when I’m triggered. It’s a tool he wants me to have to be able to shut them off.

T says lessons like:
- putting others or self in harms way
- incompetence
- disrespect
- unrealistic expectations
- preying on innocent/vulnerable

Those lessons seem different than the cognitive distortions mentioned here...always eager to listen to opinions on this stuff, I’m a bit confused.

I realized, also, that I may not be quite ready for that method since I zoned out, couldn’t hear him anymore, and had to focus on the screensaver on his laptop naming animals in the photos to not evaporate completely. Not sure why that happened though....?? Brain protecting me maybe...

It sounds like it should be easy when T says it, to me, it’s learning a new language.

 

[Freida]

It's trying to get your brain to look at actions in a different way. What do these words mean to you? How do you tie them into a situation? Can you use another less blamey word to describe the situation? Is there anything you learned? (Learned rather than would change in the past_

My guru beat this into my head I made the least worst decision. Not the best possible because there were no good decisions available. It still trips me up but I've been able to recognize a couple of my traumas had not good option so I had to choose the least worst one.

And don't worry bout zoning out - I do that all the time. Stress brain takes over. I think they expect it.