Magical Thinking

[sun seeker]

if your symptoms are lasting days, that's certainly alarming

I'm so used to being like this that it's not until I start telling people what I am going through that I really clue in that this isn't normal. I guess anyone with PTSD can relate to that sentiment!

 

[sun seeker]

totally not kidding

Yes, I'm reading this and nodding all through it, because although I don't have this problem in particular, I can imagine how it would be. I believe you.

but i do know that me thinking it wont make it happen

Okay, so this is something a little different. You wouldn't believe how many times I've started posting something and changed it at the last minute because I am truly afraid that writing something will either make it happen, or if I say something good, I'll jinx it. It feels real.

Did you have early trauma?

Yes. Hugely. (That "hugely" is a descriptor both of my age and the amount of the trauma.)

So its possible that though you know logically if you think it or write it down that it wont come true but is it possible that also part of you, or your emotions/development doesnt know that yet or got haulted at that stage so you are sort of in the middle.

Yes! Thank you! That makes perfect sense. I'll have to run that one by my therapist.

I'm starting to have some hope that I might not have to live like this forever. Thank you!

 

[sun seeker]

Is it possible that some of you emotions are haulted right before a child understands imaginary from reality?

This makes soooo much sense! You have no idea. A lot of my trauma involved manipulation of a small child's sense of reality to make me feel responsible for things I couldn't possibly have been responsible for.

This isn't me. Someone did this to me.

Wow.

 

[EveHarrington]

<edit>

 

[sun seeker]

Thanks @EveHarrington . Okay, so I'm looking up paranoia. I stay away from diagnoses of personality disorders on general principle, because my feeling is that the term just describes ways people are affected by trauma that happened before the personality developed. It feels more empowering to ask "what happened to make you this way?" rather than "what's wrong with you?" Don't know if that makes sense, but that's where I'm coming from on that.

But anyway, yes there are things that fit. Not the blame part, because I am not thinking the danger comes from anyone in particular. It's more a general sense of "the world isn't a safe place." Which, when I formed that idea, was true. Like any kind of trauma, my brain got stuck in the past. I'm certain this is based on how my thinking was manipulated as a small child. That really makes a lot of sense to me.

 

[sun seeker]

I just wanted to say I am getting a lot of insight from what I am reading here tonight. I'm so glad I asked, this is all making a lot of sense now and gives me some hope of getting through this and having a more peaceful life. Thanks so much everyone.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

This isn't me. Someone did this to me.

There you go!

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Yes! Thank you! That makes perfect sense. I'll have to run that one by my therapist.

I'm starting to have some hope that I might not have to live like this forever. Thank you!

You're very welcome!

As someone that feels like theres another "entity" living inside of me and was so convinced it must be DID, a lot of my therapy was focused on this to understand what haulted emotions feels like and how its different from DID. When I read this, it was the first thing that came to mind. Some emotions and development haulted in the age range before a child knows whats imaginary and reality and so it would create part of you sort of knows it wont come true but that hault emotion/development doesnt so it seems fear based. You're afraid to write it as you're afraid it will come true. Therefore, what Id also run by your therapist is how to progress overcoming that fear thus "growing up" your emotion.

Example. When I first starting talking to my "admin friend" on the other site, when I first learned he was a he, I had a "gitty school girl feeling" and wanting to do nothing but talk to him. Sort of like when a 12 yr old girl gets their first boy friend. Id even say things that sounded 12 yr old ish.

We went through a tailspin where he left for 3 days when I reached out and i freaked as that, at the time, meant he was never coming back, abamdonement, and after he came back it seemed those emotions "grew up" some. Part 1 anyway.

Something else happened where "him" and "them" meshed automatically for 3 days then started to automatically seperate. The "inner child" was out for all of those messages.

After that, those emotions with him are fully "grown up" because I learned that he's not going to abandon me and he isnt "them" or anything like "them" so I faced those fears.

Im wondering that if you start with something small (if you can measure it in that way) and do a writing exersize with your therapist where you write it down, see it doesnt happen. Write it again on your own (if you're ready) see that it doesnt happen, then go to something bigger. Im wondering if you can teach that haulted part of you whats imaginary and whats reality.

Ive been doing some child like stuff with pictures of faces for kids to make emotions to teach myself how to.feel emotion and doing that with a few things. We didnt learn it back then and today we sort of need to learn it like we would back then.

Does any of that make sense?

 

[joeylittle]

Magical thinking, in the psychological sense, has to do with two distinct and unrelated things - the situation, and the means by which the outcome will be controlled. The old sidewalk-walking rhyme about 'stepping on a crack and breaking someone's back' (do they have that in Canada) is an example of magical thinking.

During that time though, it feels like I could make whatever the terrible thing is happen just by thinking it, or picturing it too vividly, or writing about it. It feels like tempting fate or something.

So this is the application of some magical thinking. But this part:

The possibility of some terrible thing happening suddenly takes over my awareness. To most people it would seem somewhere between remote and impossible, but I get into a state where I am terrified of this thing happening and can think of nothing else. It could be anything, but it always relates to a few themes that are connected to my trauma.

Reminds me a little of maladaptive daydreaming, and a little bit more of a very pure form of cognitive distortion, catastrophizing, but with magnification. This article is pretty well written (on the magnification and minimization effects)
https://www.verywell.com/magnification-and-minimization-2584183

 

[digger]

The possibility of some terrible thing happening suddenly takes over my awareness. To most people it would seem somewhere between remote and impossible, but I get into a state where I am terrified of this thing happening and can think of nothing else. It could be anything, but it always relates to a few themes that are connected to my trauma

This sounds like catastrophising to me.

 

[sun seeker]

Im wondering that if you start with something small (if you can measure it in that way) and do a writing exersize with your therapist where you write it down, see it doesnt happen. Write it again on your own (if you're ready) see that it doesnt happen, then go to something bigger. Im wondering if you can teach that haulted part of you whats imaginary and whats reality.

I like that idea. Think I'll try that. Thank you! So it's a sort of exposure therapy, going from doing something I'm afraid of first with lots of support and reassurance, then going on to do it on my own. I'd need to start with something that has a short feedback loop where I can tell pretty quickly whether it happened or not, as opposed to something more open-ended where it could happen anytime in the future.

We went through a tailspin where he left for 3 days when I reached out and i freaked as that, at the time, meant he was never coming back, abamdonement, and after he came back it seemed those emotions "grew up" some. Part 1 anyway.

Boy do I ever understand that. Only I don't become 12, it's more like somewhere between infancy and 5, so there is no logic that works.

There was a lot of betrayal involved in my trauma... being manipulated into trusting people who then turned on me. Learning how and when to trust is very hard for me. Luckily I have an extremely understanding and patient therapist.

 

[sun seeker]

(do they have that in Canada)

:p Yup. And I'd get stuck on so many things like that as a child. The thing is, I still do... only the content has changed somewhat.

You've got something there, because I was about to give my opinion about some of the things the article said, but can't because I feel like if I say why I empathize with some of the people in the article, it will make what I write happen.

So yes, catastrophizing, but in a very particular way that is stuck developmentally around the age of 5 (when the trauma was worst). That's what this looks like to me.

All this is very helpful and gives me some ideas on how to work on it. I had trouble sleeping last night, lying there putting things together in my mind about how much of my life makes sense in this context.